First Star I See Tonight

5

Piper reacted instinctively. She grabbed the arm of her assailant, kicked out her leg, and brought him down with a loud thud. Only as she heard the woof of pain did she realize the voice that had declared her dead had come from a female instead of a male.

A teenage girl sprawled on the bare wooden floor clutching her arm. A bright yellow Nerf gun lay beside her, the hard foam bullet that had hit Piper coming to rest against the landing’s painted baseboard.

The girl was one of America’s ethnically ambiguous: with tawny skin; bright amber eyes; long, dark curly hair; and a promise of beauty when her adolescence was behind her. “Ohmygod, I’m sorry!” she cried, revealing a set of silver braces.

Piper went to her knees. “Are you okay?”

“I thought you were an assassin!”

“A lot of them around here?” Piper reached out to check the girl’s arm.

“I’m okay.” She pushed herself into a sitting position.

Piper was relieved to see the arm wasn’t broken, but she was also pissed. “What did you think you were doing?”

“I thought you were someone else.” The girl reached for her Nerf gun, which had been modified with red rubber bands to intensify the firing mechanism.

“You have a license to carry that thing?” Piper asked.

“I know. It’s stupid. It was, like, kind of embarrassing buying them.”

“Them?”

“You need more than one. It’s kind of a game. But it’s, like, serious.” She scrambled up from the floor. She was nicely proportioned, although-being a teenage girl-she probably thought she was fat. “You must be the new neighbor. Coop told Mom somebody was moving in, but I, like, forgot about it. I’m Jada.”

“Piper. So what’s with the sneak attack on an innocent person?”

“I go to Pius now.” Piper recognized the name of a city parochial high school. “I’m one of the Pius Assassins.”

“Does the pope know about that?”

“You’re funny.” She said it seriously, as if she’d assessed Piper and now had a category to fit her into. “We only moved here from St. Louis right before school started, so it’s kind of a way for me to, maybe, like, get to know kids.”

And try to fit in, Piper thought.

“I’ll show you your place,” Jada said. “It’s smaller than ours but it’s okay.” She pointed to one of the three doors that opened off the small, square hallway. “That door goes to the club. There used to be, like, an Italian restaurant where Spiral is now.” She indicated the door in front of them. “Me and my mom live there. It’s not as nice as our place was in St. Louis, but Mom wanted to leave, and Coop invited her to move in here. My dad died in a car wreck when I was nine. He was a private trainer for a while, and him and Coop were, like, best friends. Coop paid for his funeral and everything.”

“That’s tough. I lost my mom when I was young, too.”

“So did Coop. This is your place.” Nerf gun at her side, she headed toward the farthest door and twisted the knob. It was unlocked.

The space wasn’t big, but it was decent, with mustard walls, parquet floors from the seventies, and a pair of small windows that looked down over the alley behind the club. A white Formica counter separated the modest kitchen from the living area, which had a matching moss-colored couch and recliner as well as a couple of oak end tables and lamps.

“The bedroom is the best part.” Jada disappeared through the opposite door.

Was it ever. Piper stopped just inside to take it in. Most of the space was occupied by a king-size bed with a padded headboard and off-white duvet. The opposite wall held a large flat-screen TV. A state-of-the-art electronic charging station occupied a bedside table, and a pair of funnel-shaped pendant lights hung from the ceiling on each side of the bed.

“Wow.”

“Coop sleeps here sometimes.”

Not anymore, he doesn’t, Piper thought.

“He likes to be comfortable,” Jada explained.

“No kidding.” Piper sat on the end of the bed and felt the cushy support of an expensive foam mattress.

Jada, picking at some already tortured black nail polish, gazed with longing at the iPad in the docking station. “Coop is really rich.”

“Rich isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Piper said, which was a total lie.

“I guess.”

“Tell me about the Pius Assassins.”

Jada pushed a long lock of hair behind her ear. “It started a couple of days ago. It’s kind of like a class bonding exercise for all us sophomores.”

