Chapter Eleven
Andi
A week had past and I was settling into the groove of things—except I hadn’t gone on any more dates. Mark got me business cards for S&R. They were sleek, shiny black cards with Andi Middlebrooke and my direct website link written on them. The cards were flashy and made me feel official.
But I needed more dates. I needed to do the job I was sent here to do. So I called Leah and Nina and they suggested I meet them at their favorite strip club.
“You have a date tonight?” Paul asked as I grabbed my keys from the kitchen table.
“No,” I shook my head, “I’m meeting Leah and Nina.” He eyed me up and down. “What?” I blushed.
“You’re dressed as if you have a date.”
“It’s only a dress, Paul.”
He stepped closer to me and I held my breath. The entire week I’d been avoiding him the best I could. I had a job to do and getting involved with him wasn’t part of the job. Also, like everything else in my life, I was lying to him. Since my seventeenth birthday, I’d been lying to everyone. What was Paul going to do when he found out that I was really Joselyn? Would he still want me like he wanted me now?
“Gorgeous,” he whispered against my neck as he moved my hair to the side. I tilted my head, allowing him to move as close to me as he could. “If you’re going out to pick up a guy, you don’t need to. I can be what you need.”
I swallowed hard. “I’m going to get more clients. Gotta make that money.” I repeated the words he’d once told me.
He chuckled and kissed my cheek. “When are you going to let me take you out?”
I couldn’t deny the attraction I felt for him. I knew I had a curse, but luckily before it got to that point, my case would be over and I would be on my way back to D.C. “When are you going to ask me properly?” I teased.
He laughed again. “All right, gorgeous. Will you go out with me on Saturday?”
“I’ll have to check my schedule.”
“It’s gonna be like that?”
I grabbed my keys and started to walk to the front door. “I’m just kidding, Paul James. Saturday works.”
“Good, it’s a date. I want you dressed like that.” He waved his hand down the length of my body as I opened the door.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
As I closed the door, I heard him yell. “Hey! How do you know my middle name?”
Aw, fuck. I didn’t realize I’d let that slip. I hurried to my car, turned it on and backed out of the driveway. He didn’t try and follow me to question it further, thank God. Of course, I knew it from the FBI files and my research. I knew a lot about him. He grew up in Malibu, played football, got a full ride to UCLA but went into the Army instead, and then became a male escort. He’d never been in trouble with the law, he owned a self-defense business with his friends Gabe Hastings and Autumn Jones and I was updating it to add that he was dripping with sin.
The parking lot was packed when I arrived at the club. Unlike a week ago, I wasn’t nervous as I got out of my car and walked to the glass door that was blacked out with a cellophane lining.
Usually, I arrived at a strip club dressed in pants, a comfortable shirt, boots and, more importantly, with my gun. This time I had on a simple plum dress and black heels. Inside my clutch purse was my cell, money, Driver’s License, lip gloss, gum and my business cards—I felt naked to say the least.
After paying the cover, I entered the darkened room with neon lights and a disco ball. The bass of the music thumped as if it were a nightclub. There were several small round stages with polls running up to the ceiling and women dancing topless in front of men. In the back was a bigger stage where another dancer worked the crowd. She hung upside down, her legs spread and her tits dangling as men tossed money onto the stage.
I spotted Leah and Nina sitting at the farthest stage away from the door—as if they were scouting the place. They waved me over when they saw me and I smiled and walked over to them. We exchanged hugs in greeting.
“Come here often?” I joked.
“Every night.” Leah laughed.
Nina waved at a waitress. “Let’s get you a drink and scope out the place for you. We just arrived, so we haven’t had a good look.”
I wasn’t sure what I was really looking for other than a client. What I knew was clients came to us, not the other way around. We weren’t prostitutes. We weren’t selling ourselves, so I needed to follow their lead and not look like the narc that I was.
“I have to admit I’ve never picked up clients in a strip club.” I reminded them. The waitress came over and I ordered a margarita.
Leah laughed. “That’s not how they roll in D.C.?”
I smiled. “Well, not me, that’s for sure.”
“Was the president your client?” Nina asked.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you think that if the president was my client that I would leave him to come to Vegas?”
“Wouldn’t he just send his private jet?” Leah asked.
The cocktail waitress set our drinks down and I handed her my credit card, telling her that I was paying for all the drinks and to leave the tab open.
“You don’t need to buy our drinks,” Nina protested.
“President’s money,” I joked and we laughed. “But seriously, you think he’d spend the tax payer’s money to send his private jet to pick up his escort for a date?”
They laughed. “No,” Leah replied, “but we think he’d spend it to fly in so he could fuck her.”
I choked on my drink. Did they all sleep with their clients? “The President is not my client,” I exclaimed and left it at that. Somehow I needed to find out if they slept with their clients so I knew how to play my angle.
