Re: [Strip club: Nel & Eames]
Eames liked liquor more than he liked beer. He liked cigars more than he liked unfiltered cigarettes among other things, but he preferred inebriation somewhere far more anonymous than the local strip-club. He allowed himself a glance toward not the glass, but the bottle lifted down by the bartender who filled it and clocked label. "One for me too, please." He passed a bill back, softened with much handling and folded sharply down the middle of the papery threads. He finished his beer in two economical swallows, and set the bottle down to his right hand. It wasn't his dominant hand, but Eames didn't favor his left.
The woman was looking at him. It broke with the protocol of places like these, a quick squiz at who was beside you and then you all pretended you weren't there together. He admired the scarf once more, it looked like silk, the fringe dense rather than sparse, with the particular weight and drape of a more sinuous material. Eames enjoyed fabric.
"I like your scarf," he said, in lieu of a hello. He clocked the accent. Not West End, and not Kensington and probably not Home Counties, it wasn't flat enough, the vowels weren't swallowed. Overseas? Possibly. The kind of expensive boarding school that hammered the local culture out of the vocal cords. Eames's voice was middle-of-the-road. Husky, educated, extremely British. Amused.