Chapter 2 - Across the Floor
The walk from Table 4 to the mahogany bar felt like miles, but it took less than thirty seconds.
The restaurant had gone entirely dead. The string quartet in the foyer had stopped playing halfway through a measure; the bartender was frozen mid-pour, bourbon dripping down the side of a jigger; and the real estate developer who had been laughing at David Sterling's jokes had suddenly found an intense, fascinating interest in the pattern of his dessert spoon.
David Sterling backed away from the bar until his lower back hit the brass footrail. His fingers twitched against his thigh.
"V-Vincent," David stammered, his voice cracking on the first syllable. Sweat was already beading along his hairline, cutting tracks through his expensive pomade. "I... I didn't see you there. We were just celebrating a minor closing, nothing—"
Vincent didn't answer right away. He stopped two feet from the bar.
Rory walked beside him, her small red sneakers squeaking softly against the polished hardwood floor. She didn't hide behind Vincent’s coat; she stood right beside his knee, her hands tucked deep into her hoodie pockets, glaring up at David with a look so chillingly similar to Vincent’s own expression that Marcus had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
"David," Vincent said, his voice level, quiet, and carrying the weight of an oncoming avalanche. "Do you know what today is?"
"It's... it's Thursday, Vinny," David whispered, his tongue darting out to wet his dry lips. "Look, whatever business you have with the supply chain—"
"It's not about the docks," Vincent interrupted. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the creased notebook paper, and laid it flat on the mahogany bar right beside David’s Porsche keys.
David looked down at the paper. His eyes darted across the handwritten columns, the dates, the double shifts, and the bold, angry notation at the bottom: 11 weeks unpaid. Total owed: $5,430.30.
"She... she's a cleaner," David spat out defensively, his panic momentarily overriding his terror as anger flared in his chest. "Part-time help! People like that, they always exaggerate their hours. They misplace receipts! You're interrupting a business meeting over a cleaning lady's dispute?"
Vincent didn't blink.
"She worked seventy-seven days without a single check," Vincent said. His voice dropped another register, vibrating in the hollow quiet of the dining room. "While you bought German engineering."
He reached out, picked up the heavy metal Porsche key fob by its ring, and dangled it between his thumb and forefinger.
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"Please," David choked out, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "It's a cash flow issue! The restaurant industry is tight right now! I can write a check on Monday—"
"You'll write it now," Vincent said. "And you'll add interest for every night Rory went to bed with purple stars on her mother's paper."