And then it hit me …
Did Paul sleep with his clients?
“I’ll be right back.” I needed a minute as I gathered my new thoughts on Paul. I didn’t care if Leah and Nina slept with their clients. But Paul … the thought of him doing more than kissing one of his clients squeezed my heart.
Staring into the mirror, I took a deep breath.
“Are you okay?”
I turned to my left and saw that I wasn’t the only one in the restroom. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Are you here with your boyfriend?”
I smiled. “No, my friends.” Did girls come to strip clubs with their boyfriends?
“Girls night out?” she asked, applying her scarlet lipstick. The red was a nice contrast to her light ebony skin tone and straight black hair.
“Something like that.”
“You’re not here with Leah and Nina are you?”
I tilted my head to the side slightly. “Yeah, do you know them?”
“Kinda. My boss has been trying to recruit them for years.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Your boss? Who’s your boss?”
She returned the cap on her lipstick then stuck it in her purse. “Mr. Martinez.”
“What does he do?”
“You hang with those two and you don’t know who he is?”
I leaned against the porcelain sink and crossed my arms. “I’m new in town.”
“Oh, then you’re perfect.” She eyed me up and down with her brown eyes.
“Perfect for what?”
Before she could reply, the door opened and Leah walked in. She eyed the girl from head to toe, rolling her eyes as she turned to me. “Hey, are you okay? I came to check on you.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just coming out.” I smiled tightly at the mysterious girl.
I wanted to hand her my card because the way she talked about this Mr. Martinez guy had me intrigued. Maybe he recruited for another escort service, but I wanted to find out. Instead, I walked past her because I didn’t want Leah to see my interest and made my way back to the table where we sat and watched topless women dance. The dancers couldn’t be fully nude in Vegas if the establishment served alcohol.
“Who’s Mr. Martinez?” I asked Leah and Nina as we scanned the floor.
Their eyes widened as they looked at each other and then they both answered in unison. “No one.”
“What do you mean no one? Obviously he’s someone.”
“You don’t want to get involved with him,” Leah avowed.
“The girl …” I paused, realizing I never got her name. “The girl I met in the bathroom said I would be perfect for him.”
“He’s not a client,” Nina said curtly.
I took a sip of my drink. “What is he?” I already knew he wasn’t someone who paid for escorts, but I wanted to know who he was.
“Look, Andi,” Leah begged, “just trust us. S&R is a good company to work for. Stick with them, okay? You don’t want to get mixed up with Martinez and his crew.”
I decided not to press her further on the subject tonight, but I was going to find out who this guy was. I’d do my own research in the FBI database if I had to.
“See anyone worth approaching?” Nina asked a few minutes later.
“How do I know?”
“Who’s giving out the most money?”
I scanned the room. This was an upscale strip club. There were no three dollar cheeseburgers with two dollar shots, and no creepy dudes sitting in the front row in plain white T-shirts that only stared at the dancers and didn’t give them any money. No, this place had decent looking guys giving a few dollars at a time.
I spotted a guy who kept looking over at our table. He was dressed in a suit, maybe in his early to mid-forties, and was sipping on a beer. If he was willing to give money to a dancer, then maybe he was willing to have a date with me—it was worth a shot.
“All right. I’m going in.”
I took a final sip of my drink, stood and made my way to where he was sitting and took the chair next to him. He turned and smiled.
“Hi.” I smiled back.
“Hi.”
“Which girl is your favorite?”
He scanned the room and then his gaze landed on mine. “You.”
I chuckled. “I’m not a dancer.”
“No, but I bet you look good topless.”
I held my tongue and kept flirting. “I don’t go around flashing them.”
“Is that right? What do I have to do see them?” He turned his chair a little toward me.
“First you can start by buying me a drink.” Before I could finish asking for one, a cocktail waitress placed it on the bar that wrapped around the mini stage. “Okay. I see how you work.”
“Now what?”
I thought quickly as I took a sip of my margarita. “Are you from here?”
“On business.”
“So you come here while your wife is at home with the kids.”
He smiled and took a pull of his beer. “Something like that.”
“Besides strip clubs, what else do you like to do in Vegas?”
“I like to try my luck at craps.”
I took another sip of my drink, trying to sip as much as I could so I could leave. “I’m new in town and have only been to the strip once and that was only for dinner and dancing. I haven’t been on the casino floor yet.”
“I’ll need to take you then.”
I reached inside my purse and grabbed my card then handed it to him. “I’d love that. Here’s my card.”
“Andi … Andi with an I.” He smiled.
“And you are?”
“Derrick.”
“Thank you for the drink, Derrick.” I tipped the drink toward him and stood. “Contact me if you want company at the craps tables.”
“I will Andi with an I.”
Approaching a potential client on my own wasn’t that bad after all.