Setting the Hook

A while back, we had a prompt about setting a hook for the readers in our writing, in order to engage them in our story right from the get-go. Here is my effort to do that in the first chapter of my new book, The Cannabis Murders, due for release next month—

CONVERSATION CEASED AMONG THE FOUR MEN AS THE young woman approached their table, eight eyes tracking her, admiring the bronze skin, the cleavage, the shapely legs, the flawless face.  They’d picked up on her as soon as she’d entered the club’s patio-restaurant.

Stopping beside Stephen Bridger, she held up a green golf hat.  “Would this belong to any of you guys?  I found it in the golf-cart drop-off area after you finished your game.”  She smiled, as if inviting an affirmative response.

The men were enjoying a drink after their round of golf at the Duffers Bay Golf Resort, and Bridger was in a particularly good mood, having taken three skins from his colleagues.  Turning in his chair, he looked the woman up and down with a wolfish grin.  “What’s your name, sweetheart?  Does your daddy know what you’re not quite hiding under that blouse?” 

The other men, accustomed to his predilection for sexy women, glanced at each other, eyes rolling.

The woman kept the smile on her face, waited a moment, then said, “My name’s Neesha King, and if my daddy were alive, he’d prob’ly be too busy shaggin’ your wife to worry ‘bout what I wear.  An’ by the way, it’s a shirt, not a blouse!”  She preened as if showing it off, and the men smiled in appreciation.

“Is that so?” Bridger countered, rising to the bait, taken aback by such a bold reply, mildly annoyed by his friends’ chuckles at his expense.  “Well, you need a shirt way bigger than the one you’re wearing.  I’d love to see what you’re almost covering under there.”  As he spoke, he casually placed one hand on the back of her thigh just below the hem of her golf-skirt.

King leaned close to his ear, affording the other men a revealing down-blouse view.  Loudly enough that they could hear, she said,  “I bet you would, but you need bigger hands than yours to find that out.” This time, loud laughter exploded from Bridger’s companions.

“And just like that, Steverino strikes out!” John Latimer chortled, his hooded eyes alight.  A slender, graceful man, he was the senior of the other two, all of whom reported to Bridger.  John Plewman and Byron Brown exchanged high fives. 

Bridger watched the woman walk away, twirling the lost golf hat in one hand.  He could still feel the firmness of her left breast, the one she’d deliberately brushed the side of his head with when she’d leaned in.  He saw her sit down in a Muskoka chair shaded by a patio umbrella, saw her glance his way.

Bridger was a man used to having his way with attractive women, partly because of the advantages his senior position with a major firm afforded him, but also because he was a handsome, forty-something, well-built man exuding confidence and authority.  Although married, he rarely passed up a chance to make a pass at an attractive woman—or, as he suspected was the case with this gal, to respond to an invitation.

“Don’t be too sure, Johnny-boy,” he said, punching Latimer lightly on the shoulder.  “Looks like I got some unexpected business to take care of.  Don’t forget our meeting at the hotel this afternoon, two o’clock sharp.  And thanks for the skins!”

The golf club lay along the south shore of Sloan Bay, north of the resort town of Port Huntington, a popular tourist destination on the shores of Georgian Bay.  A ten-minute drive away, the Maji-ataage Casino Hotel where Bridger and his colleagues were staying sat on the opposite side of the bay, on territory ceded by the Odishkwaagamii First Nation a decade ago.

The other three watched their boss saunter confidently off in the direction of the young woman.  “He’s got balls, I’ll give him that!” Brown said.

“He has,” Latimer agreed.  “But he’s got a rep, too, and that could hurt him down the line with the company.”

Bridger stopped when he reached the woman, offered his most winning smile, and deliberately placed a business card on the table beside her, on which he’d added his private cellphone number and suite number at the hotel. 

CANADIAN CANNABIS INC.

Stephen A. Bridger

Executive Vice-President, Development

Toronto   Hong Kong   Miami   London

“This is me,” he said.  “And I apologize for the rough time I gave you back there.  I’d love if you’d give me a call, give me a chance to make amends.  I really am a nice guy.”

The woman stared at him a moment, then reached for the card.  After reading it front and back, she stood up, tucked it into the left side of her shirt, then patted her breast as if to ensure its safekeeping.   “Apology accepted.  Don’t hold your breath for a call, though.”

When she was maybe fifteen, twenty steps away, she turned back, still dangling the golf hat.  “But don’t turn your phone off, either.”

Once in her car, she pulled out her own phone to make a call.  “Got him, Fletch,” she said.  “We’re good to go.  I’m on my way.”