Personal Protection

by Tracey Shellito

  “And that’s it?”

  “Some of the girls live too far out of the way.”

  And some of the girls wouldn’t want the added hassle of getting rid of a bouncer who thought he should be ‘paid’ for his services.

  “So how did you get involved? It certainly isn’t out of the goodness of your heart. And why haven’t any of them approached someone privately to get help?”

  Now he was really squirming. Understanding dawned. “Do you have a clause written into their contracts forbidding legal interference?”

  “Everybody does! How else would clubs like this run? If all the girls screamed about harassment, I’d have no staff and no money before you could snap your fingers!”

  “So what’s changed?”

  He tried to bluster. I stood up and slammed my palms on the table.

  “Cut the crap! Why are you asking for help now?”

  “Because they’ve threatened to leave if I don’t!” he roared. “And your bloody girlfriend’s the ringleader!”

  I blinked then sat down.

  I hadn’t expected that. Had Tori known about the others, but been hampered by the clause which would get them fired? Had her own experience forced the issue? Remembering her plaintive words of the day before, I couldn’t see it.

  More likely she’d mentioned something, inadvertently, to one of the other dancers, which had opened the floodgates to other revelations. Four of them. I winced.

  Seeing she was not alone, and that the perpetrator wasn’t showing any signs of stopping, perhaps she’d had a change of heart? Decided to enlist my help on behalf of everyone? Lately I was encountering the changeable nature of women more and more. I see why it makes men crazy. Until now I never realised how much I thought like a man.

  Brian Senior was looking at me expectantly. I was damned if I was going to apologise for Tori. Not when she was finally doing the right thing. But something needed to be done, right away, to protect the girls.

  “There are a couple of things they can do, cheaply, in the short term. But if they want this menace gone, that will require proper detective work and real money.”

  His turn to wince.

  “It’s your problem in so much as you’ll lose your dancers if it doesn’t stop. See if they’re willing to talk to me. Then I’ll have some idea what needs doing and be able to give them an estimate of what it will cost. If they club together the fee won’t be insurmountable. We don’t charge the earth. I’ll be in tomorrow. You can tell me their decision then.”

  I stood again. “Even if you don’t decide to employ me for more than my brawn, I’ll give you the name of a bonded cab company. The drivers are built like Mack Trucks.”

  His eyes lit up at the sound of that.

  “Before you get your hopes up – while they’re happy to check out the house and escort the girl safely inside, if they do have to fight their fee goes up. If they get injured, the client has to pay their private hospital bills. If they have to perform the same service for the same client twice and get injured again, they terminate the contract. They’re not bodyguards. They don’t get paid enough to take serious damage. They’re just a few blokes who don’t mind helping people in trouble.”

  He looked thoughtful. “I’ll mention it to the girls.”

  “You do that.”

  The air in the club was redolent of stale cigarette smoke, disinfectant and air freshener. With the lights out, cleaners and clients gone, bouncers and bar staff absent, dancers and music stilled, it was a different place. I picked my way across the dimly lit mezzanine between tables with upturned chairs on top, and scrambled on to the stage with less agility than Tori.

  It was getting on for three-thirty in the morning. The cooling atmosphere made my bones ache. I rolled my neck and heard it pop as I pushed through a tinsel strip curtain to reach the dressing room backstage. Nothing made me want to take a twirl on the boards.

  I rapped twice on the plain wood door. It opened under my hand almost before my second knock was complete. The wary expression on the opener’s face melted into welcome on seeing me. I wondered what or who she had been expecting that had her so worried. The Asian girl who’d got me into so much trouble smiled and stepped aside to allow my entry. I wasn’t sure if I should.

  Tori took my hand and drew me into the cramped dressing room. With only the five of us it was a squeeze. God knew what it was like when they were all there. Cigarette smoke didn’t help. Reading my mind, the girl from the balcony said, “We don’t all use it at once. Some of us change in the toilets, it’s quicker.”

