Extra Dirty

by Mia Gold

  He looked back at her. “You grow up in the Maze?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  “Just because you grew up poor doesn’t mean you have to go around making life worse for everybody else.”

  “Like you’d know about it,” Bob Marley grumbled. “You never went hungry in your life.”

  Ruby fell silent for a moment. He was right on one level, but dead wrong on another. He and his two deadbeat friends would have robbed her, sure, and they would have used at least part of that money for food, but they would have done far more to her than that.

  And for that, there was no forgiveness.

  “Anyway, here’s the plan. You want to help the kids in the hood, and that’s cool. Gave Madame Lawrence money for that little girl, and even told her to feed that young punk that busted your window. I see where this is going. You’re going to keep coming back and feeding those two, and then more will hear about it and want some free dinner too. Fine. Plenty of hungry kids in the hood. But you can’t feed them all working at that stupid bar. Old Jolly Roger can’t be paying you too good.”

  Ruby ground her teeth. The King had cracked into her phone and seen photos of where she worked. Apparently he had told this cheap hoodlum sitting opposite her.

  “You show up at my work, I’ll break both your arms.”

  Bob Marley laughed. “You think I’m gonna go to some pirate bar? Hell, no. I got my rep to think about. Anyway, here’s the deal. The King wants to expand his territory. The Maze is his kingdom, but he doesn’t got the neighborhoods right around it, like the one where your kids are. So what we do is set up a charity. We can call it, um, Marley’s Kids. Yeah, I like that! We put on some fights, with you as the star, and a cut of the take goes to feeding those kids. The King will get a good rep in that neighborhood, and that makes it easier to move in.”

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “You seriously expect me to go along with this?”

  Bob Marley shrugged. “You want to help those kids. How else you going to get the money?”

  Ruby didn’t say anything for a moment. This guy, for all his street bluster, had a sharp eye and a sort of animal cunning. He had seen what she hadn’t—that she’d keep coming back to feed the girl, and that all the other hungry kids would hear of it and want their share.

  And Ruby wouldn’t be able to refuse them.

  What she hadn’t figured out, and what Bob Marley so plainly saw, was that when she first gave Madame Lawrence fifty bucks to feed the deaf-mute girl for a week, that she’d come back a week later, and the week after that. There wouldn’t be a week that she wouldn’t come back.

  She had bonded herself to that girl, to all those kids, for the foreseeable future.

  And where would the money come from? She had earned ten grand in her previous case. That would last a while, but not forever. It wouldn’t even last all that long if every kid in the neighborhood came around asking for a meal. Once the money got used up, then what?

  She needed to earn extra cash somehow.

  But not from fighting. One solid punch to the head would kill her. Even if she didn’t have an old injury constantly threatening her life she’d never work for the overlord of the worst slum in Nassau.

  And she sure as hell wouldn’t help him expand his territory.

  Ruby stood. “Not going to happen.”

  Bob Marley cocked his head and gave a little smile. “You gotta fight, one way or another. The King says you owe him two more fights. You ain’t getting out of that.”

  “Watch me.”

  “Why not fight and make money for those kids?”

  Ruby leaned over him. The couple at the next table glanced their direction. Ruby ignored them as she poked a finger into Bob Marley’s chest.

  “Listen. I’m not fighting for you, I’m not fighting for that buffoon sitting on his throne, I’m not fighting for anyone, and that’s final.”

  “The King won’t like it.”

  “Too bad.”

  Ruby turned and left, heart beating fast.

  She knew she hadn’t put this problem behind her, not by a longshot.

  But now she had to face another one—going to the Moonlight Lounge and finding out the truth about what happened to Bridget. Not only did she have to find out the identities of those two prostitutes, but she also had to find out if this was a bigger operation, if anyone as behind them. She also had to find Dirty Dancer, assuming she still lived. Her testimony would prove vital.

  She had to do all that, or poor Bridget would never see justice, and Ruby would end up in a jail cell.

  The first hurdle was figuring out what to wear when she went to the Moonlight Lounge. During her last visit, she had dressed in her usual casual, loose clothing that kept her limbs free to fight. She had looked seriously out of place. Now she had to blend in.

  Her plan was similar to the one that had kinda sorta worked at Caribbean Dreams—look like she belonged there.

  The problem with that? She had never dressed formal, and she had never dressed slutty. And she had no idea how to define slutty formal, although she knew it when she saw it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Looking at herself in the mirror in a high-end shop in downtown Nassau, she decided that slutty formal made her look ridiculous.

  It also turned out to be both awkward and uncomfortable. After much searching, she had settled on a lovely, low-cut red dress that said, “classy but available.”

  At least she thought it said that. Ruby had no real idea. She hadn’t worn a dress since grade school.

  It had a wide hem line that wouldn’t interfere with her kicks, but there was too much material billowing around her legs and she worried it would tangle her up. She also worried that this low-cut top might make her tits pop out of she got too ambitious with her moves. Might help distract her opponent, though.

  She was in one of the nicer clothing shops in Nassau, one that catered to female tourists who needed some formal wear. The local shops had styles that she’d look out of place in, and local women had different proportions.

