Strangers in Death

by J. D. Robb

  The first guy shrugged. “I got nothing better to do.”

  “That’s handy, because I do. You got ten now,” she said and pulled out the bribe. “You get another when I come back. I bet your name’s John Smith,” she said to the companion.

  “Hell, no. Clipper Plink.”

  “That’s what I said. You’re Clipper Plink.”

  “How do you know this stuff?” He eyed her as if she were the Second Coming. “You got superpowers, bitch?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Jesus, Clip,” she heard the grunt say as she strode toward Roarke, “can you be any fucking dumber?”

  He loved to watch her work, Roarke thought. It never failed to fascinate and entertain him. So he’d done just that, relaxed against the wall while she’d taken aim at the pair of street toughs. Well, one and a half toughs, he supposed was more accurate. They hadn’t stood a chance against her when she’d tossed on the badass cop as she did her coat.

  Now she strode to him, the faintest hint of a smile on her face. “How many street thieves, muggers, and spine crackers did you flick off with one ‘Try it, boy-o, and you’ll be pissing blood for some time to come’ stare?”

  “I didn’t count. I don’t believe this is a very safe neighborhood. I’m relieved I have a cop nearby.”

  “Yeah, like you need one.”

  “Only you, darling. Night and day. Boy-o?”

  “That particular stare has the boy-o in it. Don’t tell me you came down here in a ride as fancy as the suit?”

  “Then I won’t. Why don’t you tell me why we’re heading into this sex dive on an evening that makes me almost believe spring may come again?”

  “One of the strippers, LC for club work, also happens to be one of Ava’s mommies. I’ll fill you in on the rest later, figure you can follow along as we go. But I want to take her now. She’s only on about another hour.”

  “Let’s not waste time, then.” He pulled open the door.

  They walked out of the almost spring evening and into the sharp, bright world of sex for sale.

  It smelled of sweat, cum, smoke from a variety of illegal substances, and the cheapest of alcoholic liquids. A great many of those unattractive substances splattered the floor. Men and women with hard eyes, glassy eyes, crazed eyes, bored eyes hunched at tables or squatted at a short, stained bar on backless stools while two servers—one male, one female—carted drinks or empties on trays. Both were naked, unless you counted tats and piercings, their skin pulsing faintly red in the ugly light.

  On a small, raised stage, two women—it would be absurd to term them dancers—humped long silver poles while what only the deaf could mistake for music blasted. Each wore a sparkling band at the waist, with a few bills tucked in. Neither, Roarke noted, had pulled in much for this particular number.

  He walked to the bar with Eve. The man running the stick had skin so white it nearly glowed. The faint pink around his eyes usually indicated funky-junkie, but Roarke noted the eyes were the palest of blues—water blue—and just as clear.

  The albino slapped a short glass of something the color and consistency of coal oil on the bar in front of a customer before moving down to them. “Stand at the bar, you order one drink minimum. Table runs two.”

  “Cassie Gordon?”

  “Stand at the bar, one drink minimum.”

  Even those pale eyes should’ve made her for a cop, Roarke thought. Roarke pulled out a ten, covering them both, even as she pulled her badge. “Keep the drinks,” Roarke told him. “I’ve a fondness for my stomach lining.”

  Eve slapped the badge down. “Cassie Gordon.”

  “We got a license.” The albino gestured behind him where it was displayed, as per city ordinance. “Up to date.”

  “I didn’t ask for your license. Cassie Gordon.”

  The bartender plucked up Roarke’s bill, slid it into his own pocket. “She’s up with a private. Got another five minutes on his roll. Then she’s on in twenty, you can catch her between, wait till she’s done. No matter to me. You take a table, cost another ten.”

  “Pal, I wouldn’t sit at one of those tables if I was decked out in a hazmat suit. What you’re going to do is show us a clean private room—not one of the sex rooms—and you’re going to send Cassie there. You’re going to signal her to cut it short, and come down. If you don’t, my partner and I are going to make your life really unhappy.”

