Touch Me

3. Jassy

Jassy

“Please, please, please,” I babbled, “you gotta grab Benji, too.”

“Ain't grabbing your f*****g dog,” the Boss said as he dragged me by the arm to the stairwell. Guests were spilling out of their rooms, the looks on their faces more concerned and confused than anything else.

“She's not my dog,” I protested as he threw open the door for the stairs and pulled me along behind him. “She's one of the other girls. When the cops find Sven, they're going to connect him back to her through the hotel. Then, they'll connect her to me and you! We gotta get her out of here!”

I wanted out of this hotel, badly. If I didn't get out of here, and I went up for killing Sven, I'd never get a chance to take my shot at the man holding my arm in a vice grip. It didn't matter if he was even sexier in person than he had been on Sven's phone, The Boss was my real owner, the one ultimately responsible for Tommy's death. Sven had just been a hired lackey.

But, if the cops got hold of Benji, she'd fold like a house of cards. There wasn't any sense in betting on her doing anything else.

Besides that, Benji was my friend. My only friend really. She and I were roommates, co-workers, confidantes. But she could be real soft, real sensitive. Like a flower that had to ask permission to bloom.

“Look,” I said as the Boss started to drag me down the stairs behind him, “I saw the way she handled Orleans Parish Jail. She ain't gonna last if the cops start asking her questions.”

The Boss and his friend stopped in the middle of the stairs, their breath heavy and their eyes searching around desperately for a clue as to their next step. They exchanged glances, and the Boss nodded to his buddy. He looked back to me. “What room?”

I gave them Benji's regular room number, the one Sven normally got her up on the eleventh floor, two above us.

“Meet you at the car, man,” the Boss said.

Boss's buddy took off, up the stairs, but stopped a few steps up. “Hey, you,” he called to us. “What's your name, girl?”

“Huh?” I asked, eloquently.

“So Benji knows I'm on the up-and-up.”

“Jassy,” I said. “Tell her Belle says to get the f**k moving.”

The Boss gave me a weird look, and I just shrugged back at him. “Inside joke,” I muttered as the other guy went sprinting up the stairs to retrieve Benji.

We, though, scrambled down the opposite way as fast as my heels would carry me without snapping in two. And, the whole way, I repeated my silent little mantra: Act normal, Jassy. Act normal, Jassy.