Cherry did her best to avoid The Wolves' Den but she wasn't able to avoid that man. They must live in the same part of town because she saw him several times over the next few weeks when she was out and about, usually on her way home from the arcade.
He always seemed to be coming or going from the grocery store. There was one less than a block from the arcade.
She didn't know much about him. Only that he lived in Hell's Kitchen and was one of the higher-ups at The Wolves' Den. He wore nice clothes but nothing too expensive and always seemed to be alone.
Her curiosity was eating at her so she pinched his wallet one day just to see who he was, returning it without taking anything so he would never have a clue. His name was Scott Harkin, he was twenty-nine years old, and he was the owner of The Wolves' Den based on the business card in there.
The owner! That was worse than the manager. What would the owner be doing walking around night after night?
That terrible feeling multiplied. Was he on to her?
He couldn't be. She looked like too many different people to be connected back to one person. And most of the time, her marks didn't even notice their cards had been stolen until days later so how could they connect it back to the club?
Some of them might have though. He might suspect something was going on even if he didn't know what if people complained.
What should Cherry do? Try to get closer to him and see what he knew or avoid him and hope this all blew over? She honestly wasn't sure. She didn't want to make the situation worse no matter what.
She didn't know what kind of person Scott Harkin was beyond being considerate enough to help a "kid" who got hurt because of him. She didn't know what she was dealing with here.
Maybe the next time she ran into him, she could observe him for a bit to see if she could find anything out. She was usually pretty good at tailing people.
That chance came less than a week later when he happened to walk into the arcade holding the hand of a little boy who couldn't be more than six who was crying. She was in between games so she crept closer to see what he was saying to the manager.
"Hey, this kid went outside because he thought he dropped something on the way in but then he couldn't find his way back. He says his nanny should still be in here."
"I'll make an announcement," the manager reassured him. "What's your name, buddy?"
The little boy sniffled. "Jeremy."
"Would the responsible party for Jeremy please come to the front desk?"
A frantic woman in her twenties appeared less than a minute later. "Jeremy! I've been looking everywhere for you! What have I told you about wandering off?"
"To not do it," Jeremy said glumly. "I'm sorry, Miss Sarah."
"Thank you," the nanny said fervently to the manager.
"Thank this guy here. He's the one who found him wandering around outside and brought him back. You really ought to keep a closer eye on him."
"I will! I was only in the bathroom for a few minutes but when I came out, he wasn't playing his game anymore." She turned to Scott. "Thank you. Really. You really saved my butt back there."
"No worries. Take care," he said as he turned to leave.
Cherry didn't hide herself fast enough and he spotted her, surprise crossing his face when he recognized her. "Hey, it's you. Is this where you were coming from the first time we met?"
"So what if it was?" she asked defensively.
She wasn't happy about being caught. How could she have been so stupid? At least she didn't look suspicious right now. It was totally normal for a kid to be in an arcade after school hours were over.
"I was just curious. I used to hang out in places like this a lot too. If you go down to this arcade in the Meatpacking District, I still have the high score on the Ms. Pac-Man machine. I've beaten the whole game," Scott said with a shrug.
Cherry's jaw dropped. "No way! I can never get past level 125!"
She inwardly cursed herself for reacting the way she would if she wasn't casing this guy out. She couldn't help it. She had NEVER heard of anyone making it all the way to the end, let alone winning it.
Scott's eyebrows rose. "You can get that high? That's impressive. Do you want to show me where you keep getting stuck? Maybe I can help."
Cherry was incredibly confused he was offering to help like that because it was going to take at least a couple of hours. Who had that kind of time to kill to help a total stranger?
"…why would you do that?"
"It's not like I have anything better to do. I may as well."
It was difficult to argue with that. She ended up accepting. This could kill two birds with one stone. She could find out more about him and potentially get closer to beating the game that had given her so much grief.
"Alright then. Thanks," Cherry said before the two of them headed to the Ms. Pac-Man machine.
She died on level 81 first, feeling rather stupid about it. But she was thrown off by the way this guy was looking over her shoulder!
"I'm usually not this bad! That's my high score, see? I'm in the top five on the leaderboard."
"Red?" Scott asked curiously. "Is that because of your hair?"
Cherry flushed. The high score thing only let you use three letters, okay? There wasn't a way to shorten her name properly with so few letters. It was the next best option given her old nickname so she went for it.