Wednesday, November 29
A flyer in the vestibule announced a guest stripper, from Chicago, a massive cafe au lait bodybuilder draped in gold. Crave had run a two-for-one deal, Wednesday night only. The bargain appeared irresistible. Scores of women came in two by two.
Agostino sent Tanner to the back hall. Halfway through the regular routine, when they did about ten minutes of audience participation, the curtains parted and a woman slipped in. She stopped, backed against the wall and closed her eyes. In the light slanting through the gap in the curtains, he saw she was slender, with tousled honey-gold hair, a too-long but elegant nose and a wide mouth. That mouth was drawn in a tight, hard line, and her chin trembled.
Tanner cleared his throat and her eyes popped open. She stared at him, for a moment not registering anything. Maybe all she could see was his head floating against a black background. He stepped closer. She was older than he’d first thought, maybe his age, pushing forty.
He pulled out an ear plug. The music was deafening. “I hope I didn’t startle you.”
“Of course you did. It was like a vampire materializing.” A northeast accent, assured delivery. An executive, probably.
“Sorry, miss. This area is private, employees only.”
She held up one hand. “Please. Give me another minute.” Her voice was breathy, uneven. “My sister dragged me here. It’s her birthday, the big four-oh. It’s so noisy, and I figured she wouldn’t notice I’d slipped out. I’ve got a migraine starting. The lights are killing me. And the goddam noise...”
“I have ear plugs,” he said. “You want my spares? Never used.”
“Yes, absolutely. How much longer does this go on?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes for this set. There’s a late show, at eleven.”
She groaned with dramatic humor half-way to genuine despair. “I’ll be a total basket case by then. And I’ve got a flight to catch in the morning.”
He was vaguely disappointed. She wasn’t local, lived somewhere else. He could be wrong: she had the kind of tan locals had. She’d closed her eyes again; her lips were parted. He heard her exhale, short, sharp pants of exhaustion.
“God,” she half-whispered, “I’ll be a wreck...”
“If you live within ten miles, Crave’ll pick up your taxi tab.” Sly, Tanner, sly.
***
“I drove,” Jan Jones said, acutely aware of the man standing within arm’s reach holding out a packet of earplugs. He was big – hell, everyone was bigger than her five-two – and broad-shouldered, with tousled red-gold hair topping a worn, sun-darkened face. “My sister won’t drive after dark. So I got roped into it, her and three of her airhead friends.”
She waved one hand. God, she was tired, and the damned migraine was building with supernatural speed. “They’re really not airheads. But we could’ve gone to the Florida Orchestra, or for jazz at the Palladium. And she chose this. Strippers over Stravinsky.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “The two-fers. She never could resist a bargain. We were raised on separate planets, I swear.”
“Siblings can be a real trial,” he said. She shivered. He had a rumbly voice created for whispering sweet nothings. “Do you want a bottle of water? Might help the migraine.”
“Oh. Yes. Thanks.”
She took the packet but didn’t open it. How could she hear that voice if she used them? Floating on a choppy sea of noise and bright lights strobing behind her closed eyelids, she waited. Something cold touched the back of her hand. She opened her fingers and rotated her wrist, felt the bottle slide into her palm. The weight transferred to her hand.
“Thank you. So, how many sibs do you have?”
“Two. One of each. Is the culture vulture out there your only one?”
“Mm-hmm.”
There was a strange intimacy in the moment. She had no business standing in the dark, in the back of this awful place, with a total stranger, a tall, broad-shouldered male stranger, an employee, with all her defenses down. But she hadn’t sensed anything predatory about him. Oh, right, like your predatory-meter isn’t totally inoperable.
Still, she didn’t open her eyes. It was somehow comfortable to not see. No internal alarms were going off. He could do anything to her and she was so unprepared she wouldn’t be able to protest. Perhaps not even struggle. Would she even want to struggle? Crazy. Maybe the raucous, raunchy show had affected her more than she’d thought.
