The Lucky Dey Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (The Lucky Dey Series Boxset)

by Doug Richardson

  General Ho had grand, boyhood memories of the strip bars of pre-communist Saigon. He had so loved the atmosphere of cigarette smoke and colored lights that he wanted to replicate the same vibe in tobacco-free California. The effect was achieved with a fog machine that atomized a mixture of water and non-toxic glycol into a controllable pea soup. So when the computer-controlled spotlights swept the room, each displayed a distinct colored beam.

  Cherry’s favorite part was when a new dancer entered the stage—be it herself or any other soon-to-be-naked hottie. The DJ would pump the mic and growl a fictitious name like Desiree or Brianna, the music would queue, then the lights would automatically spin and rotate with each beam suddenly concentrating on the tinsel curtain. That’s when the designated dancer would burst into view with a practiced strut.

  And the money game would be on.

  “Big tipper in the house!” a passing pole girl announced, sounding disappointed that her time was up on one of the pair of satellite platforms that flanked the main stage.

  “Now check it, guys and girls!” announced the DJ. “Coming up on the Star Stage, get out those bills for Miss Cherrrrrrrrrry Piiiiiiiieeee!”

  That’s me, she said to herself, waiting for her song to play. She really liked to change up her music, often to the annoyance of whichever DJ was spinning that day. The new music files would be on a flash drive which she’d palm over to the DJ before she’d head backstage to change into a G-string and makeup. But that always assumed that the man at the turntable was sober enough to put the correct name, face, and flash drive together.

  Which isn’t precisely what went wrong. Though it could be described as going sideways.

  Instead of the technobeat startup of her expected music, she was struck by the power chord start of that mother-effing Warrant song—the one that bore Cherry’s name—the cliched stripperific tune she had always refused to dance to.

  “Fuck me again,” cursed Cherry from behind the curtain. She more than half-wanted to send a Lucite heel flying through the tinsel and into the crowd. And that was just out of spite. But that would have just turned her mood into something so sour she might not be able to retrieve herself. Her better angel wanted to dance. Needed to dance. So with that, she dug the toe of her shoe into the floorboard, let it sync up to the Cro-Magnon beat of eighties hair metal, and let her splayed fingers and nails split the curtain.

  And find that big tipper.

  If there was applause, Cherry didn’t hear it. That’s because Cherry never did. Her ears, like the rest of her body were clued in only to the music while her eyes, on the other hand, were all about making connections with whatever man, woman, or beast might be holding the thickest stack of cash.

  But the damned smoke machine!

  The air was so dense she might have choked. All because the fogger sometimes infused the air with such an overdose of dramatic mist that it was hard for a dancer to read men’s expressions beyond the first row, let alone any appreciative rises in their trousers.

  Yet Cherry soldiered on. She sashayed and spun and flexed and contorted herself in the usual man-appealing ways, but always with her specialized brand of sass. Her secret sauce, she would call it. To hell if the air was too dense to eyeball the customers. She’d make them see her. And the dollars would flow even before she had unhooked a solitary Velcro fastener. Soon, she would ease closer to the strip-lighted edge of the stage. There, maybe she would let a gentle-appearing fellow or two touch the elastic just below her hipbone, inserting a folded dollar like chum for the sharks. After which, she would accept further cash with a personal wink, a flash of teeth, and the pinch of her fingertips, slipping each bill into her G-string until it better resembled a grass skirt with a buzz-cut.

  A flash of green caught her eye. Just beyond the floodlights. A bill handed from a broad-shouldered man in a bomber jacket to a brood of girls, their butt-cheeks lined up like muffins in a tin. More bills were shown and, one by one the nearly naked dancers skittered away. Singles and fives weren’t known to draw any kind of crowd. At least not at The Rabbit Pole. The Big Tipper was doling out no less than fifty dollar bills like candy.

  Eye contact, honey. Make the man see you.

  With her gaze fixed on the shadowy figure, she snaked herself to the stage edge, unfolded her body until it was fully upright, then without a musical phrase, found a place within the song to motivate a very un-stripper-like move.

  A series of chainés.

