by Hannah Ford
And then the cell phone was buzzing again. UNKNOWN CALLER.
Now she was pissed.
“Hello,” she said angrily, holding the cell phone to her ear while she spit toothpaste into the sink.
“Is this Raven Hartley?” the voice asked. She could tell instantly that it was the same guy as the voicemail she’d listened to a few minutes ago.
“Please stop calling me,” she told him.
“We have a big problem,” he replied, “so you better think very carefully about what you do next.”
Raven swallowed the rest of her toothpaste and stepped away from the sink. Her heart was racing again, and she was feeling vulnerable and queasy. “I don’t even know you,” she said, her voice less authoritative than she would’ve liked.
“My name is Max Mendez and I’m affiliated with Club Alpha.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Well it might not, but it will very soon, because you work for us now.”
Raven choked back a laugh of disbelief. “You must be kidding.”
“I’m dead serious,” he said. His voice didn’t have a trace of humor.
“Well, that’s pretty funny,” she said, “considering I’m about to leave for my job right now, and I don’t think I’ll be seeing you there.”
“You mean your job at Charlie’s Café in Watertown Square?” Max asked her.
She was stunned, and now the fear was icy, like an iron hand around her throat. This creep knew where she worked. He had her phone number. “This is harassment,” she told him. “I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave me alone.”
“I’ve given you the courtesy of a phone call, Miss Hartley, because we’ve had a client complain about you. A very important client. This is unacceptable to our organization, and we intend to make things right.”
“Was it Jake Novak?” she said, knowing he was the only person who would have had any reason to complain about her. She hadn’t even talked to anyone else.
He continued on as if she’d never spoken Jake’s name. “A client at the party last night expressed interest in your services, and you said that you weren’t going to participate in the requested arrangement.”
“That’s right. I won’t sleep with a guy for money because I’m not a hooker.”
“You don’t get to say what you will or won’t do, Miss Hartley. You work for us and you’ll do what the client tells you to do.”
His confidence had unnerved her, but she fought back. “I don’t work for you and prostitution’s illegal.”
“I have the contracts you signed in front of me right now,” Max stated, his voice calm and terrible and cold. “So although you might feel you don’t work for us, these very same contracts tell a different story. You do work for us, and we expect you to honor your contract.”
“Or what?” she said, laughing, almost wanting to upset him now. “I’m dead broke, buddy. Go ahead and sue me if you want, I really don’t care. But you better stop calling me, because I’m not afraid to let the police know what you’re doing, and I also have a lot of friends who won’t take very kindly to your threats either.”
There was a long pause and she thought maybe the creep had finally hung up, but then he breathed a low, soft sigh into the other end of the phone. “You will honor your contract, Miss Hartley.”
And then there was a click and he was gone.
* * *
Raven couldn’t stop thinking about Max Mendez and Club Alpha after she’d gotten off the phone with him.
On her way to work, she searched for both Max and Club Alpha on the Internet and came up with absolutely nothing. There were no forum posts, no Wiki entries, no websites registered to Club Alpha, nothing at all.
At first, she wanted to believe that meant this guy was just bullshitting her, trying to scam her or something. But deep down, in the pit of her stomach, Raven knew that there was something serious going on, and that it wasn’t over by any stretch.
After all, Jake had mentioned them last night—not by name, but he’d definitely been referring to them when he said they should book a meeting through her agency. And she’d seen the name Club Alpha on that contract she’d signed as well.
Why did you sign those papers without even looking at them? What were you thinking?
She was furious at herself for letting the moment get away from her and once again impulsively acting without thinking of the consequences. She’d been just as impulsive and thoughtless when she was seventeen and it had nearly cost her everything.
* * *
When Raven got to the restaurant, she saw Skylar was already sitting at a table and rolling silverware, getting ready to open for lunch.
“Hey,” Raven said, sitting down across from her.
Skylar looked up, eyes wide, smiling. “Hey, you! Crazy night, huh?”
“Too crazy,” Raven said. She grabbed a napkin, fork, knife and spoon. “When did you leave?”
“Not that long after you,” Skylar said. “Some old guy came up and started chatting to me about five-star restaurants and asking whether I liked Sushi, but he was like five feet tall and a little smelly. I made excuses and got the heck out of there.”
“Gross,” Raven agreed, wrinkling up her nose.
“Can you believe that Jake Novak talked to you?” Skylar asked. “I was, like, totally blown away. That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Raven didn’t want to get into that, nor did she want to admit that he’d followed her downstairs and asked her on a date of sorts. That would have led to a lot of other revelations that she wasn’t quite ready to share just yet.
But she was curious. “Hey, did anyone call you last night or this morning? Anyone from the party?”
“The party?” Skylar asked, her brow furrowing. “I didn’t give anyone my number.”
“So some guy named Max didn’t call you or leave you any voicemails?”
