I kept Nathaniel’s hand and moved up in front of them both, so that it forced the man to step back from us. He actually reached around me and touched Micah’s shoulder again. I had to let go of Nathaniel’s hand, but I moved up two more steps. For a moment the man was almost pressed up against me. He started to smile at me, then saw my eyes, and the smile faltered, and he stepped back.
I don’t know what look was on my face, but he stumbled a little over his words, “They said they liked dick.”
“I said, I liked my own,” Micah said.
“If anyone else asks,” Nathaniel said, “just say no.”
I said, “We’ve had a misunderstanding here.”
The man nodded. “Sorry.” He started to move away.
I said, “We’re trying to find our friend. She called drunk, needs a ride home.” I described her.
He gave me nervous eyes. He knew something, and I’d been scary, so he didn’t want to tell me. I should really learn to tone down the whole silent threat thing, but damn, I’ve just gotten so good at it.
Nathaniel’s hand snaked acround my shoulder. The hand had a twenty dollar bill in it. He said, “Ask again.”
I took the twenty and creased it down the middle. The man watched me do it. He seemed less nervous, but I could tell he still didn’t like me or what was happening. Things hadn’t gone the way they were supposed to go, and it had thrown him.
“Do you know where our friend is?” I held the twenty up.
“Maybe,” he said, and his voice sounded rough.
Nathaniel leaned over my shoulder. His voice was low and calm. “We want to find her before she does something she’ll regret. She had a fight with her boyfriend, they’ll make up, but not if she crosses too many lines, do you understand me?”
“This will get you a lap dance, a good one. I have to do something for the money, or he’ll know I told on him. He wouldn’t like that, and he’d make sure I didn’t like it.”
“Who?” I asked.
Nathaniel was standing so close to me I felt him sigh. “Ronnie is already in the back, Anita.”
“The back?” I asked.
“Wherever they go, she’s already back there.”
Shit. “Take us to her,” I said.
“Dallas would kill me. We don’t get that many beautiful women in here.”
“We could just start asking where Dallas is,” I said.
Something close to real fear went through his eyes. “Don’t do that, please.”
I hate when I start feeling sorry for them. “What’s your name?”
“Owen,” Nathaniel said, “he said his name was Owen.”
“Alright, Owen, we don’t want to get you hurt, but if you keep us talking and something bad happens . . .”
Micah said, “Give him another twenty, then he can take us to the back.”
I looked at him.
“We can find her on our own, and he can pretend that he took us to the back for business.”
My look said it all.
He shrugged. “He won’t get hurt, and we’ll all get what we need.”
I wanted to argue, but Nathaniel’s hand had already appeared with another twenty in it. “I had a good night,” he said. What did that mean? A good night? Good tips? Or did Nathaniel do lap dances when he wasn’t on stage? I’d never asked. I hadn’t wanted to know, hell, I still didn’t want to know. I took the twenty and folded it together with the first one.
“Take us to the back, Owen.”
Another dancer appeared in what I finally realized was the outfit; loose shorts, T-shirt, and socks. This one had more meat on him and was cute in a boyish, unfinished sort of way. “Need another hand?”
It was Nathaniel who moved up, hugging me from behind, smiling, suddenly. “We’ve got all the men we need, don’t we, Owen?”
Owen nodded, and I watched his face remold itself, so that when he turned to his coworker, he was smiling and at ease. He took the forty dollars from my hand and tucked it into the top of his white socks. He made the movement strangely graceful and more feminine than it should have been, as if in his mind he was tucking a hundred dollars into the tops of silk stockings. It was a good moment and made me think better of him in the job he’d chosen. Before that one movement, I’d wondered what the hell he was doing here. Of course, with Guilty Pleasures as my measuring rod, everyone here looked too thin, too fragile, not muscular enough, not anything enough.
I didn’t manage a smile, but I kept my face pleasant and unreadable. “Yeah, we have enough men.”
