Before I could put my master plan into action, though, something entirely unexpected happened: the bitch told him the truth.

Jack called me around 4PM. I was in my office at the Veils, and I was still pissed from earlier.

“What’d she say?” I asked sarcastically as soon as I picked up the phone.

“Turns out you were right.”

“Right about what?”

“She IS on Federal food stamps.”

It was code. He didn’t want to speak openly about it on the phone line.

‘Federal’ – had to mean the DEA.

I sat there in my chair, mouth gaping open. “…what?”

“I’m going to assume you’re just stunned that I’m admitting you were right.”

“What the hell?! She told you, just like that?!”

Jack laughed. “I told you she trusted me.”

I couldn’t believe this shit. It went against forty years of hard experience dealing with the whole goddamn shitty human race.

“What did you do? Did you fuck her?”

Jack’s voice immediately went cold. “Lou, I told you – ”

“Forget I said it. What the hell – you just went in there and asked her?!”

“I told her we knew about the phone call last night. I told her you planted the post-it note so she would find it. I told her that nothing was going to happen to her, but I needed to know what was going on. She broke down crying and told me everything.”

Holy fucking shit.

The world was a crazy place.

“What’d she say?”

“Some guy from the food stamp department got a hold of her. Found out she was buying food stamps and threatened to turn her in on trumped-up charges – fraud and felony shit – unless she helped him.”

Translation: a DEA agent had snagged her in a drug buy. But rather than turn her in to the police – which was fucking pointless in Richards, since we owned the department – they must have decided to use her to catch a bigger fish. Probably waved some sort of racketeering or drug dealing charges in her face.

“Did she give you a name?”

“Just some guy. Robert Smith or something.”

‘Bob Smith’?

Jesus Christ, could she have picked a more generic, fake-sounding name?

“What did he want her to do?” I asked.

“Everything you thought they wanted her to do.”

“Holy shit,” I murmured. “Are you sure she was telling you the whole truth?”

“I listened to her make a call to him.”

“What?!”

“Yep. Their front is a florist shop in Los Angeles. She left a message, said Venus the stripper was calling, and for Robert Smith to call her back. Five minutes later a guy called, and she put him on speaker phone. Didn’t tell him I was there, of course. Started off by telling them that she found out the club knew she was a mole, and that the thing the other night at Vern’s had been a fake to flush them out. The guy asked her if she was sure. She said ‘yes,’ then he said, ‘Damn it.’ He said if she was compromised, not to call back again unless she was in danger and they’d get her out. She asked if they were going to drop the charges, and they said they would either drop them or bust them down to misdemeanor level since she’d tried. Told her they’d be in contact, and that was that.”

I swear to God it was like he was speaking Chinese. It must’ve been what Benjy felt like when somebody started talking about the stock market. I just couldn’t make heads or tails of it. None of it made any fuckin’ sense.

The DEA just gave up and said, ‘Oh well, thanks for playing’? That shit doesn’t fuckin’ happen. The Feds are tenacious assholes. They don’t just fold.

And they were dropping the drug charges because she tried? Not in this world, buddy.

I didn’t buy any of this shit.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I listened to the whole fuckin’ call myself, Lou. Although…”

I could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“What?”

“I’m thinking I might have her stay at my place for a while. The guy was, uh… he was giving her free food stamps to keep her in line. I’d like to get her off of them.”

Translation: the DEA guy was giving her coke.

Smart motherfucker. Addicts will do just about anything to get their fix.

Even be narcs when they don’t wanna be.

“So if she stays at your place, you can put her on a diet,” I suggested.

“Exactly. And she’ll be safe there, in case the food stamp guy changes his mind and comes back.”

Ten’ll get you twenty the fucker never changed his mind in the first place, dumbass.

But I didn’t say that. My mind was ticking through the options, like always.

If she stayed at Jack’s place, that fucked with my plans – so it behooved me to not have her stay at Jack’s place.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to fuck her,” I said, intentionally needling him.

His voice got all prissy. “And I meant it.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she’s going to believe that when you invite her to spend the next two weeks at your pad.”

There was a pause. I could tell he was pissed, but he knew I was right. “Yeah… well, I’ll figure it out.”

“I got a better idea. What about we stick one of the brothers with her, watch out for her?”

Jack’s laugh was without any humor at all. “What, like Eyeball?”

