He’d been about to slam the lid shut on the guy’s head when one of the girls came running up with the guy’s wallet clutched in her hand. Her stomach clenched into a tight knot as she recognized the girl who called herself Blue—the one who’d caught her watching the other night, the one responsible for Samantha’s house call.
Was this what happened after they drugged the customers?
They’d looked through the guy’s wallet together. Heads pressed close, one shiny black, one bleached blond, their voices an indistinguishable whisper. Even so, the excitement radiating off them was almost palpable. And there was an aura of something else too, not exactly panic, but something close. Then Emerson straightened up, his gravelly voice easily carrying up to where Gina stood, trying to push herself back into the wall.
‘Take it to Samantha. She’ll know what to do.’
An adrenal spike of fear made Gina’s head swim. She couldn’t wait around to find out what would happen, couldn’t let Samantha catch her here, watching, not now. They’d stuff her in the dumpster as well, just for starters.
But she wasn’t the only one who liked to take their breaks out on the fire escape—and the last person had left an empty beer bottle propped against the wall, waiting to fall on somebody’s head.
Or waiting for somebody to accidentally kick it. Which Gina did as she turned to go inside. It toppled, a faint clang ringing out as glass hit metal, and then it rolled towards the edge. Bending quickly, she reached for it but it was as if she was moving in slow motion. She watched in horror as it sailed out into the air, mesmerized as it fell. She jumped up and turned towards the door. The bottle hit the ground, exploding into a thousand pieces, as she pushed inside to safety.
Down below, Emerson jumped like a scalded cat as the bottle shattered behind him, whirling around in time to see a girl disappear through the door at the top of the fire escape. He only saw her from the back and one stripper’s ass looked much the same as any other’s to him—but only one of them had hair like that.
***
GINA DIVED THROUGH THE fire escape door as the bottle hit the ground and exploded behind her. She slammed the door with a backwards kick and pressed herself tightly against the wall as if he could see through closed doors.
Had he seen her?
Down the hallway, one of the other girls came out of a private room and looked up sharply as the door banged shut. Gina raised a hand in apology and mouthed a silent sorry. The girl waved back and stood aside as a guy followed her out of the room. He glanced briefly at Gina and then the pair of them made their way back downstairs.
Gina rested her head against the wall and closed her eyes, waited for her racing heartbeat to settle, a trickle of cold sweat making its way down her back.
What the hell had she just witnessed?
She had to get back or she’d be missed. Samantha was watching her like a hawk. She pushed herself off the wall and walked unsteadily down the hall, one hand on the wall for support, the adrenalin let down in her legs making them quiver. Get a grip.
She passed the door the girl and her customer had come out of and her stomach lurched. She knew that room. She wished she didn’t, wished she hadn’t been reminded of it so graphically. An image of the photograph Samantha had delivered popped unbidden into her mind and made her skin crawl. And the message for her scrawled on it—both mocking and threatening at the same time.
You should have kept your mouth shut back then. You better keep it shut now.
She knew who was behind that message and it made her blood run cold.
Chapter 22
JESSE RETCHED. THE STENCH was overpowering, permeating every pore, coating every inch of his skin, his hair. He could taste it, feel it on his eyes. He couldn’t stop himself heaving from the punches he’d taken to the stomach. He refused to think about all the noxious things he was drawing deep into his body with every breath. It’s just a smell after all. And those are just sounds. The scrabbling, scratching noises, and the frightened squeal when he’d put his hand down. He wasn’t sure if it had been him or the rat.
How had he been so stupid?
He’d got so carried away scaring the stripper he hadn’t heard the bouncer coming. He’d enjoyed it, making her suffer like they were doing to him. At least he’d only scared her, he wasn’t ruining her whole damn life. And now he was paying the price for his stupidity. He might as well have walked in through the front door of the club with the photo in his hand and asked the bouncer to point the girls out.
And nobody knew where he was apart from Diane. Nobody was going to come looking for him. He’d gone to great lengths to make sure nobody knew where he was going—especially Evan—and he couldn’t remember why now. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Suddenly the lid was thrown open again.
‘Jeez, what a smell,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘Don’t they ever empty these things?’
Somebody coughed, a match flared as someone else lit up to cover the stench.
Jesse stood up and his feet sank further into the oozing morass surrounding him. He felt like the creature from the black lagoon emerging from its lair. Something slimy slid slowly down the side of his face. He wiped it away without looking to see what it was. Somebody sniggered. He gulped in deep mouthfuls of the clean, night air and looked out at the row of staring faces.
The girl had come back with another, older woman. The sour look on her face made him want to sit back down and ask them to close the lid again please. Quickly. There was a second bouncer just like the first one, just as big, but white. They all stood in a line and stared at him, varying degrees of amusement on their faces. The older woman flicked on a flashlight and shone the beam into his face. He put his hand up to shield his eyes.
‘What do you think, Samantha?’ the first girl said to the older woman.
‘That’s him,’ Samantha said, nodding. ‘Get him out of there and bring him inside.’
She turned and headed towards the back door with the other girl trailing after her. Half way there she stopped and turned around. The smile on her face was worse than the scowl. ‘Hose him down first.’
