The Deal

by Sarah J. Brooks

  Chapter 16

  THEO

  “Are you going to call her?” Kimberly asked me as we sat on the couch and watched some stupid reality show she wanted to see.

  We had been sitting there all night long, and I had been complaining about Abby going out with Aldo. It was all I could talk about, and I just couldn’t get her off my mind. There had been other women over the years, but none had been so hard for me to forget like Abby was. I regretted not telling her to say no to Aldo. I regretted it from the moment she had agreed to go out with him.

  “No, I’m not calling her. I didn’t call you when you went out with Aldo.”

  “You also didn’t want me as your girlfriend.”

  “How do you know I like Abby like that?”

  “Oh, come on Theo, I can see it in the way you look at her. You don’t want her to work for you.”

  Kimberly was right. I was 100% sure I didn’t want Abby to work for me. The problem was, I also was in unchartered waters because I had no idea how to deal with a woman who I wanted to have a real relationship with. I didn’t normally do relationships, and it was a pretty scary thing to consider. But I liked Abby; I liked her a lot and couldn’t wait to see what might come of our time together.

  “You know she thinks I’m a businessman. She had no idea about VIP Escorts.”

  “I know. You better tell her soon; the longer you keep it a secret, the bigger deal it's going to be.”

  “I can’t tell her. She’s going to run off, and I’ll never see her again. My plan is to get to know her and let her get to know me. That way, when I finally tell her, then she will know that there are many other sides to me. I’m not some hard ass escort pimp.”

  “You’re not a pimp and stop putting yourself down like that. You are a businessman and run a high-end business. Think of it more like executive dating.”

  We both laughed. I knew it was going to be hard to explain things to Abby and so did Kimberly. This business just wasn’t the kind of business that anyone could understand, although I had a feeling that Abby might be just fine with my work. The problem was, would she be alright with moving forward and getting to know me more if she knew what I really did for work? I wasn’t sure, but Kimberly was right; I needed to tell Abby right away. Hopefully, Aldo hadn’t already told her.

  When my phone rang, it was a welcome distraction from the torture of the reality show that was on the television.

  “Hey Aldo,” I said, disappointed that it wasn’t Abby.

  “You fucking told her? You know I hate that,” Aldo screamed into my ear.

  Aldo was pretty good at keeping his cool, so it always made me nervous when I heard him losing his temper. I was instantly on alert, but I had no idea what he was talking about. There was a little part of me that was excited though because it seemed like maybe Aldo’s date with Abby hadn’t gone all that well.

  “Aldo, what are you talking about?”

  “Abigail. Did you tell her I bought her as an escort for the night? Because that’s bullshit, and you know it. I made a deal with her and not you, and you shouldn’t have told her.”

  “What happened? I didn’t tell her anything. I like her Aldo; I wouldn’t jeopardize that by telling her you wanted to hire her as an escort. Although that’s clearly what you did.”

  “I should go to the police right now and give them a tip on you. It would destroy your whole life. You think you want to go straight; I guarantee you aren’t ready for that kind of reality.”

  Now I was scared. Aldo had the ability to totally destroy my life. He had the deepest darkest secrets about my business holdings, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. Aldo had given me the seed money, and I had naively given him control over the early stages of the company. It was a mistake that I would never fully be able to live down.

  “Aldo, it would destroy any chance I had with her. No, I didn’t tell her,” I said firmly.

  There was a long pause. The longer Aldo was silent, the more nervous I became. Aldo wasn’t the kind of guy who thought things through first and then made a plan. He liked to be decisive and swift; which meant he was often wrong. But Aldo didn’t care about being right or wrong, he simply wanted to take quick action on wrongs that he felt he could turn into rights.

  “I will go to the police if you make it so she doesn’t want to come see me again. I swear to God. And if I find out you told her I paid for her as an escort, I will also kill you. I didn’t buy her from you. I made a business proposition to her directly and don’t you dare take a cent of the money I gave her last night. I intend on calling her again and asking her to spend more time with me, don’t fuck this up,” Aldo said and then hung up the phone before I had a chance to reply.

  I had hoped there wasn’t going to be another time between Abby and him. It twisted my gut into a huge knot as I thought about him sleeping with her. Never had I been so completely insane with jealousy as I was at that moment imagining the two of them together. Aldo seemed a little stuck in somatics though, of course, I didn’t tell Abby that she was an escort, but that was pretty much what she had agreed to when she took Aldo’s money for a date.

  “Hey Abby, how was your night?” I said into her voicemail after dialing her number. “I just wanted to check in with you and see if you wanted to hang out with Jack and Isabella tomorrow. Give me a call or text when you get this,” I said and then hung up and went back to sit by Kimberly on the couch.

  “Aldo thinks I told Abby she was an escort for him and that I was going to take the money he gave her,” I said, staring at the television.

  “Why would he think that?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “She probably slept with him, and he thought she was doing it out of obligation because he was paying her,” Kimberly said without looking away from the television.