  Using the Big Tipper as her reference spot Cherry’s continuous half-turns on one foot, generated by a synchronization of arms and hips, drew a spontaneous burst of applause from the customers. Never mind the scowls and jealous looks that classy spin earned from her fellow dancers. The capitalist in Cherry was all about the attention she could draw from a man and his billfold.

  At the moment her spin ended, as well as the ridiculous song, the tuning fork in Cherry rang like a cash machine as the Big Tipper turned his attention to her, the girl on the Star Stage. As he approached, his features came more into focus with each progressing step. His eyes seemed business-like. Direct. Nothing close to what she would call aroused. Sure, he was a man in a strip bar with a thick roll of cash he wasn’t afraid of revealing to all. If he wasn’t trolling for a thrill, a lap-dance, or even a blowjob in the next door parking lot, then why the hell make such a tipping show?

  Still, the man eased nearer, boldly peeling off a hundred-dollar bill from his stack. Bait. Her instincts screamed. But for what?

  Cherry twirled closer, boldly striking a dominating pose to tell that one, high-tipping customer that, for this one moment, he belonged to her. This, her intuition told her, was precisely what this man desperately needed. To be led by the nose and into her pocketbook. All the while, she did her best to avoid looking at the actual currency pinched between his thumb and forefinger. It was about his eyes. The connection. She wanted to make him want her. Need her. Have no other option but to invite her into the VIP room for a private dance and hand all his money over to her.

  But it was the actual money that got in the way. Blocking his eyes from making contact with hers. As if he didn’t want to be looked upon. As if he needed her to see what he was offering. See precisely what he reckoned she was worth. A deal breaker for Miss Cherry. She was prepared to dance away from him—set her sights on another rube—when over the next indistinguishable tune she thought she heard a question.

  “Have you seen her?”

  Seen who? Cherry immediately asked herself.

  “Look at the picture.”

  Of Benjamin Franklin? Cherry quizzed. Who hadn’t seen a hundred-dollar bill before? Did he assume she was that desperate?

  “The photograph,” pressed the Big Tipper. “Do you know her?”

  Somehow, she’d missed it. Paper-clipped to the creaseless, minty-green hundred-dollar bill was a small high school photo of a pretty strawberry blonde with freckles and an innocent smile.

  Oh hell, Cherry said to herself. That’s Valeriana.

  The contract between Lucky and Andrew Kaarlsen could have been written on a cocktail napkin. In simple, hand-printed letters it would have read that Andrew had agreed to stay in the Crown Vic or else Lucky would break all his fingers before quitting on him, thus leaving his skinny Midwestern ass to fend for itself.

  As the client, Andrew had every right to be shown the details Lucky had gleaned from tattooed Emery, the pint-sized South Bay data broker. The right to ride along while Lucky pursued leads had already been negotiated and, after the fiasco in Carson, renegotiated. The staying-in-the-car-when-Lucky-said-stay-in-the-car part of the agreement had lastly been bargained down to a deal breaker.

  Using the tower and other wireless connection info, a map of the mystery cell phone number’s life emerged. The initial clues Lucky was looking for were patterns. Locations where the phone was tracked multiple times could show him where Karrie might yet return. Hopefully a workplace or a residence. For the two months of data provided, Karrie appeared to rarel
y land in the same spot more than twice. The pattern revealed a teen that was either sleeping on couches or with random partners, frequenting more 7-Elevens than shopping malls, using any old coffee house as her Wi-Fi hotspot, and adept at utilizing both city buses and subways. Most recently she had probably found a three-night bunking situation at an apartment in Silver Lake. For some detectives, X would have marked the spot right then and there. All that would be required was a twenty-four-hour surveillance stand and the patience to wait for the fifteen-year-old to show up.

  But there was another waypoint on the map.

  A one-time ping in the Valley had dropped a Google Maps pin onto the address of a strip club called The Rabbit Pole. It was a curious location for a fifteen-year-old girl. But not necessarily for a broke runaway who had been making cash as a party dancer. The club, fearing a nightmarish and embarrassing shutdown were they to get caught employing someone so grossly underage, would have demanded no less than a birth certificate before allowing Karrie to strip. Yet the cell tower records showed she had been at the club for two to three hours. It was Lucky’s hope that Karrie would have at least stood out and maybe had been introduced by somebody.