‘Out you get,’ Emerson said.
He took a couple of steps backwards. Customers’ blood on his clean white shirt was okay, rotting left-over food wasn’t.
Jesse stayed where he was. He eyed up the two bouncers standing between him and freedom. Should he make a run for it? Would he be able to get past them? But what then? They had his wallet, his phone and his keys.
‘I said get out.’ The edge to his voice said he wasn’t used to asking twice. Or politely.
Jesse stayed put. ‘I’m getting to like it in here.’
Bad move.
‘Really? You want to spend the night in there?’
Before Jesse could say a word, Emerson took hold of the lid and swung it down onto his head. He pushed down with both hands, bending him double, his knees buckling as his feet sank further into the muck, then he slipped and his face slammed into the cold metal side of the dumpster. The lid clanged shut.
‘Get the lock on it, Jerry,’ Emerson said to the second bouncer.
They left him in there another ten minutes, kicking and rocking it, whacking the metal sides, the noise coming from everywhere at once, reverberating in the darkness as he was thrown around inside, until all he could do was sit with his knees drawn up, his arms wrapped around his head.
‘Still like it in there?’ Emerson said when they got bored and opened it up again.
He peered in, pinching his nose between his finger and thumb and gave Jesse a gold-toothed grin. Jerry stood off to the side, an identical smirk on his face, a leather blackjack in his hand. He slapped it against his palm in anticipation. They hadn’t had so much fun in ages.
‘Okay, I’m getting out.’
Jesse climbed backwards over the side of the dumpster and lowered himself carefully to the ground, his stomach screaming in protest. Both bouncers backed off a short distance, their noses wr
inkling in disgust. He looked past them again to the street beyond the parking lot.
Emerson caught him looking. ‘Don’t try anything stupid.’
Jesse shook his head, raised his hands like the thought had never crossed his mind. But Jerry wasn’t convinced. He stepped in and brought the blackjack down in a vicious whistling arc onto Jesse’s calf.
Jesse screamed as the pain exploded and slumped to the ground, his leg as much use as if they’d taken a chainsaw to it.
‘Like to see you run away now.’
Emerson leaned over Jesse and pointed directly at his face. It was like a huge, black sausage pointed at him. Except not many people put gold rings on sausages.
‘You make me touch you covered in shit like that, you’ll be sorry.’
He gestured with his chin towards the back door and smiled his big, gold-toothed smile again.
‘Bath time.’
Jesse half hobbled, half crawled towards the back wall, Jerry pushing him along with his foot when he stumbled. They hosed him down in the alcove by the back door, sluicing the muck off him until he was clean—on the outside at least. He didn’t think he’d ever get the smell and taste out of his nose and mouth and lungs.
‘Fresh as a sweet Sunday morning,’ Emerson said when they were done. ‘Come on.’ He headed inside, then paused and pointed the big black sausage at Jesse again. ‘And remember, we don’t mind hitting you now you’re clean again.’
Jerry chuckled and slapped his blackjack into his palm to reinforce the point.
Jesse limped behind him with Jerry bringing up the rear, marking time with the blackjack as he walked, each resounding thwack resonating through Jesse’s calf. His shoes squelched with each step and he left big, wet footprints on the floor. The three of them trooped along a short corridor and down some stairs. They stopped in front of what looked like a broom closet. Emerson unlocked it and stood aside, sweeping his arm theatrically as he ushered Jesse in. It wasn’t a broom closet but it wasn’t much bigger. He closed the door behind Jesse and locked it again.
‘See if you can’t smarten yourself up a bit,’ he called through the door, a mocking tone in his voice. ‘Someone important wants to have a little talk with you—and he gets very pissed if he thinks he’s not getting the respect he deserves. Very pissed indeed.’
Chapter 23
EVAN GOT IN HIS car and settled in to wait for Gina. He wanted to talk to her more than ever after the mention of Angel had spooked her. He checked his phone to pass the time—there hadn’t been a signal inside the club—and saw he had a new text message. When he saw who it was from, he groaned.
Mitch.
So much for Charlotte keeping his name out of things. He really didn’t need this now. But he opened it anyway.
Thanks a lot Evan, you bastard.
His fist tightened around the phone, he felt like replying, something like thank you, Mitch, for not keeping it in your pants but what good would it do? He stuffed the phone back in his pocket so hard he ripped the lining of his jacket. He took a deep breath, leaned his head on the headrest and thought about Gina, about the thrill that had gone through him when she put her hand on his leg, felt the tension in his body ease away.
The club emptied out at about one in the morning. After the last of the customers had left, the girls drifted out. Gina was one of the first, leaving on her own. That didn’t surprise him. It made his job easier too.
He pulled out of the parking lot and pulled alongside her. Hearing the car, she quickened her pace. He buzzed his window down and called her name. She looked across at him but didn’t stop walking. If anything, she quickened her pace.
‘Gina, get in the car. We need to talk.’
She stopped and stared in at him, conflict in her eyes.
‘Come on. You’ll draw attention to yourself. We both know that’s not a good idea.’
