"I need to freshen up," I said, excusing myself. "And don't steal any of my martini!"
I headed back into the bowels of the club, where I used the restroom, and then found Alexandra as she was coming out of the locker room.
"I need a favor," I said, somewhat gingerly. We had been friends years earlier, but she had grown jealous of me when I became the club's top draw six or seven years ago, and she wasn't good at hiding it.
She looked at me skeptically. She was still beautiful, blonde, and blessed with amazing eyes, and she appealed to men who weren't looking for ninety-seven pound sticks. Not that she was fat—far from it. But she had curves—real ones—and the body of a woman who wasn't afraid to eat a steak every once in a while. She was also six-foot-two.
"What kind of favor?" she asked.
"I'm with a guy, and he likes you. I'll cover it, but I need you to give him a dance. A really good one, okay?"
She nodded. "That's it? I would do that anyway. What's the favor?"
I smiled hesitantly. "I'm going to try to borrow his phone while you're doing the dance."
She crunched her features up and cocked her head sideways in confusion. "Huh?"
"It's not a big deal," I said, scrambling to manufacture a plausible reason I wanted his phone. "I just need to see if he's cheating on me with someone. I think he's been texting another girl, and it's eating me up inside." Sometimes a lie is much simpler than the truth.
"Okay, I get it. Sure, I'll play it cool. And I'll find a way to really distract him. Is that the idea?" She had grabbed my arm for effect.
I nodded, relieved that she wasn't holding a grudge. "You got it." I reached into my bag and found a bunch of twenties. "This covers it, okay?"
She counted out seven twenties and seemed impressed. "I hope for your sake he's been a good boy."
I shrugged. "Me too. I'll let you know. And thanks!"
Alexandra folded the money and slipped it into a tiny pocket on her bra, and then she scampered off, a funny look spreading across her face. She had been wary at first, but I sensed she was now intrigued to be part of a little caper.
On my way back to our table, I filled Carlos in and told him to be on the lookout for Alexandra and Kent in the lap dance parlor, which was a secluded, dimly lit room in the rear of the club. I would be lurking outside, waiting for the right moment, and Carlos could be around in case things went south. He nodded along in silence and then squinted at me.
"You're starting to get good at this crap," he muttered.
I shrugged. "It's just an idea. Now watch me screw it up."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When I returned to our table, Kent was already standing up, chatting with Alexandra. His arms were folded across his chest, a sign that he felt a little defensive. He turned his attention to me when I arrived.
"You really didn't have to do this," he said.
I put my arm on Alexandra's shoulder and turned to face Kent. "I saw you looking at her. You looked as if you could blow off a little steam, so I made it happen. Live a little! You're so young."
He shrugged, a smile creeping across his face. "I'm not turning it down, believe me. Let's go!"
Alexandra took him by the arm and, as they headed to the back room, she turned her head back and winked at me.
I gave them a couple of minutes to get settled into the lap dance routine, and then I headed back there myself, with Carlos in tow.
In the back room there were three armless chairs aligned toward the rear of the room, the idea being that security staff could monitor the activities back there without the customers knowing they were being watched. In the far corner a hefty, balding man was getting the treatment from Naomi, an exotic half-Japanese, half-Russian girl who'd recently dropped out of medical school. Kent and Alexandra were right in front of us. Kent had shaken off his initial wariness and was embracing the experience. Literally. Alexandra had removed her top and was pressing herself into Kent's chest, and his arms kept reaching for her back to pull her in even closer. She was politely but firmly fending off his hands, and I expected she was gently repeating the rules of engagement into his ear, the primary one being hands off. I had given her a gigantic tip to make her more accommodating, but the hands thing was non-negotiable.
