by Joan Rylen
“They’re working on it. Antonio said Harry, though sleazy, seemed like he was telling the truth. They asked about the money several different ways and his answers were all the same.”
“Thanks, A.” Vivian signed off, then told the girls about the money.
Kate set down her glass of water. “That story ought to be easy enough to prove.”
“A bill of sale and the actual boat,” Wendy said.
Vivian took a sip of her beer. “He did seem genuinely upset about her.”
“Poor Harry,” Lucy said. “He’s just a big hairy mess.”
“I wonder how Jason’s holding up?” Kate asked. “Maybe we should call him?”
“Good idea.” Vivian dialed his number.
“Hi, Vivian.”
“Hey. How you doing?”
“Daisy’s story is going to be on the 10 o’clock news. They interviewed me about an hour ago.”
“That’s awesome! Hope it turns up some leads.”
“And the cops were able to track down the two guys who tried to break in the back door to the club. They’re about to go bust their apartment.”
“How’d they figure out who they were?”
“Searching cameras from nearby stores. These guys stole a case of beer from a convenience store and they were able to get a license plate number.”
“Well, that’s something.” They don’t seem like the most savvy criminals.
Jason sounded a little dejected after saying it out loud. “Yeah, it’s something.”
“We’ll be looking for you on the news.” Vivian clicked off and relayed his info to the girls.
“Guess Adrienne lit a fire that Al is fanning,” Kate said. “It’s about time the media took notice.”
“Hell yeah, but what are we going to do tonight?” Lucy asked. “We have some time to kill before Lala Lollipop rips off her wrapper at Rick’s, and Jonathon wants us to meet him at Tipitina’s. He said a really great band, Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, are playing tonight. He knows someone and can get us in.”
Wendy smacked her hands together. “Oh yeah, we need a little break, and that’s just the band to give it.”
Lucy checked the website on her phone. “They start in an hour. Let’s ask the bartender to call us a cab.”
They paid the tab and started to walk out the door. The silver-haired man turned on his stool and yelled out as they left, “You girls are lucky Al’s on your side. You gotta watch your step in this town.”
Chapter 32
The cab pulled to a stop in front of Venezia’s. The girls piled in and told the driver Tipitina’s Uptown. He nodded and took off. A short while later, they were at a banana-yellow bar at Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas.
Jonathon opened the cab door for Lucy and kissed her while the other girls got out. He came up for air and said, “So glad you could make it. Follow me.” He walked up to the bouncer at the front door, shook his hand and gave him a bro-hug. They bullshitted for a minute, then the bouncer waved them all in.
The club was packed with people dancing to the music of legendary Professor Longhair, even though the stage was dark. The girls followed Jonathon to the bar where he shook hands with the bartender. A few minutes later, the bartender set a draft beer and four pink concoctions on the bar and gave Jonathon a nod.
“What is this?” Lucy asked as Jonathon passed each of them a pink thing.
“It’s free, drink it!”
Lucy shrugged and held up her high-ball glass. “To hookups!”
The girls cheersed her back, then Vivian checked her phone. Jason had texted that he didn’t feel like getting out, no other news from the cops. Her pink drink was okay, a little too watermelony. Next round she was getting a beer, even if she had to pay for it.
Lucy seemed to be enjoying hers. She had her drink in one hand and Jonathon’s bicep in the other.
Jonathon pushed through the crowd, the girls following, as he made his way closer to the stage. He stopped about three rows of people back and started making out with Lucy.
Kate leaned over to Vivian. “I’m not sure I approve of this.”
“Oh, loosen up. The poor girl has been sexless for how long? She can make out in New Orleans.”
“Ehhh,” Kate said.
“Look, I’ve been telling her to do something about it. Either to get a divorce or make it work. She’s been trying the latter, and dammit, it’s not working. I’m not going to stop her from kissing some guy on vacation.”
“You’re right. I’m not going to judge.” Kate sucked down her entire pink drink and handed it to Vivian. “I need another.”