  “This isn’t a cop.” The bartender jerked his head at Roarke. “Cops don’t dress like that.”

  “I’m not, no,” Roarke said in what seemed like the most pleasant of tones, if you were deaf and didn’t hear the jagged threat under it. “And that’s why I’ll hurt you more, and enjoy it more. Where’s the owner’s peep?”

  “Got no reason to cause trouble.” The bartender reached under the bar. Even as Eve braced, she heard a faint buzz. A door behind the bar slid open.

  “That’ll do nicely, then. I’ll be matching that first ten when we’re done.” Roarke’s terrifyingly pleasant tone never altered. “Unless you do something to annoy me or my partner here. That happens, I’ll be having the first ten back along with a chunk of you.”

  Eve said nothing until they were inside the peep—a small, relatively clean room holding a couple of chairs, a little desk, and boasting a wall of screens that surveyed the club.

  “I’ve got the badge. I get to do the intimidating and make the threats.”

  “Why’d you ask me for this romantic date if you weren’t aiming to let me play, too?”

  “I wanted to scare the albino bartender in the sex club.”

  He laughed, tapped his finger on the dent in her chin. “Aw, darling, I promise you can scare the next one.”

  “Yeah, because the city’s loaded with them. We’ve probably got a couple minutes. So lightning-round version.”

  She zipped through the salients on Bebe Petrelli, skimmed over her theory about the senior Anders to give Roarke a taste, and ended with her supposition Ava might have approached Cassie Gordon.

  “She made a mistake with Petrelli,” Roarke pointed out. “Do you think she made another?”

  “Won’t know until I ask. Gordon’s done strip and sex work for eight years. A woman makes it through eight years doing that, she probably knows how to read people. She’s got a daughter. Ten-year-old daughter, in the program. Ice skater. No father in the picture. Kid didn’t cop a scholarship, but Anders is paying for her rink time. She’s got a private coach. On paper, Gordon’s paying her.” Eve nodded to the screen. “Do you figure she makes enough in a dive like this to pay for a private coach?”

  “Not in a thousand rides on the pole, not here.”

  “She’s going to tell us where she’s getting the money for the coach, how many favors she’s done for Ava. And I’m going to know if one of those favors was killing him.”

  “There she is.”

  Roarke looked away from Eve’s fierce eyes to the screen where a tall blonde in a short green robe swayed through the tables on glossy, high-platform heels. As she passed, one of the men at a table for three reached out, stuck his hand under her robe.

  The blonde backhanded him, knocking him out of the chair without breaking stride.

  “Well now, there’s another woman who can take care of herself.” He smiled at Eve. “That sort never fails to appeal to me.”

  18

  IT WAS CERTAINLY INTERESTING, TO ROARKE’S MIND, sharing a small room with the outsized personalities of two women. Cassie Gordon shoved herself into the room, a provocatively dressed Amazon with annoyed eyes the same hard brown as her roots. The eyes latched on Eve, and the wide, mobile mouth curled.

  “You got ten minutes. I’m on in twenty. I don’t dance, I don’t get paid, so unless the freaking NYPSD plans on compensating me for my…”

  Her gaze tracked over to Roarke, zeroed in. Annoyance one-eightied to pleasure; the lips rearranged themselves from curl to curve. “Well, hello, Officer Incredible. Are you here to search and manhandle me?
I hope.”

  Roarke didn’t have time to decide if he felt amusement or insult at being mistaken for a cop before Eve stepped into Cassie’s face. “You’re going to want to talk to me.”

  “I’d rather talk, and lots and lots of other things, with him.” But she shrugged, dropped into a chair, crossed her long, bare legs. “What’s the beef?”

  “Let’s start off with your whereabouts between one and five A.M. on the morning of March eighteenth. Tuesday morning.”

  “Home.” She skimmed back her hair, gave Roarke what he considered a rather masterful eye-fuck. “In my big, lonely bed.”

  “Cut the crap, Cassie, or we’ll be having this conversation at Central.”

