by Tara Moss
‘Hi.’
Mak turned.
Bogey was back. He moved quietly to Mak’s side and leaned against the bar. She was sure he would be a little surprised to find her surrounded by five dancers and a frustrated-looking man holding a wad of cash, after leaving her by herself only a few minutes earlier. But he didn’t interfere.
‘Hi. How are you tonight?’ the milky blonde asked Bogey, moving to his side. ‘Are you having a good time?’ She was very curvy and very attractive. Her white lingerie was just see-through enough to make out the shape and the colour of her pink nipples, which Mak jealously witnessed her rub against Bogey’s chest in one subtle, rehearsed movement. Mak imagined that most guys would find such a play irresistibly arousing. What would Bogey do? Flirt back?
She watched for his response with more interest than she wished.
‘I’m good, thank you,’ he replied, and sat down with his back to both the girl and the growing crowd. He was smooth—Mak had to give him that.
‘Would you and your boyfriend like a dance?’ the blonde asked Mak. She gestured to Bogey.
My boyfriend.
‘Maybe later,’ Mak said. The comment gave her an idea. ‘It’s a shame you girls don’t remember Amy. I’d love to say hi to her.’
The girls nodded quietly—and guiltily, Mak thought—but the hard woman in red narrowed her eyes at the repeated mention of Amy. She was hostile about something.
Once the girls realised that their chances of being picked for a lap dance were slim, they dispersed like leaves in the wind. All except for the bold blonde, who turned to the cashed-up Peacock Man and dragged him off in the direction of his friends, all of whom appeared to be very happy for her company. She was onto a winner with that group, Mak figured. Now that the milky blonde was distracting him, that jerk would finally leave Mak alone. It was win–win.
Mak turned away from the group and ordered herself another drink.
‘Everything okay?’ Bogey asked quietly.
‘Yup,’ she said, a little embarrassed. She didn’t want to admit that his presence was a saving grace for her in the club. But she really didn’t have to say it: it was obvious. He’d only stepped away for five minutes and there had already been a bizarre exchange with one of the patrons.
On TV screens above the bar, the club rotated a series of promotions and photographs of different dancers pictured in soft focus: bending over the bar in stilettos and G-string; lying on a fur rug by a roaring fire; cinched in by a leather corset in a stark studio. Mak watched the screens scroll from one shot to the next as she waited for her drink.
A sexy photograph of the demure dancer appeared on the many screens positioned around the club. Pictured in reclining pose, leaning on one arm and wearing only a pair of brief briefs, the black-and-white shot looked like an imitation of a Calvin Klein ad. The title underneath said:
CHARLOTTE
PRIVATE DANCES START AT $20
Hello, Charlotte.
Charlotte had seemed a little shy, but in her very few words Mak had registered that she knew something about Amy Camilleri. Mak looked around for where the ballerina-bodied girl had gone and it didn’t take long to find her. Charlotte had made her way to one of the small stages, where she was in the middle of performing for a small audience. There were still a few free chairs circling her podium.
The instant Mak’s drink arrived, she grabbed it. She put a twenty on the bar and stood up.
‘Come on. Let’s go see our girl Charlotte,’ Mak said, and dragged her punk Elvis man into the crowd.
They weaved through the spectators and took a seat at the small stage, where six different men already sat around Charlotte’s table, watching her every move in a state of mute lust. A couple of them broke their mesmerised gaze to look Mak over as she joined them.
If everyone was so cagey about Amy for some reason—especially with that taskmaster of a dancer standing over them—then perhaps the best way to get someone talking would be to get them alone to a place where no one could overhear them.
There’s only one spot in a place like this to get one of the girls alone.
Mak and Bogey made themselves comfortable for a couple of minutes, watching Charlotte’s routine, then Mak reached over and placed a hand on Bogey’s knee. He flinched noticeably.
