Trouble Takes Its Time - Flowers In Drinks S01E02 (audio ebook)

spoken

Flowers in drinks.

That's not decoration. That's a warning with good posture.

A bar puts an orchid in your glass because the bartender knows you're about to make a mistake and wants you to feel elegant while you're doing it.

This one is white.

White flower. Black drink. Gold rim.

That is the whole business model of this place: make trouble look expensive enough and people start calling it taste.

Men come in here wearing watches that cost more than their marriages. Women come in here wearing perfume that could start a small war. Everybody's pretending they're not here for something.

Money. Music. Payback. Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the funniest one.

Nobody wants forgiveness. They want the record erased.

And they want someone else to carry the consequence.

I like orchids. They're pretty, difficult, and completely useless in a crisis. Exactly like most people with money.

You know what the difference is between a flower in a drink and a secret in a locked case?

About eight hours, two lies, and a man called Maxwell Pierce saying, "I've got an idea."

Maxwell always has an idea.

He has that Harley, that stupid beautiful low rider, and he sits on it like the city was built underneath him for decoration. He makes bad ideas look like invitations.

That's a talent.

The first time I met him, he looked at a man trying to intimidate us and asked whether he practised that expression in the mirror.

The man got offended.

That was the last useful thing he did.

Maxwell thinks I'm dramatic.

I'm not dramatic.

Dramatic is screaming in a nightclub bathroom because your husband has the bartender's lipstick on his collar.

I carry a solution.

That is preparation.

People see confidence and they laugh. They think costume party. Renaissance fair. Then they notice there's no sound. No flash. No second chance to understand what happened.

That's when the laughter gets very private.

So here's to flowers in drinks.

To white orchids floating on black liquor.

To men with expensive watches and cheap souls.

To women who mistake being wanted for being safe.

And to Maxwell Pierce, wherever he is.

Because if he's late, somebody has had a very bad night.

And if he's early...

Somebody is about to wish they were.

disclaimer_this_is_a_fictional_story_for_movie