“Don’t go counting your guitar strings before they get plucked.” He gave me a weird look and I shrugged broadly. “I don’t know music.”
The doorman didn’t seem impressed to see us, but a flip of our badges got him to move aside. He was of a kind with Jules’s other minion and the countless other slabs of meat that had been hauled out of the Ryman by ambulances earlier. His squinted eyes bespoke of his suspicions regarding the law, but he kept it polite.
Bones was, unsurprisingly, a grubby sort of strip club. Not that I’d been in many, but it was definitely in the bottom of the barrel. Dancers circulated, one passing by me with a glazed, artificial come-hither look that she directed at me and then Chandler in turn, no more real than her breasts. Heavy amounts of makeup couldn’t completely hide the telltale signs of methamphetamine use, and even if I’d been remotely disposed toward the fairer sex, it would have been a world of NO NO NO if she’d tried to give me a lap dance, along with an extensive spraying for pelvic lice and boiling or possibly burning my clothes afterward.
“This place is...” Chandler said, following in my wake, seemingly lost for words.
“Like a truck stop toilet where the janitor resigned six months before in protest over the filthy conditions,” I said.
Chandler gave that a moment’s contemplation. “That sounds right. I mean, I don’t ever want to see that place, but...I have to imagine it’s close to this.”
“But look at all these struggling artists you could support with your patronage, Chandler. Apropos of nothing...are you up to date on all your vaccinations?” I asked.
“What? Why?” Chandler asked.
“Maybe don’t sit down or touch...well, anything, really,” I said.
I had clocked Jules the moment we walked in the door. He had a booth all to himself beside the stage and was studying a newspaper like he was having coffee in some sedate cafe by the Seine rather than in the neon glow of the crappiest nudie bar this side of From Dusk Til Dawn. But with more frightening dancers. He was informed of our approach by that same minion who’d gotten smashed into the Ryman’s walls. The mook was lingering a reasonable distance from his boss, but scampered over to tell him, drawing Jules’s nose out of his paper.
“Well, well,” Jules said as we approached, not remotely enthused at our appearance. “And here I was hoping my evening’s entertainment was over.” He had that bandage taped to his forehead now.
“There’s really not that much entertaining about my visits,” I said, pretending to cast an eye over the place. I raised my voice to make myself heard over the screech of whatever techno-garbage the DJ was filling the air with. A girl who was a little past her prime was gyrating on stage, spinning on a pole. She had some skill, I’d give her that, but she seemed to be going, quite unenthusiastically, through the motions, lifting her leg up to the—if possible—even less enthusiastic reaction of the two guys seated on stools beneath the stage, one of whom was diligently paying more attention to the taco salad on his plate than the girl flashing—uh, everything—at him from above. I wasn’t sure if this was a good choice or not, unable to believe the food here was any better than the dancers.
“I’ve already told you everything I know,” Jules said, putting his palms down on top of his paper.
“I have little difficulty believing that the sum total of your knowledge could be imparted in one conversation,” I said, inviting myself to sit down across from him—and also very thankful my meta immune system protected me from such minor annoyances as syphilis, typhoid and the black plague. “But I can’t help but feel that you might have, locked in that near-empty skull of yours, some small nugget of information that could help us catch Brance and end his reign of terror over the fine citizens of Nashville. Like yourself. Except not criminals.”
Jules seemed caught between desire to reply to my baiting insults and one to tell me to take a flying leap. His response split the difference: “This seems like your problem and not so much mine anymore.” He gingerly touched the bloody bandage that decorated his forehead. “Thankfully.”
“How would you describe Brance’s state of mind?” I asked, plowing right through his fruitless denial. Mostly so I could hammer home the point that denial was, in fact, going to produce utterly zero fruit for Jules.
“Crazy as hell,” Jules said. “The guy went nuts and attacked my group, okay? How am I supposed to see him? As some kind of benevolent talent, punching me in the chest like that?” He massaged his chest a little to the right of his sternum, and I knew that pain well. Too bad for Jules he’d be feeling it long past the time I did.
