Lucky Town

by Peter Vonder Haar

  “Sure,” I said. I wouldn’t be making it rain. At best my cash would be like spitting off an overpass.

  She handed me the bills and stamped the back of my hand in case I wanted to make a day of it, and with that I was turned loose into the bowels of Bottoms Up.

  There was literally no one else in sight as I scanned the room. As it turned out, there were two secondary stages, but I didn’t want to be near any of them. I found a two-top more or less centrally located and sat down. And I wasn’t entirely alone; there was also a skinny young man in a T-shirt I couldn’t read past the “Keep Calm” part shuffling around in the DJ booth next to the main stage.

  After what felt like an hour, a waitress emerged from the back. She wore a bustier and heels and my arches immediate ached in sympathy.

  “Get you a drink?”

  I placed another of my twenties onto her tray and said, “Is Nevaeh here?”

  “Who?”

  Was I pronouncing it wrong? “Nevaeh? Nuh-vay-uh? Nee-vee-yeh?”

  Recognition bloomed in her face so brightly I almost didn’t notice her pocketing the sawbuck. “Oh, you mean Nevaeh, my boss,” She pronounced in like “navy,” because of course. “She might be in the back.”

  “Could you check for me, please? I need to talk to her.”

  “Uh-huh,” She gave me Nigel’s patented once-over, or maybe it was a Bottoms Up special. “And who are you? You a cop?”

  “Not at present.” I handed her one of my rapidly dwindling supply of cards. “My name’s Clarke, and I’m following up on a missing person case.”

  She turned the card in her hand like it was written in Mongolian instead of English. “We don’t have any missing people here.”

  I forced a smile. “Well, that’s good news. But see, I don’t think the person in question is here, but I think your boss might have some information that will help me find them.”

  I could tell the conversation was already boring her, dashing my fleeting dreams of going home with a waitress, Warren Zevon style. “You want anything to drink?”

  “Coffee?”

  “I’ll have to make it,” she sniffed.

  “Okay.”

  That really didn’t seem to be the answer she wanted to hear, as she turned and stomped off to the kitchen, if what she was doing in heels could adequately be described as such.

  A single spotlight kicked on, illuminating the center stage at the same moment the first chords of “All Right Now” by Free came out of the PA system. I watched as a tall brunette in a bikini walked out with all the enthusiasm of a hung-over high school student entering an SAT prep class, adjusted her bathing suit top, and draped an indifferent leg around the pole.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the DJ intoned, “please welcome Crystal to the center stage. Give it up for Crystal, everybody.”

  I applauded as enthusiastically as I felt the situation warranted, considering I was still the only person in the place. Trying to win back some of the karma I’d lost on the waitress, I approached the stage, dollar bill in hand. Crystal ignored me for an impressive minute or so, then dropped to the splits in front of me. She tugged out the strap of her bikini bottom and I dutifully slipped the dollar bill in.

  “Read any good books lately?”

  She smirked. “The Human Stain.”

  I think I’m in love, I thought as she rose to her feet and meandered back to the pole. I watched for what I felt was the appropriate amount of time to not come across any more of a creep than I already did and turned back to my table.

  A woman was sitting there.

  She seemed a little older than me, but it was hard to say for sure. Her blonde-ish hair flowed like Jane Fonda’s in Barbarella, and her pantsuit combo was both very businesslike and wholly out of place for her surroundings.

  “Nevaeh, I presume?” I sounded like a character from The Erotic Adventures of Stanley Livingston.

  chapter FIFTEEN

  “Do you need a drink?” Nevaeh asked. She had the faintest trace of an accent, which my linguistic expertise pegged to anywhere between Estonia and Kamchatka. Between impeccably manicured hands, she cradled a mug that read “World’s Greatest Grandpa.” I had questions.

  “I ordered coffee,” I said. “I think I annoyed the waitress.”

  She grimaced. “Brooklynn’s always annoyed. Occupational hazard.”

