isn’t within the three surrounding parishes of where I live. In those cases, it’s one night and they never get my real name.
“One other thing,” I say to her, adjusting the cuffs of my suit that carry a small spatter of the man’s blood. “I catch you out back again, you’re done.”
As if the tips here aren’t the best in the whole state of Louisiana, some of the girls have been skimming by meeting up with Johns in the back of the club and earning a little extra cash on the side. Dangerous, where some of the guys are concerned, like Flashy Shirt, who would’ve taken without paying a dime.
Because, without someone batshit crazy enough to stop him, he can.
And since this club isn’t licensed as a brothel, it’s another flag for the authorities to be up my ass. Not even my connections would save me then, if the cartel thought for one second that I might be inclined to cut a deal with a cop.
“I understand, Mr. Bergeron. It won’t happen again, I promise.” The girl still won’t look up at me, and good thing, too, because I’m not a man moved by emotions. Sympathy was stripped away from me years ago, leaving behind the raw and naked apathy for which I’m known.
“Get ready for the next set. And here’s a tip: If he has a fucking M tattooed on his neck, keep your distance.” It’s a condescending remark, as most around here know to stay away from members of the Matamoros cartel, if they can help it. The lowly folks embroiled in the darker society, anyway. I wouldn’t expect a suburban mom to be so perceptive, but Marcelle is nowhere near suburbia.
Maybe she thought the money the guy flaunted would magically appear in her thong by the end of the night, but that’s not how the assholes work. They’re just privileged enough to think sex and money is owed to them, in exchange for not ripping someone’s face off.
Maybe it is.
But not in my club, particularly when a large percent of my earnings lines their boss’s pocket.
Back in my office, Flashy Shirt sits slumped over in the open chair beside Luc. “Thanks for hauling his ass up here,” I say to Levi, passing him on the way toward my desk. “Guy must weigh a ton, with all that bloated sense of self.”
Levi chuckles and gives a quick salute in play. “I’ma leave the bubble burstin’ to you, Boss.”
“Good man.” I pour myself a glass of bourbon from a decanter on my desk, and hold it over a second glass, brows raised, as I glance up at Luc.
“Mais, non. Last time I drink dat fancy liquor, I was ass up in da swamp next day.” Sometimes, Luc has his own sayings that, even in the thick of the shitstorm I’m about to face with the guy beside him, whose nose has begun to turn purple, I can’t help but smile. “I’ll let you get back to it. You an’ me goin’ fishin’ next week, Cous’. I won’ take no for an answer dis time.”
“I’ll get you penciled in. Been a long time since I took a day off, anyway. Could use some time on the water. Sorry to hear about you and your fille.”
“Ah, yeah. C’est la vie.” A quick shrug, and he hikes his thumb toward the guy passed out beside him. “Have fun wit’ dis couillon. Someone’s gonna be mad when he wakes up.”
He isn’t kidding. Any other man who’d have busted his nose like that would surely end up strung up and flayed, as an example to all of why you don’t fuck with the Matamoros Diablos.
I hold my glass up to Luc as if in toast. “Laissez les bons temps rouler.”
Let the good fucking times roll.
3
Thierry
In a perfectly pressed gray suit, Cuban cigar parked between his lips, Julio paces the room with his hands behind his back. At five-foot-ten, he’s not a particularly intimidating man in appearance, but I once watched him stab a guy in the throat for calling him Jules.
One of his men stands guard at the door, but I ignore him. Instead, sitting behind my desk, I tamp down the urge to knock the skull-fuck stare Flashy Shirt is throwing at me from where he sits, like a kid sent to the principal’s office, daubing his nose with ice.
“So, you say he disrespected you, and your course of action was to bash his face in?”