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“I need to know.” I walk up to her and turn off the light, leading her out into the night air. “I need to know what I’m up against. I’ve got a gun shipment I need to sort tonight, and you’re here because I need your help. Like I said earlier, I need to find out more about the clients of the shipping company.”
“Not here.”
“There are rumors, Red. I need to check them out. That man was following us,” I say, lying. “So I really would love to know what your father’s into.”
“Nothing.”
“I don’t believe that, Scarlett.”
“You could ask them,” she says. “My dad and uncle.”
“I could, but they won’t tell me, even though we’re selling them ‘us’ as a real thing. I need an insider to help me. I need you.”
“But…” She looks around and I take her arm. “Malone, this isn’t anywhere they work from. This doesn’t even look that active.”
“How do you explain your little discovery?”
“Repurposed—”
“Scarlett.” I stop and pull her right up against me because I need to, because I can’t help it. “We’ll talk later, but I think your father’s up to his ears in highly illegal shit.”
“He—”
“Maybe,” I say, pushing the words out, ignoring the bitter taste, because they stick into me as I do so. Mainly since they’re total bullshit. “He doesn’t know it.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Play the dumb girl who’s enamored by my dick. My sweet fiancée in a room of animals. Watch and listen. Let me know if anything sets off your instincts, or if you hear anything suspicious.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Good girl.” I kiss her soft and long and deep. “Let’s go play poker.”
SIXTEEN
scarlett
The next warehouse we go to is set back from the water across the street in an area of cement buildings that reminds me of old school Greenpoint, the parts we’d run through on the way to the cool spots, the wine bars, microbreweries, and yoga studios that sit between Greenpoint Avenue and the water.
This place looks empty until a slender man steps outside, the open door revealing music and laughter in the depths of the place.
He checks something Malone hands him, and then we enter another world.
It’s dark with low lights and comfortable seating, and yet everything from the bar to the fake leather chairs to the tables to the rugs all seem like they were put here just for tonight.
Staged.
Or maybe it’s just me, because what the hell?
How is there a swank, underground place here in nowhere Brooklyn?
This isn’t working class, Polish Greenpoint, Bushwick, or even Sheepshead Bay. This is quiet, with apartments off beyond the warehouses, and no shops or buses or loud noises that come with a bar or restaurant.
The area is a work and residential place. That’s it. Nothing pretty or special. Just out of the way, lonely.
It’s loud inside, yet outside…
This can’t be a pop-up, either. It’s soundproofed, and maybe they change what happens in here on a day-to-day basis, but as I look around, I think it might be some illegal place that’s off the radar.