  “I suppose so.” Especially with a name like Brooklynn, I thought. “Anyway, thanks for agreeing to talk to me,” I began.

  She held up a hand, “I’m not entirely sure why you’re here, Mr. …?”

  “Clarke.” I already had a business card ready and handed it to her. She glanced at it and stowed it in an inner jacket pocket. “A mutual acquaintance gave me your name. They thought you might be able to help me with some information.”

  “What kind of information?”

  Hoping I wasn’t overextending myself, I said, “Information about smuggling girls into Houston. Would you know anything about that?”

  Her eyes flickered, but if she was angry she wasn’t showing it. “Did you say a ‘mutual acquaintance’?”

  “I did.”

  “And you’re not a cop?”

  “No. Used to be, but I’ve been private for a few years now,” I said. “Brooklynn already asked me that, in case you were wondering.”

  “Was our mutual acquaintance a cop?”

  She wasn’t going to let it go, and I was starting to get irritated, especially since my coffee was nowhere in sight.

  “Does it matter? If it’ll speed things along, then yes: They’re a cop. But I’m not here as part of any official investigation.” Not entirely a lie, but let’s not dwell on that. “I’m looking for a missing person who might be connected to a trafficking raid that went down in Southeast a few days ago.”

  Her expression hadn’t changed, but I thought I detected a thaw in her demeanor. “All my girls are legitimate, Mr. Clarke.”

  “No doubt.”

  “If I knowingly dealt with those kinds of people, I’d get even more attention from people like our mutual acquaintance than I already do, understand?”

  The “knowingly” was a tell, but I let it slide. “Of course, but you know something about the other side of the business, don’t you? Or you used to.”

  She looked away, just for a second. “The past is the past. Keeping my nose clean isn’t just for the police’s benefit, if you catch my meaning.”

  I did. And if she’d truly managed to free herself and her business from any ties to the Russian Mafia, she deserved a hell of a lot of credit.

  Might as well put my cards on the table. “Nevaeh, or ‘Navy’ — or whatever your real name is — my brother has gone missing. He worked for Homeland Security and hasn’t been heard from since a raid he may have participated in. A fellow agent was killed on that raid, and my brother may know something about it. My family and I just want to find him so we’ll know he’s safe.”

  The waitress approached the table and we both sat back, like a couple of boxers at the bell. She set the coffee in front of me, and I was momentarily distressed to discover I wasn’t a “World’s Greatest” anything.

  She left, and Nevaeh regarded me again. “You used to be a cop. Your brother is a cop. …”

  “Well, a kind of cop,” I said.

  “He works for the government and wears a badge.” She smiled. “That counts in my book.”

  “That’s fair. Except right now I’m private. I don’t care what kind of, uh, shenanigans go on at your Happy Bottom Riding Club. …”

  “Bottoms Up.”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  “My place is aboveboard,” she said. “Well, as much as any.”

  “Like I said, I don’t care. My only concern is my brother.”

  She looked around the club. Aside from the DJ and “Crystal,” we were still the only people in sight.

  “What kind of information do you want?” she asked.

  “Nothing too specific.” I leaned forwar
d. “I’m not trying to put the finger on you. But if you could give me a nudge, my family and I would really appreciate it.”

  Nevaeh sat in silence for a bit. Or as much silence as the Def Leppard song now playing in the background allowed.

  “Do you know what life is like for those girls, Mr. Clarke?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Very few of them have any idea what’s waiting for them when they come over here. If they do, it’s because they were kidnapped from villages in Moldova or Belarus, or sold by their parents or ‘boyfriends’ for the equivalent of fifty American dollars to the gangs. They might be the lucky ones, because at least there’s no illusion about where they’re going.”

  I didn’t respond. There really wasn’t anything I could say.