‘Hey, sweetie,’ she said, a little louder than she needed to, and taking a leaf out of Loulou’s vernacular. ‘You like her too, don’t you?’ Mak gestured towards Charlotte as she wriggled and teasingly pulled down the straps of her dress in a slow, seductive dance. Charlotte’s rejoinder to their conversation was made only with flirtatious looks and inviting body language. She communicated skilfully in that way with each member of her audience, making occasional eye contact.
‘Do you think we should have a private dance?’ Mak asked Bogey in a stage whisper, and nodded for him to say yes.
His eyes nearly fell out of his head at Mak’s suggestion. ‘Um, okay,’ he said. Bogey had been nothing but cool all evening, but now, even in the low light, Mak thought she could detect a slight blush on his cheeks. A lap dance was probably taking the evening much further than he had expected it to go.
Charlotte had overheard their exchange, as Mak had hoped, and she responded by playing up to Mak’s desires, getting on her knees right in front of her and slowly pulling her dress down over her torso, revealing small, well-formed breasts constrained only by a black satin bra. Mak wasn’t sure where to look at first; the attention was confronting. She chose to run her eyes up and down the woman’s body, mimicking what she had seen the male patrons do. Charlotte danced for her, her body at times only centimetres from Mak’s face. She made burning eye contact with Mak before tilting her head back in silent, erotic pleasure, rubbing her hands over herself.
Mak shifted in her chair and swallowed. Was it getting warm in the place, or was it just her?
‘We both think you’re beautiful. Can we have a private dance?’ Makedde managed to ask the tiny dancer, careful to use the terminology from the club’s screens. Mak pressed a fifty into the woman’s garter while Charlotte kneeled on the stage and arched her back.
Charlotte locked eyes with one of the girls off stage, who quickly took her place. In the wink of an eye she had pulled her black lycra dress up again and had nimbly taken the bills in the garter on her thigh and wrapped them into a tight bundle, storing them in a doubled-over garter on her wrist. Mak had never realised garters were so handy.
The men seated around the platform seemed not to care or barely notice the change of guard. They stared mutely at the next girl, their eyes brimming with the same sexual desire.
‘Come with me,’ Charlotte said in a low whisper, like she was sharing a secret.
Mak nodded, and turned to Bogey. ‘Come on, baby…’
Mak wanted to laugh, calling Bogey ‘Baby’. It was funny. The whole situation seemed funny to her, even if it was about to get a whole lot more intimate than it surely should have been. She’d only just met him and he was about to share her first lap dance experience with her. But screw it—if he hadn’t wanted to wait for her so badly, he wouldn’t be in there.
This was the price he’d pay—or the reward he’d get—for being a nice guy.
I think I’m about to see a whole lot more of Charlotte than I’d bargained for…
Without another word the exotic dancer led Makedde Vanderwall with one cool, soft-skinned hand towards the ‘private’ rooms of the Thunderball Club. These rooms were simply areas sectioned off with opaque glass that offered something only partially resembling privacy. Mak allowed herself to be led, ignoring the outright stares of several men in the club, who turned away from their scantily clad drinking companions and gyrating podium dancers to watch the tall blonde patron being led away for a lap dance.
The ex-coffin-maker, Bogey, trailed along behind the two women, head down and beer in hand, his leather jacket scrunched under one arm.
What must he be thinking?
Makedde watched as C
harlotte checked for an empty space in a private room, glancing from one opaque glass-partitioned square to another, all the while holding Mak’s hand. She eventually found a room she seemed satisfied with, and led the two of them inside. When she stepped inside the room, Mak was surprised to find a woman getting a lap dance in one corner. It was the only other female patron Mak had seen at the club. The young woman, dressed in pants and a white blouse, seemed to be quietly enjoying having another woman wriggling above her lap as she sipped a martini. There was plenty of space inside the private room, despite the other dancer and her customer, and Mak soon saw that it was dark enough for the other couple to fade to sensual shapes in the background. The room certainly felt more private than it had looked from the outside. There was a low lounge on one side with plush cushions, and Mak and Bogey sat down next to one another, side by side, but purposely not touching.
Mak’s heart pounded.
