EASY RIDER WAS the club’s name, and now I knew why. “Born to Be Wild” blasted from the speakers. Smoke swirled around a half-dozen pool tables. Two runways featured tattooed strippers with teased hair and torn fishnets. The female servers were clad in leather bikini tops and chaps; the guys got leather thongs and chaps. The tables were scarred and decrepit, the leather booths battered and torn. It looked like a biker bar, circa 1970.

It didn’t take long, though, to see past the illusion. “Born to Be Wild” was a dance remix. The “smoke” around the pool tables was dry ice. Those tattooed strippers were gorgeous, and the tattoos probably came off with soap and water. The damage to the tables and booths was an artistic embellishment, not signs of age and misuse.

A club designed to make the young, wealthy and bored feel like they were wallowing in the grimy biker subculture without any danger of soiling their Pradas.

“Cheesy, huh?” Jaz whispered, his warm breath tickling my ear. “Works, though. They eat this shit up.”

“I see that.”

“Sonny? Can you take Faith to our table while I change?”

“Our table” was a booth with a view of the entire club. Bianca was there, with two guys she introduced as Tony and Max. Max was tall with a chiseled profile, a perfect tan and sun-bleached blond hair gathered in a small ponytail. Tony was about five six, compact and muscular, black hair cropped so short it was like a birthmark across his scalp. Both moved to give me room, Max shifting aside with a polite smile, Tony waving me in with a confident grin, as if I should be honored by the invitation. I slid in beside Max.

Having been to many clubs, I expected conversation to be impossible, but the booth must have been specially soundproofed. I still had to strain to hear, but could carry on a conversation.

Bianca set Tony and Max on a group of fortyish women trying hard to look twenty.

After they left, she turned to me. “Faith, I’d like you to—”

“Bee?”

Jaz appeared at her shoulder, dressed in a vintage wide-collared off-white dress shirt and black jeans.

“I thought I’d squire the lady around for a while. Introduce her to some people. Maybe take a tour of the dance floor.”

Bianca looked from me to Jaz. “You two should catch some eyes. Make sure you do—have fun, play it up. You know the drill.”

I soon understood why Jaz had made it into the gang despite his weak supernatural type. The guy had phenomenal people skills. As we circled the room, it was nonstop “How’s the new job going?” and “Saw you in the paper last week” and “Hey, that girl you were checking out last time is here—without her boyfriend.” Most people would sound smarmy and false, but Jaz had such an aura of bouncy good humor he pulled it off.