  “It’s the ones who answer the advertisements — legitimate-looking job postings, you understand — in local newspapers or online, that are in for the rudest awakening. They wear whatever clothes they have that can pass for business attire, brush up on their typing, and even learn a little English, all in anticipation of coming to the United States and embarking on a new career.”

  I knew where she was going with this, but didn’t really feel it was my place to interrupt.

  “They may even fly business class over here,” she continued. “Hell, they might fly alone. Why wouldn’t they? There’s no reason to keep watch over someone willingly going to their doom.”

  The song faded and a forbidding silence descended. That DJ really knew how to read a room.

  “It isn’t until they’re picked up from the airport and driven to a shitty apartment or a rundown house filled with other girls that reality starts to set in. The lucky ones are drugged — it makes what happens next somewhat bearable — others are beaten until whatever resistance they show is gone. After weeks of waiting, and being raped repeatedly by their handlers to ‘break them in,’ they’re shipped out to wherever demand is greatest. Houston’s a pretty big hub, as you know, but so are Dallas and New Orleans. And that’s only the Gulf Coast.”

  There was anger in her voice, but her composure never faltered.

  “It isn’t only the Russians, of course. They’re especially big in the Northeast, but the cartels have the lion’s share of the market here. On the West Coast, it’s the triads. Women are brought from Honduras and Guatemala, China, Ethiopia, and the Ivory Coast. Practically anywhere you can imagine.”

  “I understand all that,” I started.

  “You think you do,” she said, “but take all that anxiety and fear you have invested in the disappearance of your brother and multiply that tens of thousands of times. That’s the scale I’m talking about.”

  I said, “No one is accusing you of anything.”

  “Why wouldn’t they? Aren’t I Russian? Aren’t we all criminals?”

  “I don’t know if you’re Russian or not. Your accent is vague enough that your specific country of origin in unclear, though you’re clearly educated.”

  She smiled. “Isn’t this the land of opportunity?”

  I went on. “And your place is either on the up and up or you pay a pretty penny in bribes to keep out of the papers.”

  “What’s the expression? ‘A little from column A …’?”

  “And a little from column B,” I finished, “I get it.”

  “I wonder if you do.”

  Nevaeh stood up, which I deduced meant our meeting was at an end.

  “This place may have an insipid name, and it may cater to the baser urges of certain members of our society, but the women who work here do so of their own free will,” she said. “My past is my past, and I don’t need to be reminded of it just because you’ve misplaced a brother.”

  I stood. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I know what these women — and you, I’m guessing — have gone through, But maybe there’s some mutual benefit here.”

  “Go on.”

  “Mike, my brother, was trying to shut down a trafficking operation,” I said. “Finding him might expose some real operators, not just the street guys babysitting. Surely that’s a win for both of us.”

  She rose. “Perhaps. You’ve given me much to think about, Mr. Clarke. Maybe you’re different than the men who usually come here after all.”

  “You should probably ask my ex-girlfriends about that.”

  Nevaeh grinned without much humor and left the room. I looked to the stage and saw Crystal had yet to return. The DJ was also still AWOL from his booth. I needed to consider what I’d just heard and figure out my next move, but it appeared I’d worn my welcome out here.

  “Time for you to go.”

  A hand the size of a dinner plate settled on my shoulder, immediately making my arm go numb. I didn’t have to turn around to know who my new friend was.

  “Well, hey, Nigel. Good to see you again.”

  With depressingly little effort, he spun me away from the table and nudged me toward the exit. And by “nudged” I mean propelled me forward with the gentle force of a determined rhino. We frog-marched past the cashier and out into the dazzling noontime sunlight.

  He pushed me a few more yards into the parking lot and then abruptly stopped. I saw the Corolla through squinting eyes and fumbled for my keys.

  “Hey.”

  I didn’t want to turn around, but figured the odds of getting shot in broad daylight in a strip club parking lot were maybe sixty/forty.

  Nigel was extending his hand. I hadn’t expected a gesture of camaraderie, but maybe he’d learned something after all.