With Lucy and Jonathon occupied, Vivian only took a drink order from Wendy, who wanted a Shiner Bock. Drinks procured, Vivian made her way back to the girls and Jonathon and handed them out. As she did, the lights in the club dimmed and a green and blue spotlight shone on the stage. Trombone Shorty walked out with a trumpet in his right hand and a trombone in his left.
The crowd went crazy, shouting and clapping.
He stepped up to the mic. “Where y’at?” he shouted. The crowd cheered even louder to the standard New Orleans greeting. The rest of his five-piece band got into position and started into his tune, “Suburbia.”
Vivian got past the fact he was wearing a wife-beater, especially since he was super ripped. A few lines into the first song, she looked over at Wendy. “Damn, he’s good.”
“Told ya!” she said and kept dancing.
The band played several of its own songs and a few tributes and the crowd sang along. It got more and more packed down front, but the girls held their ground.
The musicians took a break and Vivian checked her phone again. A text from Jason read:
Those guys are petty thieves. Knew nothing about Daisy.
Vivian felt badly for him. He was having a tough time. She showed the text to the girls to catch them up. Lucy looked sad for a split second, then went back to dancing with Jonathon.
Wendy made a bar run and brought Vivian a new beer. They cheersed with Kate and the band came back on, joined this time by Kermit Ruffins. Kermit and Trombone Shorty played their trumpets to a couple of Kermit’s originals and Shorty’s “Neph,” then more crowd favorites. During “The Craziest Things,” Vivian happened to glance toward the bar. The undercover cop from Harry’s hotel and The Dungeon moved behind another patron. She scanned the club looking for him, but he seemed to have disappeared.
She nudged Kate and Wendy and thumbed toward the bar. “I just saw the bellman from Harry’s hotel. Remember, blond buzz cut?”
“Where’d he go?” Kate asked, straining her neck to look around.
Wendy kept dancing to the music. “I remember him, he was cute.”
Vivian shrugged. “I don’t see him anymore.” She pulled out her phone and texted Antonio, asking if NOPD had something going undercover at Tipitina’s.
A few minutes later, he texted back two words: No. Why?
Kate grabbed Vivian’s arm. “I just saw him walk out the door. That’s who I saw in the cemetery.”
“We saw a lot of cops today, Kate. I’m not surprised.”
Her eyes were wide. “No, I saw him before we found the body. He was watching us when we were at the mirrored tomb.”
Vivian texted that to Antonio.
He responded:
LEAVE. Don’t know him. Don’t trust him.
Vivian looked at the time on her phone, 11:30. They needed to leave soon anyway to get to Rick’s. She nudged Lucy, who was bumping and grinding with her 19-year-old, and pointed to the door. Lucy got the hint, grabbed Jonathon’s belt loop, and they all made their way to the door. Trombone Shorty played the last notes of “Big,” and the crowd showed no signs of leaving as the band walked off the stage.
Cabs lined Napoleon Avenue, and Wendy waved to the closest one.
“Where y’all going?” Jonathon asked as Vivian opened the front door to a black and white cab.
“Titty bar,” Lucy said and shimmied her ta-tas. “Wanna come?”<
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“Hell to the yeah!” Jonathon said, jumping into the cab next to Kate and Wendy. “Which one?”
Lucy climbed onto his lap and yelled out, “Take us to Rick’s!”
***
By 9 p.m. Daisy was hungry again and her fear had turned to anger. She couldn’t concentrate on anything on the TV, but the news report at 10 compounded her anger and brought back the fear. The body of one of the missing dancers had been found in a tomb in St. Louis Cemetery #1. Murder was suspected.
The door to her room opened and the pink martini, roofie asshole pushed a tray in.
I hope the other “Desert Glitter” guy isn’t behind him. She tried to run past roofie asshole but Sonu was behind him and caught her. She struggled to get free but the guy from earlier grabbed her in a bear hold, easily overpowering her. There was no escape. He dumped her on the bed and left the room.