Without any small talk Charlotte began to strip, first swaying to the music and running those cool hands across her slim figure, then teasing with the straps of her dress, as she had on the stage. When she pulled her black dress right down and stepped out of it, she was wearing a matching set of expensive satin underwear. She bent over to delicately place her dress on the arm of the lounge, and Mak flicked her eyes up around the walls of the room.
Ah, there you are.
Security cameras. There were few things in this place that would not be viewed by security, or the club’s owner himself, even in the private rooms. They were definitely being watched.
Charlotte came to Mak, bent in front of her and took both of Mak’s hands gently in her own. It felt incredibly intimate for Mak to have this near-naked woman hold her hands. Behind Charlotte’s petite frame, the vague, sensual shape of the other dancer gyrating naked in the woman’s lap caught Mak’s eye. Charlotte asked Mak to hold her arms straight out in front of her, and she complied. Charlotte then ran her fingers up and down Mak’s bare arms and plunged between them, giving Mak a start. The dancer rested her body weight on Mak’s thighs, and let her tiny body slide between Mak’s legs, gyrating up and down.
Damn.
It was a strange experience for Makedde: sexual, intimate and yet impersonal. She’d not thought she was harbouring Sapphic desires, but Mak found this woman’s erotic ballet arousing. The atmosphere of the club was not erotic—not like this. This was a shock to her system. Mak took a long sip of her drink, nearly finishing it. She felt the alcohol rush to her brain. She glanced over at Bogey, who appeared to be having as much difficulty as she was in determining where to look.
Before long, Charlotte had slipped out of her bra and then her panties. Only those handy garters and her diamanté shoes and jewellery stayed on. She turned her back to them and bent over to touch the floor, her fanny in Makedde’s face. She was breathtakingly flexible, hands around her ankles and her face at the floor looking back at Mak. There was not one single mark or flaw on her tanned skin; Mak was amazed. Then Charlotte, with her pert breasts and seamless, toned body, grabbed Bogey’s leather jacket and put it on. She posed with it, smiling cheekily, lifting the collar to her face, and rubbing the leather over her torso.
Bogey seemed suddenly to have a dry mouth. He swallowed a couple of times in quick succession, and adjusted the neck of his T-shirt. One Doc Marten boot began tapping.
‘Charlotte?’ Mak began.
‘Yes,’ she responded, caressing Bogey’s jacket, and posing her small, firm buttocks in his direction.
‘You dance beautifully.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I want you to keep dancing while I ask you a question.’
‘Oh?’ Charlotte said, bending backwards and displaying her neatly waxed groin again, leaving Mak temporarily without words.
She slid another fifty into the woman’s garter. ‘You know Amy Camilleri, don’t you?’
Charlotte faltered. ‘Um, I don’t know. Sorry…’
‘Yes, you do. She works here,’ Mak insisted.
The sexy pout vanished. ‘Umm, she doesn’t work here right now.’
‘But she does work here normally, and you do know her.’
Charlotte stopped dancing.
‘Please keep dancing,’ Mak urged, thinking of the cameras. She pressed another fifty into the garter and Charlotte continued, this time more hesitantly. She ran her hands over her bare skin and swayed in one place, Bogey’s jacket still on her. ‘Just keep on dancing,’ Mak said. ‘I like the way you dance.’
Charlotte seemed reassured by this. She went for another dive in between Makedde’s legs, sliding up close to her body. When she was close to Mak’s ear, she said. ‘Who are you?’ Her breath was scented with peppermint.
‘I am an investigator,’ Mak replied, ‘helping one of Amy’s friends. Amy is not in any trouble, and I don’t want you or the other girls here to have any trouble either, so that is why I’m here like this, as a customer just having a little chat. I know you don’t want your employer to see you being questioned by police or anyone official. So just tell me about Amy. Where is she staying? I know she hasn’t been home in a while.’
Charlotte stopped again.
‘Keep dancing, keep dancing…Has she been in to work this week?’
The dancer shook her head.
Amy hasn’t been in to work. And she hasn’t been home. Why?
Had something terrible happened to Meaghan’s friend as well?
