Rachel Caine - Fall of Night

‘I’ll go in, and Jesse can stay out here and guard the car,’ Pete offered. ‘Is this thing you’ve got heavy?’

‘A little,’ Claire said. ‘It’s not bad.’

Jesse patted Pete’s shoulder. ‘Let my man here carry it, he loves showing off his muscles for the ladies.’

‘Don’t be sexist. I flex for guys too.’

‘Yeah, but not with so much style .’ Jesse winked. ‘Go on, you. I’ll tackle the metre maid if necessary.’

Claire led Pete upstairs, pointed out the box, and Pete very happily (and super easily) picked it up and got it down the long flights without a problem. ‘So, you’re just moving in, right?’ he said. ‘New student?’

‘Does it show?’

‘Not as much as most. I don’t see a lot of kitten posters and boy bands on the walls up there.’

Claire almost laughed. ‘Not my style. Though if you know of any place I can get a sparkly unicorn poster …’

‘Ask Jesse,’ he said, and stood aside as she opened up the door. ‘She’s the sparkly unicorn fancier.’

He said it loudly enough that Claire figured it was bait for Jesse to respond, and the redhead probably normally would have done it, but she was standing very still, facing away. This time of year, and with the height of the buildings, the sky was a dusky blue, well into twilight, and Claire couldn’t see much farther than the other side of the street, so she couldn’t figure out what had attracted Jesse’s undivided attention.

Then a streetlight flickered on, shedding a cold pale light over concrete, a fireplug at the corner, some trash bags … and a man standing on the sidewalk, leaning against a wall, watching them.

‘Friend of yours?’ Jesse asked. She sounded calm and relaxed, still, but her body language said something different.

Claire couldn’t see his face, but the size looked right. ‘It’s probably Derrick. My roommate’s ex. He’s a stalker.’

‘Want us to go have a little chat?’ Jesse asked, and Claire realised with a start that she was serious about it. ‘Pete?’

‘Always up for a little heart-to-heart chat,’ he said, ‘but Anderson was pretty firm about this thing being a priority. So maybe we leave it for later, okay?’

Jesse hadn’t moved; Derrick had her attention fixed as if she’d been glued down in one direction. She finally sighed and turned her head to give Pete a disappointed look. ‘You take all the fun out of life, you know that?’ Pete shrugged, as if he lived with disappointment, and carried the box down the stairs to the car. Jesse stayed put, still attentive toward Derrick’s silent, still presence across the street, as Claire locked and rechecked the door. ‘Do you have an alarm in there?’

‘No,’ Claire said. ‘I told Liz we need to get one, but she doesn’t think we can afford it.’

‘Better broke than dead,’ Jesse said. ‘I can smell the crazy on that man from here. I have a nose for it.’ In the dim light, a passing car’s lights hit Jesse full in the face, and lit her up like a billboard. Her blue eyes were very, very bright, and for a second Claire had a Morganville déjà vu … but this was the real world, and Jesse was just a badass. Like Pete.

Maybe that was enough.

I was up to my elbows in hot water.

I don’t mean that figuratively. It was actual hot water, with suds, and I was washing bar glasses. My second full day in Cambridge, and I had a job – crappy as it was – at a place called Florey’s Bar & Grill, although the only thing I’d seen them grill so far had been some burgers and hot wings. It was the kind of place that offered up a food menu small enough to fit on a business card, and a nine-page drinks list.

So even though my official title was dishwasher, I was washing glasses. Every once in a while, there was a plate for variety. Maybe a fork. Not much else.

Like all industrial kitchens everywhere, it was humid, hot and a little nasty; the building was old and had probably seen various owners shilling drinks for at least a hundred years. The plumbing probably hadn’t been significantly upgraded in all that time. Hell, it probably had rats older than me, and maybe bigger, too. When I was done with the glasses – if that ever happened – I’d be expected to mop and scrub the place out.

A kitchen is run like an army; in fact, they call it a brigade system. The chef de cuisine (‘Yes, chef!’) is the general; his second-in-command is the sous chef ; and then there are chefs des parties , who are responsible for individual workstations. Somewhere way down at the bottom of that organisational chart is something called a plongeur – as in, dishwasher. That’s what I was doing. In a major restaurant there would be a bunch more positions, but all we had in this mini-brigade was the chef (‘Yes, chef!’) Roger, who had been in the navy and swore like a sailor, too, and then Bridget, who was his second and did everything else other than swear.

Yes, I knew the system. This was, obviously, not my first dishwashing gig.

Amazing thing was, what little they cooked was pretty great. I’d gotten hired to fetch, carry and clean, and since I had a valid state-issued ID, they were overjoyed (and surprised). Technically I couldn’t drink in a place like this, but I got free meals to make up for it. And Bridget was a cute, motherly type. I’d already made friends with the bouncer, Pete, a short, muscular type who casually mentioned that he powerlifted with an eye to making the Olympic team someday. Damn.

What worried me, though, was the bartender. Her name was Jesse, and she was a stunning knockout redhead in tight leather. I’m usually all in favour of that, from a purely scenic standpoint, but there was something about her that set off alarms – Morganville-type alarms. I’d convinced myself that I was being paranoid, but I found myself still wondering about her over the course of the two days I’d been working at Florey’s. Pete was one of those laconic types who didn’t say much about other people, but he’d finally given up that Jesse had drifted into town a few years back and was one hell of a good bartender; she knew how to cut people off when they had too much, and get them out the door without trouble, which in his opinion was ninety per cent of a good bartender’s job.

In other words, he didn’t much like to exert himself. I approved of this. A bouncer’s worth isn’t how much he flexes his muscles, but how rarely he has to. It’s the security guys who are always looking for a fight that cause trouble.

This is why I did not get hired to be a bouncer. I knew better than to apply.

I filled up the dishwasher – a big, industrial thing – again, and started it, and took care of the overflow, then did some clean-up and trash-taking-out before it was time for my dinner break. The sky outside was sliding toward twilight, and I stood out in the alley for a little while enjoying the cool air, so unlike Morganville’s dry desert wind, before the smell of garbage drove me back inside. Roger was swearing about something I didn’t bother to register, since it wasn’t glasses, plates, utensils, pots, pans or cleaning; Bridget was chopping celery, knife flying in a blur, but she spared me a wink and a grin as I signed out for dinner, took off my kitchen apron, and hung it up.

I went looking for Pete.

The bar was already starting to fill, even this early, with after-work happy hour people; the day bartender was still on duty. Jesse didn’t come on until seven, and it was still a quarter to six. Pete usually started his day early, with dinner, so I figured I’d sit down with him … but I spotted him on the other side of the doorway, heading into the street. I followed, intending to tap him on the shoulder and ask if he was free, but then I saw he was heading for a car that pulled smoothly in at the kerb. The passenger door opened, and I saw Jesse leaning over, all stark contrasts of black and white except for the fiery red sheen of her hair …