I nodded for her to continue with her story.
“So, we told her we liked her car and asked if it was hers. She said it was a gift from her boss. We were both like, ‘Wow. That’s some boss.’ We got to talking and one of us asked her where she’d gotten her dress, and she told us she’d bought it at this little boutique downtown. Of course there was no way either me or Jordan would ever be able to afford to shop there. That’s a tourist boutique. Too expensive for us. And we said something like that to her, and she said she made really good money where she worked. I asked her what she did, and she said that it varied. But sometimes she did modeling and she made three to five hundred per gig. We were like shocked. I mean, who makes three to five hundred dollars a day? She asked us if we were interested in getting a job there because they were always hiring pretty girls.”
I sighed. This already sounded like a bad idea. But as I looked at Giselle, telling the story, I could tell that she already knew what I was going to say.
Giselle held her hand out to keep me from saying it. “I know, Drunk. I know. Hearing it now, it sounds shady, but we just saw dollar signs. And it wasn’t to go on some dumb shopping spree. I’m saving for college. Jordan’s paying her own bills right now with her aunt gone. She really needed the money.”
I nodded. I knew I couldn’t be judgmental; I’d seen the delinquent notices in Jordan’s apartment. “Okay, I understand. Keep going.”
“So, Crystal handed us each a slip of paper. It was an invitation to a private party at this club down in the District. It’s called Club Cobalt. She said when we got there to ask for her.”
So far I wasn’t shocked. I’d already pieced most of that together, except the part about the invitation being for a job. “Don’t you have to be old enough to get into a place like that?”
Giselle shrugged. “Crystal said the invitations would get us in the door. And she was right. The bouncer didn’t even flinch when we showed it to him, and we just walked in. We found her there, hanging out. She seemed excited to see us. And when we asked about the job, she told us to take the invitations down this hallway and give them to the guards there and they’d take us where we needed to go. We asked her what we’d be doing, and she just kind of waved us off and said the boss would explain everything.”
“You sure you don’t want a bottle of water?” I asked, interrupting as I took another drink of my soda.
She shook her head. “No, really, I’m fine.”
“Okay, sorry. Keep going.”
Giselle nodded. “So, we did what Crystal told us to do and we took our invitations to this hallway, and there were these two big guys guarding the doors. They took us down to the end of the hallway, where we met this other guy. They called him Vito. He was kind of intimidating, I mean, he had this, like, flat nose,” she explained, pressing her palm against her own nose. “And he looked really serious. He looked us up and down and said, ‘So I hear you want to make some good money.’ We told him that Crystal had said something about modeling. He said that the girls who have been there for a while move up to the modeling gigs, but the newer girls kind of have to work their way up. He said he needed a couple of girls to work a private party a friend of his was hosting and that we’d get all the details when we got there. He said his driver would give us a ride to the party and bring us back to the club when it was over.”
I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I let my head fall into my hands. “Tell me you didn’t just get in a car with these creeps?”
Giselle’s hands flared out in front of herself. “I didn’t want to! But Jordan really needed the money. I did too. We figured, what’s the big deal? He said he’d bring us back! So we went. But the whole thing was weird. They had us ride in this long stretch limo with darkened windows and we couldn’t see out, so we had no idea where we were going. Then when we got there, the limo pulled into a garage and there was this kind of creepy butler guy who took us down this hallway and said we’d need to get our pictures taken if we wanted to be considered for future modeling jobs. Which, of course, was what we both wanted. So, he put us in this room and pointed to a closet and said we could put on anything in the closet, but we couldn’t wear our own clothes for the pictures.” That was when Giselle started to tear up and her chin began to shake. “But they weren’t clothes in the closet, it was just all really skimpy lingerie.” Tears trickled down her cheeks then.