Skylar stopped rolling silverware and looked at her suspiciously. “Are you still drunk, honey?”
“No, I’ve just gotten a couple of weird calls. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“What did this weirdo say to you?” Skylar asked.
“Nothing, really. Probably a wrong number.”
“Okay, sweetie.” Skylar winked and nodded, as if it all made total sense.
They finished setting up for lunch and then the first customers were starting to be seated.
Max Mendez was starting to feel like a faint nightmare, and the events from the previous night nothing but fog that was clearing as the day wore on.
But then, not long after opening, Raven was taking a lunch order from a middle-aged couple, and she happened to notice a rather large man in a very nice, tailored blue suit come into the restaurant. He approached her manager and began talking to him just beside the host’s podium.
Something about the man’s demeanor struck Raven, and she kept watching him, even as the middle-aged couple were telling her their order.
Raven’s manager, Dick, stood and listened for a moment, his expression one of intent focus and grave concern. Dick looked around the restaurant until he saw Raven, and his mouth tightened. He looked back at the large man in the blue suit and listened again.
Raven had a terrible, awful feeling that the man in the suit was Max Mendez. He had thin black hair and a mustache, like some aging porn star. He was greasy and nasty and he looked as mean as a box of rattlesnakes.
“Excuse me, Miss?” the woman at her table asked. “Did you hear what I said about the dressing on the side for my Cobb salad?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Raven told her, and then started walking away from the table. Her heart was pounding all over again.
Dick nodded a few times in response to the man in the suit and then looked directly at Raven, before walking towards her. He met her in the middle of the restaurant by the bar.
“Who was that guy?” she said.
“Listen,” Dick said, his eyes shifting nervously, “you’ve got
to go.”
“What do you mean? I just started my shift. You’re cutting me loose already?”
“I’ve got to fire you, Raven. I’m sorry.”
“Fire me? For what?” She looked past him and saw that the man in the suit was now waiting just outside the restaurant, smoking a cigarette.
“Listen, that guy who just came into the restaurant is somebody I can’t afford to mess around with. For some reason, he’s got a big problem with you and I don’t want any part of it, so you need to leave. I can’t have you bringing heat on us like this.”
“Dick, I haven’t done anything wrong. Let’s call the police,” she begged.
Dick had always been really nice to her, but now he looked angry and frantic. “Listen, Raven, you’ve always been a good kid and a good worker. But you better leave right now or I’ll call the cops on you—got it?” His eyes were practically bursting out of his head.
“Got it,” she said, and then took off her nametag and threw it on the ground, dropping her notepad and pen next to it. “Thanks a lot, Dick,” she muttered, and then left the restaurant, knowing who was waiting for her.
But she wasn’t going to run away from him. She was angry, and her anger was giving her fuel—Raven felt strong and fearless suddenly.
She burst through the exit and found her enemy smoking a cigarette, a little smile playing on his lips.
“Fine, you got me fired, asshole,” she said, getting right in his face. “But I don’t give a shit. You don’t fucking scare me.”
He towered over her, and he was probably at least a hundred pounds heavier. But he just grinned, blowing a plume of smoke towards her. “You might not be scared yet,” he told her, “but keep playing with fire, Raven Hartley, and see what happens next.”
His voice was just like the voice on the phone. So this was what Max looked like in person.
She made a face of disgust. “I don’t work for you guys. I will never work for you. So what do you want from me?”
He sniffed. “We want what I already explained. For you to fulfill your contractual obligations.”
“And what does that mean, exactly?”
Max sighed, put the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and grit it between his teeth. “Club Alpha is a very high-end, exclusive organization that caters to the most wealthy men in the world. And what we provide is an experience tailored to each person’s liking, kind of like…I don’t know…Millionaire Matchmaker or something.”
She felt a little relieved. “Oh, so it’s like a dating service.”
Raven wanted to believe that she’d gotten it wrong. It was all just a big miscommunication. They didn’t want her to sleep with rich guys for money.
“Something like that, yeah,” Max agreed.
“And you recruit women to set up with these millionaire dudes,” Raven said. “I get it.”
“Now you understand,” he smiled. “Come, walk with me a bit.” He started walking down the sidewalk and she followed along, rushing to keep up with his long legs.
“You just got me fired,” she said. “That doesn’t exactly make me want to work for you.”
“I understand,” he replied, “but you needed to see that I’m not to be ignored.” A plume of smoke floated out of his mouth.
“Well, what am I supposed to do?” she asked. “You want me to go to more parties or something? Because I’ll go to a few parties, but I can’t promise anything.”
He stopped walking and turned to face her. “You signed a one month contract with us. At a minimum, that means two nights a week working for Club Alpha.” He took the cigarette from his mouth and tipped ash onto the sidewalk near his feet. “We pay a thousand bucks for a night’s work. At eight nights, that’ll net you eight grand for a month’s work.”
“A thousand dollars for one night?”