  “What’s your twist? That time of night I’m home. I work days.”

  “A lot of people in your profession put in overtime. You were acquainted with Thomas Anders?”

  “Not especially. I know who he is—was,” she corrected. “My little girl’s in the Anders sports program. She’s a figure skater. She’s a champion. But I didn’t hob with the nob.”

  “Ever been to the Anders home?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Cassie reared back her head and laughed. “Is she fucking kidding me?” she said to Roarke.

  “She’s not, no. Why is the question so amusing?”

  “I take my clothes off and turn tricks for a living. Not the kind of dinner party guest I expect the Anderses entertain regular.”

  “But Mrs. Anders did indeed entertain you,” Roarke continued. “At retreats, spas, hotels.”

  “That’s different. Those things were for mothers of kids in the programs. I’m a goddamn good mother,” she snapped, pointing at her own partially concealed breasts. “Nobody can say different.”

  “No one is,” Roarke said smoothly as Eve appeared to be giving him the line. “But you did socialize with Ava Anders.”

  The sound she made combined snort with Bronx cheer. “If you can call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Same kind of arrangement I just concluded upstairs.”

  “She fuck you, Cassie?” Eve asked.

  “Not literally. I got no problem doing the girl-on-girl if the fee’s right, but I don’t think she’s into that.” A shrug shifted the robe so her right breast peeked out coyly. “She wanted something, I gave it, and I got paid. That’s how I look at it.”

  “What did she want?”

  “I figure I got the invite so she could show how—what’s the word—democratic she is. And I figure that’s bull. But my kid? She’s a freaking jewel, so I can take the bull or anything else gets thrown at me if it’s for her.”

  “What did Ava throw at you?”

  “Look, I gotta get in costume. It’s my last round this shift, and I can’t afford—”

  “You’ll be compensated.” Roarke remained relaxed, answered his wife’s stony stare with the mildest of glances while Cassie studied them both.

  “I can earn five hundred on the last round.”

  “Talk about bull,” Eve began.

  “You’ll be compensated,” Roarke repeated. “Answer the lieutenant, stop playing it out, and you’ll get the five.”

  Those hard eyes narrowed. “You ain’t no cop.”

  “A fact for which I give thanks daily. You can answer the question the cop asks and get the five, or well, you’ll be answering them anyway in less comfortable surroundings and get nothing. And since you’ll be squeezing in the round after we leave in any case, you’ve a chance at five clear in your pocket.”

  “Not a cop, but not stupid.” Another shrug, but Cassie followed this one with an absent tug that closed the front of her robe again. Or nearly. “Okay, it’s like this. I take Gracie, my kid, to the ice rink in the park. Been doing that since she was about three. Even I can see she’s got a knack for it, and she freaking loves it. I can’t afford rink time, or not much of it, so she only got to skate in the winter. And good skates, good lessons, they’re out of orbit. I applied for the Anders program, and she got in. Man, it was like I’d given her the world. I’d do anything to make sure she keeps it.”

  “Anything Ava asked?”

  “Look, bitch wants to know how I handle tricks, I’m not going to get razzed about it. She wants to get a peek into the dirty, no skin off mine. She figures I owe her volunteer time, I work it in. My kid gets good skates, nice skating clothes, solid rink time. She wants to pretend her old man’s interested in the dirty, what’s it to me?”

  “Pretend?”

  Smiling, Cassie ran a finger tip up and down the front of her robe. “I know when I’m being played. These little chats were for her benefit. Maybe she wanted to try some shit out with her old man. Couldn’t hurt, right? Except he’s dead, right? Died doing the dirty. She do him?”

  “She was out of the country at the time.”

  “Lucky for her, I guess.”

  “You don’t like her one bit,” Roarke commented.

  “Not one small bit.” Cassie held up her thumb and forefinger a fraction apart, then slapped them closed. “She lords it over—or ladies it over—you. Covers it up with the ‘we’re all part of the big happy Anders family,’ but she expects you to do plenty of bowing and scraping. I can give a fat asshole a bj upstairs, I can bow and scrape. I get compensated.”