I groaned. Some asshole had taken advantage of a couple of teenage girls so he could put their pictures up on his club’s wall of fame. I wanted to put a fist in his face. But I had to remain calm. Giselle needed me to remain calm. I slid around to the sofa and put an arm over her shoulder. She leaned her head on my shoulder and cried. I squeezed her shoulder, all the while wishing I could storm out of there and find the guy who had made her cry. “It’s okay. We’ll figure all this out.”
She sat up and blotted her eyes with the hem of her shirt. “I didn’t want to wear that stuff,” she cried. “But Jordan convinced me that it was just like wearing a string bikini to the beach. It was no big deal and models wore that kind of stuff all the time. She was like, look at the Victoria’s Secret models, they strut around in their underwear on stage. What’s the big deal? They just wanted to know that we had nice bodies and pretty faces.” Giselle sniffled and blotted her eyes again. “And you know, when I thought about it, she was right. But there was still a creepy factor that wearing a string bikini to the beach didn’t have.”
“But you let them take your pictures like that anyway?”
Giselle’s head bobbed. I could tell she was fighting tears again, but she wanted to get the rest of the story out. “They took us to this other room. There was this like padded table on one side and some photography equipment on the other side,” she explained. “They had this photographer come in and take our pictures. Jordan was excited about it, she kind of played it up, like pretending she’d been modeling her whole life. I was way stiffer about it. I was so embarrassed. I kept thinking if my mother ever saw those pictures, she’d kill me. But I told myself that if I really wanted to be a model, Jordie was right. I needed to relax because real models did this kind of stuff all the time. At least we weren’t naked or something.”
I gritted my teeth and mumbled under my breath. “Yeah, thank God for small favors.”
“Huh?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Keep going.”
“So, after they took the pictures, they told us to stay in there and their client was going to be in shortly and our assignment for the evening was to give him a massage.”
“In the lingerie?” I balked.
She only nodded.
“Oh my God. You’re kidding me.”
She shook her head, biting her lip. “When it was over, we each got three hundred cash and they took us back to Club Cobalt and told us we could come back anytime we wanted to make more cash.”
I wasn’t sure how to ask her the next question. The obvious, glaring one. So I swallowed hard and just asked. “Did they want you to do anything, you know, sexual?”
Giselle looked down at her hands. She shook her head. “No. It was just a massage.”
“You’re sure?”
Her head bobbed up and down, but she refused to look me in the eyes then. I couldn’t tell if she was lying or just embarrassed at what she’d been through.
I slid sideways on the sofa and put a hand on either of her shoulders and gave her a little shake. I wanted her to look me in the eye. I had to be able to tell if she was being honest with me. “Giselle. Tell me the truth.”
She looked up then, her eyes still brimming with tears. “I swear. We just gave him a massage. It was just… it was just really uncomfortable and super awkward. And it felt wrong. And I hated every second of it.”
“I don’t blame you one bit. I’m glad you came to that realization.”
“Yeah, totally. When we got back to our car, I told Jordie how glad I was to be out of there and that we were never doing that again. She agreed with me
and I thought we were both on the same page about it. I, personally, never wanted to speak of it again. It was just a weird and uncomfortable thing. But then last Friday, we were hanging out at her apartment, and I found this stack of cash. It was like more cash than I’d ever seen before. I asked her about it and she got really defensive.”
Dread filled the pit of my stomach. “Had she been going back to Club Cobalt?”
“I mean, I automatically assumed that’s what was going on. And I asked her, but she wouldn’t say. But where else would she get that kind of money that quickly? Before that, she was completely broke.”
“Is that what your disagreement was about?”
Giselle nodded sadly before hanging her head. “Yeah,” she whispered. “She didn’t like the fact that I was bugging her about it. She said I was judging her and friends don’t judge.”
“So do you think that Jordan’s disappearance has to do with whatever she got herself mixed up in?”
“I mean, kind of. Don’t you?”
“It definitely sounds like it could be connected.” I sighed. “Look, Giselle, I know you don’t want to, but we have to go to the cops.”
Giselle’s eyes widened and her head shook. “You can’t go to the cops, Drunk. I told you.”