“Yup. Not bad, huh?”
Suddenly, her suspicions were growing again. She thought back to the bedroom she’d accidentally stumbled into the previous night, and what those naked women had been doing inside it. Two of those women had invited her to the party, which meant they probably worked for Club Alpha as well.
They were hookers.
“I’m not a prostitute,” Raven said, her voice quivering.
Max shrugged and smiled. “I don’t care what you call it, honey. All I know is that you pissed some people off with that stunt last night.”
Tears stung the corners of her eyes. “What stunt?”
“You turned down a very high profile client, and that makes us look really bad, and we don’t ever look bad. Ever.”
“I didn’t know I was making anyone look bad. How could I have known?” she asked him. “Nobody gave me time to read the papers I signed. They told me it was just a formality, they tricked me.”
Max seemed amused. “That’s a very sad story. I’m outraged on your behalf.”
“Clearly, you don’t have a problem with the shady way your company operates. You seem to enjoy it.” Her hands were squeezed into tight fists. “I wish you’d just leave me alone, go bother some other girl.”
Max dropped the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it, squashing it. “None of your complaints matter to me, Miss Hartley. I’ve heard it all before. What I can tell you is, you’re going to have to work this off one way or the other.”
“I’m not going to have sex for money,” she told Max, her chin lifting. “You can get me fired, you can do whatever you want. I don’t care.”
Max looked at her squarely, as if really seeing her for the first time. “You will care, though,” he said. Then he wiped his nose, turned and walked away from her down the street, disappearing around the corner.
* * *
Raven was angry.
She’d been fired from her job, a job she needed very badly to make enough money to cover the rent on her apartment, put food in her refrigerator, pay her credit card down every month.
And now she was jobless, with only enough money saved up to last her a couple of weeks at most. A man was threatening to make her life even worse if she didn’t prostitute herself for his company—and all of it was happening because of Jake Novak.
Jake had obviously complained about her to Max Mendez and Club Alpha, and now they were trying to destroy her in retaliation for hurting the poor guy’s feelings or something.
It made her furious that a man as wildly successful as Jake Novak felt the need to punish her when he didn’t even need to pay for sex. Every woman at that party last night and many more within walking distance would’ve gladly slept with him if he’d so much as looked in their direction.
On her way home from the restaurant, Raven’s phone rang again. She expected to see UNKNOWN CALLER, but instead it was Skylar.
“Where did you go just now?” Skylar said. “Suddenly I’m covering your tables, it’s getting crazy in here.”
“I got fired,” Raven told her, as she got to the door of her apartment.
“You got fired? For what?”
“It’s complicated,” Raven said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. I need you here, this place is going to suck without you!” Skylar whined. “Who’s going to watch me smoke cigarettes and listen to me complain about the shitty hostess?”
“I’m going to miss that, Sky, and I really needed the money too,” Raven said. “Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it right now.”
“You’ll get a new job,” Skylar said. “But what happened? Did you get in an argument with Dick?”
“No.” She thought about telling her friend the truth, but decided against it. Skylar couldn’t help her, and she tended to have a big mouth, even though her heart was in the right place. “Look, Sky, I’m home now and I need to start looking for a new job right away. Call you later?”
“Listen, you’re going to be fine, I promise. Don’t stress,” Skylar said. “Who knows, maybe Dick will come around and give you your job back.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Raven said.
They got o
ff the phone and Raven went inside, then plugged in her old laptop that was beaten to hell and needed a serious upgrade. At first, she was just trolling the local job boards for restaurants looking to hire waitresses, but then she started thinking about Jake Novak and getting angry all over again.
This was all his fault.
She did a Google search out of curiosity, and saw that he was appearing in Copley Square later that very day, doing some outdoor free performance for the public to promote the start of his North American tour, and they said he would even be available to sign autographs. His performance was set to start at three o’clock.
Raven sat back on the couch and thought about it. If she could somehow get close enough to talk to him, she would let him know how his actions had affected her. Maybe he’d see fit to try and put things right, call off his goons, reverse whatever it was that had gotten started with Club Alpha.
It’s his fault, he should make this go away. They’ll listen to him if he tells them to leave me alone.
And if he refused to help her, Raven would at least have a chance to give him a piece of her mind and tell him to his face what a jerk he was.
It seemed like a good idea, and so she went to the bathroom, quickly redid her makeup and hair, got dressed in a new outfit more suitable for the occasion (it never hurt to look your best), and then headed out the door.
Raven didn’t know if she was being totally delusional or if this was the best idea she’d ever had in her life.
* * *
By the time she’d stepped off the train at Copley Square and started trying to make her way to the performance area, Raven already knew that she’d severely underestimated just how popular Jake Novak was and how many other fans would show up to see him live and in person.
In actuality, thousands of people had shown up, streets were shut down and blocked off by police cars, and there was a large security presence to help control the wild crowds of mostly screaming young women.