That settled it. She glanced back at the club nervously, grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open. She jumped in beside him, slammed the door shut and slid down in the seat. He pulled his head down between his shoulders and accelerated away, a childish grin on his face.
‘Just like Bonnie and Clyde.’
She looked at him and then looked away out the window. She didn’t need to say Men! in that tone of voice that was usually accompanied by much head shaking and a roll of the eyes.
‘What do you want to talk about?’
He looked over and down at her. She looked so comical, almost lying on the passenger seat. ‘Would you be happier on the floor in the back under a blanket?’
‘You’d be nervous too,’ she said, but she sat up straight in the seat just the same.
‘About what?’
‘What do you want to talk about?’ she asked again, ignoring his question.
‘About what you told Angel.’
‘What’s it to you?’
The words were aggressive and the tone petulant but he knew she was going to talk to him in the end. They just had to get past this first.
He looked across at her again. There was a mix of suspicion and something else on her face. Not exactly fear, more like a realization that she’d set something in motion and she had no idea where it would take her. Or whether there’d be any coming back.
‘I have a client who thinks he was drugged in the club.’ He waited for her to say something. ‘Just like you told Angel you’d seen some of the girls doing.’
She turned away and looked out the window, her hands folded tightly in her lap. He saw the reflection of her face in the glass of the window, saw her biting her bottom lip.
‘Why did you run away from me in the club?’
She started to say something but he cut her off.
‘And don’t say because you didn’t want to talk about it in there. After I mentioned Angel’s name you didn’t want to talk to me. Period. Why?’
She studied his face. He did his best to look like Mr. Approachable.
‘What made your client think he’d been drugged?’
She’d chosen not to answer his question but at least she was talking.
‘Because he’s completely lost a period of about six hours. A total blank.’
‘So how does he know anything happened at all?’ She looked out the window again. ‘Did anything happen to him?’
He couldn’t understand why she was being so quarrelsome. She’d made the first approach after all. It had to be a defence mechanism.
‘I’d say so. They charged thirty thousand to his credit card for drinks and dances he doesn’t remember having.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘I know it’s expensive in there—’
‘Is that all?’ She saw the look on his face. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean it to sound like that’s not bad enough,’ she said and clasped her hands together on top of her head as if she was trying to pull it down into her body. ‘I don’t know what I mean—’
‘There’s more. They sent him some photos—to help with his amnesia.’
He was pleased he didn’t have any copies. He wouldn’t have wanted to show her if she’d asked to see them.
‘Told him to keep him mouth shut or his wife would get some copies for the family album.’
She groaned quietly. That sounded all too familiar. ‘Photos of what, exactly?’
He thought it was a pretty dumb question, especially considering where she worked.
‘Well, there was this nice one of him with his pecker in one of your colleague’s mouth. That sort of thing.’
She was quiet for a long time. He didn’t push her, didn’t want to intrude on the major internal turmoil going on. He wasn’t expecting what she said next.
She cleared her throat. ‘The same thing happened to me.’
Her voice was barely above a whisper. He waited, giving her time, but she was miles away, lost in her memories and the look on her face told him they weren’t good ones.
‘I assume they’re blackmailing you ...’
She still didn’t say anything. He glanced over at her. She
looked down quickly and smoothed non-existent creases out of her top, then clamped her hands tightly between her thighs.
‘Okay, let me guess—’
‘No. It doesn’t matter. But you’re right, they’re blackmailing me. It was a long time ago—’
He watched the flush spreading across her cheeks and held up his hand again to stop her. ‘I don’t need to know. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Tell me what’s going on now.’
Her shoulders relaxed and the strain eased out of her face. She took a deep breath, almost smiled at him.
‘There’s not a lot to tell. I’ve been suspicious for a while so I was watching them. I try to be careful but a couple of nights ago one of them caught me looking just as she spiked the guy’s drink. I thought they’d do something then but they didn’t. Next morning, I got a visit from that purple-veined whore Samantha’—her eyes narrowed and her voice trailed off as she recalled the argument—‘she gave me a photo with a message on the back.’
‘Telling you to keep your mouth shut?’
She let out a strangled cry. ‘You could say that. I can remember it word for word. It said—’
‘It doesn’t matter, really. Did anything happen when she came around?’
The question brought a satisfied look onto her face.
‘Apart from me knocking her on her ass? No.’
He reckoned Samantha was the older woman he’d seen watching him in the club. She looked like a nasty piece of work, that was for sure. He’d have been impressed if Gina had been twice the size she was.
‘Oh, and she swallowed her gum too. Nearly choked her. You wouldn’t think it was possible given what she puts in her—’
She stopped abruptly and looked away again, shaking her head. ‘Listen to me.’
‘One swallow doesn’t make a summer,’ he said, and then realized what he’d just said.
They both looked at each other and he laughed. She covered her face for a moment and then she started too, peeking out from between her fingers like a small girl, her breath coming in quick gasps between the unstoppable giggles, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes as the tensions of the past days washed out of her.
The Evan Buckley Thrillers: Books 1 - 4 (Evan Buckley Thrillers Boxsets) Page 32