“You’re real fired-up about this, aren’t you?” said Alex.
“Damn right I am!” I said, as I slapped my glass down on the bar. “IfThe Blue Orchidcloses then where am I gonna go? What am I gonna do?”
“How are you gonna keep yourself in shoes and afford trips to the zoo, you mean?” said Ale.
“Ha ha.”
“You can work somewhere else,” said Alex. “But if an owner screws up…his career is over. No one wants to come eat at a crook’s restaurant, do they? Face it, Lola. I’m done.”
“It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!” I said. “What are they charging you with, anyway?”
“It’s a long story,” said Alex.
“So enlighten me, bigshot,” I said. “You think I’m not some kind of legal expert? Lola Ryder, Attorney-at-Law! Special Victims Unit.”
“You’re pretty funny,” said Alex.
“You could use some cheering up,” I said.
Alex paused, and looked out of the window. We were up so high that mostly the view from here was just darkness. “Someone,” he said, with a heavy sense of irony, “forged my birth certificate. My original, not the copies I used when I applied for liquor licenses. They think I’m…not who I say I am.”
“What? Not who you think you are?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“That’s hard. That’s devious,” I said. “If you can make someone doubt themselves, you can make them doubt the truth.”
“Yeah,” said Alex. “Yeah.” He peered at me as we leaned against the bar together. “You know, you’re kind of smart.”
“Kind of?” I frowned.
“Pretty smart.”
“Pretty?”
“You’re also pretty,” said Alex, chuckling. I hoped he didn’t notice how much I shivered with pleasure at that. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean…”
“It’s fine,” I grinned.
“Hey,” said Alex, finishing his drink. “You wanna see a better view than this one? I could show you the view from my living room.”
I felt uneasy at being invited back to his apartment, but I didn’t want to leave him alone. I knew that now Alex was facing fraud charges, there was no way I could tell him about Macy. Maybe when all this was over there would be time to talk.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Can’t we stay here? It’s probably far to go and I need to get home soon. I shouldn’t keep Sara waiting.”
“We’re in my building.”
“What?”
Alex gestured. “This is my local. This is my building.”
“What? Where do you live?”
“Top-floor penthouse. Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
***
“This is insane,” I whispered. “Completely insane.”
Alex and I stood at the window in his living room. It was enormous—the size of a house, quite literally, and just as tall—and was furnished like a palace, with gorgeous soft furniture. He had beautiful antique oak and mahogany sofas, chaise-lounges imported from Paris.
“I used to be a better host,” he said. “These days I keep myself to myself.”
“You gonna give me a tour?” I said.
“Come on,” he said. “You can go look around if you want.Mi casa es su casa.”
“But I might get lost,” I said flirtatiously. It was just a joke.
But kind of true.
Alex walked me through the rooms. Our first stop was the kitchen, a wide expanse of stainless steel benches and marble surfaces.
“This is kind of rad,” I said. “It looks like a restaurant.”
“I kind of prefer to do my own cooking. Unless I’m throwing a party. Then I can get six chefs in here.”
Then we took a tour of his library. It was piled high with books. On the shelves behind were books about computers, technology, programming. I could see that Alex didn’t read much for fun. But I did smile when I saw a few science-fiction books at the top of one of the shelf. They had names likeThe Thing From MarsandGalaxy War. They looked old, too. Had they been his teenage obsession? The floor and the tables were littered with legal volumes, some of which still had barely been unwrapped from their packaging.
“You’ve read all of this?” I said
“Hardly. But I try to read every day if I can. I’ve got a couple of rare ones, too.”
“Like what?”
Alex pointed over at a table with a few volumes encased in glass.
“To Kill a Mockingbird,” I said. “You like that one?”
“I read it in school. I used to read a lot in school, I guess. Not that it ever showed in my grades.”
“You should read this one again,” I said. I’d only ever seen the movie. “You know, it’s about an innocent man who gets let off because of this amazing lawyer?”
“It’s not a happy ending,” said Alex, mournfully.
He moved away. “So why’s this in here?” I frowned.
“Oh,” he said, coming back. “It’s signed by Harper Lee. First Edition.”
“Is that rare?”
“Not so rare. But—” Alex said, reaching under the table and pressing a button. The door on the glass case unlocked. “Take a look.”
I opened it up.
“To J.F.K. from Harper Lee.”
My eyes widened.
“That who I think it is?”
Alex nodded, and I gingerly put the book back where it was, patting it gently.
Then he showed me his guest room.
“Since when do you have guests?” I said.
“Not really ever,” he admitted. “But still. Imagine.”