“Did he say anything to you on his way out?” I asked. “Any sort of comment blurted aloud?”
Jules tried to give me a look like I was crazy. “What am I, your stenographer? I got hit, I stopped remembering the pleasantries of conversation. The guy wasn’t exactly looking to discuss the ins and outs of Tennyson in any case, if you know what I mean.” He feigned a punch. “He looked crazy, acted crazy, hit me, hit my boy here, and left. What else is there?”
“Crazy, huh?” I asked, trying to keep cool with this unintentional thing he’d just handed me. “You don’t suppose he’s crazy enough to...track you down here, do you?”
Jules’s already narrowed eyes slitted farther. “I sure hope not. I’m unlikely to be caught by surprise in that particular way again. I see this guy coming...well, he better hope I don’t see him coming.”
“I’m sure he’s trembling in his cowboy boots at the thought of you coming at him,” I said, smiling. Infuriatingly, I hoped.
“Guy’s out of control,” Jules said. “What do you want from me?”
Something beeped behind me, and Chandler fumbled at his belt, coming up with his cell phone. “Sorry, just a sec,” he said, stepping away. I could hear the conversation over the radio, but pretended I couldn’t.
Mr. Mook shuffled toward Chandler, but I reached out and grabbed his arm, turning him back. “Give him a second,” I said, “and a little breathing room. By which I mean take your stinking breath back a step.”
“You can’t come into my club and start bossing my employees around,” Jules said, but not really putting a lot of oomph into it.
“You seem like a guy who understands power,” I said, “and realpolitik. Earlier today I had to go into one of your...friend’s? Competitor’s? Hell, I don’t even know. One of their trafficking houses—”
“Heard about that on the news,” Jules said mildly. “Lot of body bags came out of there.” He spat on the floor, which might have actually enhanced the cleanliness of his establishment. “I got no sympathies for sex traffickers.”
“Where was that?” Chandler asked, muffled, behind me. “Brentwood?”
“An honorable criminal,” I said. “Lemme just stand up and salute you. Anyway—that was a thing that happened. And it happened because...I could do it. So...what do you think I could do here?” I made a show of looking around.
Jules did a little survey of his own, then made a show of smiling at me, totally placatingly. “I’d like you off my property unless you’ve got a warrant.”
“I’ll leave in a second,” I said, listening into Chandler as he wrapped up his talk.
“That’s off Moores Lane?” Chandler asked. “And you’re sure—bleeding ears? Broken glass? All right. Be right there.” He slipped the cell phone back into his pocket and waved to me. “We need to go.”
“See?” I asked. “No need to try and push, Jules. You might get pushed back on, and I’d hate to see you suffer from two solid mule kicks to the chest in one day. Because mine would crush your ribs, not just leave you wheezing a little.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jules said, gesturing with his hand like it was a broom he could sweep me away with. “Don’t come back without a lawyer unless you just want to enjoy the company of my girls—and you’re willing to pay for it.”
“Pretty sure I could do better than this while getting someone to pay me for it,” I sniped back, then clammed up unt
il Chandler and I were outside. “We got a Brance sighting?” I asked, once we were out of earshot of the meathead bouncer.
“Certainly sounds like it,” he said. “South of the city, north of Franklin. Brentwood, Cool Springs area. Grocery store parking lot. Sounds like somebody might have caught him sleeping in his truck while they tried to burgle it. Didn’t go the way they planned, and now they’re bleeding from the ears and suffering concussions.”
“Let’s check it out,” I said, hustling back to my car. “Lead the way.”
CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR
Jules
“Sounds like something happened down in Brentwood,” Gil said. “The audio’s a little scratchy, but...yeah. Brentwood. Cool Springs.”
Jules stroked his chin thoughtfully. Wiring the parking lot with microphones and recording everything that happened out there had been an idea suggested by his security company to keep his girls safe. That it had produced a little blackmail video from the...outside work his ladies did...had been quite the boon. This was just the latest—and most unexpected—payoff. “And it’s Brance?”
