Harry knew how to spot surveillance. He also knew how to avoid it. He"d taught me both and utilized both for me.
We were good at our game. We"d had practice.
In the end, when it mattered most, not good enough.
But good enough to get me to the club.
"Harry," I said in my soft voice. "They have cameras in this alley and Mr. Revere is right there to open the door for me." I didn"t move my head to indicate the big man standing under the lone light in the alley, his eyes on Harry"s shiny, well-kept but not-near-new black Lincoln Town Car. I didn"t have to. Harry knew he was there. "You don"t have to walk me to the door."
Harry continued to look at me for half a second before he turned and opened his door.
I sat back on a sigh.
He came around and opened my door. He shut it after I climbed out.
His hand to my elbow, his head turning this way and that to scan the empty alley, he walked me to Mr. Revere.
"Ms. Lincoln," Mr. Revere greeted as we got close.
I nodded to him.
Mr. Revere jerked his chin up to Harry and moved to open the door of the club.
I turned to Harry, his hand dropped from my arm and I grabbed it. Pressing the bill into his palm, I gave him a squeeze and let him go.
"I"ll text you when I"m ready for a pickup," I told him what I always told him.
Like much of what I said, these were wasted words.
Harry jerked his head to the side. "I"ll be parked down the way."
He didn"t need to be close. He didn"t need to have my back. No one was going to charge into the building with tommy guns and shoot the place up, whereupon Harry had to be close in order to rescue me and/or provide a quick getaway.
"You can go have a drink," I said. "Something to eat. Go home and catch a program. You don"t have to-"
He interrupted me. "I"ll be down the way, Olivia."
Wasted words.
I didn"t know why I bothered.
I needed to learn to stop doing that.
I nodded. "Thank you, Harry."
He nodded back, jerked his chin to Mr. Revere and didn"t move until I was through the door Mr. Revere was holding open for me.
I walked through the narrow, dark vestibule of the private VIP entrance to the club where Mr. Paine was lurking in the shadows.
They were very good at security here.
Security and, for VIPs, anonymity.
Everyone"s name was an alias, including staff.
I tipped my head to the side as I pa.s.sed Mr. Paine and moved into the reception area which was lined with deep-seated, comfortable, curved couches with plenty of tables around for easy access to lay drinks, although it was infrequent people lingered in reception. That said, the club was available for private parties and this area was used for that when the club was closed down to accommodate such an event.
There were large and small bouquets of extraordinarily arranged, fresh-cut flowers, the air heavy with the aroma of them, the biggest at the reception desk behind which Ms. Ross was standing.
Her thick, dark hair was swept back in an artful messy bun. Her eyes were expertly and dramatically made up. Her dress fit perfectly. And I would find, when she walked around the reception desk to lead me up the stairs, her shoes cost twelve hundred dollars.
"Ms. Lincoln," she greeted with a small smile, already on the move. "Welcome. We"re ready for you."
"Thank you," I murmured.
Ms. Ross"s eyes went beyond me. "Can Mr. Arthur take your coat?"
I shrugged off my coat and handed it to a man that had moved out of the shadows of the cloakroom just off from the reception desk.
He said nothing. Just disappeared from whence he came.
I moved silently up the thick-carpeted steps behind Ms. Ross.
"I hope you enjoy our program tonight. It"s already begun, as you know."
I was still murmuring when I replied, "I"m sure I will."
"Midori, vodka and Fresca, correct?" she asked when she reached the top.
I cleared the last step behind her. "Yes."
"Excellent," she replied.
We moved down the hall that was handsomely appointed, intimately lit and it had a number of doors leading off of it, all to the right side.
She led me to the middle one, the only one with double doors.
She opened one side and stood out of my way for me to precede her.
I walked into the social viewing chamber and heard it immediately, the hall and reception being soundproofed, but the viewing rooms absolutely not.
I looked to the floor to ceiling one-way window and felt my mouth tighten.
Ms. Ross got close, read my look and gave her expert opinion. "It looks like this scene won"t last much longer."
I stared at the women through the window. Considering the cost of membership...h.e.l.l, considering I was even there, I did not judge what people did, what they liked.
But a woman performing c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s on another woman didn"t do anything for me.
Man on man, absolutely.
I just was not turned on by same-s.e.x play if they were my s.e.x.
I looked from the window to the chamber, which I"d been in only once, when I"d taken a tour after being cleared for VIP membership two and a half years ago.
Again intimately lit, there were five segmented seating sections with low walls separating them, the flooring theater-style. The front four sections on two rises having two comfortable chairs in each section for relaxed viewing and a table for drinks and snacks. The seating section at the top rise sat six.
My drink was at the bottom level, closest to the window and the right wall.
"We surprisingly had another booking come in after yours," Ms. Ross informed me.
I looked her way, not thrilled at this news.
"A new member, I"m afraid," she carried on. "He"s been notified of the rules, of course. He"s also been here more than once and behaved accordingly so you both should be able to enjoy your viewings without concern and with minimal interruption."