Sonu signaled for the cart-pushing roofie asshole to leave, then looked at Daisy. “You must understand, you belong to me now. You are never again to publicly display nudity, and you will dress appropriately tomorrow, or there will be consequences.”
Daisy jumped off the bed, fists flying at his face. “Let me go, you fucking dick!”
He was incredibly strong for his trim size and easily gripped her wrists and held them together. He raised his voice and shoved her onto the bed. “You will not conduct yourself in such a manner. Do not ever attempt to strike me, nor should you use such language. Do not make me hurt you to teach you a lesson.”
She lashed out at him again, managing to scratch his arm before he slapped her. The force propelled her back on the bed, and the entire right side of her face stung. She knew he could easily overpower her, but she wasn’t ready to give up. She leapt off the bed again and aimed a kick at his groin. His reflexes were quick and he grabbed her leg, laying her flat on her back. He pinned her arms over her head and held her legs down with his knees.
He lowered his face to just inches from hers and said, “One more attempt like this and you will remain drugged until we are ready to leave. Do you understand?”
Daisy thrashed underneath him and yelled.
He tightened his grip on her wrists, and his knees pressed harder into her thighs. He kept her like that until she stopped and her outburst had turned to sobs. He moved off of her and sat on the side of the bed. She rolled away from him and curled into a ball.
He listened to her cry for a few moments, then reached over and yanked on the shoulder of her shirt, ripping it. “Get out of these disgusting, Western clothes. If you do not take them off, I will.”
Daisy flinched and cried even harder.
He stalked out of the room.
Chapter 33
It’s a good thing you have me along,” Jonathon said as they rode in the cab to Rick’s Cabaret on Bourbon. “You have to have a male escort to get in.”
“I’m surprised any of those joints on Bourbon require you to have a man with you,” Kate said.
“The nicer ones do, and I’m your man.”
Lucy settled further into his lap. “And you’re man enough to escort all of us. I like that.”
Vivian, Wendy and Kate cracked up laughing as Jonathon pulled Lucy in tight.
Vivian pulled up the local ABC affiliate and found a new story about Daisy and the other two girls. She held her phone so everyone could see and turned up the volume.
A lot of what was reported, the girls already knew. The story cut to a reporter standing in front of the arches to St. Louis Cemetery #1. Spotlights lit the area behind her, casting an eerie glow and shadows on the screen. “The police are still at work, searching for evidence of who could have committed this crime and desecrated these historic grounds. Though the victim has not been identified to us, sources tell us it is one of the three missing dancers who have disappeared during the past month.”
Pictures of all three victims flashed across the screen. “Police are requesting the help of the public and have established a tip line.” The phone number was displayed, and the reporter continued talking. “I had the opportunity to speak to Jason Pitts, the fiancé of Daisy Easley, to discuss what he and others are doing to help bring Daisy home.”
The story cut to the interview with Jason, microphone in his face. He said, “I’ve had an unbelievable response to my pleas for help. People have come from across the country to cover the city with flyers, ask questions and just do anything they can to help. I know we’re going to find her safe.”
Vivian put her phone into her pocket just as the cab pulled to a stop. Rick’s red neon sign cast a glow, making everyone who walked by look sunburned. “We need a game plan,” she said as everybody got out. She asked Jonathon, “How do we get Lala Lollipop to talk to us about Daisy?”
“This is the Daisy from the newscast?” he asked.
The girls gave him a quick rundown of the kidnapping and the Lollipop connection.
He smiled. “Leave it to me. I can get any woman to talk.”
“Oh yeah?” Lucy said.
“Twenty bucks says I can get this chick to come to your hotel.”
Lucy slapped him on the arm. “She’s a stripper, not a prostitute.”
“Wanna bet?”
Vivian laughed and told him their hotel and room number. “I want to see this process in action. Do you need some cash? How much does this kind of transaction cost?”
“Depends. I’ll have to feel her out, literally. I’ll buy a lap dance, and the handsier she lets me get, the more likely she’ll go to the hotel. I’ll know pretty quick how much for the whole shebang.” He laughed at himself.
