“You a cop?” the other bouncer said. They were both standing now.
“Private investigator,” I said. “These are my partners.” I nodded toward Kelly and Skeeter and held up my credentials. “Do those cameras work?” I pointed to the two surveillance cameras.
“You’re not a cop,” Tattoo said. “We don’t have to talk to you.”
“Is that the way you wanna play it?”
“Yeah, fuck off.” He reached behind his back, and I assumed he was going for a gun.
Kelly saw it too. She grabbed his thumb and twisted it up behind his back, then she pulled a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at the other bouncer. The move surprised me as much as the two bouncers. Skeeter let out a deep rumbling chuckle.
“You two new on the job? You’re not very good at this game,” I said.
“What the fuck do you want, man?”
“We wanna take a look at the surveillance tapes,” I said.
“Fuck you,” he said.
Kelly gave his arm a twist.
“Okay, bitch.”
“Watch your language around the lady. You don’t wanna really piss her off,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”
Kelly pocketed his pistol, and we followed the tattooed bouncer inside the club. The music was throbbing loud enough to feel against my skin, limiting conversation to hand signals and facial expressions. The lighting was minimal except over the three stages. When my eyes adjusted, I could see the place was packed with a cross section of bikers, college students, and businessmen. There was a trio of topless girls gyrating on the mirrored main stage, each with a collection of bills tucked in their G-strings. We followed the bouncer to a door behind the bar. I stopped Skeeter before we went inside.
“Wait for us here,” I shouted. “Don’t let anybody else in.” I waved my hand across the door.
He smiled and held up his thumb.
Kelly and I followed the bouncer into the back room.
A slight-built man in his early forties with green hipster glasses and a shaved head sat behind a metal desk. He wore a blue velvet suit without a tie, and he had a tattoo of a cross on the back of his left hand.
“I’m Arnold Garza, the manager. What’s this all about?” His voice was like sandpaper being pulled over a stick of wood.
“I’m Nick Fischer, and this is my partner Kelly. We’re private investigators looking for this girl.” I showed him the photo of Maya. His eyes flicked to the picture but quickly went back to me. “She went missing from Fredericksburg on August tenth.”
“Never seen her before, man.”
“Is Russell here?”
“Who’s that?”
“Russell Stevens. Big guy, blond hair. Beautiful smile. Likes to wear tight jeans. We talked to him in Fredericksburg yesterday.”
“That’s the Dragon. No, he ain’t here.”
“We wanna see your surveillance tapes,” I said.
Garza laughed. It was forced and awkward. His eyes were dull and dilated like he’d been high for most of the day.
“You’re not cops. Get the fuck outta here.”
“Here’s what we already have,” Kelly said and pulled out her cell phone. “Your bouncers on video taking a bribe from two underage kids. Let us look at the tapes, and we won’t tell the cops what happened outside.”
Garza stood up. He was about my height, six one, but skinny. He stepped in front of the bouncer.
“You stupid fuck!” He slapped him with an open hand. The bouncer outweighed him by fifty pounds, but he didn’t make a move against the manager. “Did you take a bribe at the door?”
The bouncer shook his head. “No, boss. I swear.”
The manager slapped him again. “Asshole! Get the fuck out of my sight.”
“How about showing us the surveillance tapes?” I asked when the bouncer was gone.
“I’ll have to check with the owners,” Garza said and picked up his cell phone. I walked to the door marked Private. “You can’t go in there.” Garza moved to cut me off.
I opened the door and stuck my head in. I noticed a stack of electronic equipment and a back door.
“Did you hear me, fucker?” Garza shouted.
I shut the door and stepped back. “Take it easy, Arnold,” I said. “Call the owner. We’ll have a drink out front while we wait. Kelly followed me to the door. “Give ’em my name, Nick Fischer, private investigator.”
We found a young dancer sitting at the bar beside Skeeter. She wore a sheer top and a gold G-string and had her tiny hand on his huge forearm. Skeeter’s eyes were glued to her enhanced boobs.
“Enjoying yourself?” I shouted.
His head whipped in my direction. “This’s Candy,” he said.
I took a closer look at the girl. She looked about Maya’s age, with heavy green eye makeup that sparkled in the light. Her eyes stopped at my forehead. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
I smiled. “Hi, Candy.”
She glanced at Kelly then back at me. “Y’all cops?”
“Private investigator,” I said, leaning close to her ear. “Is there someplace we can talk?” I held a fifty folded to show the denomination.
Candy looked nervous but nodded and jumped down from the barstool. We followed her to a curtain that led to a private area behind the main stage. Another bored bouncer with a bald head slouched on a barstool beside the curtain. He looked up from his cell phone when Candy stopped beside him. She said something into his ear. He nodded. She held up her fingers in the universal sign for money. I was supposed to pay this guy to let us in. My expense account was getting low. I’d already broken my own number one rule, which was to not take on cases with zero money up front. I still had a mortgage on my fixer-upper in King William. Last time I checked, the bank didn’t accept hog or goat meat as payment.
I pulled out another fifty. “Got change for a fifty?”
