by Wally Duff
It was time for Kerry’s morning nap. I drove home and called Lyndell with the news about the strip club.
“A what?” she asked.
“A strip club. You know, where women take off their clothes while dancing to music.”
“Dear, I know what a strip club is. I’m not that out of touch with where men go. What are you going to do now?”
When I worked on stories in the past, I would have found a place to watch the club without being seen. I would have stayed in that location for as long as it took to push the story forward. At the abortion clinic, I’d parked on site daily for five weeks while I recorded the daily activities around the building.
But I am a mommy and that wouldn’t be possible. There was only one thing I could do.
“I plan to visit the club,” I said.
“Why don’t you research it online first?” she asked. “It might be less dangerous.”
Lyndell knew about my injuries and Carter’s fears.
“I will, but I need to get a feel for the story, and I can’t do it staring at a computer screen.”
“Please be careful,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I have the perfect friend to go with me and cover my back.”
32
It was a little after six on Thursday night. I walked into the kitchen. Kerry ate her dinner with Elmo, Ralph, and her daddy. “Cas is here. The seminar won’t last long. I’ll be home by nine at the latest.”
From my daily GPS recordings, I knew the Mercedes arrived at the strip club around nine. Cas and I had to be out of there before then so my neighbor wouldn’t catch me spying on him.
“I know you told me before, but I’ve already forgotten,” he said. “What’s it about again?”
“Exercise for young kids like Kerry.”
“Right. That’s exactly the type of story that should be perfect for your column. Mothers will love it.”
I better have Cas give me background info on that kind of exercise, or I’ll never be able to sneak out again.
“I love you,” I said, kissing Carter on the lips and Kerry on the cheek.
Hurrying out the front door, I rushed down the stairs to Cas’s silver Hummer H1, her version of a mommy van.
“Ready for an adventure?” I asked, stepping on the running board and pulling on the back of the seat with one hand and the top of the door with the other to climb up into the truck.
“I guess, but why are we going to a strip club at six o’clock on a Thursday night?” Cas asked.
“Like I said in my text, a man lives across the street from me, and he is connected to the club. There could be a story there.”
“How did you figure this out?”
I told her about planting the GPS device on the Mercedes.
“Why not do the research online instead of going out there?” she asked.
“Already did, but I need more,” I said. “For me, a story is a visceral thing. I have to wrap my arms around it emotionally before I can commit to writing it. When I discovered the Twenties might be connected to the story, I wanted to get out there ASAP and do some recon. Oh, and take pictures with my iPhone.”
“Why me and not Linda, or Molly?”
“If this goes upside down, you’re my only friend fit and feisty enough to help me.”
“Do you think it’ll be dangerous?”
“Hope not. I looked online for police reports about the club. There’s never been an incident, and there’s supposed to be security onsite.”
“Okay, I get all that, but why so early in the evening?” she asked.
“Yeah, about that…” I said. “The GPS recordings show his Mercedes shows up around nine. We have to be out of there by then.”
“And if we aren’t?”
“It could be big trouble for both of us.”
33
The Thursday night traffic was even heavier than what I’d battled that morning, and it took forty-five minutes to get to the Twenties. Cas parked on the street close to where I’d previously stopped. As I’d hoped, the Mercedes wasn’t there.
We walked into a dimly lit, high-ceilinged rectangular room. There were about fifty tables. Most were four-tops, but there were a few six-and eight-tops. The pounding music blasting from the surround-sound speakers made my chest vibrate. The stench of spilled beer and cheap whisky soaked the air.
“Welcome to the Twenties,” the young woman at the hostess stand said. She had waist-length platinum blond hair. She wore a red micro-mini skirt and a lacy black top which didn’t hide that she’d left her bra in the dressing room.
Cas usually wears color-coordinated exercise gear and matching high-tech training shoes. Tonight, she wore a black T-shirt, tight black jeans, and black Nikes. I had on a sleeveless blue top, white cotton pants, and flip-flops. I pulled a San Diego Padres baseball hat down to shield the upper part of my face in case there were security cameras. We had our hair in ponytails.
“Where do you guys wanna sit?” she asked.
“I think over there, don’t you, Cas?” I asked, pointing at an empty table against the back wall.
The hostess led us there. Several of the male customers stared at us as we walked past them.
A young woman wearing a skimpy version of a sailor suit danced on a round stage in the center of the room. She did a contortionist routine around a stripper pole. An illuminated runway about ten feet long went from the stage and disappeared behind a black curtain at the other end of the room.
Patrons sat around the stage and both sides of the runway holding out money to the stripper. Two male bouncers — who looked like offensive tackles for the Bears — flanked the front door. There were a few couples in the room, but we were the only solo women.
We sat down and faced the stage. With my hat pulled down and my hand obscuring the lower part of my face, I scanned the room for security cameras. I counted six. Four rotated as they covered the room and front door. Two were fixed and directed at the bar, a computer behind the bar, and a cash register.
