by Nicole Fox
“My aunt … Mrs. Williams had said that it contained the whorehouse’s records. Clients. Payments. Everything. It makes sense that it’s encrypted,” I said, knowing full well that this was a suspicious thing to say.
Joey, however, merely nodded. “That’s what I said, but then Farrah Williams interrupted. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They’re not encrypted. Just corrupted. It’s just computer junk, anyway. Venus Williams always took terrible care of her records.’”
At this, I felt a surge of rage. My aunt? Keep bad records? As if.
“So what did Montengo do?” Connor demanded. He, too, sounded angry. His voice was set in a low growl.
“He said, ‘Okay, baby,’ and tossed them in the trash.”
“He threw them away?” Connor and I gasped in unison. We glanced at each other and saw uniform outrage in each other’s eyes.
“But, those are important!” I exclaimed. “My aunt … Mrs. Williams wanted those records preserved! That’s why she gave them to me … To Farrah.”
My God, it was hard talking about myself as a different person! I noticed Connor eyeing me strangely, but he didn’t comment on my weird lapses.
He stepped forward. “I agree. If we can figure out a way to decode them, they could contain invaluable contacts, plus dozens of blackmail opportunities that would fix the club’s finances in an instant! Why do you think Montengo would be so stupid as to throw them away?”
Joey looked uncomfortable. “You know him,” he muttered. “If his old lady says it, it becomes law. Fuck! He’s the strangest man I’ve ever met. Ready to beat any one of us to a pulp, but if some bitch with a pretty pussy comes along, she wraps him around her finger!”
He glanced at me, looking apologetic. “Sorry, Princess. I know you used to belong to her. But Farrah’s actions make no sense! She’s not acting like the money whiz we’ve heard so much about.”
You got that damn right, I thought, but I couldn’t voice it. I decided then that it was best to stay silent. I might have given something away.
“Well, thank you for rescuing them, Joey,” Connor said, taking the envelope himself. “You did the smart thing.”
“Connor,” he said, casting an anxious glance at me. “I’m nervous. There’s something going on here that we don’t know. I think that Farrah’s keeping secrets, though I can’t figure out what. Or why, for that matter.”
Connor turned towards me. I felt his eyes boring into me like crystal-tipped drills. “What do you think, Princess?” he asked.
I shifted uneasily, not meeting his gaze. At last, I murmured, “As you said, Farrah is now Montengo’s old lady. He trusts her and is treated her with respect. Why would she lie?”
Was that a good enough answer? Joey nodded as if that made sense, but Connor’s gaze lingered on me a little too long. At last, he moved, and let me off the hook.
“Well, for now, I’ll keep it here,” he said, walking around to the back of his desk and opening a drawer with a key he pulled from his pants pocket. He slid the envelope inside, closed the drawer, and then carefully locked it, returning the key to its place. I made sure to note every movement.
Then, suddenly:
Boom!
Connor’s fist connected with the desk. I’d seen that punch hit flesh and knew how much force it carried. I jumped, ready to leap out of reach, and then immediately felt guilty for my actions. Joey, however, calmly stepped forward and placed a hand on his friend.
“I know, Connor. I know,” he murmured.
“It’s so fucking stupid! How could he be so fucking stupid?”
“I know. It’s ridiculous.”
“We have opportunities here staring him right in the fucking face. And he doesn’t take them! Why? Because some new whore’s got her legs wrapped around him!”
I froze. Did he notice what he’d said? He’d called Honi the whore. Could he sense, deep down, what she really was ...?
“We’ll figure it out, dude,” Joey said consolingly. “We’ve got options. The records are still there, and I’ve always go my car restoration— ”
“Fuck your stupid car restoration!” Connor thundered, and then immediately looked guilty. “I’m sorry, man,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just so … fucking … frustrated.”
“I know, dude. I know.” Joey was now patting Connor on the back. It was very strange for me to see. Up until this point, I had only seen Connor interact with other men in a sort of hierarchy, with people in charge and people below him. But this Joey obviously was his friend.
Perhaps that can be useful, I thought. I nodded to Joey, and mouthed, very clearly, “Thanks.”
Joey smiled.
Just then, we heard a small commotion in the hall. Some helpful Devil’s Wing shouted, “Welcome, President!” And we all quieted, trying to wipe the guilty looks off of our faces.
Montengo popped his head into Connor’s office. “Come on, boys. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Connor and Joey nodded, making their way towards the door. I, however, hesitated, unsure of where to go. Montengo noticed and shrugged, saying, “Aw, bring the whore. This might interest her as well. “
Interest me? I thought. What could he have that would interest me?
I followed the men outside and noticed with a pang that Honi was with them. Unlike the last time I’d seen her, when her face was full of gloating, she was looking down, and her face seemed unusually somber.
I suddenly got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Leading the way, Montengo ushered Connor, Joey, Honi, and me into a large meeting room. There were a few other men there I did not recognize, but they seemed respectable. They nodded to each of us in turn, including me. We sat down and waited for him to begin.