  “I say we stake out the apartment,” Andrew had strongly suggested.

  “Probably will,” Lucky had replied. “But somethin’ tells me we might learn what your little girl was into if we run this down first.” Lucky’s index finger was on The Rabbit Pole’s address.

  Andrew didn’t put up much of a fight. Lucky couldn’t tell if it was because he was trying to behave or if he was, as the runaway’s father, becoming morbidly curious about the dark side his daughter had begun to present.

  “Might need to stop by a bank,” Lucky had suggested.

  “Why?”

  “Cash is king in those kind of places. And tens and twenties don’t impress if you want more than a sniff.”

  After a bank stop where Andrew was able to withdraw five thousand dollars in hundreds on his American Express, Lucky pointed the Crown Vic north, navigating deep into the chilled but newly sunny San Fernando Valley until they arrived at The Rabbit Pole.

  It was just after four P.M.

  “You’re staying in the car,” reminded Lucky.

  “I know,” snapped Andrew. “Our agreement.”

  “Not just that,” explained Lucky. “Like there’s a two percent chance your little girl got herself some counterfeit papers quality enough to fool the owners.”

  “You’re saying I might be risking seeing my baby girl giving some hairy biker a GD lap dance?”

  “Sayin’ some shit you can’t unsee,” advised Lucky.

  The last line was more bull than actual supposition. What Lucky needed was for the client to stay in the car, twiddle his thumbs, spin, anything but start his own investigation inside a strip club. Instead of cops roughing him over there was sure to be a few oversized men of Samoan or African heritage whose primary function was to unceremoniously and even injuriously, expel unwanted customers if they so much as appeared to be harassing one of the dancers.

  Though Lucky removed his Ray-Bans as he entered the club, he was still fighting the deep blackness as his eyes adjusted from the daylight. He was quick to show the roll of cash as he peeled off enough for the cover charge. Next he followed a hostess in a bikini, heels, and fishnets through a pair of spring-loaded double doors that led into the main room. It was artificially smoky, streaked with enough moving and pulsating light to repel most epileptics, and with music pounding louder than human comfort.

  “’Scuse me,” Lucky shouted over the volume. He touched the hostess’ shoulder to get her to turn and face him. “I’m looking for someone.”

  As the hostess turned, she saw Lucky holding that high school photo of Karrie paper-clipped alongside a hundred-dollar bill.

  “Have you seen this girl?” asked Lucky.

  “Yo,” barked a bouncer at Lucky’s ear. “No touching the ladies, okay?”

  Lucky swiveled to find exactly what he expected. A dark, broad-faced black man whose posture was a strong dose of don’t-screw-with-me-business.

  “I’m looking for this girl,” said Lucky to the beefy bouncer. “You seen her? Then there’s a lot more of these.”

  Lucky flicked the hundred-dollar bill.

  The bouncer clicked on a pen-sized flashlight and lit up the tiny photo of Karrie.

  “Too young to work here,” replied the bouncer.

  “You’re legit,” agreed Lucky. “She didn’t have to dance. But she was here .”

  “Nope,” said the bouncer. “Now you here to see some titties or you gonna keep asking folks about that piece of jail bait?”

  “How ’bout I do both?” Lucky flashed three more hundred-dollar bills, folded them over his thumb, then stuffed them in the bouncer’s breast pocket.

  “Okay,” nodded the bouncer. “But no more touchin’ the girls.”

  With permission temporarily granted, Lucky nodded and eased deeper into the room. He would cruise the bartenders soon enough. First he wanted to tip his way through the half-naked dancers and cocktail waitresses. Working women, he reasoned to himself, were more apt to talk, give up information, and be sympathetic to the plight of a runaway teen.