  “Did she share information about her sex life with you?”

  “She said her old man was into the dirty and the strange and she wasn’t, but more subtle than that. Feeling me out was my sense. I half-expected her to hire me to do him so she could watch and get pointers. Thing is, I don’t think she liked me any more than I liked her and we both knew it. Both knew we were shoveling the shit.”

  “What did you have to do for her to earn the private coach?”

  “I pay for the coach.” Cassie tapped her thumb between her breasts. “I pay.”

  “You don’t earn enough juice working here to cover private coaching.”

  “I get a lot of tips.”

  “What’s that I hear?” Eve cocked her head. “Oh yeah, that’s the sound of five hundred sucking down the drain.”

  “Goddamn it.” Cassie pushed to her feet, stared hard at Eve. “This is about the murder, right? That’s big-time. You’re big-time. Christ knows you are,” she said to Roarke. “I need some assurance you’re not going to shake me down over small-time.”

  “If you’re working off book, I’m not interested in rousting you for it.”

  Cassie took a moment to stare, to study, then apparently satisfied by what she read on Eve’s face, nodded. “I do some private. I’m not licensed for private. And I do the coach’s father for free, every week. It’s like a barter, cuts down on the fee. He’s a nice guy, actually. Can’t get out much ’cause he busted himself up bad about thirty years ago. He’s gimpy, got scars. Even if Anders offered coaching, I’d keep it how it is, because it’s working. And I gotta have a part in providing for my kid. If you’ve got some cop idea that I was doing Anders, and screwed up the deal so he kicked, that’s off, way off. I’m home nights. I don’t leave my kid home alone. Not ever. You ask anybody. You want to look at somebody, you ought to take another look at the wife. Make damn double sure she wasn’t there.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Bitch got stones. She’s got cold, hard stones.”

  They were done. Roarke knew Eve’s rhythm well enough to know she’d written Cassie off. But he was curious. “Why are you working here? You could make more in a classier place.”

  “I can’t dance worth shit.” She said it cheerfully. “Classier places expect classier strippers. I got this.” She opened her robe, revealing a curvy body that showed some wear. “It’s good, but it ain’t great. I go more upscale,” she continued, absently tying the robe again, “they’d want me to get the shifting parts put back in place. Here, they don’t care about that, long as you put in your rounds and pull in your quota of bj’s and hand-jobs upstairs.

  “I can work days, and be home at night wi
th my girl. Not a lot of places going to let me call that shot. And I don’t work weekends, because I’m with my kid. It’s a trade-off. It’s worth it. She’s worth it. You’re going to see her take gold in the Olympics one day. She’s a freaking champion.”

  “Gracie Gordon. I’ll remember. Appreciate the time.” Eve took a step toward the door, and Roarke slipped a money clip out of his pocket, peeled off bills.

  “Shit a brick, you carry like that?” Sheer shock covered Cassie’s face. “In this neighborhood?”

  “I carry as I please. There’s the five, and one extra. For the champion.”

  Cassie stared at the six hundreds in her hand. “You’re all right, Blue Eyes.” She lifted her head to look into them. “You’re all right, down the line. You ever want a free bang, you got one coming.”

  “It would, no doubt be a memorable bang. But my wife is fiercely jealous and territorial.” He grinned over at a very cold-eyed Eve.

  “Her? You? That’s a kick in the ass.”

  “Every damn day,” Eve muttered, and strode out.

  She kept striding, out of the club, back into the comparatively fresh air of the city street. And fisted her hands on her hips as she spun to him. “Did you have to do the ‘my wife’ crap?”

  His grin remained, and only widened. “I did, yes. I felt a desperate need for your protection. I believe that woman had designs on me.”

  “I’ll put a design on you that won’t come off in the shower.”

  “See, now I’m excited.” Reaching out, he toyed with the lapel of her coat. “What have you got in mind?”

  “And you gave her six fucking hundred dollars.”