“Those nuns get zanier every year.”

“The teachers don’t really like it, but as long as we don’t bring Nerfs on school property there’s nothing they can do about it. Everybody in the sophomore class who wanted to play had to pay, like, five dollars. We have a hundred twenty kids in our class and ninety-two signed up.”

“And the goal is…”

“Be the last person standing.”

Piper was starting to get the drift. “Like The Hunger Games.”

“And win the four hundred and sixty dollars.” Jada pulled her curly dark hair into a ponytail behind her head and then released it. “I really need the money because my phone is, like, embarrassing. I never say that to my mom, but she knows, and it makes her feel bad because we can’t afford anything better.” She dipped her chin. “I shouldn’t have told you that. Mom said never to talk about money.”

Piper’s heart went out to her. “So how does the game work?”

“You can’t kill anybody on school property or, like, at a school activity or if they’re at work or from a moving car because kids get hurt that way.”

“Comforting.”

“No kills if you’re on a bus or the El going to or from school, but any other time is okay.”

“I can only imagine how the commuters feel about dodging Nerf bullets. Especially in Chicago. You’re lucky nobody has shot real bullets at you.”

“We’re supposed to be respectful of other people.”

“How’s that working out?” she said, with only a little sarcasm.

Jada’s forehead crumpled. “I’m really sorry about what happened. The thing is, you’re not allowed to go into a person’s house to kill them unless somebody invites you in. And, like, if any of the kids showed up downstairs and said they were one of my friends, one of the bouncers or the servers would probably let them in.”

“You might want to talk to them about that.”

“Mom won’t let me. Since Coop lets us stay here for free, we kind of owe him everything, and Mom doesn’t want to make any waves.”

Free? Piper’s suspicious nature made her wonder if altruism was Coop’s only motive for providing free lodging. “If this happens again,” she said, “I could seriously hurt you.”

“That was pretty cool. You have really fast reflexes.”

Now that Piper knew she hadn’t broken the kid’s arm, she had to admit she was happy with herself.

Jada was thoughtful. “Maybe we could have a code. You could, like, knock twice fast and once slow at the bottom of the stairs before you come up so I know it’s you. I really need the four hundred and sixty bucks.”

“Help me unload my car, and I’ll think about it.”

Jada led the way downstairs. She leveled her Nerf and took a quick survey of the alley before she stepped out.

Piper had stuffed everything into two suitcases and a couple of boxes. Jada took one of the suitcases, gun still raised, head swiveling. Piper pulled out the other. “Do you really think anybody’s coming after you back here?”

Jada looked at her as if she were a moron. “You’re kidding, right? This is a great place to ambush me. The third day of school, these kids named Daniel and Tasha hid behind Coop’s car. They were working as a team.”

“Cagey of them.”

“They’re dead now,” Jada said with all kinds of satisfaction. “I tried to get Tasha to team up with me, but she’s one of the popular kids. She also likes Daniel.”

“Another woman being stupid over a man.”

Jada gave a world-weary nod. “I know. I’m going to be a psychologist someday.”

“Hard to imagine much of a future with Murder One on your rap sheet, but follow your dream.”

Jada grinned, her wide mouth and silver braces so winning that Piper forgave her for the ambush.

Tony, the club manager, had a big voice, a bigger smile, and an effusive personality, but Piper vowed to keep her eye on him anyway, although, since Graham had told him exactly why she was in the club, that wouldn’t be easy. At the staff meeting, Coop introduced her as the new digital strategist. She learned that Torpedo Head’s name was Jonah. He was the head bouncer and a former Clemson linebacker. Even though he didn’t seem to recognize her, his gaze was far from friendly-either because he had a naturally surly disposition or because he’d decided she wasn’t hot enough to work at Spiral. The other six bouncers also looked like former football players, a theory it didn’t take her long to confirm.

Tony briefed the servers on the premium brands they were pushing that evening. Piper found it interesting that Coop stepped in at the end to warn them about overserving guests. As the meeting broke up, she said, “You walk a fine line here.”