  It turned out Ruby had different proportions too. Her shoulders were too broad from all the muscle mass on them, and the sleeves of everything she tried were too tight because of she had the biceps and triceps of a man. The women in the shop clucked their tongues and fussed over her as she struggled into various dresses in front of a mirror. The one she had on was the least confining option.

  The shoes presented a greater problem—she couldn’t wear flats with this dress and she couldn’t fight in heels.

  Heels. What a ridiculous invention. Shoes that made it hard to walk. What the hell was the point of that? She had only ever owned one set of heels in her life, when she had gone to senior prom. After prom, her ankles and calves still sore, she had tossed them in the back of her closet and swore never to wear heels again.

  Of course, seventeen-year-old Ruby couldn’t predict that one day she’d need to infiltrate a high-class prostitute’s bar in the Bahamas to solve a murder. Life can throw you curveballs that way.

  She wobbled back and forth in front of the mirror, examining her reflection. The two Bahamian women who had been helping her smiled in the background.

  “Now you look like a woman,” one of them said.

  “I looked like a woman before,” Ruby replied. The question is, do I look like an expensive hooker?

  She wondered if she was in the right place. Was there a Hooker Emporium where they shopped? A place where all the skirts were leather and all the underwear lacy?

  Well, no one at the Moonlight Lounge had dressed like that. If any of those women she had seen had been in on the game, they dressed like normal people.

  But all those women had been slim or girly. None had Ruby’s broad shoulders or impressive biceps and triceps. And they tended to have long hair, not her spikey brown style cut close at the sides. You didn’t want hair getting into your eyes in a fight.

  She felt she had done well with the accessori
es. She’d picked out a large handbag with a long strap and gold buckle, large enough inside that she could put a brick in there and make a decent weapon. She still had the brick Daniel had put through her window, so she didn’t even need to look for one amid the ribbons and scarves.

  She had also picked out an inexpensive ring with a big red stone that was almost certainly not a real ruby. Still, it would look convincing in the dim light and add a little zing to her punches.

  And the popular girls in school had said she didn’t know how to accessorize!

  Ruby loaded her purchases into her battered rental car and smiled. She hadn’t spent this much on herself in years. Good thing she had earned ten grand on the last case, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to buy all this stuff.

  She felt a bit guilty too. Each purchase had taken food from the mouths of those kids.

  Sad but necessary, she told herself. She had a murder to solve.

  As she drove out of the parking lot, her phone rang. Ruby recognized the anonymous number Tim Harris had given her in case of emergencies. Her heart did a little flip flop and she hurried to pick up.

  “What’s up?” she asked without preamble. “You find out anything?”

  “I found out you’re about to go viral.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go to YouTube and look for a video titled ‘American Woman Kicks Ass in Brawl in Bahamas Strip Club.” It went live last night and it already has 30,000 views.”

  “Oh God. Does it show my face?”

  “Yeah. Close up, too. If anyone you know sees this, the dye job and new hairstyle aren’t going to work.”

  “Crap.”

  “Check out the video.”

  “I can’t. I have a crappy little flip phone!”

  “Well, find some place to do it. You need to do some damage control.”

  “Thanks, Tim. How did you find out about it?”

  “I put an alert on my phone for any fight videos from the Bahamas. The way everyone is video crazy these days I knew you’d appear sooner or later.”

  Ruby heard a note of accusation in his voice.

  “I’m trying to keep a low profile,” she objected.

  “And doing a crappy job. If someone finds out where you are …”

  “Somebody already has.”

  “What? Who?”

  “An assassin jumped me at my house. Broke in and moved like a pro. Had a silencer and everything. If it wasn’t for the cops showing up just at the right moment, you’d be talking to a dead woman right now.”

  “Damn. You want me to come down?”

  “Too risky. They might be watching you too.”

  “Do you know who sent them?”

  Ruby grimaced. With so many possibilities, there could be more than one assassin on his way.

  “He said, ‘The sheikh sends his regards’. So, the Saudis.”

  “Which sheikh?”

  “Damned if I know. Senator Wishbourne’s husband was running illegal arms to the Saudis,” Ruby said.

  “Yeah, I know. I’ve been trying to gather evidence. They covered their trail well, though. But maybe it wasn’t the Saudis. No shortage of potential customers in that part of the world.”

  “True enough. But why kill her? And why go after me?”

  “I bet the answers are in that thumb drive.”

  Ruby gritted her teeth. “Yeah. Still haven’t gotten it open.”

  “First things first. You need to take down that video.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know, but if that thing goes viral, you’re going to have every enemy Senator Wishbourne ever had gunning for you.”

  “OK, thanks for the warning.”

  “You sure you don’t want me to come down?”

  “No, it might only bring more heat.”

  “I’m … worried about you.”

  The way he said it made Ruby want him there right now.

  “Thank you,” Ruby said, trying to keep her voice level. “I’m worried about you too. You’re digging into dangerous territory, Tim. Be careful.”

  “I will. Get that video offline somehow.”

  “All right.” She was about to hang up when she quickly added, “Miss you.”

  “Miss you too.”

  “Bye,” Ruby said.

  Long pause.