  “It just seems so…” I struggled for a word – “tawdry, for what you do.”

  A raven-haired Cher wannabe blew a plume of smoke from her pouty lips, regarding me over her cigarette. Her look was frankly sexual. Though I felt the heat creep up my collar, my skin crawled. There was something wrong with this picture and I didn’t know what it was.

  “I like her, Tori,” she said. “Throw her my way when you’ve finished with her.”

  “Stop it, Sammi. This one’s mine.”

  Tori kissed me possessively – open-mouthed – to prove her point.

  Catcalls and wolf whistles brought me back from dreamland as Tori let me go. My breath was slow coming back. I set aside contemplation of Sammi’s subtle wrongness. Tori grinned wickedly and mouthed later. My internal barometer rocketed another ten degrees.

  She turned to her comrades brightly and said, “We have to be going.”

  I found myself looking at a room full of very nervous women. It didn’t take a detective to know I’d found the other victims. Even the promise of sex with Tori could not make me leave ladies in need like that. Chivalry wouldn’t let me walk away.

  “Can I give anyone a lift home?”

  Sammi and the Asian girl, Liu, fell all over me with gratitude. The girl from the balcony looked less happy. “I live in Garstang. I can’t ask you to go all that way at this time of the morning, not after you’ve dropped Liu in Ansdell and Sammi in Bispham.”

  She had a point. But I couldn’t just leave her. “Is there a phone I could use?”

  Four mobiles were thrust at me. I accepted one from the lady from Garstang and stabbed a ten digit number into the keypad. There was a moment of silence, then the call connected. It was answered after the first ring.

  “White Knights?”

  “Hi, Virg. Are you busy?”

  “We can always find time to help a lady in need. Who, when and where?”

  “I need a Knight to the Bird Of Paradise ASAP. One pickup. Destination Garstang. The full monty: escort, check out, check in, possible eject.”

  “Nil problemo. Alan’s in that neck of the woods. ETA ten minutes. Do you?”

  “Perfect. You’re a prince. Thanks.”

  “Anytime. Always a pleasure doing business with you, Sensei.”

  I laughed as he cut the connection.

  I explained about the White Knights enterprise as we made our way upstairs. It was set up three years ago by a group of ex-bodyguards. The eclectic group were brothers and – probably not coincidentally – shared first names with the Tracy boys of the Thunderbirds series. After toying with the idea behind International Rescue, they came up with a non-copyright logo that expressed the same sympathies.

  They were good. Dean and I had used their service many times. They were reliable, never overcharged and were well able to take care of themselves. I knew. I’d mentored their karate class myself. Hence the nickname, Sensei.

  Joy, the lady from Garstang, was wary of accepting any of this at face value – until Alan pulled up in his armour-plated limo. Then Liu begged to stay the night with her, cadged a ride and everything was settled.

  We made our way to my car and watched them pull away. Brian Senior locked up behind us. He bade us a muffled good night from the depths of his high-collared ski jacket, then stomped across the car park to his BMW. He didn’t look happy to see me unlocking a Porsche. I wasn’t about to tell him it’s not genuine. It’
s a kit car received in payment for my first professional job.

  I’d just got Tori installed in the front passenger seat and tipped up the driver’s seat to let Sammi climb into the back, when something sparkled through the air towards us.

  Tori shrieked. Sammi’s eyes opened wide in terror. Training kicked in. I stepped into the object’s path and snatched it out of the air. A flick knife.

  Tori began climbing out of the car to come to me, but I barked, “Stay there!”

  She shut the door with alacrity. I practically shoved Sammi into the back, dropped the seat behind her and hit the headlights. It would ruin the night vision of anyone planning to aim anything else, and might show me my attacker – whose identity the weapon had more or less given away.

  Either the guy from the balcony had got his knife back, his friend had an exact duplicate, or the bouncer I’d embarrassed had decided to pay me back for the insult. I didn’t think it was the clientele.