Alexandra was good at her job. I was never a big fan of giving lap dances because the men's expectations were almost universally too high. For most men, the lap dance was the closest thing to sex, and they had trouble enjoying the fantasy without wanting to take it to the next, forbidden level. It was understandable: we got them all worked up, and their hormones began going crazy. That was the point. But, built into the process was the inevitable letdown the customer experienced when the five minutes were over. Their brains might understand, but their hormones were saying, hey idiot, there's a beautiful naked girl on top of you, why the hell are you getting up to leave?
Alexandra was selling it, by which I mean she was acting as though giving Kent a lap dance was a privilege she enjoyed rather than a sketchy way to make a quick buck. If you could make a guy feel special, as if he was better than the rest of the rabble in the nightclub—something he probably believed already—he'd come back again and again, and the tips would follow in due course. The best lap dances weren't only dances—they were transformations. For five minutes, a paper-pusher from Peoria could be transformed into a powerful model of manhood, a tower of testosterone fueled by alcohol, the stripper's body, and the things she would whisper in his ear. The sex appeal was a big part of it, no doubt, but a well-crafted lap dance was really just another way of providing what Las Vegas could provide better than anywhere else, which was an appreciation of how interesting and special the customer really is.
All of which is to say that Kent was thoroughly enjoying being made to feel special and interesting. Alexandra was not shy about allowing certain of her body parts to press up against his face, and once Kent learned his lesson about keeping his hands to himself, he began to appreciate what a massive tip from an insider would get him.
Carlos elbowed me. "Now's the time," he whispered.
I nodded, knowing he was right—my pounding heart had already recognized that fact. I took my dummy phone out of my own pocket and crept up behind Kent's chair, while Alexandra continued her jiggling and writhing, pretending not to see me get down on my hands and knees. I knew the phone was in Kent's right pocket, so I crawled over to that side of his chair. Kent was oblivious, and the loud music would conceal any noises I made, but I wasn't sure whether I would be able to reach into his pocket without alerting him. It was my virgin run as a pickpocket.
What I hadn't counted on was the very real possibility that there would be other people in the back room with us. As I prepared to do the deed, another dancer led a large, balding man by the hand to the chair in the corner of the room. I didn't recognize the girl, who must have been new, and she did a double take when she saw me. I used my finger to make a shhh signal, but that only aroused her curiosity even more. I looked up to check on Kent, but he was still giving Alexandra his undivided attention. Pretty soon the other customer turned to face me, fixing me with a quizzical expression as if to say, this is my dime, lady, don't screw around.
Panic set in. Alexandra was doing a great job of distracting Kent, but it was only a matter of time before the other two would queer the deal and expose my not-so-well-thought-out plan. I started crawling backwards in retreat, but was interrupted immediately by a soft hand on my back. It was Carlos. The other dancer didn't recognize me, but she definitely knew Carlos, who worked in the club six nights a week. He had appreciated the gravity of the situation and decided to barge in to explain things to the other girl. He whispered something in her ear and nodded. She didn't seem completely satisfied with whatever he'd said, but she grabbed the guy she was with and pushed him down into the chair. The customer soon lost interest in anything else that was going on in the room, and Carlos backed away.
I didn't know if Kent had noticed any of the intera
ctions going on fifteen feet to his right, but if he had, it no longer mattered because Alexandra had taken his head in her hands and pressed his face into her body. I scurried back behind his chair and began inching my right hand closer to his pocket. He was wearing light gray cargo shorts, and even in the dim lighting I could see the rectangular outline of his phone in his right front pocket.
I reached in with my index and middle fingers, trying to be as surgical as possible. My fingers could feel the warmth of his body, even though I hadn't made contact with the fabric inside his pocket. Eventually I got a loose handle on the phone, between the tips of my fingers, but it wouldn't budge. The problem was that Alexandra's legs were straddling Kent's body, and her left thigh was pressing into his right. I tried pulling a little harder, but still nothing. Finally, sensing my problem, she shifted her leg slightly, and I made my move. The phone slipped out, grazing his thigh ever so slightly, and I slipped it into my left hand. He hadn't noticed. In a surprising stroke of luck, Kent's phone looked identical to the one I had bought earlier.