"When is he due to arrive?" I asked.
"Sometime between now and midnight," she answered.
A vague arrival. Something else I didn"t like.
"He orders his drinks when he"s here," she continued. "So I"m afraid unless you want us to interrupt you to inform you of his arrival, you"ll have no warning prior."
I nodded, offering no reply, and made a move to the steps that led down to my seat.
"Enjoy," she murmured to my back.
"Thank you," I returned, not glancing at her when I did.
I moved to my seat, stowed my clutch, took a sip of my drink and then pulled out my phone to check email and otherwise kill time while the women finished their scene.
The club, obviously, was a s.e.x club. Intensely private and relatively secret ("relatively" because they had to be known to attract members), it was independently owned.
All players in all scenes were freelance, auditioned and paid well.
There was a member section which had an entry from the street, but, like VIPs, all members needed to pa.s.s a vetting process, pay a yearly membership fee but also pay an hourly or nightly viewing fee. Non-VIPs could show when they wished without a booking, paid for their drinks at the bar and sat in a common viewing area with their brethren.
The scenes were played out on the upper floor. The lower floor for non-VIPs was simply a nightclub. There was music, liquor, dancing and men and women behind screens performing dances that hinted at the real thing, that real thing being something that could be found beyond security up a set of hidden stairs.
Obviously, there was also the VIP section, which had its own entry and a higher level of service, providing much more discretion and vastly superior accommodation.
The owners paid Benito Valenzuela for protection and a.s.sistance in making certain the club was not discovered by law enforcement.
This protection was at one time paid to Marcus Sloan. Seven years ago, in the days when Sloan was still acknowledging my father"s existence, he"d sold that protection to us. This was why I knew of the club.
In a brutal takeover that meant we lost one man and two more were injured, three years ago, Valenzuela had taken over.
After that, I continued my membership because it continued services I appreciated at a caliber that was more than acceptable. I did this even if the club was under Valenzuela"s umbrella.
Benito Valenzuela was not the most couth individual on the planet. In fact, he was one of the foulest people I"d ever met. He reminded me of my grandfather, including the fact he"d convinced himself he was the opposite of vile when he was not.
My father and my sister didn"t know I continued to belong. Neither would be pleased, though it would be Dad, as usual, whose displeasure would be communicated in a way that I would have no choice but to desist doing something he did not like.
But in my life where I had very little I enjoyed and absolutely nothing I looked forward to, the club served a variety of purposes.
It was a secret defiance to my father, and even my mother, the former who would be furious if he knew I went there, the latter would be horrified.
It was also mine.
Mine.
Georgie didn"t go there. Dad didn"t. None of our men went for fear of Dad"s (or Georgie"s) displeasure. And certainly none of my legitimate colleagues or acquaintances went there.
So I could go and not run into anyone who encroached in my life.
A life that was less of a life and more of a world.
I understood there was a real world. I knew it existed beyond the bounds of the world in which I lived. But the boundaries of my world, or more aptly put, the bonds, meant it seemed alien to me. There but not there. On the cusp of my existence but as unattainable as Mars.
This meant the club-what I did there, what I saw, what it made me feel, the time I spent, everything there-was mine. Just mine.
I didn"t have that. Not in any other part of my life. In truth, my father had only just four years ago stopped approving every clothing and accessory item I bought to wear in the pursuit of Shade business. Although I was now free to clothe myself, that freedom was significantly lacking in every other aspect of my life.
Further, I liked watching. There were some scenes that did nothing for me, like the current one playing out. There were other times nothing caught my attention.
And there were times when a scene or a player did catch my attention.
But the bottom line was that the club still was a place I could be that was my own. I could enjoy a drink, relax, and for a few hours be away from everything and just be...me.
And if there was a scene I liked, it would set me up for much more pleasurable things later.
Of course, I was giving myself these pleasurable things. But pleasure was pleasure and I didn"t have a lot of that either so I was happy to take what I could get.
As the c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s was unfortunately reciprocated, making the scene last longer than expected, I discovered I didn"t have much email and therefore enjoyed the mindlessness of several games of solitaire on my phone when the dimness of the window and the lack of sounds caught my notice.
I looked to the window to see they"d darkened it in preparation for the next scene just as I heard the door behind me open.
I sighed.
I preferred a private salon simply because it was private. I knew many used those salons for a variety of purposes, alone or bringing a partner or partners. But when we"d owned protection, I was made aware they had cameras everywhere, including in the viewing rooms. This was for security purposes and VIPs were a.s.sured that staff very much understood discretion and that all tapes were wiped when the club closed at three in the morning (something I knew they did in our time-during Valenzuela"s time, anything could be happening).
I might like to watch but I didn"t fancy anyone watching me.
I also enjoyed prolonging it. If a scene worked and I enjoyed it, waiting to take care of the need it ignited was half the fun.
So that wasn"t why I didn"t wish to have company.
I simply didn"t wish to have company.