Page 65 of Handful

That was in addition to the money he was handing out to the girls.

Tonight, he had his hand on Lex before I got to him.

I’ve got bouncers for the floor and a man on the door, and I still walk the room myself a hundred times a night — so I was already moving when it happened, already halfway across. Lex was at his table doing what Lex does, working him for the bottle and the tip, running the whole thing the way she runs everything. And his hand came up off the table and went where it had no business going, fingers spread, like he’d bought the right along with the champagne.

Lex’s face didn’t change. That was the worst of it. She’d been here six years and a hand on her wasn’t news. She just reached down and lifted his wrist off her like she was moving a coat off a chair, polite, professional, and that — the practice in it, the way she’d done it ten thousand times — was what damn near killed me.

“Renner.” I was at the booth. “On your feet. We’re done.”

He looked up at me, easy, the face of a man who’s never been told no anywhere he’s picking up the check. “We’re having a conversation, friend.”

“You’re leaving. There’s two ways it goes. You walk, or I walk you. Either way you’re in the lot in about a minute.”

“Do you have any idea,” he said, and I watched him reach for the number, “how much I spend in this place?”

“Yeah. To the dollar. Doesn’t matter.” I stepped back and gave him room to stand on his own, because a man with an audience will sometimes do the smart thing if you don’t make him lose face doing it. “You put a hand on her. In here, that’s the one thing you cannot do. I don’t care if you’re spending a hundred grand a year, you don’t get to buy that. You’re done. Permanent. Don’t come back.”

The room had gone quiet around us. He looked around, realized the audience wasn’t on his side, and stood up, straightening the suit like that put him back on top.

“I want my tab refunded.”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea who I am?” He buttoned the jacket, getting his feet back under him the only way men like him know how. “I can make a lot of trouble for a place like this. You can’t afford to lose me. I’m friends with the man who owns this place.”

I smiled at him. “I guess you haven’t heard. Place is under new management.”

That landed somewhere behind his eyes. “Then I’ll have a word with whoever owns this dump.”

“Venom Riders owns it.” I let him have a second with that. “And you just had your word. Out.”

I walked him to the door myself, a half step back and to the side. Never put a hand on him. You learn that running door. The guy you throw out clean stays thrown out. The guy you grab has a bruise to show people, a story where he’s the one it happened to, and a reason to come back and even it up. Renner got nothing off me but a walk to the parking lot.

Out in the lot he stopped at a black Maserati and turned around. “You just cost yourself a customer,” he said.

“Drive safe.”

“A real customer. You don’t throw out money like that and stay open.”

“Drive safe, Mr. Renner.”

He got in. I waited until the taillights were out of the lot before I went back inside.

Biggest tab in the building, gone on a Friday with payroll due Monday. I waited for that to bother me. It didn’t.

Lex was gone when I got back in.

❧

We closed at two. The prospects broke the floor down and stacked the chairs and cleared out, the girls went to their cars in a group out the back, and I watched the cameras till the lot was down to my bike and one other car. When I came back through, Lex was still there, sitting at the end of the bar in her coat with a rocks glass turned upside down in front of her.

“You’re still here.”

“I’m having a drink. You’re going to have one with me, and then I’m going to go home.” She righted the glass. “Sit down, Handful.”

I poured her a whiskey. Poured myself a soda water, because I don’t drink much anymore. She looked at the glass, then at me, and let it go.

“You barred Renner,” she said.