He pressed his lips together to keep from smiling at that thought. He didn’t imagine the tough guys would take his smiling too well. The thug beside him was the kind of guy who would think it was all about him.
They arrived. The car stopped, and the blindfold came off. The location was seedy. Seedier than seedy. The kind of old industrial neighborhood where the windows were smashed out of the warehouses and weeds grew a foot high out of cracks in the asphalt. By the distance they’d traveled, Ben judged they were on the outskirts of town—the deadbeat, dried-up outskirts, not the gentrified suburbs. The building they’d parked by was concrete, wind-blasted and pockmarked. Tiny windows had bars over them anyway. It was the kind of place that didn’t have a sign—didn’t need one. The line of motorcycles out front said it all. This was the kind of bar that didn’t want tourists snooping around. He could hear music pounding from within.
His escort brought him through the front door, then straight through the bar and pool tables and bikers. Didn’t give him a chance to look around; not that he needed one. He knew the stereotypes well enough, and the smirk he wore came naturally. But maybe it would give him some armor. Keep him from looking a little less like a hopeless guy in over his head.
They next passed through a door in back, and into another world. Ben’s protective
smirk fell.
From the outside, this had all looked like more concrete warehouses, auto body shops, and so on. Here, the interior was straight out of a bordello in a Victorian novel. Red plush carpeting, burgundy curtains held back by gold tasseled cords—not that there were any windows to cover. Sofas, chaise lounges, wingback chairs. Men in suits, smoking cigarettes and cigars like chimneys, gathered around poker games at several green felt tables. He wrinkled his nose to keep from sneezing at the odor. Draped over all—men and furniture both—were a dozen women in lingerie. Like they were part of the decoration. In the back, a beaded curtain marked the entrance to a hallway. Ben could make out a row of doors. So this wasn’t just a bar.
It was like something out of a bad movie. Kitty has got to see this. He shut down the pang that came with the thought.
In the middle of it all sat the guy who had to be the boss. The guy who was the source of all this ostentatious bad taste. Thin, weedy, hair obviously dyed black because he hadn’t bothered touching up his graying eyebrows. Old, weathered. Like he’d moved up through the ranks and spent a lot of time laughing at pain. That’s what the hard look in his eyes said.
An old-school gangster. Pure and simple.
Ben’s escorts—one on each side—brought him to stand before the table where this guy was shuffling cards and nursing a bourbon on ice. The boss didn’t look at Ben for what seemed like a long time. Making him wait, making him sweat. Ben concentrated on breathing, and not sweating. He could wait. He had to, didn’t he? But the smell of the women—the musky, wet smell of sex that edged the room’s atmosphere—was making him nervous. Making him want to be with Kitty even more than he already did.
The boss shuffled the cards, slowly, like it was the most important task in the world. Taking a deep breath, almost a sigh, he said, “So you’re the joker who spotted my ring. Ratted me out.”
God, straight out of a bad movie. Could this get any cheesier?
“I guess I am,” Ben said.
Then, the guy looked at him. His hands paused. Brown eyes studied him. “You know who I am?”
Ben suppressed a smile, because wasn’t that just the right level of arrogance? “I’m afraid not. I think I got into this by accident.”
“I’m Samuel Faber. And you are—”
“Ben.” He thought, pretend this is a movie. Just play it cool. Keep his hindbrain from panicking—at least any more than it already was.
Faber cut the deck and set the cards aside. “I want to know how you did it.”
“I just have a nose for these things.”
“Sit down. Show me.” One of the goons pulled a chair out and glared at Ben until he sat in it.
How was he going to explain this? His guys smelled funny. They twitched when there weren’t any cards in play, giving signals. They had a spotter, and he could feel them listening. When he looked, he saw the earpieces. It was all sleight of hand and he only saw it because he was a werewolf.
Nothing for it but to play poker. Faber called over one of the girls, a bottled redhead in a black satin teddy, silk robe, and spike heels. He handed her the cards and told her to deal.
“We’re playing for real,” Faber said. At a silent signal, a mere glance around the room, four other guys gathered until the table was full. “Play to win—I’ll know if you’re throwing the game to try to make me feel better.”
The boss slid over a rack of chips, which was rather nice of him, not requiring Ben to put up his own stake.
“Drink?” Faber asked, as the redhead dealt the first hand.
“Just water,” Ben said.
“Wuss.”
Ben just smiled.
Mr. New York, the thug who’d first shown his gun to Ben back at the casino, went over to Faber and leaned on the back of the chair to whisper a conference to the boss. He probably thought he was whispering, and none of the others could probably hear him. But Ben tilted his ear, held his breath, and listened.
“This is a bad idea. The cops are going to be looking for him, Mr. Faber,” the thug said.