Part two was getting the dummy phone into his pocket. I considered quitting while I was ahead and just getting the hell out of there, but I didn't want him searching all around looking for his phone. If there was anything damaging on there, its absence would freak him out. So I took the new phone and slowly started to sneak it into his pocket. It wasn't working.
It turned out that removing something is easier than replacing something. I tried to align the new phone in three or four different ways, but each time I tried to push it into his pocket, it would start to jam into his thigh. But then the idea struck me: I didn't need to replace the phone. I could simply leave it underneath his chair, and then point it out to him, as though he'd dropped it during the dance. Dropping the phone would come as no surprise, given that a leggy blonde had been wriggling around on top of him for the last ten minutes. I placed the phone under his seat and crawled back out of there. Both Alexandra and the other dancer studiously ignored me.
I met up with Carlos at the door to the back room, where we'd been standing only a few minutes earlier.
"What did you tell her?" I asked.
"I said Kent had stiffed another dancer out of a big tip, so you were getting a little bit of payback." He smiled, seeming proud of his little lie.
"You're learning," I said.
"No, I'm just spending too much time around you."
I chuckled. "Yeah, as if that's a real burden on you."
"I have other interests," he said, haughtily. I wasn't buying it.
"Such as?"
"My girlfriend, for one," he said. It was clear he wanted to drop the subject.
This time I guffawed. "Oh, you mean the one you leave at a moment's notice every time I call you?"
He grimaced. "That's because you pay in cash."
"Yeah, right."
We stood in silence for the rest of the dance. Alexandra shot me a subtle glance, and I nodded to her, indicating that our mission had been accomplished. When she climbed off of Kent, he didn't seem ready for the dance to be over. But Alexandra was used to that, so she kissed him on top of the head and pulled his face into her chest. When he stood up he fumbled with his wallet to give her a tip, but she brushed him off and told him it was covered.
"Okay, Carlos, get lost," I said. "He's done."
Carlos receded back into the club, and I moved into the lap dance room.
"I thought you were going to be in here forever," I said. "I had to come see for myself!"
Kent smiled awkwardly and pulled at his shorts, which had bunched up around his obvious and persistent excitement.
"She's good," he said.
I smiled and grabbed his arm, and then I pretended to notice something on the floor for the first time.
"Is that yours?" I asked. "Looks like a phone."
He felt his pockets and came up empty. "Must have fallen out. Thanks for spotting it."
He picked it up and, out of habit, tried to turn it on.
"Crap," he said. With his accent, the curse word sounded so polished. "The bloody thing has died on me."
"Maybe it hit the ground too hard," I suggested.
"Could be. Maybe it's just the battery. Anyway, you up for another drink? Or…"
"Or what?" I asked, knowing the answer. He'd gotten all worked up by Alexandra, and I imagined he had a very specific agenda in mind.
"Well, you see, er, I have a place nearby here, and we could, you know, have a little bit of fun between us, right?" He'd gotten all shy and awkward on me all of a sudden. It was charming in a way, but the answer was still going to be no. After all, he'd only been a widower about a week. Not to mention the fact that he was a creep.
"Um, I don't think so. But I'm sure if you tip the bouncers, they could point you in the right direction." Around a club like this, there were always some dancers willing to make some extra money on the side. Contrary to popular belief, prostitution wasn't legal in Vegas, but that didn't mean it didn't exist.
Kent seemed confused for a moment, but then his face showed a spark of understanding. "Aha," he said, a bit embarrassed. "Yes, well, we'll see about that."
We returned to our table and made some awkward small talk for a few minutes, but it was clear that Kent's agenda had turned in an entirely different direction. Alexandra had really done a number on him, because now he couldn't concentrate on anything except the dancers off to his right and the skimpily dressed waitresses prancing by.
"I'm going to head out," I said, and he didn't seem too upset. I figured he'd hit up the bouncers as soon as I left, and they'd hand him a few phone numbers of girls who'd help him accomplish his pressing mission.