“I want to build a business based on people having a good time, not killing themselves.”

“Ever think about miniature golf?”

“Cute.”

At nine o’clock, the guests began spilling into the club-long-haired women in short skirts, stretchy dresses, silk blouses, and incredible shoes. Guys in sports coats, open-collared shirts, or pricey T-shirts that showcased their pecs. All of them seemed to be vying for the attention of the Oklahoma cowboy who’d come to Chicago by way of Miami and brought glory to their city. They swarmed him like wasps, pushing and gesticulating. The bouncers let it happen.

A woman in fitted leather shorts and another rocking a scarlet dress with a cutout midriff passed by. Piper only had one dress in her closet suitable for the job-the innocuous black number she’d had on eight days ago, the night she’d been caught. The one good thing about having worked in a cubicle was that she could wear jeans. Dressing up for a job was a pain.

As she walked around the club, she saw that new bartending practices had already been put into place, but one of the servers, a slender brunette named Taylor, caught her attention. That first night in the club, Piper had observed that she seemed to have a particularly close relationship with bartender Keith.

When Taylor stopped at the bar to pick up a drink order, Piper introduced herself. “I’m thinking it might be interesting to post a regular feature profiling some of the servers on Spiral’s Web site. Put up a picture, a couple of fun facts. Do you think the staff would go for it?”

Most of the servers, Piper had already observed, seemed happy with their jobs. The pay was good, they got decent benefits, and none of them were expected to do lap dances to sell bottles, but maybe Taylor wasn’t as happy as the rest. She set the drinks the bartender handed her on a black lacquer tray. “Sure. They’d do anything to make Coop happy.”

Was there a slight edge to her answer? “They? But not you?”

“Oh, yeah. Me, too. It’s a great job.”

Her enthusiasm didn’t quite ring true, and Piper made a mental note to keep a sharper eye on her.

Coop was being pressed for autographs, and none of the bouncers was stepping in to give him some room. She appreciated the wisdom of keeping the bouncers from looking like prison guards, but these guys had taken it too far. Everyone wanted to be Graham’s friend, and even though tonight’s crowd was benevolent, that could change. Still, it wasn’t her job to watch out for him, and she stayed on the move, hanging out at the bar, drifting toward the dance floor, and making frequent checks of the ladies’ room.

As midnight approached, she headed toward VIP. The odious Jonah stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. “You can’t go up there.”

She’d met these grown-up bullies before. He knew she was part of the staff, but he wanted to make sure she understood he was top dog here. Her heels gave her an extra couple of inches of height, and she utilized every bit of it. “I go where I want. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Mr. Graham. But don’t cry when you talk to him. You’ll only embarrass yourself.”

She pushed past him and headed up to VIP. Her first night on the job, and she’d already made an enemy.

This lounge was decorated in bronze and black like the rest of the club, but with lacquered lattice screens separating conversation areas and a golden jewel of a bar at one end. The female servers’ uniforms were identical to the ones on the main floor-suggestive but not trashy. Black slip dresses with twin spaghetti straps that crisscrossed at the back and a midthigh hem edged with an inch of black lingerie lace. Some of the women wore calf-hugging leather stiletto boots, others, gladiator sandals that laced up their calves but still looked more comfortable than the shoes Piper was wearing.

A man she recognized as the Stars’ new running back sat with a couple of Bears players and a predictably gorgeous quartet of swishy-haired twenty-somethings. She wandered over to the bar and chatted with the bartenders while she observed her surroundings. Here, most of the guests tended to keep their attention on the people at their own tables instead of letting their eyes wander from group to group like the main floor clientele. The VIPs apparently assumed they were the most important people in the room.

She made her way to the small ladies’ lounge at the back. As she stepped inside, she saw a dramatic-looking brunette she dimly recognized as an actress on one of the Chicago-based cop shows. The actress sat on a padded cube in front of an oval mirror, staring at her reflection as muddy mascara tears rolled down her cheeks.