The bouncer smiled and tucked the bill in his sequined jeans. I turned back to Skeeter. He shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Again,” he shouted over the noise.
I pointed to the main stage where the three dancers were doing a pole routine.
“Enjoy the show,” I said. “I don’t want any surprises coming through this curtain.”
He nodded and then pulled a barstool from the edge of the stage and sat down opposite the bouncer. When you were his size, you sat wherever you wanted.
I followed Candy and Kelly to a private booth set up for close encounters. The only lights were from fake candles flickering on the tables and a few guide lights embedded in the floor so the servers could keep the overpriced drinks flowing. The music still vibrated off the walls but was quiet enough for conversation. I could hear a man in the opposite booth ask for another beer. I slid in beside Candy and held out the picture of Maya.
“Ever seen this girl?”
Candy took the picture and quickly slid it under the table. “You’re gonna get me in trouble.”
“Why, for answering a few questions?” Kelly asked.
“You swear you’re not a cop?” she asked.
“I swear,” I said.
Candy chewed her lip. A waitress stopped at our table. I wasn’t going to get out of here for less than five hundred. Kelly and I ordered a ten-dollar Shiner Bock. Candy ordered something called a Mad Mako and waited until the waitress was gone before she continued.
“She was here last week,” she said. “Dragon brought her in with two other new girls.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Some girls only stay for one night.”
“Where do they go?” Kelly said.
Candy squirmed out of the booth and stood up. “I’ve said too much already.”
“What’s the Dragon’s connection here?”
There was a commotion at the door. The baldheaded bouncer was suddenly beside her along with Garza. “It’s time for y’all to leave,” he said
. “I talked to the owner. He doesn’t care what you have on video. He wants you gone.”
“No surveillance tapes?” I asked.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
The bald bouncer grabbed Kelly’s arm. Big mistake.
Kelly grabbed his thumb and forced it up behind his back. Garza held his purple jacket open and showed me the butt of a Glock stuck in his waistband.
I stepped forward, grabbed the pistol, and shoved the barrel into his crotch. “Do you keep one in the chamber?”
Garza’s brown skin turned gray.
I took that as a yes. “Bad habit to get into. You never know what might cause it to go off.”
He held up his hands. “Okay, man. Fuck.”
The waitress arrived with our drinks on a tray.
“The drinks are on the house,” he said.
“Rain check. We were just leaving,” I said. “Candy’s a great dancer. We enjoyed her company.”
“That’s right. She showed us a great time.” Kelly handed Candy a folded bill for her trouble.
“I’ll leave your Glock at the front door,” I said.
Skeeter had his eyes glued to a very well-endowed dancer who was shaking her sequined pasties an inch from his nose.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “What happened to guarding the door?”
“I didn’t know I was guarding the door. Besides, there were only two of them.”
“Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We stood for a moment beside my pickup in the strip club parking lot. My ears were still ringing from the noise. The city smelled like asphalt and exhaust fumes, a stark contrast to the sweet smell of hops and German sausage on the Marktplatz.
“You handled yourself pretty well in there,” I said to Kelly.
“You keep forgetting I’m a Marine MP.”
“Seeing you out of uniform plays with my memory.”
“There’d be more of that if you weren’t always working,” she said.
Skeeter rolled his eyes. “You two love birds get any info, or were you makin’ out in the dark?”
“Candy saw Maya,” I said. “She didn’t say where she went, but I’ll bet she knows more than she let on.”
“I think she wanted to talk,” Kelly said.
“Yeah, if we can catch her away from work.”
Kelly jumped in the passenger seat of my pickup, and I followed Skeeter to his Dodge Ram.
“I know that look,” Skeeter said. “You’re gonna asked me to break in and steal the surveillance tapes, aren’t you?”
“No. We don’t need to now. We have an eyewitness.”
Skeeter got in his pickup and opened the window.
“When Candy comes out, follow her. We need to set up a private meeting. She knows more about Russell. She was just scared to talk inside. If we’re lucky, she might lead us to Maya.”
“Where you goin’?” Skeeter asked.
“This is Kelly’s last night in town. If I spend it working the case, it’ll be the last time I see her. Besides, you wanted to be a partner. Surveillance is part of the job.”
“How are things… with Kelly? Is she the one?”
“After Sylvia I’m a little gun-shy. I don’t trust my gut when it comes to women.”
“You remember that old Seinfeld episode when Jerry starts dating a girl who’s exactly like himself?”
“No. Did it work out?”
“Did it ever work out for Jerry?”
“You’re comparing my life to a show that was about nothing?”
He flashed his pearly white teeth. “You’re missing the point.”
“Whatever.”
“She a Marine. She likes to fight…” He let the sentence trail off.
“All right, I get it.”
Kelly started my pickup. She saw us and waved while talking on her cell phone.
“You’ll find a way to piss her off, or she’ll decide you got too much baggage.”
“Thanks for the warning. Call me if anything happens.”
I opened my pickup door and heard Kelly say goodbye into the phone.
“That was my boss,” she explained. “I told him I needed a little more time to help you through rehab. He gave me a three-day extension.”
