Love is Just a Moment by Taylor Hill Page B

wasn’t going to let Lou off the hook that easily.
    “So,” I said, “not at the bar? Well how do you two work together then?”
    I didn’t have to look at Lou to know he was probably fuming that I’d brought the subject up again, even after Lisa had seemed to lose interest.
    Romeo looked to my brother and then shrugged. “Oh,” he said, “this and that, casual work.”
    Right, as if that explained anything.
    “It’s not something illegal, sweetie, is it?” Lisa purred and I cringed inwardly. I couldn’t believe the way she was acting over him.
    Lou looked at her and smiled his tough guy smile. “Well so what if it is,” he said, “what’s the law anyway? Just some other fool’s idea of a way to control everybody else. I say fuck that. If it ain’t hurting anybody, then what’s wrong with it?”
    “Ugh,” I said, “nice, Lou, real classy.”
    Lou shrugged and then he and Lisa shared some private moment as she poohed and pawed at him in what was really and truly a most despicable way.
    “Do you believe that too Romeo?” I asked, turning to my brother’s friend, “that morality trumps the law?”
    He stared at me—far more intensely than I would have expected from the question. If I’d aimed to put him on the defensive something told me that I might have pushed him further than I’d intended to. I suddenly felt very small beneath his gaze.
    “Sure,” he said, “why not.”
    “But love is the most important thing,” Lisa said, still staring at Lou, “even more than law, or work or anything like that. Like, even a gang or whatever, right Lou?”
    Lou smiled and just shook his head. Suddenly I wanted to be alone and I didn’t know why. I’d give Lisa five, maybe ten minutes tops, and then I was out of there. Romeo was playing with his phone now, apparently having lost whatever tiny modicum of interest he might have had in me in the first place. He probably had some slutty bad-girl-type chick on the other end of the line, offering him something that he would never get here, not in the company of Lou’s boring, down-to-earth sister.
    Oh boy, why do I let myself get into these situations, I wondered? You can take the girl out of the Orange Grove, but you can’t keep her people from dragging her back…
     
     

 
     

     
     
    The woman, a girl really, and stripping to pay her way through college, strutted seductively around the catwalk, one slender arm gripping the pole as she kicked out a naked leg towards the crowd in one whip-fast, smoothly fluid movement that belied none of the uncertainty or anxiety within. To the men hidden in the red dimness of the crowd, sipping drinks and blinking slowly in the seedy heat of the nightclub, she was a goddess, an unattainable Amazonian—a fantasy. To Salvatore Falcone, sitting at the head of the table on the VIP balcony above the main-floor, smoking a cigar despite the rules of the venue that he himself had set—Salvatore whose eye she would, to no avail, try to catch every few minutes while dancing—she was nothing more than a piece of meat. She was cattle, livestock, as much a part of the apparel of the business as the bottles of booze behind the bar, the illegal slot-machines in the back “member’s only” area, and the suitcases full of pure Columbian cocaine in the secret safe in the office upstairs. One of these nights he would probably sleep with her and then, if she became too attached he might have to let her go, maybe even introduce her to one of the brothel-owners downtown in an attempt at making one last buck from the girl before she passed out of his grip completely. It was only business was all. Nothing personal.
    “Ace-high flush,” he smiled, laying down his cards on the table, “hearts again.”
    Ferret winced in frustration but even that hot-tempered kid knew better than to let it show in front of Sal. There was a hierarchy that trumped all emotion to this thing. It was surprisingly effective at mood control.
    “Wow, nice