Constance (Constance #1)(32)
Rather than try her luck at the front, Con went down the alley that ran alongside the club and banged on the stage door. A massive Black bouncer cracked open the door to see what all the commotion was about and seemed genuinely surprised that Con was responsible. She explained who she was and why she wasn’t waiting in line with everyone else. He listened impassively, then let the metal door swing shut. After a few minutes, the door reopened and he waved her inside like he was doing her a favor. He said Jasper was busy upstairs and brought her out to the main floor, where he left her to sit at the bar. All around, the staff was hustling to get everything set before the house opened. It made her feel at home, always had, especially on tour when the band played a different venue every night. No two clubs were ever the same, but they all ran on the same high-wire energy. There was nothing like it in the world.
By the time Jasper Benjamin finally came down from his office, the crowd was beginning to stream inside, eager to stake out a spot near the front of the stage. Jasper eased up to the bar beside her, grinning an unctuous salesman’s smile. He was one of those white men in their forties who desperately wanted to believe he didn’t look forty. The problem lay in the fact that Jasper obviously knew that he did and couldn’t live with it. His defining feature had always been the manic desperation of a man feverishly overcompensating. For Jasper, that meant expensive clothes and a sunspot personality that could be seen from orbit. She’d once heard him say, If you don’t own a beautiful painting, at least get yourself an expensive frame.
Tonight that frame included a slick tangerine sports jacket over a retro Trouble Funk T-shirt, black designer jeans that sparkled in the light, and a pair of red-and-orange Italian leather shoes that probably cost more than her rent. He wore more jewelry than Con had owned in her entire life. It was a lot. The man ought to come with a seizure warning. To complete the effect, behind Jasper loomed a gargantuan white man who made the bouncer look like the kid other kids picked on. She knew his name was Anzor, everyone did. He went where Jasper went, and if even half the stories she’d heard about him were true, he was not a pleasant man, and she didn’t much care for the way he was eying her. Like she was the last lobster in the tank and he was picking out dinner.
“Welcome back. Been some days,” Jasper said, resting a hand lightly on the small of her back as if she were at risk of toppling off the stool. “Hearing some wild stories about you.”
“Oh yeah?” she replied, loud enough to be heard over the rising din.
“Didn’t anyone bring you a beverage?” he asked, snapping his fingers to get the bartender’s attention. “The lady will have a vodka T.”
“I’m fine, really. I don’t need a drink.”
The bartender set a drink in front of her anyway. Con accepted it with a smile. Better to be appreciative than fight the rising tide of Jasper’s hospitality. In her experience, men hell-bent on displaying their generosity resented having it declined and rarely offered a second time. She had a lot riding on that second time.
She took a sip and noticed the way Jasper was looking at her. Not the appraising once-over that men gave women, cataloging perceived imperfections in the blink of an eye. That she had long since learned to tune out. No, this was something else. Kala, the detective, and now Jasper Benjamin—when they looked at her it was as if they were trying to decide what kind of spider they’d found in their bathroom. And if it was dangerous.
“What?” It came out more defensive than she’d intended.
He flashed a coy, boyish smile at her. The one he probably saved for when he thought he was being charming. It might actually have worked back when he was young, but now—now it looked practiced and stapled on. “Just wondering if I’d be able to tell. You know . . . if I didn’t know.”
“And?” Not knowing why she’d asked since she definitely didn’t want the answer.
He squinted at her. “I think so. Not sure. You look different, but I don’t know that I could say why. So forgive me, but I gotta ask. I thought only rich people could afford clones. You some kind of secret billionaire, slumming down here with the rest of us?”
“Would I be here if I was?” Con asked.
“Got me there. So what’s your secret?”
Con wasn’t about to get into her connection to Abigail Stickling. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Jasper mulled that over, seemingly willing to pretend she had answered his question. “I always thought it would be cool to have a clone, you know? Rumor has it that Palmer Bratt is a clone. Can you imagine?”
Con had heard the same rumor. Palmer Bratt was one of the top-grossing actors in the world. According to the tabloids, she’d been killed accidentally on the set of her movie Planetarium Station during a stunt gone wrong. Her camp had issued a strongly worded denial, and the actor had always declined to take questions on the subject, calling the accusation absurd and malicious. Still, the rumors persisted. Amateur internet sleuths pointed to the abrupt dissolution of her two-year marriage to singer Delonte Anders, and certain minuscule changes to a scar on Palmer Bratt’s throat that had been there since childhood. It was hard to say whether the mystery had increased or decreased her popularity.
There had been all kinds of films on the subject of human cloning, mostly horror, but not all. Plus television, music, books. Alan Delaney’s memoir of his transcendent experience as a clone had been a bestseller in more than thirty countries. The entire concept of human cloning had provoked a massive reaction as the culture tried to work out its complex and often conflicting range of opinions. They loved cloning and hated it. Feared it, objected to it on a variety of grounds, yet also envied it and felt left behind.