“Gentlemen,” Montengo started, his manner also unusually respectful. “I have some bad news. It has just reached us that Anna ‘Venus’ Michaels, sister of Sam Michaels and owner of the Berth of Venus, is dead.”
I gasped, feeling like I’d been hit in the gut. I wanted to cry out, to demand what had happened, but I knew that the situation required silence. Instead, I glanced at Honi, whose eyes were downcast but dry. She didn’t jump at the revelation. So this isn’t news to her, I thought. I clung to that observation, needing its dry, factual sturdiness to keep from being overwhelmed by grief.
I can’t cry, I thought. I can’t cry. It’ll look suspicious if I cry.
Montengo continued, “This changes little in how we run things, but I wanted to bring it up for a couple of important reasons. First, Venus, though not close to the club, was still an admirable woman in many ways and deserves our respect.”
There were nods across the room, including my own, and Joey shouted, “Hear, hear!”
“Secondly,” Montengo went on, “We now have two of Venus’s charges in our care. The first is Farrah.” He nodded to Honi, who gave him a properly grieved and appreciative look. “The second is Princess, our new whore. They’ll both become permanent parts of the Devil’s Wings.”
My stomach plunged into ice. I felt as if the floor had dropped out from under me. Honi, meanwhile, stood, and gave Montengo a hug. “Thank you, my dear!” she said, and placed a tearful kiss on his cheek.
I was so disgusted I wanted to punch her right then and there. Oh, how easy would it be to forget my grief and just rage, rage, rage! But I couldn’t! The two of us had a role to play.
For Aunt Venus.
Still, fear consumed me. I felt my heart pounding and sweat breaking out on my brow. It was one thing to play this little charade temporarily, but to be here, permanently, as Princess? No, I could not allow it to happen.
Beside me, Connor was stirring.
“So, Miss Michaels,” he said, addressing Honi. “If it’s true that Venus Williams is dead, doesn’t that make you the owner of the Berth? What do you intend to do with it.”
Honi threw her head back and cackled. It was quite an unsettling sound, torn between mockery and feigned grief. “Why, l
et it rot, of course!” she said. “It wasn’t doing much good anyway!”
Connor opened his mouth to respond and then hesitated. He and I both know that my aunt’s income was large, and that there could be a lot of money-making potential either in keeping the Berth or in dissolving it intelligently. I expected him to protest, but instead he slipped back into his seat. For some reason he looked at me, his brows furrowed in thought.
I didn’t have time to care about that. At the moment, all I wanted to do was talk to Honi, and find out what had happened to my aunt.
Thankfully, (and surprisingly) President Montengo came to my rescue.
“Now that we have shared that news, ladies,” he said, “I ask that you leave us so we can talk business. You can go in the jet tub or something. Is that okay, baby? I’m sure all of this business talk would bore you poor things, anyway.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Honi purred. Her feigned grief forgotten, she leapt from her seat, grabbed my hand, (somehow, her grip felt even more biting and unpleasant than the men who had grabbed me the day I arrived) and drove me from the room.
As soon as we were out and the door had clicked behind us, I wrestled myself violently from her grip. Her hands were strong, but she had no chance. I was in full fight-or-flight mode now.
“What happened to Aunt Venus, Honi?” I growled. “I demand to know!”
She smiled. “Tut, tut. We can’t talk about there here. What if the men find out? No. Let’s go into Montengo’s bedroom.”
She led, sashaying her hips in a way that made me want to claw her fucking skin off. But I resisted and followed her into the leopard-print bedroom.
“A bubble bath?” sShe offered sarcastically, gazing at the master bathroom. I scowled at her in response. In that moment, I would have preferred taking my clothes off in front of the entire Devil’s Wings club than Honi.
“All right, then, Princess,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened to Aunt Venus. Exactly.”
“All right,” she replied in a bored voice. She pulled out a fancy cell phone (given to her by Montengo, I imagined) and clicked on a recording. It played a muffled, masculine voice, speaking right up against the phone.
“Tony, reporting in. We’ve been watching the Berth for three days now,” it said, “ever since we got news that it’d been raided. The cop cars are gone, but the men who came in them are still here. We … can’t figure out what they’re up to, but they seem to be turning the place inside out, looking for something. Hell, this morning they even threw a fucking desk out of the window. I don’t think they’ve found what they’re looking for though, judging by how frantic they are.”
The guy paused. I listened to this in rapt horror, waiting for the guy to respond. There was a muffled scratching, as if wind or fabric was being drawn across the phone.
“Holy shit!” he said, and I heard the sound of thudding feet. I guessed he’d broken into a run. “Holy shit! They’re carrying something out the back door. Hold on … I’ll see if I can hide and get a better look …”
More scratching. More wind. I bit my lips and closed my eyes, dreading what would happen next and yet powerless to stop listening.
