Chapter 3
COLE
PRESENT
Iwalked into the club with Michael. The lighting was moderate; we were in the middle of the day. The bar looked messy. The bartender had forgotten to clean up again. I needed to have a talk with him.
The neon sign read Cole’s Jazz Club. As I looked around, everything else was clean. The club manager had made sure of that.
My dad had left all his clubs to me in his will. He made good on his promise. That’s the way he’d accumulated his wealth. Michael was set to inherit all of it should anything happen to me.
A beautiful blonde was sitting at the end of the bar, sipping on a Diet Dr. Spencer. My heart skipped for a moment. Michael walked a couple of steps ahead of me.
“Hi, Blondie. So how do you like the club so far?” Michael asked.
“Oh, yes. This will do just fine,” she said in a sultry voice.
“This is my dad, Mr. Cole Bennett.”
“You can call me Cole,” I replied. I was smitten. I couldn’t hide it.
My son really knows how to pick them. Like father, like son.
“Oh, wow, Michael. I thought this was your brother when I saw you walking in. You’re both tall, dark, and handsome, just the way I like my men.”
She took another sip of her drink and slid her lips off the straw in a rather suggestive manner.
How much more provocative can you get?
“You’re too kind.” I blushed.
“My dad had me when he was very young. You’re not the first one to tell me that.”
Michael looked uncomfortable.
“And I hope I’m not the last,” she replied.
“Uhh, since you’re here for the audition, I’ll just play your track, and you can sing for my dad.”
“Of course, of course. How could I forget?” she said.
Blondie looked at me with her mesmerizing eyes, and without thinking, I winked at her.
“Yes. Why don’t you go up on stage behind us? The microphone is on the stool there,” I pointed out.
Blondie finished her diet drink and walked over to me.
“Thank you for this opportunity,” she said sweetly and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Okay, okay. That’s enough of that,” Michael said nervously.
Blondie nodded and turned around toward the stage. She swayed her hips like nobody’s business. Her ass looked fantastic, just as any man would want it. I appreciated the hard work she put in to get it in that good shape.
Not again. Not again, I thought. I can’t fall for this hottie. If I do, it’s going to cost me a pretty penny.
Blondie walked up the stairs; the air felt fresh with her scent. Her perfume smelled like fresh roses. There was something so young and beautiful about her that I could not resist. Her figure looked so, so yummy.
Women are just so beautiful. God’s gift to the world.
She grabbed the microphone from the stool and tapped it a few times.
“Testing, testing, 1, 2, 1, 2, 2,” she said. “Can you hear me okay?” she asked coyly.
Michael gave her a thumbs-up.
“Yes, I can hear you,” I replied.
“I like this microphone, Michael. It has a long cord, and it feels really sturdy, just the way I like it.”
I gulped.
“Alright, alright,” Michael replied. “Let’s not get carried away.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. If the cord is loooong, then I can move freely about the stage and connect with the audience.”
Michael sighed. He started the track.
Blondie began singing. I cringed.
It was the most horrendous voice I had ever heard. Cats in the night sounded better than that.
“What the hell is this, Michael? Didn’t you say she was great just a little while ago?”
“No, Dad. You don’t understand. She’s going to lip-sync. She’s going to lip-sync to the classic jazz tunes that you love. She’s not really going to sing. I wouldn’t allow that.”
“Lip-sync? What the hell are you talking about?”
I was furious. My son had clearly lost his motherfucking mind. This new idea was so foreign to me that I really couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“Dad, Dad, Dad. Don’t worry. You worry too much. The lip-sync is just going to be a gimmick to get more people to the club on Tuesdays. You know how Tuesdays are slow. This is going to get a different type of crowd to come in.”
“This is what I’m afraid of,” I said.
Blondie kept singing her heart out, and my ears couldn’t take it anymore.
“Michael, please turn off the track,” I said while pointing at the sound system.
Blondie kept singing without the track, and somehow it was even worse. Then she stopped once she didn’t hear the track anymore. She put the microphone back onto the stool, bending over, and then she looked back at me. I averted my eyes this time.
Blondie came down the stairs of the stage toward us.
“So how did I do?” she asked in a perky voice. And that wasn’t the only thing that was perky showing through her tight white blouse.
“Umm. It’s interesting,” I said.
“Yeah,” Michael added. “Very interesting.”
There was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get that,” Michael said.
While Michael was tending to the door, I kept my conversation going with Blondie.
“So, Blondie. Michael tells me that you’ll be lip-syncing to the jazz classics on Tuesdays. Are you okay with that?”
“Sure, Mr. Bennett. I mean, Cole,” Blondie said as she put her right hand on my left shoulder. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
I grabbed her right hand with my right hand and kissed it while looking into her warm blue eyes.
“I like that,” I said. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
She blushed and gave me a wink. I winked back. I couldn’t resist her charm.
Suddenly, I heard loud voices. I looked back toward the front door. Then I saw Michael crashing to the floor after bumping against one of the tables by the front door of the club.
A big brute of a man walked through the door. It was Vito, Moretti’s loan shark debt collector and bouncer at the Moretti nightclub. A person I knew too well.
“You have twenty-four hours to get Mr. Moretti his money, Michael,” he said in a very threatening voice. “Or else,” he continued.
My biggest fears had come true. Michael had become a gambler like my dad.
What did you get yourself into, Michael?
And how am I going to save you from Moretti?