  Despite the offer of money and more-where-that-came-from, one beautiful dancer after another—hardened or otherwise—gave the photo a thoughtful turn or instantly shook her head. Nobody appeared to recognize Karrie Kaarlsen. Nor did a single woman comment on the girl’s age. It was as if they understood migration as a natural phenomenon. That thousands of beautiful young women, well-adjusted and otherwise, seem to find their way to Los Angeles every year. It was like there was a shipment that landed every hour.

  Lucky had tipped the bouncer well. Yet he knew that guaranteed little more than leeway. How long before the manager or owner saw him tipping women for info instead of permission to gawk at their sexual splendors? A bar that doubled as a secondary runway for dancers stretched to the left. To Lucky’s right side was the elevated main stage, the source of the smoke and that dazzle of swirling lights. There he clocked a sculpted dancer with a punky, purple hairdo. A stunning figure. And just magnetic enough to steer Lucky away from the bar and into her tractor beams.

  That’s right, Luck. She’s lookin’ at you.

  It was as if the horny men at those tables cluttering the foot of the stage were being totally ignored by her. Or perhaps it was just that the thin smiles of George Washington, which the men waved like schoolboys hoping to be called on by the hot teacher, didn’t quite stack up against the bodacious Benjamin Franklins that Lucky was promising.

  It was all unsaid. But there was no doubt the stripper was beckoning Lucky to come closer. And as he neared the footlights, he raised that hundred-dollar bill with the affixed high school photo. The purple-haired vixen put her shoulders back, planted a toe and as if choreographed, spun a slow-motion three-sixty that delivered her to the edge of the main stage.

  This was when the man in Lucky wanted to lower his eyes. If only for a millisecond. Her body was after all, a flawless specimen of the feminine form. Naked. With curves and skin that usually existed only in men’s most lusty imaginations.

  Yet it was about the eyes. Critically so. And as Lucky fixed on hers, he carefully tracked her pupils as they ever-so-slightly swerved the slightest of degrees to the right, landing on that wallet-sized photo of smiling Karrie. Next came an oh-so-telling flutter of false eyelashes. The corners of the dancer’s smiling mouth flattened as her lips unconsciously pressed tightly together. With that she curved her back and snapped her head forward so the shag of her hair covered her face as she spun away to the other side of the stage.

  If there had been a brief spell between the man and the woman, the dancer had somehow lost interest and broken it off like snapping a stick of uncooked spaghetti in her teeth.

  28

  “She’s our girl.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Andrew.

  “She’s the one,” sai
d Lucky. He settled back into the Crown Vic and pulled the lever under the driver’s seat that released the lock. The seat slid fully backward for maximum legroom.

  “Who’s the one?” insisted Andrew, lost and anxious after having to sit and wait while Lucky waved hundred-dollar bills around the strip club.

  “Stripper.”

  “What about a stripper?”

  “Knows your girl.” Lucky found the reclining crank and increased the seat back’s angle.

  “Wait. Someone in there knows my Karrie?”

  “I told you,” said Lucky, closing his eyes. “Stripper. She’s the one.”

  “Which one? What’d she say?”

  “Didn’t say anything.” Lucky stretched his right arm into the backseat and retrieved a sweat-stained Dodgers cap to shade his eyes from the street lights and neon spilling from the club.

  “So how do you know?” pressed Andrew.

  “I just know, okay?” said Lucky, irritated and not really caring to share the kind of trade tricks and neurologic tells he had learned as a detective. His back ached like hell and he didn’t want to swallow another Percocet for that calendar day. “Girl gets off at eight. I’ll talk to her after. Until then I’m gonna nap.”

  “So you know she knows because of a hunch?”

  “Experience.”

  “Experience as a cop?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “You know, as the client, I think I have a right to ask—”

  “And I have the right to a nap. Headache bordering on migraine.”

  “So it was a hunch?” repeated Andrew. “We’re staying here because of a hunch?”

  “We’re staying here because I got the car keys.” Lucky jangled the set as a reminder then returned them to his pocket.

  “I didn’t hire you because you had hunches,” insisted Andrew. “I hired you because Connie said you could find my daughter.”

  “Getting closer every minute.”

  “So let’s get even closer by going back inside and talking to this stripper!”