Blackbird 04 - Cross Your Heart and Hope to Die by Nancy Martin

Author:Nancy Martin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780451215321
Publisher: Signet
Published: 2010-01-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The club was called Beddy-Bye, but I didn’t understand the name until we stepped inside and confronted an enormous round bed covered with dozens of satin pillows and draped with overlapping curtains as if to make things private for Scheherazade or a pair of honeymooners who missed the bus to the Poconos.

Two giggling young women sprawled on the coverlet, simultaneously trying to sip their umbrella drinks and keep their skirts pulled down on their thighs. A handful of male patrons hung around the bed, holding their beers and working up the courage to join them.

Emma and I skirted the bed and went into the main room of the club. The place was dark and air-conditioned to the temperature of a meat locker. Despite the frigid air, the dress code was nearly naked for the women, whereas most of the men seemed to send the message that they would grab their skateboards any minute to do some rad grinding. Backward baseball caps, low-slung shorts and T-shirts proclaiming various Caribbean islands was the wardrobe of choice.

“It’s the dead of winter,” I said to Emma as we inched our way through the mob. “Isn’t anybody freezing?”

“Okay,” said my sister, “so this isn’t your usual crowd. Nobody’s drinking Cosmopolitans or talking about their ski trips to Jackson Hole. You want to talk to Hemorrhoid, you gotta get a different mind-set going.”

Monstrously loud music from the dance floor made my solar plexus vibrate. It was turntable music—half rap, half static. Neon tubes glowed at floor level, but otherwise the space was dimly lit. I could make out a hundred people or so, all animated, some dancing. Mostly young. All draped around each other as if sex had just been invented.

Emma knew her way around, and in the doorway that separated one demographic from the next, she slid past a nodding doorman and into a new group of patrons. A tight knot of young men in Zegna suits and Hermès ties all slugged shooters and looked shiny-faced. A couple of women were with them, but they hovered on the edge of the group, holding martini glasses and smiling uncertainly.

The second room was clearly VIP territory.

Luxurious beds lined the entire room, each one occupied by a group too large for the space, so people were reclining against each other and swooning to the music—R & B this time. Waiters in black silk shirts swiftly carried trays of glassware as if making offerings to impatient deities.

Emma headed to the bar, which was tended by a busy man with a crew cut who seemed capable of concocting drinks quicker than a juggler.

“Robin,” she said.

The bartender stopped pouring and shaking long enough to stretch across the bar to kiss her cheek. He had arms like a heavyweight boxer. “If it isn’t the lovely and elusive Emma Blackbird.” His accent was distinctly British, and his well-worn MANCHESTER UNITED T-shirt gave him away, too. “Let me guess. You checked yourself out already?”

She laughed. “A caged bird doesn’t sing, Rob. You know that.

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