Page 31 of Gilded Fake

“Where’s the strip club?” I yell. I know how to cause a scene, how to damage her establishment in seconds. I have that power. Even though only a couple tables are occupied, it’s enough. This is a small town, and people talk.

A few people glance our way, and Scarlet shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re on about, honey, but this is an eating establishment.”

“I just saw a stripper run out of here, so tell me where she came from, or so help me god, I will destroy you and your family and this diner and everything you’ve worked for.”

She must see how serious I am, how dangerous, because she sighs and nods toward the hallway toward the bathrooms. “Come on, I’ll show you in.”

She turns and walks away, and I follow. I’ll take down her stupid little diner that Colt took me to like a consolation prize right along with the strip club. She deserves it.

She opens an unmarked door and steps into a messy little office.

“Not your office,” I snap. “I may look young, but I’m not stupid. I’m used to being underestimated. You’re not going to intimidate me with lectures about how to behave in your diner or win my sympathy with some sob story about how you’re a single mother and it’s the only thing that keeps a roof over your family’s head. I don’t care. I know you’re covering for whatever brothel is operating out of the back room.”

Scarlet’s usual smile and southern hospitality drop away, and she looks at me with eyes as hard and smooth as sea glass. “Keep running your mouth, and then tell me again how you’re not stupid.”

“Don’t mess with me,” I say. “I’m in no mood. Just show me what you’re hiding. If you don’t, I have connections, and they can come down here and see for themselves. I’ve been on Local News with Jackie. I can go to her and blow this whole thing up to the media, and you’ll be shut down like that.” I snap my fingers, glaring at her so she knows I mean business. “Faulkner prides itself on its small-town charm. They won’t let something as seedy as a strip joint damage their reputation.”

“You been on with Jackie and them?” she asks. “I thought I recognized you. You were interviewed about some kid exposing himself at school, right?”

I nod, pleased that my fame precedes me, though I’m still wary, since I’m not sure if that’s enough to intimidate her. She looks a little amused.

“And I’ll go on about you being a madam too,” I threaten. “Unless you take me back there so I can deal with them directly.”

“Oh honey,” she says, giving me a pitying look. “You sure you want to do that?”

“Let me in, or you’ll be sorry,” I growl, not liking her tone one bit.

“It’s just through there,” she says, gesturing to another door.

“I don’t hear any music,” I point out.

She goes to the door and knocks three times before opening it and gesturing for me to go in. “This is the man you want to talk to.”

I hesitate, but this seems to be as far as Scarlet goes, the end of her sad little domain. It makes sense. She probably just gets a little kickback for hiding the real operation. I don’t know anyone on this side of town except Colt’s tattoo artist, and that’s against my will, but I’m perceptive. I get the sense that Scarlet’s life is empty aside from this place that stinks of fryer oil and pancake syrup, that after work she goes home to a run-down trailer alone, puts her feet up, and chain smokes cigarettes while watching true crime shows. The ring on her finger is undoubtedly a fake diamond she bought herself at Wal-Mart to fool people into thinking a man could want her even with a face like that. But she’s not fooling me.

I step inside a room that’s so white it’s jarring after the messy office and even the cheerful diner with its checkered tablecloths and jukebox and old-fashioned soda glasses. A man sits at a glass desk, waiting for me. He looks exactly how I’d picture the owner of a place like this, like a cross between a thinner, hotter version of Tony Dolce and Giancarlo Esposito. I’m reassured by the knowledge that I’m go good at predicting people.

The man watches me with expectant, predatory eyes, his face set in emotionless, marble lines.

“What can I do for you?” he asks in a voice tinged with a Latino accent, not moving a centimeter. You’d think the guy would stand to shake hands when someone important comes in, but then, he doesn’t know just how powerful I am.

Yet.

“You can ban my husband from ever setting foot in here again,” I say. “The diner too. Or, you can say goodbye to your little operation when I go to the news and expose y’all. I have a very popular blog and an account on The Tea with more than a million followers. I can have y’all shut down by midnight.”

“Those are my only options?” he asks, rubbing his hand over the bottom of his face as he thinks. The back of his hand is inked with the lower half of a skull that fits perfectly over his, so he’s staring at me with those calculating, cold eyes above a dead man’s eternal grin.

I shiver.

Then I pull out my phone. No one who runs a place where slathering losers who can’t get laid stick dollar bills in junkies’ ass cracks is going intimidate me. “Yes,” I say, raising my chin. “So what’s it going to be?”

“Go on then,” he says, nodding to my hand. “Shut us down.”

I open my phone, only to see I have no service. My gaze flies to his. “Why don’t I have a signal? We’re in the middle of town. What did you do to my phone?”

“Your phone is functioning as it should,” he assures me, making a circular gesture with one finger pointed toward the ceiling. “As is this room.”

“You have signal-blocking technology?” I ask incredulously as I tap through my phone settings, unable to believe some shitty little backroom pimp on the trashy side of town has that kind of capability.

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