She felt like she was floating above the clouds, singing along to Rihanna, smiling like an idiot, while Lorenzo was saying something to her. The room swam. She was finding it hard to separate his voice from everyone else’s, a cacophony of a thousand individual conversations, little snatches, layer upon layer upon layer, none of them making any sense. Her mouth was dry. She reached for her glass of Pellegrino, knocked it over. Smiled sheepishly. She just stared at the spill open-mouthed, amazed that the water glass hadn’t broken, gave Lorenzo a goofy smile, and he gave that spectacular smile back, his brown eyes soft and sexy. He reached over and dropped his napkin over the puddle to blot it up.
She said, “I think I need to go home.”
“I take you,” he said.
He tossed a bunch of twenties on the table, stood, reached for her hand. She tried to stand but it felt like her knees were hinged. He took her hand again, his other hand around her waist, half-lifted her up.
“My car…”
“You shouldn’t drive,” he said. “I drive you home. You can get your car back tomorrow.”
“But…”
“It’s not a problem. Come, Lucia.” He steered her through the crowd, his arms strong. People were staring at her, leering, laughter echoing, the lights streaky rainbow and glittery, like being underwater and looking up at the sky, everything so distant.
* * *
NOW SHE felt the pleasant clear coolness of the late-night air on her face.
Traffic noise, the bleat of car horns, smearing by.
She was lying down on the back seat of a strange car, her cheek pressed against the cold hard cracked leather. The car smelled like stale cigarette smoke and beer. A few beer bottles rolled around on the floor. A Jag, she was pretty sure, but old and skeezy and filthy inside. Definitely not what she imagined a guy like Lorenzo driving.
“Do you know how to get there?” she tried to say. But the words came out slurred.
She felt seasick, hoped she wasn’t going to vomit in the back seat of Lorenzo’s Jaguar. That would be nasty.
She wondered: How did he know where to go?
* * *
NOW SHE heard the car door open and close. The engine had been shut off. Why was he stopping so soon?
When she opened her eyes, she noticed it was dark. No streetlights. No traffic sounds, either. Her sluggish brain registered a faint, distant alarm. Was he leaving her here? Where were they? What was he doing?
Someone was walking toward the Jaguar. It was too dark to make out his face. A lean, powerful build, that was all she could see.
The door opened, and the light came on, illuminating the man’s face. Shaved head, piercing blue eyes, sharp jaw, unshaven. Handsome, until he smiled and showed brown rodent’s teeth.
“Come with me, please,” the new man said.
* * *
SHE AWOKE in the back seat of a big new SUV. An Escalade, maybe, or a Navigator.
Very warm in here, almost hot. A smell like cheap air freshener.
She looked at the back of the driver’s head. He had shaved black hair. On the back of his neck, a strange tattoo crawled up from beneath his sweatshirt. Her first thought was: angry eyes. A bird?
“What happened to Lorenzo?” she tried to say, but she wasn’t sure what came out.
“Just stretch out and have yourself a nice rest, Alexa,” the man said. He had an accent too, but harsher, more guttural.
That sounded like a good idea. She felt herself drifting off, but then her heart started to race, as if her body realized even before her mind did.
He knew her real name.
3.
“Here’s the thing,” the short guy said. “I always like to know who I’m doing business with.”
I nodded, smiled.
What a jerk.
If Short Man’s Disease were recognized by modern medicine as the serious syndrome it is, all the textbooks would use Philip Curtis’s picture, along with those of Mussolini, Stalin, Attila the Hun, and of course the patron saint of all miniature tyrants, Napoléon Bonaparte. Granted, I’m over six feet, but I know tall guys with Short Man’s Disease too.
Philip Curtis, as he called himself, was so small and compact that I was convinced I could pick him up in one hand and hurl him through my office window, and by now I was sorely tempted to. He was maybe an inch or two above five feet, shiny bald, and wore enormous black-framed glasses, which he probably thought made him look more imposing, instead of like a turtle