Piper stopped inside the door. “Are you okay?”

“My life is shit,” the actress said in a slurred voice, not taking her gaze from her own reflection.

Judging from the size of the diamonds in her ears, and her exquisite royal-blue one-shoulder dress, it couldn’t be too shitty.

“Men are shit. It’s all shit.” The inky tears kept rolling.

Piper debated making a quick exit, but she’d been on her feet for hours, and her heels were killing her. She sat on the next cube and slipped them off. “Sounds like you’re having a bad night.”

“A bad life. It’s shit.”

“Kick him out. Just a suggestion.”

The actress turned a pair of startled blue eyes at her. “But I love him.”

Oh, lord… How many stupid women could one planet hold? Piper tried to sound compassionate. “Not to get all Zen on you, but maybe you should love yourself more.”

The actress grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her mascara tears. “You don’t understand. He can be so sweet. And he needs me. He has problems.”

“Everybody has problems. Let him fix his own.”

The actress’s perfect nostrils flared with hostility. “You obviously have no idea what it’s like to love from the very bottom of your soul.”

“You’re right. Unless you’re talking about taco-flavored Doritos.”

The actress was not amused, and she leaned closer, bringing the scent of her zillion-dollar perfume along. “Who are you?”

“Nobody. An employee. I’m doing social media for the club.”

The woman took in Piper’s less-than-memorable dress, so out of place in this rarefied air, then rose none too gracefully from the stool. “I feel sorry for you. You have no idea what you’re missing.”

“Misery?” Piper said as kindly as she could manage.

The actress stormed out.

Piper stared glumly at her reflection in the mirror. So much for a fallback career as a life coach.

She wasn’t used to keeping nightclub hours, and she dampened one of the black guest towels with cold water. The door opened, and the prettiest of the swishy-haired blondes who’d been hanging out with the football players came in. “You, too?” she said as she saw Piper pressing the cool towel to the back of her neck. “I have to get out of here. I’m seriously sleep deprived, and I have my orals coming up in two weeks.”

“Orals?”

The blonde leaned toward a mirror and wiped a lipstick smudge from her front tooth with her index finger. “I’m getting my doctorate in public health.”

Swishy-haired, beautiful, and smart. “So not fair,” Piper muttered.

“Sorry?” The woman cocked an inquisitive ear.

“It sounds challenging.”

“Easier done on a full night’s sleep, that’s for sure.” The woman made her way toward one of the three toilet cubicles.

As Piper headed back downstairs to be with the common folk, she reminded herself that a good detective didn’t make assumptions like the ones she’d been making about the swishy-hairs.

The theme from Buffy awakened her the next morning. Momentarily disoriented by her new surroundings, she fumbled for her phone, knocked it to the floor, and then hung upside down over the edge of the bed to get it. “’Lo.”

“Open the door, Esmerelda. We have to talk.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

She groaned and flopped back onto the luxurious mattress. The bed was heaven, and she didn’t ever want to leave it, especially now, when she wasn’t nearly sharp enough to go one-on-one with her employer. She gazed at the time through bleary eyes-nine thirty. But she hadn’t gotten to sleep until after three. Thank God the club wasn’t open every night. Four nights a week was more than enough.

She’d slept in a Chicago Bears T-shirt and underpants. She fumbled with her jeans and awkwardly zipped them as she crossed the living room on bare feet. She didn’t look at him as she opened the door. “I don’t even talk to myself until I’ve brushed my teeth.” Turning away, she headed for the apartment’s tiny bathroom, where she peed, brushed, and pulled herself together. When she came out, he was sitting on her couch, one ankle crossed over his knee, a Starbucks cup curled in his giant hand. She looked around hopefully for a second cup but didn’t see one.

“You’ve spent one night on the job,” he said, “and I’ve already had my first complaint about you.”

She didn’t have to think long to come up with the most likely source, but she played dumb. “No way.”