Oddly, she felt safe, secure. There was a tough competency about him, and a contained stillness, like a rock worn by time and blasted by elements but still there, still stubbornly standing. Jesus, stop with the fantasy. He’s just a man. The patient, weathered rock spoke.
“Should I open the bottle for you? Some of those caps are tough to grab onto.”
She held out the bottle. He took it, twisted the cap off, handed it back without touching her. She peeked. He had long fingers, and a deep, barely-healed gouge across the back of his hand. She took a slow sip: paradise. Lowering the bottle, she glanced up at him.
“I really will leave in a minute.”
“The set ends in about eight. So you’ve got maybe seven.”
“It’s so nice here,” she murmured, then looked around the bleak, stuffy hallway. “Oi, what am I saying, nice? Who’d you piss off to get this duty?”
“You’re from the northeast.”
“Ya think? I can’t shake the accent.” She glanced up. “You, however, have no accent at all.”
“Military brat. Then my own sixteen years in.”
“Let me guess. Navy?” He shook his head. “Marines.”
“Marines,” he confirmed. “Pilot.”
“Not a SEAL? I was going to ask you your class number.”
“Wow, you know the drill. How’d you know to ask?”
Talk about busted. She fluttered a smile, held out her hand. “I’m Jan. Jan Jones. Really.”
He took her hand, the shake lasting a nice, long while. Warm, solid. Male. The voice went with the touch. She could’ve drowned in it.
“Carl Tanner. Very nice to meet you, really Jan Jones.”
***
There could not have been a worse time or place to meet Jan Jones. The stain of the desert still filled him, marked him. Her hand was soft, her grip firm. And cold: she was right-handed and had transferred the bottle to her left to reach out. He was ambidextrous but his right hand was dominant, and he’d trained himself to always hold a drink in his left hand. He shot better, struck better, with his right hand. Not by much, only those split-seconds that made all the difference.
The handshake changed something. The semi-darkness gave a false sense of intimacy that he was sure he alone felt. Sober women usually didn’t warm up very fast; they were wary, and well they should be.
Equality might exist while civility reigned, but when it didn’t a woman was, to some men, merely a victim-in-waiting. A woman ought to consider that. Jan Jones hadn’t. He was a stranger, and her ease in this musty, foreign space was faintly troubling.
But they weren’t strangers any longer. They’d chatted, introduced themselves, he’d felt the delicate softness of her hand. He’d had the luxury of watching her as she leaned against the wall. She was short, her breasts on the small side, her waist and hips obscured by the long wine-colored shirt she wore. Below the shirt were black tights: nice legs and slim ankles, one with a glittery bracelet. Her toenail polish was dark but not red. Purple? Holly green for the holidays?
“So,” she said in a slow voice that obliterated the northeast staccato, “are you what they call a bouncer?”
“Yeah, but in my day job I’m a spy.” Are you nuts, Tanner?
Her laugh was light and carefree. “With a gun and everything?”
“It’s called a sidearm. Or a pistol. A gun is...something else.”
She ignored the subtext. “You pack a Walther PPK? Or is yours a P5 Compact?” She knew the Bond films, so she loved fantasy. This moment sure qualified as fantasy. Her lips twitched in a smile. “Do you also drive an Aston Martin?”
“It’s baby brother. A three year-old Infinity Q60.”
“Sweet.”
From the other side of the curtain, a detonation of applause and the deejay’s frantic banter. They fell silent, but it wasn’t awkward. She finished the water, crumpled the bottle.
“I’ll get rid of it,” he said.
She shook her head. “I’ll take it home and recycle it.” She smiled at the raised eyebrow. “I consult on recycling and repurposing. Why I’m going to Cleveland in the morning.”
“I was fantasizing you were going to Paris, or maybe Marrakech.”
“I wish. But no,” she gave a dramatic little shiver, “Cleveland.”
“My condolences.” The exit music struck up. He heard the dressing room hubbub. “Sorry, Jan. Time’s run out on us.”