  I clasped his hand and mine was immediately enveloped in throes of pain I can only compare to sticking your hand into an industrial press. Every bone in my hand screamed out and it was all I could do not to drop to my knees.

  “Miss Navy wanted you to have this.” And with that, he turned and plodded back to the club.

  With effort, I uncurled my fist. Nigel had left a piece of paper within, almost as crumpled as my hand. I smoothed it out and read the one word written thereon.

  Steranko.

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  “Steranko.”

  “That’s what it says.”

  I called Charlie as soon as my hand stopped throbbing and I’d pulled out of the Bottoms Up parking lot, and we were in the midst of rehashing my conversation with Nevaeh.

  “I’m impressed you consider a nudity-free visit to a strip club a success,” she told me.

  I said, “I wish I’d taken a picture of that Nigel guy. You’d be impressed I got out of there with my life.”

  “Such a drama queen.”

  “Is there anything on this Steranko guy or not?” I asked.

  “Say again?”

  I’m pretty sure she was fucking with me, even though my phone was in speaker mode and wedged between the parking brake and the passenger seat as I drove. Hands-free was really the only option when driving a manual car without Bluetooth.

  “Is there anything on this Steranko guy?” I yelled, before smiling at the woman staring at me from her Mini Cooper in the next lane.

  Charlie said, “Just going by the top web hits, she’s either talking about the guy who used to draw for Marvel Comics in the 60s or the Mattress King of King of Prussia, PA.”

  “Where does the comic guy live?”

  “Philadelphia, I think.”

  “Maybe they’re the same dude,” I offered.

  “Maybe,” she replied. “Or maybe he’s the local businessman with alleged past ties to the Russian mob.”

  I said, “That does sound more likely.”

  I heard the rapid clicking of her keyboard. “The most recent hits are about local investments. He has a piece of the new Galveston entertainment district and is on the board of several local nonprofits.”

  “That’s not exactly the resumé of a gangster,” I said.

  “It is of one trying to go legit,” she replied, “but I’ll check HPD’s known alias database and the usual deep web sources.”

  “That’s like the Silk Road stu
ff?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Charlie sighed. “It’s also where I go to buy all my fentanyl and child porn.”

  “I’m picking up on your sarcasm,” I said.

  “For the last time, it’s just stuff that can’t be accessed through regular search engines,” she said.

  “Right, right … so you’re on that?”

  “I’m on it,” she said, muttering something else I didn’t catch before hanging up. Sometimes lack of reliable climate control in your car wasn’t so bad after all.

  I thought about what Nevaeh had said in the club. The Russians weren’t the major players in the Houston area, but the raid Mike went on targeted Eastern Europeans, not the cartels. Were the Russians making a move? Did they really have that kind of muscle?

  These were questions for the cops to answer, and my bone-crunching encounter with Sir Nigel didn’t put me in the mood to talk to Roy again. Until Charlie got more info on this Steranko person, there wasn’t much I could do.

  Aside from calling my favorite DHS administrative assistant, that is.

  “Homeland Security, Director Hammond’s office, this is Dot.”

  “Well hey, Dot. This is Mike’s brother, Cy,” I ventured.

  “Hello, Cy. How are you?”

  “I’m good, thanks for asking.” For the hell of it, I said, “I don’t suppose y’all have heard anything from Mike?”

  Her disappointment was palpable. “We sure haven’t, Cy. I guess he hasn’t gotten in touch with you either?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “Still no word. I was actually hoping to see if there was any word on when Agent Garcia was returning from Brussels?”

  “Well, just let me see.” I could hear ruffling through papers, which probably would’ve given Charlie seizures. “I don’t have any new information on that. His calendar still shows him out of the office until at least the first of June.”

  That was roughly two weeks from now. “I see. And there isn’t any contact information for him?”

  “Now Cy, you know I’m not allowed to give out that kind of information for agents in the field.” If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was flirting with me.