“Not in this particular place—you can’t stay here, and haven’t. Ever.”
Matthias smiled a little. “Well, I don’t want to stay at my house.”
“Where’s that exactly.”
The guy reached into his pocket, took out a wallet, and flipped a driver’s license onto the table by the forty.
Jim looked at the ID. It was well-done, with the proper holograms. Last name wasn’t right, of course, but the first one and the picture were.
“What do you know about me?” the man demanded.
“Nice mug shot,” Jim said as he eased back.
“Not asking you about my future as a model. And why are you avoiding my questions.”
“I’m trying to decide how to play this.”
“Are we in a game?”
“Yes, we are. And it’s got stakes you can’t begin to guess at.” Jim decided to sit down beside his guest. “Like I said, why don’t we start with what you remember.”
Those sunglasses lowered as if the man were staring at the floor. Maybe his boots. The cane?
“I was hit by a car outside of Pine Grove Cemetery last night and woke up in the hospital with no clue who or where I was. Today, I backtracked as much as I could and found your grave.” The Ray-Bans swung back up and around. “I knew your name the instant I saw it. Knew you as well, the second you stepped into sight.”
Jim poker-faced it. “Not a surprise—the pair of us go way back. And that’s why I’m going to help you.”
“So tell me how I got…” Matthias’s hand made an awkward sweep of himself. “All this.”
“The injuries?”
“No, my tutu and ballet slippers. What the fuck do you think.”
“Take off the glasses.”
“Why.”
“I want to look you in the eye when I answer.”
The hand that lifted shook, but he was willing to bet it was a physical weakness, not a mental one. And what was revealed was exactly the way it had been.
“How did the injuries happen,” his former boss repeated in a deep voice.
“You tried to kill yourself in front of me. You planted a bomb in the sand and stepped on the fucker right in front of me.”
Matthias looked down at his legs, his brows going tight, like he was playing hunt-and-peck with his mental keyboard. “Why did I do that?”
How to answer that one without giving too much away. “You hated the man you were. You couldn’t keep going anymore, and you set it up so you didn’t have to.”
“I didn’t die, though.”
“Not then, no.” Jim got to his feet. “Roommate’s back.”
A split second later, the sound of a Harley percolated through the windows, getting louder until it rumbled to a halt below.
“You have a good sense of hearing,” Matthias remarked.
Jim faced off at the man, wondering exactly how to make the situation work to his advantage. With a sly smile, he murmured, “It’s the least of my tricks.”
Chapter Fourteen
“You want me to do
In reply, a L’Oréal box was thrown out of the shadows, and as the woman caught it, she thought… Yeah, wow, great start to the night. She was already tired, cranked off, and ready for it to be one a.m. with her shift over—and this “client” was some freak into hair color?
She was so done with this whore thing; she really was. She was sick of seedy, dark motel rooms, and ugly men with bright ideas—and don’t get her started on her “manager.”
“You want me to color my hair blond. For real.”
A fan of five hundred dollars appeared from out of the corner, the light falling from the ceiling fixture making the bills glow in the dim room. It sure seemed like Benjis from heaven, baby—especially considering the dumb-ass had already paid that to be allowed to come here to this downtown rent-by-the-hour with her.
“Okay, fine.” She walked over and snatched the bills. “Anything else?”
The deep voice was quiet. “I want you to blow it dry straight.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“No sex.”
“I don’t want you for that, no.”
A shiver started at her tramp stamp and chillied up her spine to the nape of her neck. But there was nothing to worry about. There were girls in the rooms on either side of them, and her boss man was out in the parking lot no more than twelve feet away. Plus she carried Mace.
What was he going to do to her.
Muttering under her breath, she went into the bathroom and flicked on the light. In the mirror, she looked like she was forty, with bags under her eyes and hair the consistency of corn husks. The good news was that she did need to touch up her roots—there was a road map straight down her side part, mucky brunette showing at the scalp. But not because she was pulling a Marilyn Monroe.
She’d liked being a redhead. And damn, if her hair was already brittle as hell, this wasn’t going to help—
Oh, look, it came with a conditioner. Sweet.
She laid out the squeeze bottle full of creamy shit, the tin tube of color, and the squat thing of postblond goo. Reading the directions took a little time, because she’d always sucked at the whole letter/word stuff, but this wasn’t rocket science.
Through the open doorway, she saw that the client had sat down in that far corner, his boots planted widely apart, his hands resting on his knees instead of at his groin. Not much showed of him, the light from above reaching up only so far on his legs. Better that way—made him more anonymous.
Funny, she hadn’t remembered these rooms being this dark.
Getting back to business, she punctured the top of the tube with the plastic cap, squeezed the stinky crap into the bottle with the pointy top, and then shook the mixture like she was giving someone a hand job. The plastic gloves were on the back of the directions, and she pushed her hands into them. Thank God they were big, because there was room at the top for her fake nails.
She hit the side part without a glitch, but tangles in the ends made it impossible to get the shit down the length. Getting a brush from her bag, she ripped through from root to split end until she could do the whole job; then made quick work of covering everything that came out of her skull.
The stuff smelled like air freshener and chemical glue, and had the consistency of cum.
Was that what turned this guy on?
Men were such pigs.
During processing time, as her scalp heated up and her nose itched, she texted people about the freak job she was on. No reason to talk to the client—he was still just sitting there, making like a statue.
Thirty-five minutes later she stepped into the shower with a bottle of shampoo that had been left on the counter. The stuff had been half-used by someone else, but there was enough to get things rinsing clean. The warm water felt good, and the conditioner smelled so much better than the bleach.
When she got out, her hair was the color of movie popcorn, all that golden yellow making her white-ass skin glow green. Putting her slut clothes back on didn’t help her image much.
Unhitching the hair dryer, she pivoted on her bare feet. “You ready for this?”
The man rose from the chair and came over, stepping into the light. He was good-looking enough, but for some reason, she wanted to give him the money back and leave. Fast.
