by L. T. Vargus
“Like lap dances? That kind of thing?” Charlie said, keeping her voice small and tight.
Red chuckled at that.
“Well, no. Not like that. Maybe the occasional hand job if you’re lucky. But typically… it’s the other… the usual thing men pay girls like us for.”
Charlie looked around the room as Red talked. It occurred to her that this was nowhere near the backstage area—that’d be on the other side of the building. This was like a separate operation from the strip club, essentially—prostitution being run out of the back of the building. Probably exactly why they kept such a discerning bouncer out front.
“I have another question, actually,” Charlie said, pulling out the pictures of Kara and Amber. “Have any of you seen either of these girls before?”
The pictures changed hands, all of the faces in the room going somber. It was so quiet, Charlie could hear the light bulbs buzzing along the tops of the mirrors.
The other girls exchanged glances that Charlie read as frightened, but the mousy girl’s eyes went wide, locked on the face in one of the photos.
“Her. It’s been a few weeks now, but I seen her around a few times a while back.”
Her index finger extended, its tip landing on Kara’s chin in the photo. Just as the skin made contact with the glossy photo paper, the door behind them burst open, the steel slamming against the doorstop and reverberating like a tuning fork.
All heads turned to watch the bouncer enter the room. He did a double-take when he saw Charlie, stopped in his tracks. His eyes narrowed, beady black marbles that made her intensely uncomfortable.
She tucked the photos away and grabbed a makeup poof from the table, dabbing powder at her nose, trying to play it cool. She could feel her pulse quicken in her neck, heart knocking in her chest.
The bouncer chuckled behind her. Came up beside her. Rolled his eyes once she made eye contact.
“Nice try, cop.”
Then he grabbed her.
Chapter Forty-Four
The bouncer lugged Charlie down the dark hallway to the door on the opposite side. She squirmed, struggled against his grip, but he had pinned her arms down, making her effort useless. It felt like trying to fight a sequoia.
She screamed for help, but the bass from the main stage area was so loud, she doubted anyone could hear her outside of this corridor.
Balancing her over his shoulder, he pulled at a retractable key ring attached to his belt loop and unlocked the deadbolt. The big steel door glided out of the way.
Inside they went. Charlie craned her neck to get a look at the room. Shadows everywhere. Too dark to make out much, save for some shelves along the back wall and some kind of large bulky thing just in front of them—probably a desk.
He flipped the light switches just inside the door, and after a moment of hesitation, the overhead bulbs flickered on.
It was an office of some sort, the middle of the room occupied by an old metal desk with drawers on either side. Bookcases along the wall were piled with three-ring binders and cardboard file boxes.
The bouncer plopped her down in one of the chairs facing the big desk, then went back to lock the door behind him. She noted that it was the kind of lock that required a key on either side.
She’d just dug her phone out of her purse when he ripped both out of her fingers, phone then purse.
“I don’t think so,” he said, holding her things out of reach.
He moved to the other side of the desk. Dug around in the drawers. Eventually he pulled free a set of keys.
“Don’t think I’ll be leaving the spares for you to dig out, either.”
He scurried over to the door, surprisingly light on his feet for such a big piece of meat. Agile and quick.
“I’ll be back, so behave yourself,” he said over his shoulder.
He stepped through the doorway, his bulky form disappearing behind the steel. The last thing she heard was the telltale rattle and snick of the key turning the deadbolt before the room went silent.
She rushed to the door to try the handle. It was firmly locked, just as she knew it would be. She pounded on the door a few times with the heel of her hand, knowing it was useless. No one would hear it over the Mötley Crüe and Poison medley blaring out there.
She was trapped.
Chapter Forty-Five
Charlie stood motionless with her hands still pressed on the locked steel door. Now what? Think.
She wheeled around, eyes scanning the desk. No landline there.
No phone. No way out. She blinked, going still again, mind oddly blank.
“Don’t just stand there, dummy,” Allie said. “That blockhead just locked you in a room full of evidence, didn’t he? Make yourself useful.”
Allie was right. Charlie was trapped, yes, but not helpless. Who knew what information might be right here in this dingy office?
She lurched into action and began searching the room. The binders and boxes that filled the shelves along the wall were full of spreadsheets. Numbers. Dollars and cents.
“Paper copies of all of this?” Allie said. “Why? Someone tell these people about Excel and cloud storage already.”
Next she rifled through the desk drawers. Two staplers. Paper clips. A pile of pens and pencils. More sheets of financial reports, this time in manila folders. Nothing of use.
She closed this last drawer. Took a breath. What to do next? Her eyes remained on the desk. Fixed on the drawer handles. Some itch in her hand told her to open them again. To be thorough.
After the briefest hesitation, her fingers obeyed. Clasped around the bottom right drawer handle. Peeled it open.
Still nothing. The same pile of writing implements as last time. But something was off.
She looked at the face of the drawer and then inside again. It was too shallow.
She pulled everything out and threw it on the floor. Some of the pens skittered and rolled along the tile floor, a strange sound in the quiet.
