Page 57 of Tainted Princess
“Well, darlin’, what I do is keep your husband here in business. You see, there are a few things happening in this building that the NGC would have a problem with.” He watched me as I sipped my drink, licking the corner of my mouth when I set the glass back down. Jerry couldn’t look away, so I kept it up, moving my tongue out again to wet my lips as he watched, panting like a dog.
Men were incorrigible.
“So, you see,” he continued, speaking to me like I was five. “Your husband needs me to make sure that the Commission never finds out what goes on here. It’s why I am so valuable to him and others like him.”
“There are other places you provide these services for?” I asked, draining my glass and flipping it over. Both men watched as I reached in my pocket and withdrew one of the baggies. I didn’t recognize any of the pills inside, but Jerry sure did. His eyes lit up when I lifted the bag, one eyebrow raised in question, and he nodded enthusiastically.
Tipping the baggie out on to the bottom of my overturned glass, I picked up Enzo’s abandoned glass and began carefully crushing the pills, being sure to keep all the product on the glass and away from my fingers.
“There sure are,” Jerry continued. Now that there were drugs on the table, he didn’t even glance at my chest, which was just fine by me. “Several places in town, places owned by very important, very rich, people. They all know that I am the only one who can help them. The only one who can keep their doors open.”
“You sound like you’re the important one,” I said, putting as much awe and sweetness into my words as I could considering Jerry made me want to puke. Flipping the second glass over, I used the edge to create little crescents in the powder, dividing it up into somewhat even lines. “It sounds like most of the places in Las Vegas would be lost without you.”
“They sure would,” Jerry said, barely even paying attention to me anymore.
Enzo hadn’t said a word but appeared to finally be catching on to what I was doing, because suddenly in front of me, was a crisp fifty dollar bill. When I turned to my husband, he was staring at me, the look on his face somewhere between curiosity and annoyance, but he seemed content to continue to watch.
The music of the club was loud as the three of us sat in silence, the men watching me as I expertly rolled the fifty into a tube and then passed it into Jerry’s eager hands.
Not waiting a moment, Jerry snatched the glass from in front of me and dove down, inhaling deep as he slid the roll along the lines I had laid out. After he had consumed two in rapid succession, Jerry sat back, eyes closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“That is some good shit.”
Yes, I bet it was.
“Hey, Jerry?” I asked, waiting while he blinked a few times before finally focusing back on my face.
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“Considering how important you are to all the less than legal establishments in Las Vegas,” I said, leaning back in the booth, “how do you think the Nevada Gaming Commission will feel about your years of accepting bribes?”
Jerry frowned. “The fuck?” He turned his head to Enzo. “What the fuck is going on, Enzo? Who is this bitch?”
“I am exactly who he said I am. You, however, are a giant fraud, and you, Jerry are in a fuckload of trouble.”
“Look here, you bit—”
Enzo slammed his hand down on the table, causing the glasses to rattle. “You’ll watch how you speak to my wife, Lebowitz.”
My heart warmed, Enzo’s words sending tingles throughout my body, but that was not what I needed to be focusing on at the moment.
“Listen, Jerry,” I continued condescendingly, “I get it, you know? You work for years at some dead ass government job, putting in your nine to five. Shit medical. Shit pension. Probably don’t even have a window in your office. And for what? So that guys like Enzo can skirt the rules—the very rules you probably had a hand in writing—and get away with no consequences?” Jerry’s face was turning an alarming shade of red, but I was certain it had more to do with my words and less with whatever contaminated chemical he had just stuffed up his nose. “So, one day, someone asks you to look the other way. And it’s a rush, right? A total high and you don’t have to do anything, just take the money and sign the form. How bad is it, really? Who does it hurt?
“But then,” I said, smirking back at him, “suddenly, that’s not enough. Just being the guy to look away isn’t getting you hard anymore. It’s not daring enough. So you push it a little further. If breaking one rule feels good, what about another? So you take that money and you buy some coke, or maybe some Molly, just something to keep you feeling good, right? What’s the harm?”
Jerry’s fist curled on the table, his knuckles white, but I wasn’t finished. “Until that doesn’t feel good either, right? Your wife is bitching, your boss is nagging, and you just needsomething, something that’s just for you. So you get a hooker. A classy one, too, I bet. And she was good, wasn’t she? She let you do things to her your frumpy little wife would never allow and she never complained.”
The sweat trickling down Jerry’s temple shone in the flashing light and his throat wobbled as he swallowed thickly.
“Was she good, Jerry?” I asked, and his silence told me everything I needed to know. “She was! I can tell. I bet for the right price, she even let you put it in her butt, didn’t she?”
Enzo coughed beside me, but I didn’t look at him.
“So now what do you have? Years of sub-par service at a job you can’t stand, a wife who hates you, kids who won’t talk to you, a hooker who pretends to love you as long as you pay up, and a thousand dollar a week drug habit.
“Am I close, Jerry?”
“Fuck you, lady.”