Carlos met up with me on my way out.
"He got all hot and horny on me," I explained, "so it was easy to leave him here. He'll probably end up with Lena or Briana tonight."
Carlos nodded, knowing what I meant. "So what now?" he asked.
"Now, we go check out his phone. Plus, I'm hungry again," I pouted.
"I'm in," Carlos said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
We ended up at El Segundo, a Mexican place on the ground floor of the Fashion Show Mall, which was about halfway between Cougar's strip club and my apartment. They were famous for the massive quantities of fresh, drool-worthy guacamole they served tableside, and Carlos and I split an order of guac and a plate of beef tongue, which he recommended. We were sitting at an outside table underneath a heat lamp that warmed the early autumn night air.
I ordered a double Hornitos tequila on the rocks, and Carlos got himself a Negra Modelo beer, which came with a lime wedge shoved a bit too deep into the bottle.
"How the hell am I supposed to drink this?" he asked.
"You'll manage," I muttered. "Now let's get to work."
As I pulled Kent's iPhone from my bag, a sinking feeling crept into my stomach. What if there was a password? I didn't use one on my own phone, but I knew a lot of people who did.
Luckily, it was open season. "No password," I said, relieved.
"These kids," Carlos said, his face half-full of chips and salsa. "These kids don't have any privacy. Their whole life is online, so why bother protecting your phone?"
I coughed out some of my tequila, drawing looks from concerned tourists at the table next to us. "These kids?" I asked. "How old are you?"
He shrugged. "That's not the point."
"Whatever. Here, you want to take a crack at this?"
"At what?"
I smiled and batted my eyelashes. "You know, pull up all his old messages, texts, emails, stuff like that. You're the guy. You're good at that kind of stuff." I loved being reverse sexist. After being groped and ogled for more than a decade, I had earned that right.
He sighed and held out his hand. "Thanks," I said, handing him the phone. He tried to take a swig of his beer, but nothing was coming out. The lime had wedged itself in the neck, acting as a stopper. In frustration, he shoved his knife into the bottle to hold the lime wedge
down beneath the neck, and then he tilted the bottle back toward his mouth. It was a good idea, but a failure of execution: the knife handle was getting in the way of his mouth, causing a stream of beer to pour down his face and neck. It wasn't a pretty sight.
"Shit," he muttered.
I couldn't help giggling, and neither could the couple at the table next to us, who were both enjoying the show.
"You focus on the phone, and I'll work on your beer," I said. I chugged my glass of water and then carefully poured the beer into my water glass, borrowing Carlos's trick of using the knife to keep the lime wedge from clogging the neck. He eyed me skeptically.
"You don't have a cold, do you?" he asked.
I sighed. "The alcohol in the beer will kill any germs, you big pussy."
He shrugged and got to work on the phone. He was quiet for a few minutes, allowing me a moment to decompress and take in the scenery, something I almost never did. We were facing the massive Wynn casino complex and its nine-million-foot wide video display, which was touting an upcoming visit by Barry Manilow, and the Strip traffic was whizzing by in stops and starts. Racing bikes and Ferraris revved their engines at the stoplight on the corner, ferrying an endless cadre of young thrill-seekers up and down the Strip, with no particular destination in mind. The tequila had made me more relaxed, but what had even more of an effect was the fact that I had overestimated the danger posed by Kent. He hadn't lured me out in order to have me kidnapped—he just wanted to swindle me out of some money. And then he wanted to sleep with me.
"Here we go," Carlos said. "Your client's name was Melanie, right? He's got lots of emails in here from her. Lots of really boring shit. How her day was, what flight she's taking, how she misses him, that kind of crap."
"Did she mention having a baby?" I asked.
"Gimme a minute." He scrolled through more messages and then looked up at me. "Nope. Nothing about babies, pregnancy, or anything like that."
"And nothing about Kent being involved with Jojia, or identity theft?"
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