“We don’t have women here,” the other dancer said. There was something in his eyes, something about the way he glanced at Owen, as if he didn’t believe us.
“We brought our own,” Nathaniel said, and moved up between Owen and me, so he could drape an arm around us both. He was smiling. His lavender eyes shown with eagerness. It was an Oscar-worthy performance, and the other dancer seemed to buy it.
He did glance back at Micah. “What’s he going to be doing?”
“Watching, silly,” Owen said, and began to guide us around the other man. We threaded our way through the tables, with Micah trailing behind. I swear, I could feel the other dancer’s eyes on us, as if he still didn’t buy it. Or maybe he was jealous, God alone knew, because I didn’t want to. Ronnie was so going to owe me for this one.
A dancer stepped out onto the bar as we passed it. He was so not in shape, not fragile, sort of like a computer geek, or accountant. He had glasses and short hair that didn’t flatter his face. He was ordinary and so didn’t look like anyone that should be stripping. I wondered what he was doing here, like this, then he grabbed a set of bright chrome bars that were suspended above the bar and proceeded to roll his entire body up and through his own arms, proving that he was every bit as double-jointed as Nathaniel. Okay.
The audience screamed behind us, and I couldn’t help it, I glanced in that direction. The dancer was tall, thin, and a brunette and wearing only the white socks. He grabbed the bar in the center of the stage and began to writhe around it. I turned away, fast, and found that the dancer at the bar was nude now, too. I came almost face-to-face with the other reason he was stripping here; he was well-endowed. I nearly tripped us all trying to get some room between us and the bar. Owen laughed, a high girlish laugh, and Nathaniel joined it with a masculine chuckle. Micah followed silent, and I waited to stop blushing. They did total nudity across the river, how could I have forgotten? What I wanted to do was run screaming, but instead I let Owen maneuver us toward the black-draped area across from the bar. Nathaniel was plastered between us, still smiling, still laughing. If Nathaniel could keep playing nice, so could I. I glanced back to check on Micah and saw the dancer at the bar proving that it wasn’t just his shoulders that could bend in amazing ways. A woman was holding up money. Micah was staring straight ahead, as if, if he didn’t look, it would all just go away. It wasn’t just me that Ronnie was going to owe.
Owen parted the black drapes, and in we went.
72
THERE WAS A small open area just inside the drapes. A man was leaning against the far wall. He straightened up as we came through the curtain. He was wearing a muscle shirt, exercise pants, and white socks. The clothes were slightly different, but the socks gave it away. He was another dancer. There was more muscle under the shirt, and he had a body closer to the kind I expected from a stripper. “Need a hand?” he asked. It was exactly what the other dancer had asked. Coincidence, or code for something? Didn’t know, wasn’t sure I cared.
“No, thanks, we got it covered,” Owen trilled. He clung to Nathaniel’s arm, and Nathaniel let him.
I tried to help. I said, “Sorry, but I think I’m at my limit for men for the night. After three, don’t they make you throw one back?”
The new guy laughed, shook his head, and motioned us toward a hallway that seemed to stretch the length of the club. Owen moved us all down that narrow corridor. There wasn’t actually room for us to walk three abreast, so Nath
aniel dropped ahead, and kept his arm around Owen. Owen must have taken that for a good sign, because he was suddenly draped around Nathaniel like some kind of tall, thin fashion accessory. Micah caught up with me, his arm sliding around my waist like I was his new security blanket. I guess I couldn’t blame him, I wasn’t exactly comfy myself.
There were small booths on either side, with curtains that could be drawn in front of them, though not everyone seemed to be bothering to pull curtains. Most of it was perfectly legal, a private lap dance. Rules for a lap dance are: The customer keeps their hands to themselves. The dancer does the touching, and even then, there are rules about what kind of touching can be done. Funny how living with a stripper and dating someone who owned a strip club had made me pay attention to things I never thought I’d want, or need, to know. But once you go in private, it’s a negotiation between the dancer and customer. I don’t mean just sex. Jason had one woman who wanted to lick the back of his knees, and was willing to pay fifty dollars for the privilege. Not my idea of fun, but not sexual, not legally. Or by most people’s standards, at all.
