intoxication should be prepared to show their prescriptions on their way out. Thank you for your cooperation.”
To get a better sense of what was happening, I pushed my way to the main room of the club. People were flooding out in every direction, and the flow of the crowd ran opposite to where I wanted to be. Peripherally, I saw one policeman checking a woman’s prescription, and another putting a man in handcuffs. A woman tripped on her dress and would have been trampled if Jones hadn’t helped her up.
I found Theo by the stockroom. He was gesturing wildly at a police officer who was using a dolly to wheel away a sack of cacao.
“You have no business stealing this,” Theo said. “This is property of the Dark Room.”
“It’s evidence,” the police officer said.
“Evidence of what?” Theo countered.
“Theo!” I yelled. “Stay cool! Let them have it. We can get more cacao once we sort this out. I can’t afford for you to be arrested.”
He nodded. “Should we call Delacroix?” he asked.
I had yet to hire another lawyer, but I didn’t think we should call Mr. Delacroix. “No,” I said. “He doesn’t work with us anymore. We’ll be fine. I’m going outside to see if I can get some answers from whoever’s in charge.”
Jones stood guard near the front. “Anya, I don’t know why, but the cops have blocked the door from the outside. It’s making people panic. You’ll have to go around.” I pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. I could hear a rhythmic banging coming from the other side. I had counseled Theo to stay cool but I was starting to feel not very cool myself.
I forced my way through the crowd and out the side doors. I ran—or I should say I did what passed for running for me, more like hopping/limping—back around to the front. Police jammed the steps, and reporters had begun to arrive, too. Barricades had been erected. Several wooden boards were being nailed across the front door.
I pulled myself awkwardly over a barricade. A cop tried to stop me, but I was too quick. When I got close enough, I could see a different cop was posting a sign that read: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
“What is going on?” I demanded of the man who was nailing my door shut.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Anya Balanchine. This is my place. Why are you closing it?”
“Orders.” He pointed to the sign. “I’d stay back if I were you, lady.”
I wasn’t thinking; I was feeling. My heart was beating in the jaunty, familiar way that let me know I was about to do something stupid. I lunged toward the cop and tried to grab the hammer from his hand. For the record, it is never a great idea to try to grab someone’s hammer. The hammer smacked me in the shoulder. It hurt like hell, but I was grateful it wasn’t my head and besides, I had gotten quite good at pain management. I stumbled back a few paces, at which point I was immediately pinned to the ground by several police officers.
“You have the right to remain silent…” You know the drill.
Wisely, Theo, who had followed me out, did not try to get between the police officers and me. I could see him pulling out his phone.
“Call Simon Green,” I yelled. I had planned to have dinner with him the next evening, and I knew he was already in town.
When you are a minor and you are arrested, they put you in an isolated cell. But now I was a grown woman of twenty-one, which meant I had graduated to the adults’ communal holding cell. I kept to myself and tried to determine whether my shoulder was broken. I concluded it wasn’t though actually I wasn’t even sure if a shoulder could be broken.
I’d been there about an hour when I was summoned to the visiting area.
“That was foolish.” Mr. Delacroix glared at me from across the glass.
“I told Theo to call Simon Green,” I said. “I told him not to bother you. You do not work for me anymore.”
“Fortunately, Theo didn’t have Simon’s number so he called me. You’re bleeding. Show me your shoulder.”
I did. He shook his head, but did not speak. He took out his phone and snapped a picture.
“They want to leave you in here overnight, and I’m not sure it’s a bad idea.”
I didn’t answer him.
“But luckily for you, I still know a few people. I’ve woken a judge, and there’ll be a bail hearing later tonight, where they will probably set some exorbitant number. You’ll happily pay it and then you’ll go home.” He looked at me sternly, and I felt sixteen again. “You always have to go and make matters worse, don’t you? Seemed a grand idea to you to assault a police officer, eh?”
“They were shutting down the club! And I didn’t assault anyone. I only tried to grab his hammer. What even happened tonight?”
“Someone tipped off the cops that there were people at the Dark Room without prescriptions. They started checking everyone’s prescriptions and some people got upset and when people get upset, they get rowdy. The cops began confiscating the cacao, saying the club was dealing chocolate illegally, which, as we know, isn’t true.”
“What’s the upshot?” I asked.
“The upshot is that the Dark Room is shut down until the city decides what to do.”
I worried how the shutdown could affect our other locations. “When’s that Department of Health hearing?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why are they suddenly interested in the Dark Room? Why now? We’ve been open for over three years.”
“I thought about that,” Mr. Delacroix said. “And the answer can only be politics. It’s an election year, as you well know. And I think this is a plan to make me look like I was involved in illegal dealings. My campaign is predicated on the idea that bad legislation needs to go, that we change the laws and bring new business to the city. The Dark Room is an accomplishment for me. Shut it down, and it takes away from that.”
“You’re wrong, Mr. Delacroix. Your accomplishments extend beyond the Dark Room. Maybe it’s best to cut ties with me and the club altogether. Say you were only involved in contracts and such. It isn’t far from true.”
“Yes, that could be a way to go,” he said.
“Listen, I’m going to bring on Simon Green tomorrow. He’s my half brother, and I trust him. It was foolish of me to put off hiring your replacement. You can’t take this on right now. The election is in less than two months. I won’t let you take this on.”
“You won’t
“I want you to be mayor. And by the way, I am glad to see you.” I leaned casually on the glass. I don’t know why, but it was easier to speak from the heart with a six-inch-thick panel of glass between us. “I am sorry for the way we parted. I’ve been trying to tell you that for weeks. I just didn’t know how.”
“So you thought you’d attack a police officer? There are easier ways to contact me. Pick up the phone. If you were feeling old-fashioned, a slate message.”
“Several times I apologized to your face on the side of a bus.”
“Yes, I don’t always get those messages.”
“And also, I’m thankful to you. You owe me nothing, Mr. Delacroix. We are even, and I don’t expect you to ruin your campaign to try to help me out.”
Mr. Delacroix considered this. “Fine, Anya. There is no point in arguing. But let me hire a lawyer for you. It isn’t that I doubt your ability to do it, but you won’t have much time before the hearing tomorrow, and Simon Green is too—forgive the pun—
“Simon’s not so bad.”
“In a few years, he’ll be perfect. And I am glad you’ve made peace with him, but he doesn’t know the ins and outs of how this city is run. You require someone who does.”
I got very little sleep that night, but in the morning, I received a message from Mr. Delacroix that the new
