Forty Thieves Read Free Page B

who could do something for their careers.
    They had seen him, probably, before he had pushed open the door. They all stood and hurried over to him, impersonating four naïve girls who were honestly smitten by his fortuitous arrival, because it let them strike poses and utter noises that would make people notice them. He gave them each a quick hug and walked with them to their table. Their smiles were sincere, because he was Alex Rinosa, the music producer. He had money, drugs, and the ability to walk up to doors that were closed to most people, enter, and bring anyone in with him.
    The two bodyguards took extra chairs from a couple of nearby tables, and the group launched into an overlapping stream of banter, forced laughter, and nervous chatter. After a minute, Rinosa turned toward the bar wondering why the waiter hadn’t come, but he didn’t see one. He told his two bodyguards to go up and get three bottles of Cristal and some glasses.
    The pair walked to the bar, stood there, and pulled from their pockets some hundred-dollar bills to make it clear that they should receive prompt attention. They had to wait their turn while the bartender worked her way to them.
    When she reached their section of the bar, one of them said, “Bring us three bottles of Cristal and seven glasses. Open a tab.”
    “Can’t open a tab after one thirty, Cristal is seven hundred a bottle here, and there’s no waiter right now. You’ll have to carry it yourselves.”
    “For twenty-one hundred? Are you a—”
    “Careful,” she said. Her eyes were metallic and steady. “If I think you’re drunk I can’t serve you.”
    The other man smiled. “Yes, ma’am.” He counted the hundred-dollar bills out on the bar. She took them to the cash register, set up a tray of seven champagne flutes, and knelt to take three bottles out of a small refrigerator under the bar.
    The two men walked off with their drinks, and she resumed her rounds, starting with the man at the end of the bar.
    “Sounded good,” he said.
    “Thank you,” she replied. “I like to set a mood.” She put a new glass of ice on the bar in front of him, held it under a spigot to fill it with tonic, quickly lifted a gin bottle over it, but kept the nail of her thin, graceful finger over the end of the pour spout.
    He said, “Just keep your eye on which glass belongs to Rinosa, and we’ll be out of here for good.”
    “I’m on it,” she said, pushed a fresh slice of lime onto his glass, set it before him, and moved on.
    At ten minutes to two, the bartender hit a kill switch by the register to silence the music, and said into a microphone, “Last call. Last call for drink orders.” She let the music start again.
    There was a last group of customers who made their way to the bar for a final drink, and among them was one of the bodyguards. He counted out seven more hundred-dollar bills, got another bottle, and walked back to the table with it.
    At two o’clock, the manager of the Galaxy, a tall thin man with gray hair, appeared from his office at the back of the building with two burly men in black Windbreakers with the white letters SECURITY printed on them.
    The security men stood flanking him while he hit the kill switch again and announced, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is now closing time. The Galaxy is closed. I’ll have to ask everyone to finish up now and head toward the front doors. If any of our patrons needs a taxi tonight, we will be happy to call one for you. Otherwise, thank you for coming, and we hope you’ll be back soon. Good night.”
    The bartender removed the cash drawer from her register and the manager and one security guard took it with them. The other security guard stayed to help oversee the stream of people leaving the building. Two others, one inside the door and a second outside it, looked on.
    The bartender took a large tray and made her way among the tables, clearing glasses. When she reached the table where Rinosa, the girls, and