Asylum

Chapter 39: Change of Plans

My voice had been pitched in a casual monotone, and I knelt next to him to pull the correct bottles from the back right corner of the bottom shelf.

"Yup," he grinned, grabbing two bottles in hands the size of dinner plates. "This guy's movin' up in the world. Guess Stefano knows potential when he sees it."

My brain whirred frantically as I helped Dusty balance the third bottle of tequila in his massive arms. I should be in that box with Ivan, not Dusty or anyone else. "Do you speak Spanish?" I asked.

"You do know I'm from SoCal, right?"

"Oh, that's right," I smiled. "This whole surfer thing's like, for real," I said, waving a hand to encompass everything from his loose shoulder-length hair and beard to his baggy tank to the mermaid tattoo on his left shoulder. "That's probably why Stefano picked you. I don't speak a fuckin' word of it, and I don't think the guys at the last meeting spoke much English, so I was just standing around like a moron while the owner had to translate every time they wanted something."

Dusty tossed his hair over his shoulder. "Maybe," he conceded, "but I like my reason better. Still, hablando a little español couldn't hurt. Thanks for the Dragones," he called as he moved towards the stairs. "Enjoy the press!"

I scowled as I turned back to the bar and the press of sweaty bodies jockeying for attention.

Was it really Stefano's decision, I wondered, to put him up there instead of me? I dumped ice into a pounder for my first cosmopolitan of the night. Maybe he was just trying to spread out a duty that might seem like a privilege among the bartenders, being careful to avoid any perception of favoritism. I poured in the vodka and cranberry juice from my well, popped on the shaker cup, and began mixing.

Of course, there could be an alternative explanation. I thought back to Ivan's glowering expression as he'd passed me in the hallway. Could he be mad at me for something?

I strained the cocktail into a martini glass and garnished it with a lime wedge. Last night had been ... no, I thought as a secretive grin crept onto my face, it couldn't have been anything about last night. Or this morning, for that matter.

I nodded thanks to the woman bobbing back to the dance floor with her lips already pursed on the rim of her glass, and rang the drink up, shoving the change into my tip jar. Something must have happened between the time I'd left the loft midday and when Ivan had arrived at the club.

Unless it was my outfit. I gazed down ruefully at my cleavage and yanked the zipper back up to its original, nevertheless still scandalously low position. Maybe Ivan thought I wasn't appropriately dressed for a meeting, forgetting that the potential distractions my body could provide was one of the reasons he'd wanted me to tend the box bar in the first place.

I smoothed my expression before turning back to the crowd. Speculating at this moment was pointless. I would think about it later, when I had more information. In the meantime, I decided to keep my eyes peeled for anyone interesting heading for the stairs located so conveniently close to my station.

I didn't have long to wait. A few minutes before midnight (I surreptitiously checked my watch for the report I'd be writing later), I spotted a pair of thugs parting the crowd in front of two familiar faces, and one unknown: Alejandro and Tomás Castillo and a companion – about 30 years old, 5'9", slim build, black hair cropped short, dark suit, diamond earrings pulling some of the attention away from the 5-inch ropy scar on the left side of his neck.

Alejandro's face split into a wide grin as he spotted me, and he shot a quick nod and a mimed kiss in my direction. Tomás followed his brother's gaze, and I saw the recognition register with him as well; though his close-mouthed smile was considerably more polite, his eyes were obviously moving on from my face to reacquaint himself with whatever other parts of my body he could spy above the bar.

The third man – who so closely resembled the other two that I decided he must be the heretofore unseen Castillo family heir, Ángel – turned his head to see what had captured his brothers' attention, but his dark eyes slid over me with a painfully obvious lack of interest, returning his focus to the back of the club, where Mateo now waited at the base of the stairs.

All business, that one, I thought, noting the third bodyguard bringing up the rear. Of all the meetings to be excluded from .... Well, if my plan worked, then I had already taken care of that problem.

It actually took less than 10 minutes. I was pulling my third Stella Artois from the tap for an order of four when Dusty galumphed down the back stairs, brushed past Mateo and the Castillo guard who'd been left to watch the box's entrance, and lumbered up to my station.

"Once again, beauty tops brains," he grumbled.

"Excuse me?" I asked as I grabbed a fourth pounder to pull the last pint and wondered which of us Dusty thought to be the beauty in this situation, and which the brains.

"You're up, I'm out!" Dusty shouted as the crowd erupted at the DJ's latest choice of song. "The owner's guests chose tits and ass over more important qualifications, like maybe being actually able to take their fucking order."

I held his "tits and ass" comment firmly in the forefront of my mind to stop myself from smiling. I slid the last beer onto the bar and took the cash from a patron in a cowboy shirt, of all things.

"Sorry, Dusty," I mustered, hoping I appeared at least a little sorry. "Maybe next time."

"Fuck that." He crossed his arms defensively over his oversized chest. "You know what this is? This is ... like ... reverse sexism."

My jaw almost dropped into my swimsuit. "I'm literally being asked to serve and take orders from strange men because they want to stare at and grab at my body while I do it. That's just regular sexism."

"Whatever," Dusty muttered, and continued down the aisle past the other bartenders to return to his station near the front end of the bar. Glory stumbled forward a little as he pushed past her and held a hand to her towering hairdo as she watched him tromp off. She turned back to me.

"What's his damage?"

I shrugged. "Change of plans," I said. I put my nearly full tip jar in the cabinet below the register. "I'm gonna be upstairs for a while."

"No shit," Glory agreed, passing two tequila shots over the bar. "I coulda told you that was gonna happen as soon as Dusty started walking up those steps."

Stefano appeared behind the shoulder of the bee-hived bartender, working his way up behind the bar from Dusty's station, and waved me off. "Go," he said. "I'll cover your well."

I hesitated, but much as I wanted to know why he'd sent Dusty up originally instead of me, now was not the time to ask – he looked pissed, and Ivan and the Castillos were waiting.

I started to head for the stairs, then made a quick detour to the kitchen for a stack of plates. As I finally approached the entrance to the box, the Castillo bodyguard shifted forward as though to stop me, or worse, frisk me, but Mateo aborted the man's plans with quick chopping motion and a glare that could peel paint. The guard stepped awkwardly back into position.

I paused on the first step, closer to Mateo's ear. "The food should be here any minute," I said as quietly as one could in Asylum. "I ordered double this time; half is for you and Marshall." Then I continued up to the box, confident now that everything was working out as it should.

Until, that was, I passed Marsh and entered the box, where five pairs of dark eyes swiveled to watch my entrance, but the only set of blue ones – the only pair I wanted on me in the first place – were conspicuously directed elsewhere.