Gil shrugged. “Sounds like it. Bleeding ears.”
That was all Jules needed to know. “Get Leo. The last thing we need is Sienna Nealon catching up to that pussy Brance and having him squeal his big flapping gums to her about what happened at the Ryman.”
“So you want us to do some...pest control?” Gil asked, with a smile.
“Yeah,” Jules said, rising and leaving his paper behind. “I got no patience for a rat, especially when I’m this close to nailing down the throne of Nashville’s underworld. Let’s get it taken care of.” He paused, and thought of something. “Oh, and Gil? Bring the police scanner, will ya? We might just need it.”
CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE
Reed
It was always sad to see someone’s hope take a hit, and this was no exception. I’d watched Ben Kelly trudge back up toward the Lotsostuff facility with his shoulders slumped, and felt bad. Ben seemed like a good kid—and he was a kid, really, no more than twenty-two—and having to deliver the news that whatever was happening here might just end up running its course without me able to do a damned thing about it seemed like being honest.
Still sucked to watch him take the hit.
My phone buzzed and I fished it out of my pocket. A small smile popped to my face when I saw the caller ID: Isabella Perugini.
“Hey, babe,” I answered. “How are you doing?”
“It’s cold up here,” she said, and I could almost hear the slight chatter of her teeth sandwiched in her words. Was that for effect? I doubted it. Minnesota was a chilly place. “When are you coming home?”
“I don’t know,” I said, letting the waning enthusiasm carry through my voice. “I don’t half know what I’m even still doing here, to be honest.”
“Was everything not as you expected?”
“Nothing was as I expected,” I said. “Least of all the set-up. Harry promised violence when he handed me that article. The worst I’ve seen is destruction of property by a Gavrikov who then hurled some fireballs at me. Kind of halfheartedly, I think, or maybe they were just really new at it. Or mad—”
“You do make people mad sometimes.”
“Mostly you, though, right?” I asked with a grin.
“You do not make me so mad anymore,” Isabella said, accent flowing through. I really liked her accent. Loved it, even. “I didn’t understand you, at first, when we got together. You are...so young, you know—”
“Yes, cradle-robber, I know this.”
“—that I think sometimes our worlds are too different for me to see what you are thinking. But that faded over time. Now, I think I understand you well enough. Mostly. I will never understand the interest in Pokémon—”
“You gotta catch ’em all. It’s just a thing.”
“—but otherwise, you make sense to me,” she said. “You are a good man. You do your best to make things right, even when it costs you.”
I frowned lightly, almost amused. “Costs me? How?”
“I know it hasn’t been easy for you lately,” she said. “With the business. With it...failing.” Boy, did she struggle with that word. “I know you have trouble sleeping with the worry. That you feel ashamed sometimes that things happened the way they did.”
My cheeks burned, and it wasn’t from the light, chilly breeze. “No. No. I know what I did, how I burned through the money—that I made mistakes. But it’s fine. It’s fine. I’m...fine,” I finished lamely.
“Uh huh,” she said, in that tone of voice that told me she knew I didn’t believe my own bullshit. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, but that is what I mean when I say it costs you. Worry. Stress. You fear losing...everything. It makes you not act like yourself.”
“What do you mean?” I asked quietly, kicking at a pebble in the parking lot. The protesters had melted away to about a fifth of their size during the day, and even now they were still shrinking, like an ice cube dropped in warm water.
“You’re not yourself. Not as you used to be. Too much responsibility. Always trying to be the hero. You do too much. You’ve cut people you cared about. Looked them in the eye and said goodbye, yes? That is not an easy thing, especially to wait and dread it as long as you did. It was like letting the axe hang over your head for months before it finally fell.”
“I didn’t know you knew,” I said. “You never mentioned it. Any of this.”