  I couldn’t see anyone. The sound of Brian Senior’s engine as he turned it over, oblivious to our little drama, drowned out any sound of running feet. I swore and climbed into the car.

  I tossed the knife into the glove compartment in front of a white-faced Tori, then jammed the keys into the ignition and started the car.

  “Bispham?”

  “Yes. Red Bank Road. The promenade end, near the shops.”

  I nodded and we got under way.

  We were ghosting along a deserted promenade when Tori found her voice. “You’re bleeding.”

  “What?”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  I’d been so angry I hadn’t noticed the cut. It wasn’t deep, but it was insistent. I took my injured hand from the wheel and fumbled towards a pocket. Tori pulled out a handkerchief before I could ruin the suit and carefully bound it up while I drove one-handed. Power steering is a wonderful thing.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!”

  Sammi’s voice almost sent me through the ceiling. I’d forgotten she was there.

  “Sorry.” She didn’t sound in any way contrite. She and Liu were two of a kind.

  I suddenly found my job and my prowess being promoted ardently by an unpaid advertiser. Tori twittered excruciatingly all the way to Bispham, allowing neither of us to get a word in edgeways.

  I was confused all over again. She sounded like my greatest fan. This from the girl who didn’t want anything to do with my violent world? She was making me out to be James Bond or something! Maybe it was the tux? I really don’t understand women.

  Outside Sammi’s bed-sit I locked Tori in the car until I’d checked the place to my satisfaction. Sammi’s security was pretty tight. I just made it back to the car without being groped – is nobody straight any more? – escaping with only a grateful lipstick smear. Tori cut me off in mid-explanation, with more understanding than the last time.

  “She thinks you saved her life. Of course she kissed you! Anyway, you were visible at all the windows while you were checking the inside. And you weren’t absent long enough to take advantage of her, even if she wasn’t a trans. I know how you feel about that.”

  That explained the wrongness I’d been sensing. I knew her legs were too damn perfect! And no matter how well the transition goes, you can’t change pheromones. She still smelled male to me.

  “Er, thanks, I think.”

  “Can we go home now? I’m really tired. I need a shower before I can even think about going to sleep. I stink of secondhand cigarette smoke and other people’s booze.”

  “Of course.” I started the car. I was anxious to grill her about her change of heart and this might be the perfect time.

  “And I’d like to take a look at your hand in better light.”

  “It’s nothing, really.”

  “It should still be cleaned properly, you don’t want it to infect.”

  “Whatever you say, nurse!”

  She drilled me in the ribs with one taloned finger. I grunted with mock pain.

  “And I’d like to fuck your brains out while you still have that tux on.”

  I nearly swerved into a lamppost. She chuckled wickedly.

  “Home, Parker!”

  “Yus, milady!”

  I managed to get us home in one piece.

  She took a look at my cut.

  I did not manage to find out why she’d changed her mind about investigating the rape.

  We eventually got around to that shower.

  And sex in a tux is something else!

  6

  “Randall, you’ve got to come!”

  “I’m in the shower, babe.”

  “Randall, please! I need you.”

  I wish I could say she was calling me because she wanted sex! It wasn’t that. The tone of her voice through the door sounded scared. After what she’d been through, I wasn’t about to refuse any reasonable request. So I switched off the water, swathed myself in a bath towel and shot the bolt.

  Tori grabbed my arm and dragged me into the lounge, pointing at the news programme showing on the television. I just had time to notice that her face was drawn and pale before what the reporter was saying penetrated and I gave all my attention to the screen.

  “…early this morning. The mutilated body of Lisa Valerie Moran was found bound and gagged on the floor of her rented flat in Waterloo Road, Blackpool. She was discovered by her landlady, Eileen Stokes, after neighbours reported an unpleasant odour coming from the flat.

  “Miss Moran, twenty-three and a student at the London School of Economics, was here on a working holiday. She had been living in Blackpool for five months and had few friends outside of work and no family in the area, so her disappearance went largely unnoticed.