I hadn’t really thought how to find Ronnie once we were back here. Most of the booths were closed. I couldn’t just start yelling her name without maybe getting Owen in trouble with this Dallas person. Shit.
But I didn’t have to find Ronnie, I damn near tripped over her leg when it shot out from underneath a drape. I thought I knew the leg, but I was sure of the voice. “I fell down, God, I’m drunk.” A man’s voice murmured, and I think he was helping her to her feet.
I fought the urge to knock and said, “Ronnie, is that you?” Though I knew it was, sometimes you just have to say the stupid shit. Giggling was the only answer she offered. I took a deep breath and pulled the drape aside.
Ronnie was on her knees in the back of the booth. There was a flash of pale breasts, her shirt was up, and there was no bra in sight. A man was leaning over her breasts like he owned them. The dancers are allowed to touch, but not that much. If the management found out, he’d be booted out, or at least that was the theory.
“I’ll wait down the hallway,” Micah said.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Nathaniel took Owen by the arm and said, “I’ll look after Micah.” I was left alone with my friend and her friend.
Ronnie giggled and drew him up for a kiss. I don’t think she realized that the curtain was open. If she’d been sober, I’d have turned on my heel and left her to it. She’s over twenty-one, but she was drunk and depressed and confused and my friend. So I moved a little into the booth, close enough that she could see me over his shoulder.
She smiled up at me. “Anita, why are you here?”
“You called me to give you a ride home, remember?”
She frowned up at me, as if to say, no, she didn’t remember.
The man who was on his knees in front of her turned and looked up at me. “You want to join us? I won’t charge extra.”
“I’ll just bet you won’t. Come on, Ronnie, let’s go home.”
“I don’t want to go home. Not yet. I just found Dallas. We’re having a private dance.”
“I see that,” I said, “but if you’d planned on doing private dancing, you shouldn’t have called me. I need to get to bed, and so do you.”
“But isn’t he cute?” She put her hands on either side of his face and turned him to face me again. Truthfully, he was okay, but the face wasn’t the show. He had the first body I’d seen since we got to the place that looked like a man’s body and not that of a preadolescent boy. He had broad shoulders, nice waist, hips, muscles in his arms and legs that showed he lifted weights. The tattoo on his arm was a Marine tattoo. What was an ex marine doing in a place like this?
“Yeah, he’s cute, now let’s go.” I reached for her arm. Dallas didn’t touch me, or try to keep her by force, he was sneakier than that, and smarter, too. He buried his face in her chest and nibbled gently on the edge of her breast. Ronnie threw her head back and made a noise that I never wanted to hear my friend make while I was in the same room.
Micah called, not quite a yell, “Anita, what’s taking so long?”
“Ronnie doesn’t want to leave.”
“Then, let’s go.” Something in his voice made me want to see what was happening with him.
“I’ll be right back, don’t do anything that you can get arrested for.” Dallas gave me a look that said plainly he was going to try and do just the opposite, but it was the best I could do, unless I wanted to drag Ronnie out of the booth by her hair. I wanted to see why Micah’s voice sounded the way it did.
Micah was very politely, but firmly, saying to an older gentleman, “Thank you, but no, we’re waiting for a friend.”
“I’ll be your friend,” the man said. He flashed a wad of bills about waist height, so you wouldn’t see it from farther into the club. The bill that showed was a twenty, leaving the implication that it was a roll of twenties.
Micah shook his head.
The man peeled off two twenties.
“No,” Micah said.
I was almost up to them, when the man peeled off two more twenties—eighty bucks—and held it up to Micah. “No one else is going to offer you more tonight.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “I’m throwing in room and board, and sex with a girl.” I put my arm around Micah’s waist, and he did the same to me.
The man’s eyes flicked to me, then back to Micah, then to me. “You’re his friend?”