“You wanna help me find Maya?”
“And some other things,” she said, smiling. “Our evening was kinda interrupted.”
“With Skeeter on surveillance duty, we have my house here in town all to ourselves.” I stepped on the gas and made it back to my fixer-upper in the King William neighborhood south of the Alamo in record time. The house was on the edge of the neighborhood near a high school and a Mennonite church. I bought it hoping to cash in on the gentrification. When I actually got around to fixing it up, I was sure it would pay off.
We pulled into the driveway beside the giant pecan tree. The porch covered the right side of the house supported with Greek columns. The left side held a large bay window that showcased a parlor I’d turned into an office. If it was nearer to one of the universities, it would have made a great frat house. Kelly climbed into my lap and unhooked the button on my shirt.
I looked out the window and saw my next-door neighbor, Rose Gustafson, peering through her front room window.
“We’ve got an audience,” I said.
“Rose?” she asked.
I nodded. Kelly had met Mrs. Gustafson the week I was in the hospital. I had sent her to pick up extra clothes and a box of books. After the break-in that happened during my last case, Rose kept a sharp eye out when I wasn’t home. It took a phone call from me to convince Rose that Kelly was entering the house with my permission.
Kelly and I hustled inside the house and up the stairs to my bedroom, dropping clothes along the way. I grabbed her around the waist, anxious to lift her onto the bed.
“Wait,” she said and turned on the light. “I don’t want any more surprises.”
This time the bed was empty.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The cell phone woke me up at a quarter to seven. My first thought was Skeeter. I’d left him at the strip club and hadn’t heard from him all night. I checked the caller ID. Ochoa. That would be Detective Diana Ochoa from the SAPD. I let it go to voice mail.
I was normally an early riser, an old habit formed during my Marine Corps enlistment, but getting shot and spending time in the hospital had disrupted my routine. I searched the bed for Kelly but found it empty. I hadn’t heard her get up. I stretched my sore muscles. Last night was the most exercise I’d gotten in a month. It was a good feeling, like maybe I’d turned the corner. Time and exercise, along with hard work, healed most wounds.
I smelled coffee and the warm scent of eggs and fresh pie crust. Two female voices drifted up from downstairs. I recognized the high-pitched laughter. Rose was here. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her, as usual. She couldn’t stay away if she smelled a story.
My phone rang again. Ochoa. She wasn’t going to be put off.
“Detective Ochoa,” I said, answering. “Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“I thought you were going to take some time off,” she said. I could hear the irritation in her voice.
“I am taking time off,” I said. “Plenty of rest and lots of exercises.”
“I’ll bet. What’s a young female corpse stuffed into the dumpster behind Walmart doing with your business card?”
“Do you have an ID?” I had the sinking feeling that it was Maya.
“Nothing on her, literally. That is, except for your card. The girl got the shit beat out of her. You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Which Walmart,” I said. She gave me the address. “I’ll meet you there,” I said and disconnected. A hollow feeling formed in the pit of my stomach. Had I let Maya down? Was she the Dragon’s second victim? I slipped on a pair of clean Wranglers and a T-shirt and made my way downstairs.
Kelly and Ros
e were sipping coffee. A half-eaten egg pie cooled on the table in front of them. They both smiled like two teenagers caught spreading juicy rumors.
“Good morning,” I said. “Morning, Rose. Y’all are up early.”
“Oh, we’ve been cackling like two hens since dawn,” Rose said. “I saw her go out jogging early, so I came over and invited myself inside.”
“What’s wrong?” Kelly asked, seeing the strain on my face.
“That was Detective Ochoa on the phone. A young woman turned up…” I hesitated, glancing at Rose.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, sensing the gravity of the situation.
“It’ll be in the papers later anyway,” I said. “Ochoa found a dead woman in a Walmart dumpster.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Walmart was off Loop 410, not far from the strip club. It was Sunday morning and the traffic was light.
“Do you think it’s Maya?” Kelly asked.
“I thought of that. I hope not.”
“Second girl in twenty-four hours who died with your card.”
“Yeah. I thought of that too. I’m gonna have to stop giving it out.” I punched in Skeeter’s number. He picked up on the first ring. I put the phone on speaker.
“I hope you’re calling to say you’re bringing me coffee and donuts,” Skeeter said.
“That depends. Anything to report?”
“Yeah, I’m hungry and tired, and after a night of watching a strip club parking lot, I’m more convinced that the world is full of degenerates. Do you have any idea what goes on in a strip club parking lot?”
“I can guess.”
“Did you enjoy your night off?” He tried to sound sarcastic, but he didn’t have enough practice to pull it off.
“He slept like a baby,” Kelly said.
“Good morning, Kelly. I’m sure you had something to do with that.”
Kelly’s cheeks turned red.
“What happened? Did you follow Candy?” I asked.
“I lost her,” he said.
“How’s that possible?”
“Russell showed up with six young girls. I could have sworn one of them was Maya. Same dark hair and facial features. Candy must have slipped away while I was taking a closer look.”
Second Chances Page 11