“Christ!” he continued. “It’s a body! A fucking body! They’ve got it under some fancy sheet, but maybe the wind …Yes! Oh, God. I can see its face. It’s Venus Michaels; you copy? Venus Fucking Michaels! Oh, shit. They’re coming. I’ve gotta get out of here. Tony, out.”
With a look of something that could have been triumph, Honi clicked off the phone.
“So you see, Princess,” she sneered. “Your precious Aunt Venus is dead.”
It was her words, uttered so callously and with such disdain, that finally made my anger disappear, and the deluge of grief overwhelm me. I collapsed against the wall, and slid, my hands over my eyes, to the floor.
“Why are you being so cruel?” I whimpered, ashamed of the weakness in my voice.
“Cruel? Me?” Honi mocked. “Venus Michaels owned me, Farrah! I was her slave!”
From between laced fingers I glared with tear-filled eyes. “She was your rescuer! You know anything about the foster care system? She did. And she provided you with a life of luxury instead. Sure, you had to spread your legs a few times in payment, but I don’t see you doing anything different now!”
She smiled. “Not anymore. You heard Montengo. This shift is permanent. You get to be Princess, the whore, while I get to be an actual princess—Farrah Fucking Michaels, daughter of a king.”
Her words struck me, painful as cold drops of rain as you shiver in a storm. Finally, I spoke. “But we were friends, Honi. Friends. Weren’t we? Or were all those years a lie?”
She whirled away from me and hid her face in shadow. “Yes,” she replied. “We were. But there is no room for friendship in this world, Farrah. The fucking Devil’s Wings should teach you that.”
And with that, she stormed away, stomping to the master bathroom and locking herself in. To get away from me, I was sure. And to wash away her own guilt.
Guilt.
The word hit me like a bullet. I suddenly put two and two together. The men were looking for something. The men who had killed my aunt. And I knew what they were looking for.
It was hidden in Connor’s desk, sealed in a torn and dirty envelope.
They weren’t interested in the records. No, the Minghelli family wasn’t interested in small change like that. They were interested in something else hidden there not so long ago on that Christmas break.
Something I had hidden there.
My aunt hadn’t died to save the records. No. She had died to save me.
This realization hit me with such a terrible, drowning grief that I was too overwhelmed to cry. No. Not in this filthy fucking room with Honi ten feet away. No. I need somewhere private. But where? As a whore, I owned nothing. Not even my own body.
# # #
As if I were drunk, I staggered to my feet and wove out the door, down the long, long hallways to where Connor did his work. It took me four tries to grip the knob and get it to open. Finally, I burst inside and collapsed in his office chair, smelling him. Missing him.
Only then, when I was alone in the dark, was I able to meet my grief head on. It hit me like a train, and before I knew it I was sobbing, sobbing, sobbing the day away.
Chapter Twenty
Connor
Long after the meeting ended, I stayed in the office room, nursing my tangled thoughts. Everyone else had left, but I had a full packet of cigarettes laid out beside me and a bottle of Jack I knew was stored in the filing cabinet to my left, so I was ready for the long haul.
I lit one, sucked deeply, and watched the flame-tipped end flare.
None of this makes any sense! I thought. What the fuck is going on?
I looked back on the meeting and Farrah’s strange behavior. She barely seemed upset at all. In fact, she seemed overjoyed! Did she really hate her aunt that much? Not to mention her wanting to ‘leave the whorehouse to rot.’ From what the rumors said, Farrah had worked hard with Venus Michaels to build that place up into the respectable, money-making machine that it was. Why did she suddenly not care at all? Was it just because she thought that Montengo could offer her a better life? I doubted that. She must know that the president’s funds were limited. The glamorous lifestyle they were living was about to run out. As soon as the club went under—which it would, if we kept treating all of its potential money-making sources with such disregard—so would everything else. The clubhouse. Montengo. The whores …
The whores.
Farrah was not the only one acting strange during that meeting. I had also been keeping my eye on Princess, and though she hid it well, she seemed terribly upset. Was it possible that she was more attached to Venus Michaels than Farrah was? All sources agreed that Venus had treated her whores very well, but that level of love and loyalty seemed strange …
Suddenly, a thought came to me out of now
here, and once I saw it I realized I had been thinking it all along.
I don’t think Farrah Michaels is who she says she is. In fact, I don’t think she is Farrah Michaels at all. Nothing fits. None of it.
And where the hell does Princess fit into all this? Is she the real Farrah Michaels? And if not, where is the real one?
These thoughts went round and round in my head, like riding a fucking rollercoaster. I smoked one cigarette after another and took several shots of whiskey. By late afternoon, I was feeling angry and buzzed and had gotten nowhere.
Finally, I stood up. “I need to talk to Princess,” I said aloud. I knew she probably would not reveal anything to me, but I needed to do something. “I’ll talk to her … and we’ll figure this shit out together.”