‘I knew you hadn’t been in here before,’ Charlotte said. ‘I would have remembered you.’
Mak smiled. ‘Tell me about Amy, Charlotte.’ She slipped another fifty into her garter. ‘And dance for me.’
‘Something’s going on with her,’ she said, head upside down between her ankles. Mak kept her eyes on Charlotte’s face, and she wasn’t sure where Bogey was looking. He was shifting in his seat. He crossed his legs and sat back with his head against the glass wall. ‘She hasn’t been around since Thursday,’ Charlotte said. ‘She seemed paranoid.’
Thursday. When Meaghan was killed.
‘Paranoid? In what way?’ Mak asked.
‘Like, you know, paranoid, that’s all. She kept asking if anyone had come to the club looking for her. She was scared. I thought she was maybe just doing drugs again and getting all loopy.’
Mak nodded. ‘She recently lost a friend. Did she mention anything about that?’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘No. That’s awful. I don’t know her that well—she’s just one of the girls here, you know?’
‘Meaghan Wallace worked here a bit, too. Did you know her?’
‘Meaghan? I don’t think so,’ she said.
‘A blonde with a bob. She went back to Sydney.’ It had been a few years.
Charlotte shook her head, and Mak believed her. ‘Where can I find Amy at the moment? It’s important that I talk to her.’
Charlotte was hesitant.
‘Is she staying at a friend’s? Her mum’s?’ Mak pressed.
‘I’m really not supposed to tell you. We aren’t supposed to talk about it.’
We.
So the other girls all knew something as well. The Texas warden was keeping them in line.
‘You have to tell me, Charlotte. It’s very important. I know you don’t want any trouble.’
As a private investigator, Mak had no more rights or powers than the girl who was dancing for her, but Charlotte didn’t need to know that. Implied power was enough.
Charlotte seemed unnerved by Mak’s inquisition. She clung to Bogey’s jacket like a security blanket, the sensuality gone from her movements. Mak could see she wasn’t going to do any more dancing. Their time was almost up.
‘How do I know you are who you say you are?’ she squeaked.
‘I’m giving you my business card.’ Mak wrapped her card in one last fifty-dollar bill and put it into the woman’s garter. Two hundred and fifty dollars was all the money of her client’s that she could rationalise spending to try to find Amy’s address through her work colle
agues. If this didn’t work she might have to start thinking of another avenue, or she’d have to discover another friend of Meaghan’s who was easier to reach. ‘I need to speak to her and I need you to trust me. This is important.’
‘I wouldn’t trust you if you weren’t a woman.’
Charlotte’s customers would not like to hear that.
‘You can trust me.’
‘I really am not supposed to be telling you this, but Amy is um…staying with the owner, Larry. Everyone at the club kinda knows, but we’re not allowed to talk about it with anyone. Thursday she just stopped coming to work, and word is she shacked up with him.’
‘I see,’ Mak said, relieved.
She contained her smile.
So that’s why she wasn’t at her place. She’d shacked up with the owner. That was all?
Mak had been expecting something much worse.
‘You mean the owner, Larry Moon, right?’ Mak had done her homework on the club.
Charlotte nodded, swinging her hips and doing the occasional half-hearted shimmy.
‘You promise not to tell anyone that I told you?’ Charlotte said in a nervous voice.
‘I promise,’ Mak said. ‘No more questions now. I liked your dance. Thank you.’
Charlotte lit up, finally off the hook. She seemed very relieved. In one smooth action she took the bills in her garter and again slid them into the other garter she had bunched up on her wrist. She had quite a collection now.
‘Wait until I am dressed and we will leave together. That is the way it’s done.’
‘Okay. Of course,’ Mak replied.
When Charlotte was dressed, Mak said, ‘I just have one more question to ask—don’t worry, it’s not related. Does your job pay well? You’re a good dancer. What do you pull in, if you don’t mind my asking?’
Charlotte looked flattered instead of offended, which was good. ‘I do pretty well…You’re not with the Tax Department, are you?’