I didn’t have much time to wonder why he was meeting with Onyx. He’d granted me a few seconds of his time while he walked to his car, so I had to make the most of it. “Mr. Giordanno,” I said as we stepped onto the elevator. It was just the two of us. He pressed the button for the lobby. Club Diamante had its own exclusive set of elevators in the rear of the building. They stopped in the lobby and Club Diamante.

“You came to tell me you don’t have the money,” he said, cutting to the chase.

“I just want more time,” I said. “I’m good for it, but I need a couple more weeks to collect the funds.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, his voice sounding almost like a mafioso fuhgeddaboudit.

I stood there, staring at him. “What?”

He turned and looked me in the eye. “You can have an extension of six months, and I’ll even knock off all interest payments.”

I’d been worried he was going to send goons to break every bone in my body. This was too easy. Something was wrong.

“All is good, if you get Onyx to accept my job offer.”

“Onyx?” I said, my head instinctively turning toward the door, as if I could just see her where he’d left her a minute ago at the bar.

“Yes,” he said. “She has a particular expertise that I need. Her school is on break next week, and I need her to fly to India and do a job for me. If she does it, I’ll earn more than you would have paid me in interest, and I’m happy to give you an extension.  I’ll cover the expenses for the trip. You and she will fly to India, she’ll do this job and then you’ll fly back.”

The elevator dinged. The doors opened. Mr. Giordanno pressed the doors close button. “If you do not convince her to help me with this job, then I’ll expect the money you owe. Your gambling has spiraled, and a couple of my associates even think you have a death wish, some crazy desire to join your sister. I don’t know what you have. I really don’t care. All I care about is that you owe me one million smackers. You will have my eternal gratitude and plenty of time to acquire the cash, if you get Onyx on board with this.  Otherwise, you need to show up with one million in cash on Monday, here at the club. If you don’t, I will find you and you will wish death would come for you. But it won’t. The pain will just get worse with every passing moment that I don’t get my money. Capiche?”

His dark brown eyes were lightning terror. All I could do was nod.

“Good,” he said with a smile as he pushed the button to that opened the door, and stepped off the elevator.

* * *

TEACHERS WERE NEVER in the phone book. Something I loathed more at this moment than I had in high school when I wanted to prank call my awful chemistry teacher. So, then I did something I didn’t want to do. I sifted through my emails with Lily. Some of it was nice, a joyous memory that made me laugh, but the crash afterwards, the crash of realizing she was gone forever, still hurt more than seemed bearable.

I finally found the email I was looking for after the search results popped up several mentions of “Onyx” and “number” in emails Lily had sent me. She’d given me Onyx’s cell number in case hers wasn’t working. I hoped Onyx still had the same number. I couldn’t think of a reason why she’d want to change it, but with my luck lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if the phone had been stolen and she’d disconnected the number.

I picked up my phone, punched in her digits, pressed send and said a tiny prayer that she’d answer.

A few moments later, I got a lukewarm, “Hello.”

It was definitely her. Same voice as earlier this evening. “Hey, Onyx, this is Ryan Harper,” I said. Then, I tossed in “Lily’s brother,” as if she didn’t realize.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Umm, it was great running into you tonight,” I said, meaning it. “I found your number in an old email from Lily — um, when you were traveling and she said I could try your cell phone if I couldn’t reach hers and,” I was rambling and feeling a little unsure. I needed to move this along. “I was calling because I was hoping to talk to you. I wanted to meet with you for a bit. Maybe grab dinner?”

She didn’t respond immediately. I could just hear her breathing on the other end. Finally, she said. “Dinner? Like a date?”

A date. As she said it, I was overcome with warmth. It was perfect. She was pretty, a good person for sure, or Lily wouldn’t have liked her, and I imagined she’d be easy to date. Not like the high maintenance women I usually went out with. Demanding, cruel sometimes. No, Onyx would be easy going and adventurous, someone I could have fun with. But it wasn’t a date. I had to talk her into doing a job for Giordanno. “How about just dinner between two old friends. And there’s a specific issue I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Alright,” she said, her voice a bit crisp, as if she wasn’t very excited about it. But then her tone softened. “There is something I’d like to talk to you about, too.”

“Great,” I responded, probably with more enthusiasm than was appropriate. I pulled back a little and said with an easy-going tone, “I can pick you up. Just let me know where you live.”

“How about we just meet?” she suggested.

Picking her up must have been too much like a date, but ever since she’d said it, something about the idea latched onto my brain. “Sure. How about Club Diamante? Since we both know where it is. Say, dinner tomorrow at 7.”

“Sure,” she said, though not with a ton of enthusiasm.

“You want to go somewhere else?” I asked, wondering if she didn’t like the place. She seemed at home there, but maybe I’d misjudged her.

“No, the club is fine. I’ll see you then.”

“Alright. ‘Til tomorrow.”