  “Shit! Do you really think that’s what it is? Fuck that sucks.”

  “Something like that probably. Maybe they didn’t actually fuck. Or maybe it’s something else entirely.”

  “Like what else? Why would he think I told her?”

  “Maybe you should tell her,” Kimberly said as she continued to watch her television show. “She’s going to get really pissed off when she finds out later.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck to do. Aldo will go to the police if I mess up whatever it is he has going with Abby now. I think I’ve lost my opportunity.”

  “Wow, you’re a pussy. What happened to that bad ass guy that I use to work for? You would seriously give up this easily?” Kimberly said, looking at me with disgust in her eyes. “Then you don’t deserve to get the girl.”

  I really didn’t know what had come over me. In a matter of days, I had gone from a totally in control man to someone who was second guessing every decision I made. It wasn’t like me at all, and I could only blame my enchantment with Abby for my changing thought process.

  “I don’t know. I liked the idea of getting out of the life and living happily with a wife and kids someday. I’d never really thought about it too much until she walked into my life.”

  “Here’s the deal, Theo. You need to get your affairs in order. All of us girls can manage our business without you. In fact, it’s better for us if we get to keep all of our money anyways. You need to stop worrying about everyone else and start taking care of your own life or you’re going to be fifty years old and still single.”

  Kimberly was right, and I knew it. The girls had their regular clients, and they didn’t need me anymore. But if I really wanted to hand off the business, I could always give it to Jack to deal with, although I wasn’t sure he could handle it on his own.

  Money was the big issue, though. My businesses were all barely surviving, and my escort business was keeping everything together. If I was going to really make a go of a new life, I needed to start saving money and not the little bit I had in investments. I needed to downsize, stop taking elaborate trips and live like a guy who had two legit
imate businesses. Perhaps I would even start showing up at those more often and working.

  Everything was getting twisted around, and I needed to get my brain straight. I had money, but not the kind of money that would keep me in a penthouse and keep a New York City restaurant and gym functioning. These weren’t changes I could make overnight, though, and none of them were going to help me with the situation that was going on with Abby. Aldo wanted her; I wasn’t exactly sure why he wanted her so badly, but I knew I couldn’t get in the way.

  As my phone rang, I looked and saw that it was Abby. I took a deep breath and answered.

  “Hey, Theo,” she said sweetly into the phone.

  “How was your thing with Aldo?” I asked and then held my breath as I waited for her answer.

  “I don’t know. It was alright, I guess. I’m glad it’s over, though. I’m not cut out for that scene.”

  “So it went well?” I said as I tried to figure out why Aldo was so pissed off.

  “Yeah, I think I helped him book a few movies and television shows for his studio. So hopefully, it was all worth it to him.”

  “Did you tell him you wanted to be an actress when you first came to New York?”

  Abby just laughed.

  “No, isn’t that assumed when young girls from Kansas come to New York, though,” she said as she continued to laugh.

  Nothing in what she was telling me made sense at all. I couldn’t figure out why Aldo had been so pissed off. From Abby’s account of the evening, it was all business and absolutely nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  “I guess so. Did you want to come hang out with me and Jack and Isabella tomorrow? I guess Jack and Isabella are inseparable now.”

  “Actually, yes I just got off the phone with Isabella. I’m heading over there first thing in the morning. Want to meet up later in the afternoon?”

  “Sounds good, I’ll see you then.”

  As I hung up with Abby, I still was totally clueless to what had happened between her and Aldo, and it wasn’t like I could start asking her a bunch of questions either. I had to hope that something would come up when we talked.

  But I needed to go work at my restaurant for a little bit, so I would just have to figure things out later. There were so many questions swirling through my head. Where did Abby spend the night last night? Had she stayed with Aldo? Did she sleep with him? I wanted to know all of the answers, but I couldn’t just come out and ask her.

  Instead of letting my driver take me to the restaurant, I decided to take the subway. It wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but I certainly could do it like any other New Yorker. I made some notes on my phone of things I needed to check on if I was going to try and separate myself from Aldo and from my escort business. It was going to be necessary to sever all ties with him quickly or he would certainly come after me. It would also be necessary to have as little blowback to Aldo as possible. If he didn’t have to deal with a monetary loss, then there wasn’t much he could be pissed off about. That meant I was going to have to come up with at least a million dollars to pay him off for the profits he would lose.

  Hard money loans weren’t like other loans that banks gave. Even though I had paid Aldo back his initial investment, Aldo continued to keep a piece of my business as a way of constantly earning money. There was no way around it, and I always paid him religiously each month. If I went out of business, that wasn’t good for Aldo because he would stop getting the $100,000 I gave him every month. I certainly couldn’t keep paying him even after I stopped running the escort business, but I had to give him a peace offering to ensure he wouldn’t try to kill me when he heard I wanted to get out of the business and was really going to do it.

  Aldo had heard me talk for the last two years about my plans to get out of the business. But my side companies just weren’t doing well enough. I knew he didn’t think I would ever truly give up the escort business.

