CHAPTER SIX
It was after midnight before I had a chance to even think about sitting down. I found that between the front door and stairs, with detours to load and unload the washing machine, I was flat out tired. The kitchen was quiet, with the staff who weren’t busy sprawled across the couches in the TV room, napping; and I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down on one of the stools. I hadn’t realized my feet were hurting until I sat down, and they began to tingle and burn, making me wiggle my toes. The kitchen was a mess, littered with used coffee cups and empty takeout food containers, and I should do something about cleaning it up and loading the dishwasher. In a minute. When my feet had recovered.
Selene poured herself a coffee and sat beside me at the counter. “How's it going?” she asked.
I nodded, “Busy. What about you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Busy! All of LA has decided to get laid at the same time."
“Is there a pattern?” I asked, pushing himself to his feet again and collecting up the coffee cups and stack them in the dishwasher.
Selene nodded. “On Thursday nights, they drive into this area to get out of LA. They may stay in the small town for the weekend, or some will head back before their families realize they're away. They come in droves.” She took a sip of coffee and continued, "Busy when we open with guys on their way home from work. Busy from eleven onwards as people finish drinking for the night. Busy at about two with lonely people are here on business and are tired of jerking off in their hotel rooms. Busy at four or thereabouts when the nightclubs turn out. Except for Friday and Saturday night when it’s plain busy.”
Someone cleared their throat, and both Selene and I jumped. I was grateful he was looking industrious when Eamon strolled into the room. “Good,” Eamon said. “I’d hate to think I was managing an unsuccessful brothel.”
Eamon loved to be the center of attention. As the women from the TV room began to filter in, Eamon began to tease them each in turn, asking each woman about her night, complimenting her on her make-up or dress, regaling them all with anecdotes from his past, when he had run an exclusive brothel in London. I sat down at the counter with a cup of coffee, watching everything unfold from the sidelines. Empty egg roll cartons filled the room. The place looked like a pigsty. The women stood and sat around the room, much quieter than I had seen them before.
I was intrigued. Eamon knew about timing and delivery, he had a theatrical presence to him only actors and attorneys seemed to have. I began to wonder, which Eamon had been in the past. I could see him as the elderly raconteur as a Shakespearean actor, with booming projection in his voice. Or, perhaps, as a bigwig prosecutor, striding around a court, charming and scaring the jury.
I was startled, and looked up at the doorway while Eamon was holding court. Across the room to where the doorway to the TV room was, stood Rod and Shane. They were hovering, listening in on Eamon from a distance. I slid around the back of the girls unnoticed, and leaned against the doorframe beside Rod.
“Why aren't the two of you in there next to Eamon?” I asked Rod.
Rod shook his head. “He can’t be seen flirting with us,” he whispered. “There’d be claims of favoritism.”
I nodded. It made sense.
Shane leaned across and whispered, “This place is political. Eamon knows we’ll be pilloried in here if the girls thought either of us was sleeping with Eamon.”
Watching the girls more, I saw what it might be like that. I knew about fag hags, and I knew how bitter film sets could get; I could see how the two would combine here.
Chloe was jockeying for the position at the table opposite Eamon, leaning forward to show her cleavage off. Yuki, the pretty young Japanese girl, was looking at Eamon from under her lowered eyelashes. Jen, sitting beside Eamon, was petting the sleeve of his jacket with her alarming, artificial talons.
And Eamon was playing along too, laughing at quips, handing out snippets of smiles, and I was reminded of a director I once knew who did the same, measuring out the time he spent with each actor with an invisible scale.
Shane said, “Try to stay off the girls’ radar if you can.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, the doorbell chimed for Club Jade, and I had to push my way around the back of the girls and answer it.
It was morning rush hour when I climbed into my car to head for home. I was dead tired now, and the sun was bright through the windshield. My feet ached, and my mind felt like it was full of lint. I went home, crawled into bed, and slept all day. It had been confusing and loud and then, at the end of the night, everyone sat around yawning as the night turned boring as the darkness subsided into the morning; but I loved it. I may not have a wife or a kid full-time, but I had what might be the most intriguing job ever.
***
The next afternoon, I had the day off. I was tired, but my body was adjusting to working nights. I ventured out to get a cup of coffee and to swing by to see my son.
Billy unwound himself from my neck and I let him drop back down, and he scooted off to his room to go and find his award from school to show me.
I looked at Daniela, leaning against the kitchen counter and said, “I’ve got a job.”
Daniela’s eyebrow shot up. “Good. What sort of role is it?”
I shook my head. “A job, not a role. You know: pays by the hour, I have to turn up and work.”
“A real job?” she asked, and there was enough disdain in her voice I was yet again glad they’d separated.
“Yeah, a real job. I work nights, but I get Friday and Saturday off, so I’ll still be able to have Billy every weekend.”
“What sort of job?” Daniela asked. “Something decent?”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. I’m receptionist and driver for a brothel.”
Daniela was still staring at me when Billy charged back into the room, waving the award he’d received at school that day, and I smirked at Daniela and turned my attention to Billy.