“No. No, it could be Kade.”

There was no way I was going to let Kade do it. The suggestion was just a ruse – and I knew Jack would turn it down.

“Mm… that doesn’t really work. He’s here at the shop ten hours a day, and then she goes to work at the Veils, so – ”

“Well then, what about somebody who doesn’t have a regular day job?”

“Like who? Fuckin’ Roach?”

“No, I was thinkin’ maybe Benjy.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Huh…”

“She likes him, he’s fuckin’ harmless… wouldn’t touch a hair on her head. Or her pussy, unless she told him to.”

“Lou – ”

“Jesus, it was a joke. We both know she’s waxed bald as Peanut down there.”

I couldn’t help but grin, ‘cause I knew Jack was getting his panties all twisted in a wad. But I got serious before he could turn into a whiny little bitch again.

“Now, granted, Benjy ain’t gonna be able to defend her if there’s a problem, but he can call us if somebody comes pokin’ around. In fact, we could set ‘em both up at the Ridgeway for a week or two. Just till the heat dies down.”

That’d be the Ridgeway Motor Inn, my little hot-sheet motel on Highway 19. I used to fill that fucker up to capacity back when we were slinging crystal and pimping hoes.

Not for the last two years, though. Not since goddamn preacher-man Jack Pollari decided we needed to go legit.

“Huh… let me run it by her, see what she thinks.”

What I wanted to say was, Jesus Christ, man – this bitch is lucky we aren’t breaking every goddamn bone in her body. You don’t ‘see what she thinks’ – you TELL the bitch what to think.

Again, though, I kept that shit to myself.

“Maybe you should let her think Benjy is your idea,” I suggested. “She’d probably take to it easier that way.”

And suspect it less than if it was comin’ from me.

“Good idea.”

One last thing to set up to cover my tracks: “By the way, I think it’d be better for all concerned if I tell Benjy she has an asshole ex-boyfriend after her. We don’t need him blabbing about food stamp guys.”

“That’s an even better idea. Alright, I’ll get back to you once I talk to her.”

“Did you happen to get the number?”

“What number?”

“The florist – the front for the food stamp guy.”

“No – why?”

“I’d like to have Dan look into it.”

That’d be Dan Peters, my personal Richards Police Chief bitch.

“Hm. Alright – I can call her and have her text it to you.”

“Ehh, you better get it, then text it to me. I don’t think she’s going to want to hear from me anytime soon.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty fuckin’ terrified of you at the moment.”

I smiled. That’s cause she’s smart. Smarter than YOU, anyway.

“Did you tell her I’m not going to fuck her over?”

“I told her.”

Good. Maybe she believed you.

“Alright. All’s well that end’s well, I guess. Tell her no hard feelings, as long as she gave you the whole truth.”

Wait – that wouldn’t work. She’d never believe it, comin’ from me.

“Actually, no,” I said. “Tell her I’m fuckin’ pissed, and she’s paying me double on her club fees for the next month. I ain’t goddamn Mother Teresa over here.”

Jack laughed. “Alright, will do. I’ll get back to you on the motel thing.”

Something was bugging me, though.

“Jack, before you go – how did she sound when she was on the phone with the… uh, the food stamp guy?”

“What do you mean?”

“How’d she handle it?”

I could almost hear him shrugging over the phone. “She was cool. Handled it like a pro.”

“Calm and collected?”

“Yeah – why?”

“Just wanted to make sure she can handle her shit, that’s all, if they call her back.”

That was a lie. Me wanting to make sure she could handle her shit, that is.

When she’d talked to her DEA contact before – the time Benjy had heard her, and then when I eavesdropped on the radio – she’d cussed the guy out like a sailor and acted like she was on the rag.

But this time around, she was little Miss Congeniality?

Yeah, right.

I figured the way she talked to the guy – maybe even the message she’d left him – had tipped him off that something was seriously wrong. Putting him on speaker phone was possibly another warning sign. And then when she acted like she was all sugar and spice? He must’ve known things were rotten. So he acted like he was letting her go, with the full intention of catching up with her later when the heat was off.

That’s the way I would have played it.

Which made me realize she was even more slippery than I’d thought.

If I wanted to get to the bottom of this, I was going to have to do it alone.

Fuck Jack Pollari.

I was going to torch this bitch and laughed while she burned.