Page 84 of Spades

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MADDOX

What the fuck just happened?

Alissa went glassy eyed for a moment and then left in a huff.

She thinks something is going on here. Something dark.

Aces Underground certainly has some unspoken stories, but nothing that any other former speakeasy wouldn’t have.

She’s gotten worked up. People are watching serial killer documentaries all the time now, and everyone is paranoid, seeing things that aren’t there. How many conspiracy theories are floating around the internet these days? They rarely end up being true.

Harrison is the only person I’ve ever brought to this club, and he never asked too many questions. He was just happy to order drinks on my tab and flirt with whichever women I hadn’t chosen for myself.

Alissa is a woman. Maybe that’s the difference. Women tend to notice small details, ask the questions that are supposed to go unanswered.

But there are plenty of women who are members of Aces in their own right or come on the arms of their boyfriends or husbands. None of them, as far as I know, have peeked behind the curtain.

The official party line is that Rouge is doing the right thing. The people who work in this club are getting their chance to start a new life, live the American Dream.

Alissa is British. What does she know about the American Dream?

Actually, she’s kind of living it. She came here to get a music education and was able to turn on a dime and pursue nursing instead. She got a job at a great hospital downtown and can afford a nice apartment in a good part of town. And she gets to date me, which is a plus.

I’m living the American Dream, too. I built that shop from practically nothing. True, I made an arrangement with my father to get the building in my name, but everything else was at my own expense, and Dad was eating up half of my profits until the moment he dropped dead.

Good timing on the old bastard’s part. Things started really taking off once I could keep all the money I made.

I got his car too, so I was able to sell the old clunker I’d been driving since my sixteenth birthday for a little extra spending money as well. Now, over ten years later, I’m doing pretty well for a small business owner in his early thirties. I’ve even been able to start putting money away into a retirement fund—not that I ever want to stop running that shop.

Shouldn’t the scantily clad waiters and waitresses in this club be given the same chance?

Of course, if Rougereallycared about them, she’d simply sponsor their immigration without making them work for her for five years. She has the money—the Montroses are as well-established in Chicago as the Hathaways, if not more so. She could start a non-profit, raise a ton to help these people get their start here, and hire American citizens to staff her bar at an agreeable wage.

But this way, she makes more money in the long run.

Or does she? It’s got to be expensive to do all that traveling, paying for legal expenses to get everyone here on a green card. Plus she’s on the hook for housing and food and medical expenses for the next five years.

I scratch my head. It’s not adding up.

I don’t know all the details, of course, but something is nibbling at the back of my neck about it all—and it has been since Alissa started asking questions earlier.

Maybe Alissa is right. Maybe this thing goes deeper.

It could be a wild goose chase, but I love this woman, and I?—

Fuck.

I love this woman.

I really do.

It’s only been a few days, and she’s run out on me twice now, but some invisible force has tethered her to me.

But it can’t be.

I don’t fall in love with women at the drop of a hat. I learned this lesson after Laurie dumped my ass the day of my father’s funeral. After what happened when I first started coming to Aces. I learned to carefully guard my heart, never allowing a woman inside. Most of the women I took to bed were expendable—gone in the morning with a disposable cup of coffee, a kiss on the cheek, and a lying “I’ll call you.”

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