While Teddy Sinatra was on the east coast in Philly, waking up from a bad dream at three am, Nikki Tarver was on the west coast, at midnight west coast time, inside a Beverly Hills hotel bar she once managed, mixing a bad drink her boss called the Overdrive.  Get them drunk enough to want a woman, was that drink’s sole purpose.

It was that end of the business, the getting-them-drunk-so-they-would-want-a-woman part, where her boss made his real money.  It was that end of the business that Nikki made it her business to have nothing to do with.  Even when she was bar manager.  Especially now that she was just the bartender.  But when the customer asked for an Overdrive, it was her job to mix that drink, and to give it to him.

“It’s the kind of drink that always, and I mean always, gets me in the mood,” the already half-drunk customer said as he sat at the bar.  “Why is that always the case, Nikki?”

“Because that’s what certain drinks are designed to do,” responded Nikki honestly.  Then she stopped shaking the cocktail, removed the top, and was about to pour it in his glass.  “Sure you want this?”

“Yeah, I want it!” The customer wasn’t even hesitant.  “I’ve had the Overdrive before.  It’s the best drink in this whole gotdamn bar!”

The man sitting beside him, a guy Nikki knew as Rick, smiled and sipped his own drink.  “Give it to him,” he said.  “Then after that woman he’s going to want so badly takes him for all he’s worth, he’ll wake his butt up.”

But the near-drunk dismissed Rick.  “What do you know?  You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I know why they call them hookers.  They hook fools like you.  Give it to him, Nikki.  Give it to him.  His hook is waiting.”

Nikki didn’t respond to that.  What her boss was doing was illegal as hell, and Rick was right: it was a prostitution ring.  She knew it and Rick knew it, too.  But she wasn’t about to verbally confirm it.  She did her job, and she poured his drink.    

The half-drunk customer took one sip, and then another sip, and then he smiled.  “Sing for us, Nikki,” he said.

Rick laughed.  “And it begins.”

“Sing for me, Nikki,” the customer asked again.

But Nikki was already shaking her head.  “Not on your life, buddy,” she said, as she wiped down the counter.

“But you can sing, right?”

“Wrong.”

“You can’t sing?  What big black girl can’t sing?”

Unoffended, Nikki smiled.  “This big black girl,” she said.

“Actually, she’s not what you would call big,” Rick said to his bar mate.  “Big implies fat.  Nikki’s not fat.  Nikki’s what you call full-figured.  Voluptuous.  Curvaceous.  Names like that.  Right, Nikki?”

“Whatever you wanna call me, Rick.”

“Nikki!”

Nikki knew that voice.  And she went momentarily still.  That was Pablo’s voice, and he was none too happy.  As usual.

“Excuse me, guys,” Nikki said with a smile, but that smile was gone by the time she walked over to the opposite end of the bar, where her boss, Pablo Sands, was leaning over the counter.  “What’s up, Pab?” she asked him.

“Two guys from the Dodgers, and I’m not talking benchwarmers either, saw you earlier tonight.”

“So?”

“So, they’ve invited you upstairs.”

Not again, Nikki thought.  “What for?”  She was playing dumb.

“What do you mean what for?  To talk to you.  To get to know you.  What the fuck difference does that make?  Get up there.  It’s Room 1747.”

“No thanks, Pab.”

Pablo couldn’t believe it.  “No thanks?  Are you out of your mind?  You don’t get to tell me no thanks!”

Some patrons glanced at them, causing Pablo to lower his voice.  “I demoted your ass for this very same reason.  You would still be bar manager today if you didn’t keep pulling this shit.”

“You hired me as bar manager because I wouldn’t sleep around with the customers.  You told me so yourself.  You said because your bar is located in a swanky hotel, all of your other managers fell in love with some rich guy passing through, and then they left you.  You knew that wouldn’t happen to me.  That’s what you said.”

“Because I figured no rich guy would want your ass,” Pablo said bluntly.  “That’s why I said it!  How was I to know there were that many men in Beverly Hills who wanted their women with meat on their bones?  I’m from Malibu.  We don’t play that shit!  But every time I turn around, another rich fucker wants to fuck you.”  He lowered his voice again, and he leaned closer.  “You’re messing with my bread and butter, Nikki.  You’ve got to go up there.”

But Nikki’s eyes were hard and sincere.  “I’m not going,” she said.  “You hired me to leave those guys alone, and that’s what I do.”

“I hired you because I figured those guys didn’t want you.  You know why I hired you!  Don’t twist that shit around.  I didn’t think it was a Beverly Hills thing.  But it is.  They like women who look like you.”  Pablo couldn’t hide his confusion.  “It’s a fad, probably.”

Nikki couldn’t believe it.  Her body type was a fad to this idiot!

“Get up there, Nikki,” Pablo said.

“I told you I’m not doing that, Pab.  I’m not doing that.”

“What if I said you don’t have a choice?”

“What if I said I do?”

Pablo knew when Nikki wasn’t kidding.  Her eyes showed that spark of outrage that he used to see in her old man’s eyes.  And he knew she would not be persuaded.  He angrily hit his palm on the bar counter, causing a few others to look their way, but he left the bar area in search of, Nikki presumed, another unfortunate female to sacrifice on the altar of the rich and famous.

 “Eh, Nikki,” Rick said.  “Hit me again, will you?”  And he held out his empty glass to her.

Nikki made her way back toward him.  “Sure you don’t want an Overdrive, Rick?” she asked jokingly, causing him to laugh.  She smiled and hid her pain, as she took his empty glass and then headed for the pumps.  She still had a job to do.

But she knew Pablo.  He used to work for her father: that was another reason why he hired her.  And she knew he was going to take her bullshit just so long.

Her days at that bar, nobody had to tell her, were numbered.