Asylum

Chapter 13: A Blast from Another Past

Stefano spoke first. "No problem, Ivan. Just a little mistake about some identification. I've got this handled."

Ivan was ignoring him, looking me right in the eyes. My manager, the gang of junior socialites, Shari, Chauncey, Mateo – whom I'd noticed had followed Ivan to the bar – and everyone else in that teaming pool of humanity receded from my view. I spoke much more calmly than I felt.

"These kids are underage and using fake IDs. They need to be escorted out of the club. Immediately and ... dramatically."

Ivan's lifted eyebrow was his only comment. I watched his beautiful face, not a curve or line of its sculpted stillness giving away the tumult of thoughts that must be warring behind it.

"Mateo ... " he said finally, his eyes still on me. The bodyguard pressed a finger to his ear and spoke into the microphone at his wrist, then moved toward the incredulous group at the bar.

"What the hell?" Hamilton shouted as the hulking guard began to shepherd them past an increasingly clued-in crowd. "You have no idea who ..." The boy seemed to realize the huge mistake of finishing that statement and tried to cut his losses. "Hey, our IDs ...!"

Ivan took the fake drivers' licenses from Stefano's hand and dropped them into the front pocket of his charcoal gray trousers without sparing the group a single look. I saw a pair of bouncers muscle up to join Mateo in escorting his young charges out the front door and into the hostile winter cold.

"With me," Ivan said quietly, and Stefano and I fell into a short, silent line behind him as he led us back to his office, Marshall materializing out of thin air to follow us.

We remained silent until the door was shut behind us, the grim-faced bodyguard standing watch outside.

"I think that was a mistake," Stefano began. Ivan leaned against the desk to listen, arms crossed, clearly not happy. "People come to clubs for a good time, and if we start turning away customers who are clearly connected, have money to burn, and have legitimate IDs, just because they look young ..." He left the rest of his though unvoiced, but it hung in the air like a heavy, comic-book word bubble. Both men turned to me.

"May I use your browser?" I asked with a gesture towards the desktop sleeping on the desk.

Ivan shot me a look that told me I had better be right, walked around the desk to the laptop, and with several Hollywood-rapid key strokes awakened the machine and entered what was obviously a mind-boggling password. He then pulled out the desk chair in a silent invitation, standing behind it with his long fingers resting on the back.

I slid around the desk and took the seat, every fiber of me aware of his presence. I forced myself to focus on the browser and typed a name into the Google bar. Stefano stepped next to Ivan to look at the screen.

There were several results to choose from, but I quickly selected the fifth one down – "Hamptons Streets Closed for Local Teen's Grad Bash."

"Hamilton Wyndham-Scott," Stefano read aloud. Ivan snorted almost inaudibly. I had to agree with his unvoiced comment – even his name marked "Ham" as a pretentious prick.

I clicked on the picture that accompanied the article, showing our recently ejected underaged patron grinning in a Hawaiian print shirt and a tasseled mortarboard, standing next to a heavyset older man who had his arm wrapped paternalistically around the new graduate's shoulders. I pointed a finger first at Hamilton's smug face, then at a familiar tall figure standing next to him in the picture, helpfully identified in the caption as Jackson Rutledge.

"This was taken at his high school graduation, which you can see was last June," I pointed out. I now had another reason to be glad that I'd skipped this party last year, despite Sophie's insistence that the Wyndham-Scotts were 'a good family' and that Hamilton had an older, unattached male cousin who was bound to be there; in addition to avoiding those cringy match-making efforts, I now didn't have to worry about my face appearing in any of these pictures. "I don't know for sure that the other kids with these two tonight were underage, but given that they definitely were, it seemed like a good bet."

"Shit," Stefano cursed. "Can I see those again?" he asked Ivan, his hand held out diffidently.

The club's owner pulled the IDs from his pocket and handed them to his manager. Stefano looked at them under the bright light of the desk lamp.

"These are the best fakes I've ever seen," he admitted, flipping a few of them over to look pointlessly at the backs. "How did you know?"

"I read the papers," I replied vaguely.

"Which are the reason this group had to be escorted out 'dramatically'," Ivan concluded, already a couple steps ahead.

I nodded, but noted Stefano's confused expression. With a couple of clicks, I backed up to the results page and pointed out the string of photos under the "images" link. Ham's shit-eating grin smiled out of dozens of photos of him leaving restaurants, exiting limos, partying with other wasted teens outside various nightclubs, and most tellingly as to his personality, making lewd gestures at the camera.

"Most of these photos aren't posed pictures or leaked selfies," I explained.

"Okay ..." Stefano still didn't see it.

"So who took the photographs?" Ivan prompted.

I practically saw the lightbulb flicker to life in my manager's brain. "Paparazzi," he said finally.

"Who may or may not be following that group around tonight, but if they are, we don't really want it reported in the society pages and blogs that a bunch of teenagers partied the night away and got falling down drunk at Asylum," I expounded. Not only potentially bad for business, I thought, but also ...

"Not something we'd want the Liquor Control Board or any other law-enforcement agencies looking into," Ivan finished my thought.

Exactly.

Stefano exhaled explosively. "Okay, I was wrong," he admitted. "Nice catch, Lex. I'll have a word with the guys at the door."

"I'll have a word with them," Ivan corrected him.

I found myself thinking once again how good Stefano was at his job. I picked up Hamilton's confiscated driver's license. "There's no way I would have known these were fake if I didn't recognize him," I said in what I hoped was a modest and mollifying way. I continued, "And I might not have even looked at him that closely if he wasn't being such a dick about my costume."

"What is the costume?" Ivan asked, neatly turning the conversation.

"It's from Blade Runner?" I hinted. "Daryl Hannah's character?"

"I never saw it," he shrugged.

I shared a look of affronted disbelief with Stefano. "It's like we work in a cultural wasteland."

"Since Ivan isn't from this country, I think he should get a pass," my manager said diplomatically.

Ivan was unfazed. "You two get back to work," he said quietly.

I pushed myself out of his seat and slipped past him, fighting an overwhelming urge to brush against him as I did. I followed Stefano to the door, but paused on my way out. Ivan was already seated in the chair I'd just vacated; I imagined him noting the heat of my body on the leather as he'd sat.

"You've really never seen Blade Runner?" I asked as I held the door open just a crack.

He smiled cryptically. "What do you think?"

I cocked my head and looked up at the ceiling, then left without another word.

The truth was, I had no idea what to think.