  Aldo had given up most of his illegal businesses, but he still collected interest money from several dozen people each month. His legitimate businesses were also much more lucrative than mine were. Certainly losing my $100,000 a month wouldn’t leave Aldo destitute, but it would piss him off.

  “Shit, Mr. Stern, you’re here,” said the girl at the front door of my restaurant.

  “Yes, I am.”

  It was fun to see the surprise on her face and everyone else’s as I made my way through the restaurant to the back office. When I got there, the door was locked, which was something I had told the manager should never happen. One of the things I was very firm about was that staff should always feel willing to come to their superiors and discuss ideas and problems. I made it clear that I had an “Open Door” policy and expected everyone who worked for me to have the same policy.

  I knocked firmly on the door, and Philip answered. He looked disheveled, and I knew right away why he had the door locked. I pressed it opened and found one of our best waitresses in the process of getting dressed behind the door.

  “You are both fired,” I said firmly without raising my voice.

  “Mr. Stern, we didn’t mean nothing by it. We were just having some fun,” the waitress said in her defense.

  “Grab your things and leave.”

  By this time, the incident had drawn a crowd of workers, and I wasn’t about to let it draw out any further. I had a business to run and needed everyone to know that it should be running correctly whether I was in the building or not. Clearly, Philip having sex with a waitress while he was on the clock and getting paid by me wasn’t a good use of anyone’s resources.

  “Mr. Stern,” Philip tried to argue, but I cut him off.

  “Philip, I suggest you get out of here before I not only fire you but also charge you with theft. How many hours of time have you billed me for when you were actually busy fucking your staff?”

  That was all it took for Philip to shut up and grab his things to leave. The rest of the employees quickly went back to work, and I entered the office to see if I could figure out what to do next. Certainly, I couldn’t let them see just how clueless I was, but I had no idea at all how to run my own restaurant. This was likely a huge part of why the business wasn’t doing all that great, and I was determined to figure out what needed to be fixed.

  As I started to look at the schedule for the day, I knew I was going to have to call the assistant manager in and see if he could help me out. I didn’t know Scott very well and hadn’t hired him myself, but I hoped he was more disciplined than Philip had been.

  “Hey Scott, it’s Theo Stern from PalStyle,” I said, waiting for him to realize who I was.

  “Um, yes. Yes, sir,” Scott said with growing enthusiasm.

  “I’m not sure if you’re supposed to work today or not, but I just fired Philip and need some help. Could you come in?”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” Scott said and hung up the phone.

  It surprised me that he hung up on me, it also seemed unlikely that he could be there in five minutes. You couldn’t catch a cab and get to the restaurant in that kind of time. But sure enough, five minutes later, there was a young kid in an ill-fitted suit standing at my door. His blonde hair was messy, and it looked like he probably hadn’t showered or even brushed his teeth yet, but there he was.

  “Geeze kid, do you live in the basement or something?” I asked in surprise at how quickly he got there.

  “Actually, I live across the street. I figured since I was working eighty hours a week, it would give me the best chance of actually having a life when I wasn’t at work.”

  “Wait, why were you working eighty hours a week?”

  “Permission to speak freely?” Scott asked as he stood at attention in front of me.

  I tried not to laugh at the kid because he was deadly serious, but this wasn’t the military, and I certainly wasn’t anyone’s commander.

  “Yes, just tell me what’s been going on.”

  “Mr. Marks, um ... Philip was
really bad at his job. If I didn’t stay and work, then the whole place would have fallen apart.”

  As Scott talked, I sat and looked through the timesheets that Philip had on his desk. None of them showed Scott had been working so many hours.

  “Why do all these timecards show forty hours?” I said sternly.

  “Sir, Mr. Marks told me that I should not close overtime hours or I would be fired, sir.”

  “Okay, first of all. How long have you been out of the military? You look like you’re barely legal.”

  “Sir, I served four years in the Marines and was honorably discharged after a tour in Iraq. I am twenty-four years old sir.”

  “Secondly, let’s stop with all this ‘sir’ talk, I keep wanting to look for my father every time you say it.”

  “Yes, sir … I mean, Mr. Stern.”

  “What’s that girl’s name that just walked behind you?” I asked.

  “That’s Olga, she’s one of the cooks. Really good, always on time and never complains.”

  “Okay, how about the girl at the front?”

  “Stephanie, she’s a bit of a ditz but really friendly with the customers. They love her.”

  “Why are you working here and not running some military thing?” I asked curtly.

  It seemed odd that such a well-behaved young man would serve his country for only four years and then be working himself to death in my restaurant. Certainly I was happy to have him, and he was probably the only reason my restaurant hadn’t totally tanked, but he could be doing so much more.

  Scott lifted his pant leg, and I saw a metal apparatus attached to his leg at the knee. I also felt like a total shithead for being so rude to him.

  “Sir, I lost the lower half of my leg in the war, and I couldn’t work any longer with the military. I have always wanted to have my own restaurant and figured the best way to learn the ropes would be to find a good one and work there.”