“Tell me, Annie.” Vance leaned in close, invading her personal space. She could smell the expensive scotch on his breath. “Do you know who I am?” “Yes, sir. You are Mr. Vance.” “And do you know what I do?” Annie hesitated. She knew exactly what he did. She knew things about him that would make the people at this table vomit in their thousand-dollar shoes, but she bit her tongue. “You make business deals, sir.” “Business deals?” Vance laughed, clapping his hands. “How quaint. I decide who eats and who starves in this city.” He walked back to his chair, but did not sit. He picked up a heavy gold lighter from the table and flipped it open and closed. Clink. Clink.
“I’m going to make you an offer, Annie,” Vance announced, addressing the room more than her. “I’m feeling generous tonight. I want to play a little game.” Annie’s stomach dropped. “I have work to do, sir.” “Your manager works for me,” Vance cut her off. “Technically, everyone in this building works for me. So you’ll stay.” He reached into his inner suit pocket and pulled out a checkbook. He uncapped a fountain pen. “I am going to ask you one simple question,” Vance said, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. “Just one. If you answer it honestly, and I will know if you are lying, I will write you a check right now for one hundred thousand dollars.”
Gasps rippled around the table. For the guests, that was pocket change. For a waitress, it was life-changing money. It was her mother’s medical bills paid for a year. It was freedom. Annie looked up, finally meeting his eyes. “And if I get it wrong?” Vance grinned, showing perfect veneered teeth. “Then you leave, you get fired, and I ensure you never work in a high-end establishment in New York again.” The stakes were incredibly high, but entirely uneven. Vance risked nothing. Annie risked her livelihood. “Why?” she asked. “Because I’m bored,” Vance shrugged. “And I want to see if a person of your station has any capacity for truth.”
The room was dead silent. The air conditioning hummed in the background. Every eye was glued to Annie. She took a breath. She looked at the arrogant faces around the table. Then she looked at the checkbook. “Ask your question,” Annie said. Vance’s smile widened. He loved a gambler. He thought he had her exactly where he wanted her. He thought she was just another desperate soul he could twist into a knot for his evening entertainment. He could not have been more wrong.
Vance took a slow sip of his drink, savoring the tension. He set the glass down with a sharp clack. “Look around this room, Annie,” Vance said, gesturing with a wide sweep of his arm. “We have the finest art on the walls. We have jewelry worth millions on the ladies’ wrists. We have bottles of wine that survived World War II. We have the captains of industry.” He locked eyes with her. “My question is simple,” Vance said softly. “What is the most expensive thing in this room?”