“I’m only supporting this for the cause,” Lucy said, tracing her fingernail down his chest to his navel, “but I’m going to be watching you.”
Kate looked at the too-tanned woman in a neon-green G-string bikini and 6-inch acrylic platform heels that flashed like a strobe light, standing out front of the club. “I’m good with staying out here. I’ve about had enough of naked ladies.”
“I’ll stay with Kate,” Wendy said. “Buddy system.”
Vivian linked arms with Jonathon. “I got my boy buddy right here. Let’s go!”
Lucy linked arms on the other side and they walked to the door. Too-tanned welcomed them in, giggling and jiggling as Lucy paid the cover charge.
The three found a table in the middle of the club, not too close. A girl in hot pants and a highlighter-yellow bikini top asked what they’d like to drink. Twenty-four dollars and three beers later, they were tortured by Trace Adkins’ “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” and a girl in chaps, leather bikini top, cowgirl hat and high-heeled western boots.
Vivian groaned. “And yet another reason why I can’t stand country music.”
Lucy started singing really loud and Jonathon joined in. Vivian put her head in her hands, then looked up to see Jonathon grinding on Lucy and both of them waving pretend lassos. She put her head back into her hands and turned to the side to slip in sips of beer.
Finally, Lala Lollipop was announced. Her starting music was the same as at the French House, Shirley Temple’s “Good Ship Lollipop” gone wild. She strutted on stage in a super-tight navy sailor dress with a white-trimmed collar and red belt. The candy-cane heels fed into red platforms with cupcakes painted on the sides resembling boobs.
“How is she going to get out of that dress?” Vivian leaned over and asked Lucy and Jonathon.
“She’ll manage,” Jonathon said, never taking his eyes off the stage.
When the music changed to Nickleback’s “Burn It to the Ground,” Lala threw her belt aside and ripped off her dress, which apparently was Velcroed in the back. She took to the pole and tricked, turned and twisted beyond what Vivian thought the human body could do. She ended the routine in the splits, and the crowd clapped for an encore. She did the next routine to Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy.”
Vivian stood up and started dancing along with Lucy and Jonathon. “Now this is a great song!”
“I’ve never heard it,”
Jonathon said, “but I like it.”
That comment hurt a little, and Vivian looked at Lucy. Dammit! We’re not old!
Lala ended her routine upside down, legs spread-eagle, clinging on the pole. Jonathon whispered something to Lucy, then walked toward a bouncer standing by the stage. He slipped the guy some cash and disappeared behind a velvet red curtain.
Jonathon chose a spot in the far left corner that was nice and dark, although the entire room was much darker than the rest of the club. He sat on a bench seat and pushed the small table that was in front of him away a few inches.
Lala walked out about 10 minutes later. She’d changed into a fluorescent orange string bikini.
I’m gonna enjoy this! he thought.
Lala sat down next to him and ran her hand up his thigh. “You here for me?”
“You are hot, baby,” he answered.
She threw her leg across his lap and got down to business. She pushed her bikini top to the side and shoved her boobs in his face.
He went for the handsy moves and Lala let him go... almost to candy land.
Jonathon pushed through the red curtain and walked up to Vivian and Lucy. “I’m in. We might need to stop by an ATM on the way to the hotel. She’ll be there in 30 minutes.”
“How much is this gonna cost us?” Lucy asked.
“I promised her $200.”
“We’ll give her $100 to keep her clothes on, how’s that?” Vivian asked.
He shrugged. “She ought to be happy.”
They made their way outside and found Wendy and Kate covered in beads, laughing with a couple of cute guys holding big ass beers. “Hey, hookers!” they yelled.
“Looks like y’all’ve had a good time!” Vivian said, grabbing Kate’s beer and taking a big-ass sip.
Wendy threw an arm around Vivian’s shoulders and danced to the music blaring out of another club. “Woo hoo!”
Vivian danced along and said, “We have a date with a stripper. We gotta get to the hotel.”