“I’m so sorry,” she said, getting up from the couch and moving to hug him.
“I can’t—not right now,” he muttered, shying away from the contact.
That was when Kane’s words from earlier rang in her ears.
To fall so quickly from grace will be a tremendous blow to his confidence. His ego will be shattered.
She could see that already Red was changing. The stress of failure could do things to a person—and although Red might like to think he could rise from the ashes, Nicole was beginning to wonder. It wasn’t even about the money really. It was about losing. Red was going to think of himself as a loser from now on, and for a man like him who was used to being on top and in control—who depended on that sense of control and power—there was no telling what it might do to him.
“I need a drink,” Red told her. “Let’s go out.”
“Really?” she asked, a strange feeling in her stomach. “You want to drink? Shouldn’t you just try and relax, maybe get some sleep?”
“I can go alone,” he said, his eyes restless.
“Of course I want to go with you.”
“Great,” he said, not sounding that enthusiastic. “Come on.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
And so they took a cab to a bar in Berlin, some place that Red said he’d heard was fun and unique. When they there, Nicole wasn’t sure it was such a great idea. Sure the place was unique—as advertised—but not in a good way.
The bar was dark inside, and the clientele seemed rough. Red and Nicole were far more dressed up than anyone else in the place. A lot of the people were young, some of them had a punk look going on—lots of piercings and tattoos and strange haircuts.
Red didn’t seem to care. In fact, she sensed that he was in a very dangerous mood tonight. When one of the men in the bar would give him a look, Red would glare back at them, as if daring them to challenge him in some way.
Nobody did—at least, not at first—but Nicole was uneasy just the same.
“Shouldn’t we maybe go somewhere else?” she asked, as they took seats at the bar and Red ordered himself two shots of vodka, and a cranberry and vodka for her.
He shook his head. “I like it here.”
“No you don’t. You’re just looking for trouble,” she said.
He glanced sideways at her, as the bartender handed him the first shot and he slugged it down. “Bullshit, I am.”
“This isn’t the way to handle what’s going on with your business,” she told him, knowing he wouldn’t want to hear it.
“I just need to let off some steam, Nicole. I can’t always play rich businessman, it gets old.”
“Couldn’t you just lift some weights or go run on the treadmill?”
Red laughed, did another shot. When he was done with that one, he ordered two more. The bartender gave him a look. “Zwei verschiedenen wodkasorten,” Red said, the volume of his voice rising slightly.
The bartender poured two more shots and slid them across the bar. Red drank one and then sat and looked at the second one.
Nicole sipped her cranberry drink, which was too strong for her tastes. She looked around the bar. People were all staring at them. She didn’t like this at all. Not one bit.
But after a time, it seemed the other patrons were losing interest in the strange Americans. The bar got more crowded, noisier, loud heavy punk rock music was playing over the speakers.
Red seemed to have relaxed a little, too. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, undid his tie, and began drinking vodka and cranberry with Nicole. He kissed her for embarrassingly extended periods of time.
But eventually she was starting to get a little bit tipsy as well, and her body was loosening up. She was starting to think that earlier in the night she’d been more afraid of this bar because it was so foreign and the people spoke another language. Sure, they were dressed kind of funny, and they looked intimidating, but most of them seemed to be having fun and acting like young people did in New York every night.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Red said in her ear. As it was, she could barely hear him over the noise.
She nodded.
“And then let’s get out of here, huh?” he said.
She nodded again, gratefully.
He smiled and kissed her cheek. “You’re the best, baby,” he yelled to her, and then pushed his way through the crowd to get to the bathroom.
A couple of minutes later, a young man wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and heavily tattooed arms plopped down on the empty stool next to her with his beer. He looked at her and grinned. She saw he had two or three gold teeth, and some kind of tattoo around his right eye. “American?” he asked.
She nodded nervously. “My boyfriend’s—“
“My name is Karl,” he said, holding out a large, calloused hand to her.
She didn’t want to touch him at all—he was giving her a really bad vibe. But she told herself to calm down and just try and end this as quickly and politely as possible. “Hi, Karl,” she said.
“Do you like boxing?” Carl asked her.