“Yeah, well, you never really explained why.”
“They said they’d release the pictures they took if we ever told anyone that we’d gone over there.”
“I mean, I get that, but Jordan could be in some serious trouble over all this. Don’t you want to make sure she’s safe?”
“It’s not just the pictures,” she whispered. “They said we couldn’t go to the cops.”
“Who? Who said you couldn’t?”
“The people at Club Cobalt. And Crystal, she…” Giselle’s voice trailed off.
“Crystal told you not to go to the cops?”
“When they brought us back to the club and we were walking to our car, we saw her again. She asked us if we were going to come back. We both said no, probably not. She said that’s fine. But whatever we do, don’t talk to anyone about the private party. That’s part of our fee. We’re paid for our silence.”
“Giselle, that’s ridiculous. They can’t possibly think that—”
“She was all beat up, Drunk. Her face. It was bruised and she had a black eye. She’d covered it up with makeup, but after we came back, she took us into the bathroom so we could see her face better. She said that’s what they do if you do something they don’t like. Something like talking to the cops. They told us that at the private party too. That we weren’t allowed to talk to the cops.”
And then the pretty blond waitress with the scar across her cheekbone and the faded black-and-blue eye I’d seen at Club Cobalt sprang into the forefront of my mind. I’d bet anything that was Crystal.
“I can’t believe you got mixed up in all this, Giselle. You seem like a smart girl.”
“I am a smart girl, okay? I had a lapse in judgment. Mom’s going to kill me if she finds out about all this. Look. I just want to know that Jordan’s okay. We don’t need to go to the cops if she’s okay and doing all this by choice. But if she’s not doing it by choice, and something happened to her—”
I was quiet for a long moment as I thought about all the things that Giselle had told me. I needed to get back over to that Club Cobalt and find Jordan before something did happen to her. Finally, I stood up. “Is there anything else you need to tell me, Giselle? Anything at all. Now’s the time.”
She shook her head. “No. Not that I can think of.”
“Because if you’re not telling me everything, then I reserve the right to go to the cops.”
“Drunk, I swear—”
“And you have no idea where they took you that night?”
“None.”
“No names that might help me out?”
“Just Vito, that was the only name we got that night.”
I nodded. “Okay, I’ll handle this.”
“You’re going to keep looking for her?”
“Of course I am.”
“And you won’t go to the cops? I can’t have them hurt her.”
“I’ll be careful. I only wish you would have told me all this when we spoke before.”
“I’m sorry. I—I was scared. And embarrassed.”
“I know. I know. I also hope that you learned a lesson.”
Her eyes widened and she nodded her head. “I did. I really did. There’s no way to make a quick buck. You just have to work hard. My mom’s told me that all these years, but I guess I never really understood. I understand now. I just wish Jordan had learned with me.” Giselle stood up.
I gave her a hug. “I’ll do everything I can to find Jordan and bring her back. Okay?”
She nodded. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Okay, now I need to go. I have a plumbing call I need to make.”
Giselle looked confused. “A plumbing call?”
I nodded, my brows lowered. “Yeah. I’ve got some pieces of shit I need to flush out.”
15
Fired up after my talk with Giselle, I gave Diego a call and asked him to meet Al and me at the marina at ten. Then I headed down to Al’s place to pick him up. On the ride over, I recounted Giselle’s whole story to Al. By the time we got to the marina, I was fuming mad once again about the jackasses that had taken advantage of a pair of young girls’ naivety, and I was ready to find out what in the hell was going on over at Club Cobalt. Al, though just as upset, seemed to be able to hold his temper better than I could.
“What’s up with you, Al? You don’t even look fazed,” I said as we pulled into the marina parking lot. “Don’t you care what Club Cobalt did to Giselle and Jordan?”
“Of course I care. I have granddaughters! I hate that there are monsters out in the world like that, but it doesn’t help anyone to go off half-cocked.”
I frowned and gripped the steering wheel tighter. My anger still seethed just below the surface. “Yeah, but it sure feels good.”