I palmed my iPhone and began taking pictures. The girl on stage had stripped down to a sailor’s hat, a thong, and high heels. Her tanned, well-oiled skin glistened under the intense glare of the hot stage lights.
“I can’t believe this,” Cas said. “It’s 6:45 on Thursday night, and this place is packed. Don’t these guys have anything better to do with their time?”
I scanned the room. “Apparently not.”
We watched the stripper throw her sailor’s hat into the crowd. A young waitress wearing a white, lacy, see-through top and a black thong walked toward our table. As she moved closer, I saw that she had applied multiple hues of purple and green eye makeup which covered her lids from lash to brow.
“She looks like a raccoon,” Cas whispered.
“Maybe she flunked Eye Makeup 101,” I whispered back. “Her bra must be in the dressing room with the hostess’s.”
The waitress chomped on a wad of gum. “Guy over there…” she nodded toward a grossly obese man by the stage, “…wants to buy you two a drink,” she said between chomps.
“That is so not happening,” I said. “If we want a drink, we’ll pay for it.”
“Well, we got a two-drink minimum, and somebody’s gotta pay for it.”
“How about bottled water?” I asked.
“You wanna run a tab?”
“I think not,” I said, handing her a twenty.
She kept her hand out. I gave her another twenty.
“Drinks seem kind of expensive here,” I said.
“Guess you shoulda let the guy buy them,” the girl said.
“Guess again, sweetie,” Cas said.
“Whatever.” The waitress tottered away on her six-inch platform heels.
A new dancer strutted down the runway and stepped onto the stage. She wore a cop’s uniform. I took her picture with my partially hidden iPhone.
Her face looked familiar. “I think I’ve seen that dancer before,” I said.
“You hav
e, and so have I. It’s Donna Allen, the girl who works out with Corky and Sammy in my exercise classes at XSport Fitness.”
“If Sammy’s a stripper, too, maybe that’s why she has breast implants, and how she’s able to afford them,” I said.
Donna stripped down to a thong, policeman’s hat, and gun belt. The waitress returned with four bottles of water. I began to question her about that but then remembered the two-drink minimum. I took a sip and kept quiet.
A man entered the club. He stopped at the hostess desk and spoke to the blond woman who had seated us. They chatted and then he went behind the bar and logged on to a computer in the corner.
The manager?
I took his picture and then almost dropped the phone when I recognized who it was.
“Crap,” I said, scrunching down in my chair and pulling my baseball hat lower.
“What’s wrong?” Cas asked.
“It’s my neighbor! He’s early! We need to get outta here without him seeing me.”
34
“We need a distraction,” Cas said.
I kept my head down and my hands in front of my face, hoping my neighbor wouldn’t recognize me.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
She looked around the room.
“Got it.”
She waved at the server to come to our table. “Remember the guy who wanted to buy us drinks?”
“Yeah, Big Howie,” she said. “Comes in all the time.”
“Tell him we changed our minds. We want to party with him.”
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked. “He’s kinda gross.”
“Tell him it’s his lucky night.”
The server turned and walked toward the man. I grabbed Cas’s arm. “What are you doing?”
“Distracting. Get up right now and go to the bathroom before he comes over here.”
“But I don’t have to go.”
“Do you want to get out of here without your neighbor seeing you?”
“I do.”
“Then get up right now,” Cas said. “Act like you’re going to the bathroom but, instead, hide in the hallway. When you see the big guy have a seizure, run to the Hummer. I’ll meet you there.”
“But...”
“Get going. He’s coming.”
The women’s bathroom was in the hallway behind us. My neighbor was still on the computer behind the bar and had his back to me. I stood up and hugged the wall to avoid the security cameras. I crept into the hallway, stopped, and watched Cas from around the corner.
The man waddled up to our table. He pulled out a chair and plopped down. “Waitress said you want to party,” he wheezed.
“You got that right, big boy. Let’s have a few drinks and get it on.”
Cas snuggled up to him and, at the same time, reached into her bag. He turned to wave at the server. When he did, she touched his leg and suddenly he began shaking. He knocked over our bottles of water and then fell out of the chair and had a full-blown seizure.
“Help!” Cas screamed. “Help this guy!”
The two bouncers and my neighbor rushed toward the quivering man. Several more people did too. Cas reached down to help the man and, within seconds, he had another seizure.
That was my cue.
Go!
I hurried out of the building without being noticed.
35
I stood in the steamy Chicago night air next to the Hummer and watched as Cas sprinted out of the Twenties. As she ran, she remotely unlocked the truck’s doors. She jumped into the driver’s seat, and I joined her on the passenger side. She fired up the engine and roared away before I’d securely fastened my seat belt.
“How did you make him have a seizure?” I asked as she screeched around the corner and I finished latching my seat belt.
“Let’s get outta here first,” she said.
She drove four blocks and pulled over. She opened her purse and took out a stubby black and yellow gun. “I used this.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“A contact Taser.”
