Next afternoon, Agostini stepped again onto the spiral steps and down into the enfolding darkness of Hotsteppa’s. He wondered whether old man Grace had told his daughter and the staff the news. Did any of them know about the change in all their circumstances? He doubted it.
The old boy was said to have been something of a tough guy in the past. Quite an operator. All of the edges were blunted and smoothed off the man Agostini had met with the night before.
Callaghan and Calhoun followed him down and he was surprised to see Grace’s daughter waiting, watching the bottom of the stairs as he came into the club.
She looked at him like she was waiting for him to say something, although he didn’t have anything to say to her. Maybe her father really had told her about the deal, though Agostini still doubted it.
Whatever Tobin Grace had been in the past, Pierce judged that now he would rather hide from a problem behind a hand of cards or at the bottom of a glass than confront it.
He looked again at the girl. The artsy waif look suited her, with her dark hair up, black leather jacket, a floral print dress and a pair of work boots. Strangely, it was even more attractive to him than the sexy, all-black Maitresse style that she wore to work the night before.
Calling a child “Princess” wouldn’t do them any favors. Her pinkish moon face was like a map of the reasons—puffy, immature and resentful, defensive without cause, and her defiant stare bordered on entitled. Beautiful, like a teenage heiress from an Italian Renaissance painting. She continued to stare at him, but he paid her no further attention.
Calhoun and Callaghan waited at the bottom of the steps. Pierce planted himself in the middle of the club and cast a salesman’s eye over the furniture and the fittings. What he needed was clear in his mind, but he wanted to achieve it as efficiently as possible.
Spending money to remodel the place wouldn’t be a problem. He stood to make enough on the deal, but he didn’t have time to waste, so the work and effort would have to be planned carefully. He had only a little over a week to get this place to how he needed it. Whatever he set out to do, it would best be done with minimum work and expense.
He strode around the showroom, knocked his heavy knuckles on walls to find where they were solid and where they were just stud partition. He peered and squinted, tapped and poked around. He looked under all of the tables. He thought hard about whether he could stand to leave the bar where it was when it took space that he wanted for the VIP area.
The girl stood by the bar and watched him. He looked her slowly up and down. He’d remembered her from the night before, and she was definitely one of the club’s assets. Wall Street bankers were difficult to deal with at the best of times, and were even more challenging for a young woman.
Wall Street wasn’t somewhere women were treated as equal to men. On that score, it was still about halfway through the nineteenth century. Considering how high-powered and senior most of the club’s customers were, Agostini had been impressed with the way she dealt with them.
That, he told himself, was the reason his thoughts kept turning over the picture of her looking back at him with her full lips about to part.
She fidgeted as he looked at her. He must have been staring, the way that he had been at the rest of the fixtures and fittings.
Tobin Grace shuffled out from his little office, his inner sanctum, scratching his head and rubbing his eyes. He stopped short when he saw Agostini. Stared like he might still be dreaming. Agostini thought that the old guy was losing it.
He looked at Agostini again, then at Princess. He started talking in a rush. “Princess, did you meet Mr. Agostini? He was here last night. I don’t know whether you saw him or not. Look, sweetheart, here’s the thing: Mr. Agostini and I have come to an arrangement. That is, Mr. Agostini has kindly…”
Agostini couldn’t stand much more of that. He cut across the old man and told Princess, “I’ve taken over the club. It’s mine now, all of it. The staff all work for me now, so that will include you.”
Almost like a reflex she said, “I’m not working for you.”
Evenly, Agostini told her, “As of last night, Ms. Grace, all of the staff work for me.”
“But I don’t get paid.” She stuck out her chin. And her chest. He got a rise out of that.
“Then may I tell you without reservation that, whatever may come to light in your performance reviews, your contribution is very cost-effective and your work represents great value for money. I only wish that Hotsteppa’s had more employees like you.”
“No.” She almost stamped her foot. With a little color in her cheeks and a spark in her eye, she was suddenly way more attractive. “I am not going to work for you. Not at any price, and certainly not for free.”
“You would if your daddy said you had to, though, right?”
“Well…” Her brow wrinkled while her eyes narrowed and danced uncertainly from Agostini to Grace and back again.
“So,” Agostini snapped at Tobin, “tell her.”
He began to mumble, “Princess, sweetheart, it’s just the way forward—at least for now. We’ll need to work with Mr. Agostini…”
Agostini cut him off again. “Okay, Princess? You got it?”
“No. Daddy, tell him.”
Agostini had had enough. He said, “Yes, Daddy, tell the nasty man that even though you owe money all over town and you’re so far underwater the bubbles have stopped, that you’ve got some magic beans concealed about your person that are just going to turn all of your creditors into happy cherubs and butterflies.”
He waited. “No? Okay, then. Listen up, both of you.” He looked hard from the girl to her father and back. “I’m your knight in shining armor. All the games and syndicates and the suppliers that the club owes, and that you personally owe money to, are all going to be happy and quiet and keep on supplying you, and they aren’t even going to break your head, not even a little bit, and all that you have to do is to let someone who understands business take charge—namely me—and give up on the illusion that this club belongs to you, when for the past year at least, it has been wholly owned by Affiliated Catering Supplies, Liq-R 2 Go, the landlord, and, most of all, Fat Tony.”