“You pissed off Emily Trenton.”

“Emily Trenton?”

“The actress on Third Degree.”

“That’s the worst show,” she retorted. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting sick of seeing women’s bodies with slit throats and bullet holes every time I turn on the TV. Whatever happened to letting audiences use their imagination? And don’t get me started on the autopsy shots. I swear if I see another-”

“Your job is to watch the staff, not antagonize the customers.”

She started to protest, then stopped herself. “You’re right. It won’t happen again.”

He seemed surprised that she wasn’t arguing with him, but she’d been out of line with the actress, and she saw no sense in defending herself.

He took a sip of coffee and studied her. “What did you say to her, anyway?”

“I told her she should dump the guy who was making her so miserable.”

“One of the dirtiest players in the league,” Graham said in disgust. “Late hits, facemasks, head butting. You name it, and the son of a bitch has done it. One of my MRIs has his name written all over it.”

“Yet you let him in the club.”

He shrugged. “If I excluded everybody who’s pissed me off, I could be out of business.”

“I don’t get why you’re doing this in the first place. It’s a semiseedy business-not that Spiral is sleazy, but the hours are crap, and you already have enough money to buy a small country. Or an island. That’s what I’d do. Buy an island.”

“They’re a dime a dozen.”

Lack of caffeine made her stupid. “I don’t like you.” She quickly amended her statement. “Let me clarify. Personally, I don’t like your sense of entitlement, but as your employee, I am completely loyal to you. I’d even throw myself between you and a bullet.”

“Good to know.”

Considering the fact that he’d given her a job and offered her an apartment, she was being rude, even for her. He also didn’t seem inclined to censure her for last night’s incident with the actress. “Sorry. I have an attitude problem when I haven’t had my morning coffee.”

“Only then?”

“Other times, too. I’m kind of a guy that way.”

“Really?” His gaze dropped to her breasts, and that brought her fully awake. She’d forgotten she wasn’t wearing a bra under her Bears T-shirt, and she automatically slouched. He smiled. Why not? He’d seen some of the most expensive breasts in the world, and hers were nothing more than ordinary. But still, he’d made her uncharacteristically self-conscious.

“The coffeemaker’s on the counter,” he said.

She started for the kitchen, then remembered she hadn’t bought coffee. “Never mind. I haven’t been to the grocery.”

“There’re beans and a grinder in the kitchen downstairs. I’ll unlock the door for you.”

“Let me get my shoes first.”

Her shoes weren’t all. She slipped on a bra. When she came out, he’d found Oinky, and he held it up. “Exactly what school has a pig for a mascot?”

“Community college. Farm country.”

“Ah.” He flicked the pig to her with a short underhand spiral that she doubted he expected her to catch. But she did.

She relished her small victory as he led her down the back stairs. Instead of turning toward the club’s kitchen at the bottom, he opened the door into the alley. “Hold on a minute, will you?” He stepped outside.

She peered out and saw that the wind from last night’s storm had strewn some sodden liquor cartons across the alley’s cracked pavement and in its muddy craters. Graham wasn’t happy. “This was supposed to have been cleaned up already.” He grabbed a soggy box and tossed it in the Dumpster, then snatched up another. She gave him points for being willing to do the dirty work himself and went out to help.

As she gingerly pulled a waterlogged carton from a filthy puddle, she saw Jada coming down the alley. The grocery bag in her arms suggested she had responsibilities a lot of kids her age didn’t. Jada waved and Piper waved back, then turned to pick up more sodden cardboard.

A teenage boy popped out from around the corner, Nerf gun in hand.

Piper stiffened, then spun around, calling out Jada’s name.

Jada reached for the Nerf protruding from her jacket pocket, but the bag she was carrying got in her way. Her teenage assassin braced his gun hand like a TV cop. The girl was going to die. But not on Piper’s watch.

She lunged forward and shoved the first thing she touched directly into the path of the bullet.

Cooper Graham.