Her fingers splayed along the wooden bottom of the drawer. Scrabbling over it. Searching. She felt it along the back seam—the minor indentation that she knew must be the fingerhold. Her suspicion had been correct.
She pulled up the false bottom, a thin veneer of wood. It let out a little cracking sound as it scraped out of the drawer.
At last the light revealed what lay beneath.
Several bundles wrapped in layers of clear plastic and sealed with packing tape. The package on top was open. Charlie picked one of the pencils off the floor and used the tip to drag out some of the contents without touching it, though she already had a pretty good idea of what was inside. Out came a tiny Ziploc baggie filled with white pills, each one stamped with a strange design. Just like the ones she’d found under the driver’s seat of the No Fat Chix SUV.
Chapter Forty-Six
By the time the heavy footsteps in the hall announced the bouncer’s return, the desk drawer was in order once more—untouched so far as he’d be able to tell. He fumbled at the door audibly, zipping that key ring out from his belt, the key twitching at the hole before finding its way and entering the lock, the doorknob squeaking as he turned it.
Charlie rushed back to her chair and fished a hand down into her boot, seeking the hard object nestled there. Her fingers clasped the one thing the bouncer hadn’t confiscated—the mini stun gun snugged against her ankle. She pulled the weapon free and had everything ready just as he barged into the room.
As soon as she could see his shadow falling over the floor, she moaned and pretended to pass out. Her back arched, her whole body going slack and sliding down the chair onto the floor, eyes closed.
The bouncer gasped. It was such a ridiculous sound coming out of the big brute that Charlie almost laughed, fighting to keep the twitch of a smile off her lips.
His feet pattered over the floor in an odd shuffle. She could hear the concern in his steps, some telltale worry conveyed in the staccato rhythm.
The footsteps drew right up on her. He stooped. Brought
his face so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her cheeks and across the bridge of her nose. He reeked of sweat and some kind of musky aftershave.
No hesitation. Charlie jammed the stun gun into his neck. Heard the crackle as it sent a few thousand volts into the meat of him.
He stiffened. Spine going ramrod-straight as though the electricity were pulling taut all the strings of this meathead puppet. She searched his face, saw the light go out in his eyes.
And then he came crashing down on top of her, the dead weight of his bulky upper body draped over her face and most of her torso.
All of the breath heaved out of her on impact. His weight settled on her, hard and heavy. It felt like a tree trunk had just fallen onto her.
“Timber!” Allie shouted.
Charlie squirmed, legs kicking, hips bucking. Shifting his bulk was like trying to move a side of beef.
She worked her arms free and tried to push him off of her. She caught a glimpse of the office ceiling as his hulking form moved enough to unblock the light. Her fingers mashed into his wide and fleshy cheeks, and she lifted his slack face above hers. His head quivered before flopping back down when she lost her grip.
Charlie rested a moment. Took a few deep breaths. Working this way, the most she could manage was shoving his head around on his limp noodle neck. She needed to change tactics, get at the torso, shift the bulk of him to get out from under.
She slid her hands to the place where the shoulder and chest met and rolled him aside enough to shimmy her hips and then legs out, slithering back and forth like a snake. The removal of the pressure made her feel strangely weightless as she got to her feet, the sense of freedom light and airy.
The door lay open before her. She rushed out of the office, into the dark of the hallway. The girls’ room was straight ahead, the main floor to the right. Both ways looked clear.
She headed back toward the club. Best to get Will and slip out. They’d figure out the next step once they were away from this place, probably call in Zoe and the cavalry.
The pulse of the bass in the next room swelled as she neared the door. She could feel the rattle of it in her sternum.
That was when the euphoria hit. Roiling on her scalp. Tingling in her chest. Some floating, soaring feeling stirring in her skull. She felt incredible. That airiness persisted, an astounding physical sensation. She was free. Escaping.
Then she heard the bouncer call out from behind her. It sounded like the big lug had peeled himself off the floor, and now he was screaming into a phone or walkie.
“She’s headed for the main floor now. Grab her!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
As soon as she slipped through the door onto the main floor of the Red Velvet Lounge, a crew of bouncers closed in on her. An angry mass of deltoids, traps, and pecs twitching their way across the room.
The strobe effect of the lights made them look like stop-motion animation, hunks of chiseled clay encroaching. Every blink advanced them closer. Closer. Closer.
Will lunged into the picture then, his movements also lurching in the pulses of light and darkness. He tried to intervene, putting himself between her and the closest bouncer, his arms raised in a disarming gesture—his body language akin to a hostage in a bank robbery. Hands up. Head shaking in that slow-motion we don’t want any trouble way.
The bouncer hurled a meaty paw at him, the right cross almost too fast to see. Everyone heard it, though. The punch cracked audibly, even over the blare of the hair metal.
Will’s skull snapped straight back. His hands flew up to cup at the point of impact as he bent at the waist.
Charlie shot forward with her stun gun, zapping the bouncer under the chin. The weapon sizzled against his flesh and released the faint odor of ozone.
He went limp and belly-smacked the floor, convulsing a few times before going still.