“Why do you have it?”
“I worked in the ER. Drunks or people on drugs are impossible to control, but there we had male cops and security guards to help us. Now, when I’m alone, this Taser is my equalizer.”
“It really looked like the guy was having a seizure.”
“Oh, he had one, but I caused it.”
“And thank God you did.”
“Did you get what you wanted before we left?” she asked.
“My neighbor might be the owner, or at least he seems to run the place, but it isn’t conclusive evidence. I need more.”
While Cas drove, I texted Linda about the Twenties and then told Cas what I’d done.
“Is Linda helping you on this too?” she asked.
“She is. I did online research of the sale of that man’s house. But I couldn’t hack into the real house owner’s bank, and I asked her to take over.”
“What about me?”
“What about you?” I asked.
“I would really like to continue to help you with this.”
“Why?”
“There are only so many ways I can try to make the spinners think they’re riding an indoor stationary bike outdoors up a mountain road. I enjoyed doing this.”
“What about your exercise classes? Can you take time away from them?”
“They don’t pay me enough to cover my gas expenses driving back and forth to the club. I’ll make the time.”
“Okay, but what if we run into trouble?” I asked.
“It doesn’t take much strength to pull the trigger on my Taser,” she said. “What’s our next step?”
“Carter doesn’t want me doing dangerous stories. I told him we were at a seminar about exercise ideas for young kids. You need to tell me what I can say to convince him we were there.”
She double-parked in front of my house and gave me the basics about kid’s exercise classes.
“This is so cool,” she said when she finished. “When we met at Hamlin Park and formed our playgroup, who knew it would lead to us helping you work on a story?”
“What about Molly helping us too?”
“Gotta think about that one. Molly’s...well, Molly, you know?”
“I do.”
She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.
“A problem?” I asked.
“Kind of. Your neighbor’s a Muslim, right?”
“He might be.”
“When was the last time you heard or read about a Muslim man being in a business with naked dancing women?”
“Never.”
“Then, why is your neighbor?”
36
Friday morning, Linda and I left Kerry and Sandra in the XSport Fitness daycare and walked to our usual seats in the back row of the spinning class. I scrubbed down the bike with antibacterial wipes before I adjusted the seat and handlebar.
“After I unpacked last night, I finally found time to hack into the Arun Corporation’s accounts,” Linda said, as she wiped down her bike.
“What did you find?”
“The corporation does its banking at the First Caribbean International Bank in the Cayman Islands.”
“Would a shell corporation do that?” I asked.
She climbed on the bike and clipped in. “How much do you know about financial shenanigans like that?”
“Only the basics. The research into it was the breakthrough I needed in my first investigative story when I was a rookie reporter in Chicago. It involved Dr. Mick Doyle, who became famous as the ‘Fat Doctor.’ ”
“I remember him. When I was in law school, all my girlfriends and I used his product, and it worked.”
“It did, but my story proved it had dire side effects, and not only was it taken off the market, but he went to jail.”
“What does this have to do with a shell company?”
“I discovered a shell corporation owned Doyle’s business, homes, and cars. Ultimate
ly, my friend — who was an experienced journalist on the economic beat at the Chicago bureau of the Wall Street Journal — discovered the profits he made from fat Americans were funneled to terrorist groups all over the world.”
“Did you just call me fat?”
I felt my face flush. “Sorry, but he did make millions of dollars on people trying to lose weight using his product instead of dieting and exercising.” I climbed on my bike and clipped in my bike shoes. “Did you find a shell corporation?”
“Not yet. It’ll take a lot of time on my computer, and you need to know that doing it might not be exactly legal.”
“As an officer of the court, how do you feel about that?” I asked.
“Do you want the information, or not?”
“Obviously, I do. I won’t have a story without it.”
Her lips compressed into a thin line. “Then, don’t ask how I do it, okay?”
“Sure, no problem.”
I didn’t admit to her that I’d used a lock pick gun to break into places while chasing a story.
37
A funky grin crossed Linda’s face, as we began to warm up.
“What?” I asked.
“I was still on the computer when I received your text that your neighbor might be associated with the Twenties. What do the patrons do there?”
“Watch women take off their clothes.”
“What else?” she asked.
“Drink,” I said.
“And to consume an alcoholic beverage at a strip club, the owner needs a liquor license. In order to jump through that legal hoop, the individual needs to provide a driver’s license or a passport and have his fingerprints taken. And best of all, it’s in the public record.”
“How did you figure that out?”
“You have my husband to thank for this. Howard asked me what I was doing on the computer so late at night. One of his partners helps clients obtain liquor licenses in Chicago. Howard showed me the website. The Twenties has a new owner, and his name is Mohammad al-Turk. He’s your new neighbor.”
Yes!
“You rock!” I said. “Thank you, so much! This might be the breakthrough I need. I can’t wait to get home and research al-Turk’s history. Was there another man’s name on the liquor license?”