  “Bye.”

  For a moment neither hung up. Only coming to a turn that required putting both her hands on the steering wheel made Ruby say a quick second goodbye and put away her phone.

  Ruby cursed. What to do? Maybe the hacker could take it down. She needed to see it first. See just how much of a threat it posed.

  Ruby drove to an Internet café she remembered wasn’t too far off. The Bahamas was poor enough that many people didn’t have Internet access at home or on their phones. Housed in a low-end strip mall between a mobile phone shop and pet supply store, she had remembered the little sign and wondered what kind of people went there. She hadn’t been to an Internet café in years.

  It turned out to be a cramped little place, little more than a hallway with small desks to one side, each with a computer and sideboards to provide privacy. Each little cubicle had a number painted on the sideboard. The man at the front desk took a couple of bucks in exchange for half an hour of computer time and told her to go to computer number eight near the back. He eyed her handful of bags bearing the name of an expensive clothing shop.

  “My phone broke,” she explained with an embarrassed smile. He replied with only a shrug.

  Ruby passed a woman chatting on Zoom, a teenage boy playing World of Warcraft, and another teenage boy who looked up nervously as she approached and minimized whatever he was looking at.

  Ruby rolled her eyes. Probably a future customer of The Tropical Twerker.

  She sat at her assigned computer, brought up YouTube, and searched for the video.

  And there it was, the brawl in Caribbean Dreams in all its glory. The video began just as she finished off the last of the Americans, as the fight spread through the whole crowd like a wildfire in a California summer. The camera followed her as she saved the stripper. Ruby curled her lip in disgust to once again see the bare ass of the man she had torn off the dancer. Then the camera panned around to show the general mayhem before focusing in on her again.

  Her face was clearly visible in several parts of the video. While the lighting wasn’t all that good, anyone who knew her would recognize her. Tim was right, the shorter hair and dye job wouldn’t save her. Whoever had filmed it must have been standing pretty close. Ruby had been too busy to notice.

  Ruby sighed and sat back in her seat. What to do? This was a serious danger, even worse than Tim thought. Because since he had looked at it the video had jumped from 30,000 views to more than 90,000. It was on the cusp of blowing up the Internet.

  She perked up when she noticed the Report button below the video. Wasn’t nudity against YouTube policy? That guy’s bare buttocks could save her. She reported the video, checking the box for nudity, and sent it.

  That didn’t make her breathe much easier. Assuming they really did delete it, how long would it take? And how many people would see it in the meantime?

  And what if Tim wasn’t the only person with alerts set for fights in the Bahamas? If the assassin searched for this too, he’d know she had been there, and it wouldn’t take too much of an investigator to find out what she was up to.

  Driving away from the Internet café, Ruby contemplated her next move.

  She needed to go to the Moonlight Lounge and get in good with the people there, although she had no idea how she was going to manage that. She had done it with the girls at Caribbean Dreams, but they had been less exclusive, and having Zoomer along had helped break the ice. She couldn’t bring him to this place, and she knew that the women who worked here had a habit of kicking out newcomers. She would have to tread carefully.

  How? And how would she get them to talk?

  Just then her phone rang again. Ruby groaned. M
ore bad news?

  She saw Kristiano’s number.

  Oh, God. Has the assassin tracked him down?

  Kristiano’s usual cheerful hello reassured her somewhat.

  “Hey Ruby, John wanted me to call you.”

  “John?”

  “You know, the bouncer at The Tropical Twerker.”

  “Oh. You know him?”

  “Yeah, we play handball together.”

  Ruby blinked. She didn’t even know Kristiano played handball. She’d spent the past year so wrapped up in her own drama, and mostly in an alcoholic haze, that there was a lot she didn’t know about her friends.

  Kristiano went on. “He wanted to tell you that Dirty Dancer showed up. She’s at his house right now. I’ll give you the address.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  It turned out that John the bouncer lived in Ruby’s neighborhood and less than a mile from her house. His house wasn’t any better than her own—small, with a sagging roof in need of repair or total replacement, and faded and chipping paint. Still, he kept it tidy and clean like all Bahamian homes. John opened the door as Ruby came up the front walk.

  “Glad you got here,” he said without any preamble. “Dirty Dancer is inside scared half to death.”

  They entered the living room, a simple place with a lumpy old couch and a couple of chairs, an old TV and a good sound system that must have cost John a lot of savings. She doubted he made much more than she did.

  “So where is she?” Ruby asked.

  A Bahamian woman in her twenties came out of the kitchen, looking haggard and holding a large glass of gin and tonic in her hand. The smell of alcohol wafted over to Ruby, making her muscles tense. She hoped no one offered her a drink. It would be easier not to ask for one than to refuse an offer.

  “I thought I told you to keep off that stuff,” John told Dirty Dancer.

  “After what I’ve been through, I feel like drinking for a week,” she sighed, sitting down so hard on the sofa that the ice tinkled and a bit of gin sloshed over the rim to leave a dark dot on her sweatpants.

  She was sloppily dressed. Besides the sweatpants she wore nothing but a t-shirt for the local soccer team. Both were far too big for her. Ruby guessed they were John’s.