  “She had been absent from her vacation job, as an exotic dancer at the Bird Of Paradise Club, for several days, causing concern amongst her colleagues, who said she had previously been a punctual and regular attendee.

  “Mrs Stokes, Miss Moran’s parents – Mr and Mrs Steven Moran – and her employer Mr Brian Jones, proprietor of the Bird Of Paradise, are currently assisting the police in building a more complete picture of Miss Moran’s life. The police will be speaking to her fellow workers and anyone else who thinks they might have useful information. They have no suspects at this time…”

  Not getting an argument about why she should stay at my place should have made me feel better. It didn’t, not when the price of Tori’s compliance was another girl’s life and fear for her own. Holding her while she shook and fell apart, undoing all the work she’d put in two days before, left me feeling frustrated and useless. I didn’t care what it took we had to find out who was responsible.

  I’d have to fill Dean in about this new development, as well as Brian Senior’s revelations of the night before. Especially if the ladies from the Paradise did decide to employ us. This was the kind of complication that could put us all in jeopardy, and not something that should be discussed over the phone. Especially not with my distraught girlfriend in earshot.

  I calmed her down. I was just wondering where to go from here when she said, “Would you mind if I invited the girls over? I’m sure they’ll want to talk about this. If the police do come looking for us, it would be better if we were all in one place, don’t you think?”

  Actually, I didn’t. The local constabulary might not be Scotland Yard, but even they would wonder if it wasn’t an attempt by the perpetrator to set their story straight or establish an alibi. I wasn’t going to tell her that. If she hadn’t thought of it herself, I wasn’t going to suggest anyone she knew might be a murderer as well as a rapist. And her outrage and indignation would be genuine when the detectives who questioned her suggested as much.

  So I agreed. I even ferried them over.

  I was tempted to stay, surrounded by this ocean of beauty, but I remembered the trouble that had got me into last night. The smell of conflicting perfumes became cloying, and there w
ere too many people in the room. I began to feel claustrophobic. And girl talk? I can’t do girl talk. I made my goodbyes and left, secure in the thought that, even if the killer was amongst them, surrounded by so many people Tori would be safe.

  As often happened, I ran into Cecily on the landing. I swear she sits behind the door and watches through the spy-eye for me coming and going alone. I mean, where was she when Tori was seeing me off with a passionate thank-you for fetching her friends? And why wasn’t the bitch at work?

  “An orgy, Randall? I’d never have guessed that milksop Victoria could make you so bold! Or is it just that you were the only man in the room?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Cecily.”

  “I do, Randall, I do, when Ashley’s not around to do it for me. You wouldn’t believe the number of vibrators I’ve burned out, the batteries I’ve exhausted, dreaming of you.”

  Shit, what do you say to something like that?

  She stroked her lacquered talons, lilac today, over the creamy expanse of flesh at her throat, towards the pearl buttons of her shimmering satin shirt.

  My eyes followed their progress of their own volition. I forced them back to her face. She was – damn her – smiling. The job, the situation I found myself in, was leaving me in an almost constant state of arousal. Her signature perfume Samsara stole over me making it worse. Cecily read me easily and took advantage of the situation.

  “Poor baby! Has Tori sent you away while she plays? Is that why you’re frustrated? You can come and play with me.”

  “Some of us have to work.”

  “Some of us get to choose when we work from home.”

  I straightened my back, turned and walked towards the stairs. Off guard, Cecily was too slow to block my way. Not to be outdone, her voice drifted after me as I descended.

  “The strong silent type. I’ve always liked that about you, Randall.”

  Coming from her the compliment tasted like ashes. At least I had the satisfaction of slamming the door on her as she had on me the day before. Yet it felt like a hollow victory.

  I changed gear with more force than it deserved. I was rewarded with an unpleasant grinding sound, as the car protested at my taking out my own shortcomings on the gearbox.