Charlie whirled to face the circle of others closing on them. Too many. This wasn’t going to work. She and Will backed up toward the crowd huddling around the bar.
The next bouncer advanced, thick arms splayed at his sides. To her surprise, Will once again stepped forward to protect her. No hands up, though. This time when the bouncer swung at him, he ducked.
The haymaker swooped over Will’s head and caught an unsuspecting drunk sitting at the bar flush on the temple. The impact sounded like two coconuts smacking together.
The drunk went down, managing to rake a couple of beers out of other patrons’ hands on his way to the floor. It set off a chain reaction of pushing and shoving that worked its way down the length of the bar.
Beer went flying in all directions. First, spatter flung everywhere in roping tendrils, then a mist of it. Foam slopped to the floor and bar, and a couple of unlucky dudes sporting silk shirts now found themselves plastered with Pabst Blue Ribbon. Charlie watched them glance down at their sodden clothes with expressions of disbelief.
Two mugs shattered on the floor, glassy explosions that got all heads turned away from the boobs. That was when the pushing and shoving escalated.
Confusion.
Aggression.
Something wild rippled through the crowd all at once. Some switch flipping the mob mentality for violence on. Even Charlie could feel it.
Everyone went apeshit.
The pushing and shoving turned to kicking and punching, head-butting and stomping, elbows and knees flying, bodies flinging at each other. The brawl was underway.
An older man in denim overalls aimed a punch at the throat of one of the bouncers. The meathead dropped to his knees, hands clutching at his inverted Adam’s apple, eyes watering.
Will kept shoving the Goliaths away from them, directing the big sides of beef into the mosh-pit-type area near the bar. The violence swirled there like a turbulent sea.
Charlie watched a man clamber up onto the bar, swinging a glass vodka bottle like a baseball bat. He shattered the bottle over a behemoth’s head, and when the impact didn’t seem to faze the brute, he thrust it forward to try to stab him with the broken edge. The bouncer dodged the jagged weapon, surprisingly agile for his size.
And then Charlie was being swept away, caught up in the jostle of the crowd.
The lights came up. The music cut out, the MC’s voice demanding that everyone “Break it up!” over the PA. But it was too late for that. Even the strippers retreated now, tripping over the stage in their haste to disappear behind the curtains.
Charlie found Will’s eyes in the chaos. They needed to get out of here.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Outside the club, Charlie held Will’s phone to her ear. The dispatcher had told her to stay on the line until the police arrived, and so she did, pacing among the parked cars. She couldn’t pry her eyes away from the stone facade of the Red Velvet Lounge, however.
The yelling and smashing of glass could be heard from outside. Violent sounds, stark and striking against the quiet.
“Here we go,” Will said, breaking her concentration.
Somewhat reluctantly, Charlie shifted her focus from the building to see what he was excited about.
The police lights crested a hill in the distance, red and blue twirling over the snowy asphalt, lighting up the trees along the side of the road. No sirens, Charlie noted. Out here in the sticks, they probably didn’t need them too often.
Three state police cruisers knifed into the lot, bounding up the ramp onto the blacktop, front ends bouncing up and down, almost bottoming out. Their tires squealed as they veered around the rows of cars and skidded through that final sharp turn to angle themselves toward the front door.
The first car jerked to the left and then stopped abruptly. The others followed its lead, parking just shy of the front walk, one after another, each car diagonal to the building.
“They’re here now,” Charlie said into the phone, suddenly remembering the dispatcher on the other end.
“You’re confirming that police have arrived at the scene now, ma’am?”
“Y
ep. Thanks for your help.”
Charlie hung up and returned the phone to Will, the night air cold against her palm, which had gone clammy keeping the thing pressed to her ear. She rubbed her fingers into the heel of her hand a couple times, as though that might help dry the dampness. Then she turned back to watch the stunning conclusion of the night.
A total of just four Michigan state troopers climbed out of the three vehicles, all of them sporting military-style crew cuts. They convened for a moment, the tallest of the men gesturing toward the door, probably laying out some basic tactical approach. The others all bobbed their heads as he talked.
Part of Charlie wondered if they shouldn’t wait for more officers to arrive, but there was no reason to believe anyone inside was armed. It was just your standard barroom brawl. Between their guns and whatever other gadgets the state troopers had handy, the officers would likely gain control of the scene quickly and without incident.
Finally, the men drew their weapons, all of them aiming them at the ground, and charged the building, the tall guy in front. Even something about the way they moved seemed military now—a uniformly stiff jog that carried them over the cement. The lead officer wrenched the door open, and one by one they disappeared through the opening.
“Ready to watch the show?” Will said, cackling. He once again rested his butt on the front end of his car. “Can’t wait to see this parade of ogres hauled out in cuffs.”
Charlie thought he seemed a little too giddy about all of this—but then he didn’t know about the girls in the back room yet, or even about the ecstasy. To him, this was all a bit of vengeance for the vicious punch to the eye he’d taken from the bouncer.
She turned again to look at him, to really look. His eye was swelling, seeming to bulge and grow before her eyes. It already looked a shade darker, and she knew the appearance would deteriorate by tomorrow morning.