“You have had enough on your mind already,” she said. “I didn’t need to add more to it, you know? And you weren’t talking about it. Just a little, really. You needed someone to listen, not throw advice at you when you were already under pressure.”
“Yeah, it’s been a lot,” I said. “For a while now. I didn’t know you were worrying. And I definitely didn’t mean to make you worry—”
“I’m not worried. Well, maybe a little. But not much. You are a big boy, Reed, even if you are young—”
“Cradle-robber, I say.”
“—but you have a good head on your shoulders.” I could hear the faint smile in her reply. “You will figure it out, and be back to yourself again.”
Something clicked for me in all she’d just said. “I...gotta go,” I said, blinking furiously.
“Of course. I love—”
I hung up, suddenly very cold. Could it be that easy? Was my head up my ass?
I turned toward the Lotsostuff building, and saw the light was still on in the office of Logan Mills. A brand new question open in my mind, I broke into a run, flight forgotten, as I hustled to get it answered.
CHAPTER NINETY-SIX
Sienna
“Next up, we have the amazing Miranda Lambert singing her chart-topping instant classic, ‘Gunpowder and Lead.’”
The announcer’s voice faded away as I took the slow curve of the onramp onto 65 South, following the flashing lights of Chandler’s SUV ahead of me, my own flashers going like crazy in the front windshield. It was a little distracting, so I tried to focus on the darkened road ahead as the opening strains of a killer guitar riff started up and a woman’s taut, forceful vocals broke into a song about how her man had beat her up, and how she was going to go and get her shotgun and lie in wait for his ass to come home.
“Oh, yeah,” I muttered to myself. “I remember liking Miranda Lambert.” In fact, she might have been my spirit animal.
Hauling ass down Interstate 65, I had a flash, and suddenly for a second I was back in that house this morning, unloading on some asshole abusive sex trafficker with Miranda Lambert playing me along.
“I gotta stop killing people so much,” I muttered, meta-low, as the song came to a crashing close, hoping that the loudness of the radio would muffle my voiced thoughts, especially because I knew for a fact that the Network had bugged the shit out of my government phone. They were almost certainly listening even now. Which was why I so seldom liked carrying the damned thing. I knew they were spying on me almost every hour of the day.
It grated on my nerves every time I thought about it.
If there was any word in the dictionary that was synonymous with Sienna Nealon, it was not ‘passive.’ Nor was ‘willing to put up with abundances of crap.’
But all I did was take crap lately. All I did was deal with shit from Willis, from Chalke. From the people in Chalke’s secret club who thought I didn’t know about them.
The secrets I was keeping in isolation these days felt like enough to eat me alive, to make me want—so desperately—to take a drink.
A year ago, five years ago, if I’d walked into that sex trafficking den and seen what I saw this morning...I probably would have done the same thing I did.
But I might not have.
I could feel the fraying of my nerves in real time. This assignment, this decision, this thing I had been doing since I’d gotten back from Revelen last year...
It was killing me. Never a great team player, I’d still always had my friends. People I could rely on, talk to. And I did talk to them, still, at night, in the dreamwalk, where no one could see or record us.
Then I spent my waking hours in the company of agents of the FBI, surveilled by darker forces beyond who had spent years trying to destroy me before they figured out that I could be the ultimate accessory in their toolkit if they just pushed me the right way.
I felt the push. I was not the sort to be pushed without pushing back.
Yet I was not pushing back. I was waiting for a fantastical, far-off day when I could, by God, push back so hard they’d learn I was not to be manipulated or played with like a pet.
That day was definitely not here.
And it was draining my sanity every day I put up with this shit and it didn’t arrive.
“I gotta do something different,” I muttered, again below the volume I hoped the mic in my phone would pick up. I shouldn’t haven’t spoken at all. Or maybe I should have, to make them think I was losing it. I didn’t even know what my best move was anymore, I’d gotten so lost in this fiction I was living.
Music: Out of the Box 26 (The Girl in the Box Book 36) Page 31