“Well, first, I’ll enter his office, then I’ll sit down on a chair. If he offers me a drink, I’ll decline—”
“Raven.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going to ask him to pay what he owes,” she said, “and if he doesn’t comply… I’ll threaten him.”
“Fuck it. I’m coming with you.”
“I’m not clueless, you know?” she said, her eyebrows slanted in annoyance.
“I know that,” he said firmly, hating to have offended her. “I’m not doubting your capabilities, but you don’t understand the politics of Cedar Lake. The Crawleys are pandered to because they can make our lives hell.”
Raven searched his face for a second then said, “Fine, you can tag along.”
So at the end of the day, instead of heading to his truck, Silas got into the passenger seat of Raven’s car.
“There’s still time to change your mind,” he said as he lurched his seat as far back as it would go to give himself more leg room.
“Nope. We’re doing this,” she said, already reversing out of her spot.
The GPS droned on instructions, and Silas said, “I want you to prepare for this to be a waste of your time.”
“Have a little faith. Positive thoughts,” she said.
“I know all about positive thinking, but I also like some reality.”
“Okay, I once went to this really exclusive club in Miami. The type where if you’re not rich or a celebrity, you can’t get in. But my friend and I were like, let’s give it a shot. Who the fuck knows.”
Silas wondered where the hell the story was heading, but he could envision Raven all done up for the club, in a short dress and heels like the different pairs she sometimes wore to work.
“We stood in line,” Raven continued, “waiting for like forty minutes, and—”
“Hold up,” Silas said. “You waited in line for a club you didn’t think you’d get into?”
They’d have to be serving free liquor and possibly have an onsite tax accountant for him to consider it.
“Yes, but let me finish,” she said. “When we got to the front of the line with our best smiles, IDs, and a plea for admission, the bouncer let us in with literally no questions. He just lifted the velvet rope.”
“And the moral of the story is that it can’t hurt to try,” he said.
“No, the moral of the story is when people think you’re important or someone they’re supposed to respect, they tend to.”
“I’m lost. How is that the moral?”
“Because before we reached the bouncer, this gorgeous woman and her boyfriend show up, and as they’re heading to the front of the line, she drops her liquid lipstick. I see it happen, I pick it up and return it to her, and you’ll never guess who she turned out to be…”
Silas sat in dead silence for a few seconds before realizing Raven was pausing for dramatic effect.
“Christ. Who was she, Raven?”
“This celebrity interior designer I only knew because I was working with a realtor at that time who used the designer’s book as coffee table decor in her office. I later found out she was dating a Miami Dolphins quarterback. Who also ended up cheating on her with—”
“Is there a point to this story?”
“I’m getting there,” she said, lifting her finger to silence him. “We had a brief conversation—like no more than a minute—but it was enough for the bouncer to assume we were acquaintances, that I was somebody.”
“And because of that, he let you in,” he said.
She nodded. “He let me in.”
