Off the Clock

the mirror.

Just then the kitchen door opened and Natt walked out carrying a plate of chicken satay. She nearly skipped a step when she saw the man. If he noticed, he didn’t let on.

“Hi, Natt,” he said. “How’re you doing tonight?”

“Fine,” she said quickly as she scooted behind the bar.

“I see my usual table’s open.”

In the mirror on the wall, Quinn watched the man walk into the other half of the restaurant. Instead of sitting down, though, he stopped in the aisle between the two rows of tables, and looked toward the front where Ice had retreated and was now singing the song on her own.

When she finished, the man clapped and finally took a seat at the table. Ice said something in Thai into the mic, then quickly made her way through the dining area and rushed into the kitchen.

There was the clatter of a plate on the bar. Quinn looked down to see that Natt had put the dish of satay in front of him.

“I didn’t order this,” he said.

“On the house,” she said. “Maybe you not wait so long next time you come back.”

Though her words were meant to be playful, she seemed to have lost some of the enthusiasm she’d had a few minutes earlier.

“Can I get another?” The guy at the other end of the bar asked, holding up his empty beer bottle.

“Sure. No problem.” Natt headed over to the glass-doored cooler in the corner.

When she finally came back to Quinn’s end of the bar, he said, “So what’s the deal with that guy?”

She didn’t look at him. “He want beer.”

“I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the guy who just came in and sucked all the fun out of the room.”

She started straightening the stack of takeout menus near the register, acting as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Natt, who is he?”

He could see a struggle going on in her mind. After a few seconds, her gaze flicked across the room to the table where the man was sitting, then settled on Quinn. “His name Nick. He bad man,” she whispered. “No good.”

“What do you mean, ‘bad’?”

“He come in here all the time. Act very nice at first. Make friends with all of us.” She paused.

“And then?”

Her eyes narrowed. “He ask Ice out on date. She tell him no. She have boyfriend, but he keep asking. Finally she say okay, go for coffee only.”

Quinn could feel a coldness growing just below his skin. “What happened?”

She hesitated. “I say too much already. Forget everything.” She moved down the bar to see if the other customers needed help. He decided not to push her.

Ice returned to the karaoke machine just after Natt brought Quinn his panang moo. As he ate, he kept an eye on Nick in the mirror, but the guy just sat at his table, beaming in Ice’s direction.

Once Quinn finished, he put more than enough to cover the bill and a good tip under his beer glass and headed out to his car. But once he was behind the wheel, he didn’t start the engine. He knew he should probably just go home and forget about it. But he knew he wouldn’t. He wasn’t exactly close to Ice and Natt and the others, but they were his friends.

Anything outside of work isn’t worth the risk. Durrie’s voice again. Would he ever get out of Quinn’s head?

It was nearly an hour and a half before Nick appeared. His smile was still plastered to his face as he stepped outside, but as soon as the door closed behind him, it disappeared. This new Nick looked like a smug, cocky ass.

He stood at the corner for a moment, watching the traffic on Sunset. Then he walked across the street, forcing several cars to stop quickly so as not to hit him.

Finally, Quinn started up his BMW and pulled away from the curb. At the intersection with Sunset, he stopped and watched Nick walk down the row of parked cars. The man stopped next to a Mercedes sedan.

Nice car. Definitely not what Quinn was expecting. Apparently whatever this Nick was selling, he was doing well at it.

As the Mercedes came out from the curb, Quinn turned onto Sunset and fell in behind it.

It wasn’t too much longer before they were winding their way up into Beachwood Canyon above Hollywood. As always, Quinn was careful as he followed the other car, but he sensed that even if he were right on the Mercedes’s tail, Nick wouldn’t have realized he was being followed. The self-absorbed seldom saw beyond their own reflection in the mirror.

After taking a few smaller side streets, the Mercedes slowed to a stop in the middle of the road. Quinn, still a block back, pulled to the curb and turned off his lights. On the right near the Mercedes was a house surrounded by a tall white wall. Across the driveway entrance was a seven-foot-high, solid wooden gate that was swinging open. Once it was out of the way, the sedan pulled in, and then the gate began to close again.

Quinn slipped out of his car and jogged down to the wall. The gate finished closing just as he got there, but there was enough of a gap between it and the wall it hung on for him to get a partial view of the property.

The house was a nice, two-story Spanish-style structure that was undoubtedly out of the price range of most people in the country. There was a porch light on next to the door, but the lights inside the house were off.

Quinn heard a car door open, followed by a step as someone got out, then the door slamming shut. A moment later Nick’s shadowy form walked into view, heading for the front door. When he reached it, he stuck a key into the lock, turned it, and went inside.

That was all Quinn was waiting to see. There had been the off chance that Nick was just visiting a friend. And while having a key didn’t necessarily mean he lived there, Quinn felt it was more than pretty damn likely.

He noted the address, then slowly began walking back to his car, thinking.

How much should he get involved here? Or should he even get involved at all? It really depended on what this Nick guy had done, and there was only one way to find that out.

He arrived back at Taste of Siam a little after midnight. The place was packed mostly with Thais now. The music loud, the smiles wide, everyone enjoying themselves. Even Ice, who was still in charge of the karaoke, seemed to be her old self again.

Quinn viewed all of this through the restaurant’s windows from the street, but instead of going in the front door, he headed around the side. As always, the kitchen entrance was open, covered only by a flimsy screen door.

Quinn slipped inside.

The main cooks were an older Thai couple Quinn had exchanged greetings with on occasion. There were also three Hispanic men in the kitchen, doing the prep work and washing the dishes.

The old man was the first to notice Quinn and started saying something to him in Thai.

“I need to talk to Natt,” Quinn said.

The man looked at him for a moment, then recognition dawned on his face. “Ah, Khun Jonathan. You eat?”

“No, thank you,” Quinn said. “I’d just like to talk to Natt.”

The old man looked confused, obviously not fully understanding what Quinn wanted.

Quinn was about to repeat his request when the door to the dining area opened, and Lek came in. She looked surprised to see Quinn.

“Khun Jonathan. You’re back?”

“Lek, could you get Natt for me, please? I just need to talk with her for a moment.”

“Okay. Sure.”

He pointed toward the screen door. “I’ll wait for her outside.”

A minute later, Natt came out.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“Natt, what did that guy do to Ice?”