Al closed his eyes, lifted his brows, and shrugged. “Maybe. In that moment it might feel good, but nothing good comes out of anger. Except maybe determination, but you can be determined without anger.” He pointed at himself then. “Look at me. I’m determined and I’m keeping my emotions under control. We have to be clear-headed for this, kid. We can’t let our emotions run the show. We have a sixteen-year-old girl to find.”
My head drooped forward onto the steering wheel for a brief moment. The logical side of my brain knew that Al was right. I had to calm down so I could think clearly. Unfortunately, the emotional side of my brain sent the logical side of my brain a message that said, Easier said than done.
There was a knock on my window.
I opened my left eye and turned my head slightly. It was Diego. I sighed. I needed to shake it off.
I gave him a tight smile, and Al and I got out of the vehicle. “Hey, D.”
“Hey, fellas,” said Diego.
“Thanks for meeting us on such short notice.” I gave him a bro hug as Al came around the corner of the vehicle to shake Diego’s hand.
Diego couldn’t take his eyes off my new ride. “Nice set of wheels, Drunk,” he said, his eyes bright. “You just get it?”
I grinned. “Yeah, Al insisted.”
“You picked a good one. It’s flashy. I happen to appreciate flashy myself.” Diego straightened the collar of his colorfully printed short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt. He walked around the vehicle, looking it over carefully. “It looks brand-new.”
“Fairly new. I couldn’t exactly afford new with the prices of vehicles on the island.”
Diego nodded and gave a nod towards the white van in their parking lot. “Oh yeah, man. Aren’t those tariffs the worst? We paid an arm and a leg for the van when we got it.”
With my hands on my hips I nodded. “Yeah. Hey, speaking of the van, I was wondering—do silent partners get to borrow the van from time to time?”
“You
need to borrow the van?” asked Diego.
“Yeah, sorta. Just for a couple of hours.”
“Oh, not a problem, man. It doesn’t smell the best, but you’re welcome to use it.”
“Hey, thanks, we appreciate it.”
“Yeah, no problem. I’ll just go grab the keys from the marina.”
He turned to walk away, but I held a hand out to him as another thought popped into my head. “Say, you don’t happen to have any coveralls we could borrow too, do you?”
Diego’s grin covered his face. “Listen, Drunk, if you can handle the smell of dead fish, I gotcha covered.”
I glanced over at Al. “Hey, if I can handle the smell of this guy after a week of eating Kashi cereal for breakfast, I think I can handle the smell of a few measly dead fish.”
Al frowned. “Hey, your protein powder bombs don’t smell like roses either.”
Diego chuckled. “Alright, fellas. I’ll be right back. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
* * *
With our windows down and our heads stuck out the van’s windows, we pulled to a stop in front of Club Cobalt at exactly eleven o’clock that day. After leaving the marina, we’d made two pit stops—a sign shop and a plumbing store. From the sign shop, we’d grabbed an order I’d placed over the phone the day before, and from the plumbing store, we’d picked up a tool bag and a few plumbing necessities.
So now, instead of being parked in front of Club Cobalt in my flashy yellow Jeep, we drove a white van with a magnetic logo on the side that read P.U. Plumbing—We’re #1 in the #2 business. Of course, Diego had been right. The van reeked like the rotting carcasses of a school of dead fish, as did the coveralls we’d borrowed. The stench had almost done me in on the ride over. It was only because we’d driven with our heads out the windows that we hadn’t succumbed to choking on our own vomit.
Al leaned forward and looked around. “They’re not even open this early, kid. You weren’t planning for us to break in, were you?”
“This is why I get paid the big bucks and you don’t.” I gave my newly shaven chin a little scratch and smiled. “I’m way ahead of you. I called yesterday and made an appointment. I told the guy who answered the phone that someone had called us to fix the john, and that we preferred to fix it when they weren’t open. He said he’d have someone meet us here at eleven.”
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