I nodded.
“You really were waiting for a friend,” the man said.
“I did tell you that,” Micah said.
The man frowned and started folding his money away. “I didn’t think you meant this kind of friend.”
“He did,” I said, and gave him the smile that was bright and cheerful and never reached my eyes. I looked around for Nathaniel and found that I could barely see him around the backs of a couple that had him backed into a corner. He raised a hand, so I’d be sure to see him. Or maybe he was asking for help, like a drowning man.
I took Micah’s hand and brought him with me. I think safety in numbers was our best bet. “Excuse me, boys and girls,” I said.
The couple turned and looked at me. The man was tall and dark, the girl was a little taller than me and blond. She was wearing a halter dress that needed to be lined better. Her nipples were dark imprints against the pale fabric. I carefully kept my gaze above her waist, not even wanting to know if there were other dark imprints lower down. I don’t mean to give the idea that they were cheap looking, they weren’t. The girl was wearing a diamond in her engagement ring big enough to choke a puppy, and her bracelets were gold and more diamonds. Her makeup was artful, which meant she looked like she was wearing almost none but was actually wearing a lot. The man was dressed in a suit that had been tailored to his body and had probably come from the same shop that Micah and Nathaniel got theirs from. It had the look.
“I’m sorry, but we were talking to the gentleman first,” the man said.
I took in a lot of air through my nose and let it out slow. The woman’s perfume was powdery and expensive. “Actually, I was talking to him first, because I brought him here.”
They gave each other surprised looks.
Nathaniel started trying to ease past them. “Sorry,” he said, “I did tell you I came with somebody.” When he was safely beside me, and I was holding both Micah’s and Nathaniel’s hands, I figured we were safe from any more propositions. Silly me.
The woman went up on tiptoe, and the man bent down so she could whisper. I didn’t care anymore. I started trying to maneuver us back to Ronnie. The area was just a little narrow for three people to move easily.
“Wait,” the woman said.
I turned back, because that’s what you do when someone speaks to you.
“All three of you with us,” she said.
I blinked at her, the long blink that gave me time to process information when I just didn’t believe what I’d just
heard. Once upon a time, I’d have asked her what she meant, but I’d grown up since then, and I knew the answer. “No,” I said, and sort of pushed Micah in front of me and pulled Nathaniel behind. We came to an abrupt halt, because Nathaniel stopped moving.
I knew what I was going to see before I turned back. I was half right, the man had grabbed Nathaniel’s arm. I’d thought it would be the woman. Again, silly me.
I moved up beside Nathaniel. “Let go of him, now,” and I put a lot of force in the “now.”
He dropped Nathaniel’s arm. “My wife really likes your friend.”
“I’m happy for her, but it’s not my problem. Don’t touch him again. Don’t touch any of us again, is that clear?”
“You’re here for the same thing we are,” he said, “let’s go back to our place. We’ve got a bathtub big enough for all of us.” He stepped a little closer to us. “I just know that you’ll look even better out of your clothes than you do in them.”
I gave him the look, the one that makes bad guys flinch at twenty paces and the weaker ones run for their mommies.
His wife was smarter than he was, she pulled on his arm, and said, “Honey, I don’t think they want to play.”
“Listen to your wife, she’s the smart one.” I thought that was a nice parting shot, and we turned to go, and again, Nathaniel stopped moving. I turned back and found that the man had grabbed Nathaniel’s braid. That was it, no more nice.
I brought my badge out and shoved it at his face. He had to back up to look at the badge, as if he should have been wearing glasses but wasn’t. But it made him let go of Nathaniel’s hair.
He laughed. “I’ve got one at home. If you want to play cops and robbers, we’re into that.”
I had the badge in my left hand, so I had to use just my fingertips of the same hand to spread my jacket wide enough that I showed him the gun in its shoulder holster. “You got one of these?” I asked.
The woman was pulling at his arm. “Don’t, honey, I think she’s for real.”
He glared down at me. “Who are you?”
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