He imagined he was saying it to her, the rising sun shining in her eyes, as she left his apartment.
***
Thursday afternoon, rain slashed down as Tanner raced into the club. He’d found a slot near the kitchen and used Teo’s door. The chef, striding along the line of workers, tossed him a towel to swab his jacket and hair off. Lightning cracked and thunder rolled as if it was going to come right in the door and flatten everything. Tanner tossed the damp towel in the hamper.
“Muchas gracias, amigo.”
“De nada. Flan tonight.” He grinned. “I save two for you.”
Raised voices came through the wall common to Agostino’s office. Teo rolled his eyes.
“Un pequeno problema.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
Tanner left the kitchen. Mike was slashing his way through a bag of limes, his face drawn in a scowl. Angry voices filtered from Agostino’s office.
“I hate it when he shouts at women,” Mike muttered.
“Which woman?”
“Dunno. Just young and pretty. His style. Young, pretty, stacked, naive.”
“Rank has its privileges.” He tried to sound indifferent. What could happen to a woman in the middle of the club? “Long’s he doesn’t get physical.”
“Been known to happen.”
“Not on my watch.”
Tanner checked the poster in the vestibule. It now sported photos, a dozen of them, most candid shots. Including his own, a profile, as he looked down. Despite the smile, he looked like forty miles of bad road. He also looked like grandpa. Were any old enough to order a beer at Crave’s bar?
If he could find out what the problem was by tomorrow night, he could get the hell out and not go on stage. A better incentive than a month off, not having to display the unhealed marks of his failure to a roomful of strangers. He heard Agostino’s voice booming down the hall, and went into the showroom.
But not far enough. A woman’s voice sounded.
“I don’t believe you. I know she was here. I have photos—”
“You calling me a liar? I told you she wasn’t here and now I’m telling you to get your ass out the door, and don’t even think of trying to get back in. You’re banned. Permanently! Bud! Throw her out! Now!”
A short, dark-haired woman was being marched down the bar, her face rigid with anger. Cobb had one hand wrapped around an arm, the other gripped her jacket collar. A man enjoying his work.
“Let go!”
“Stop wiggling.” Cobb eyed Tanner as he strode forward. “No, I don’t need no help.”
“Maybe if you asked nice she’d calm down.”
“Piss off, Tanner. I got my orders.” He joggled the girl – she didn’t look old enough to get a drink – and she struggled to balance.
“Tell him to stop,” she begged Tanner.
Humiliated, yes, but not hurt. Tanner gave a surfer-dude shrug. With a practiced heave, Cobb swept her past. After shoving her out the front door, he returned, scowling, hands fisted.
“You got a problem with how I do my job? Huh? Talk to Richie. He tole me what to do.”
“And you loved every minute of manhandling her.”
“Enough, you two,” Green said, walking in between them. “We’re gonna have a shitty night now that silly bitch got Richie worked up. I don’t need you two going at it.”
Cobb pointed a finger at Tanner, dropped his thumb. “Just doing my job.”
“That’s what the Gestapo said, too.”
He turned to Green. “Gus who? Uncle Stan, he just diss me?”
***
Friday night the rain still came. Lighter, but thunder grumbled as bright slashes rolled horizontally across the indigo sky. Crave’s oyster shell parking lot was splotched with wide puddles. The women stayed home. Green, ahead of his normal schedule of trips into the storeroom, pulled Tanner off the hall and put him at the showroom doorway.
He recognized a few regulars and was rewarded with dazzling smiles after he greeted them. The deejay began the introductory music. Tanner, wishing for his earplugs, felt his back muscles tighten; the scabs pull. His muscles continued to tighten, the hair stiffen on his neck. Someone watched him. That feeling had saved him more times than he could remember. All senses alert, he looked down.
Tousled caramel-streaked blonde hair. Bluer-than-the-sky eyes. A wide, ruby-tinted mouth. He’d daydreamed about that mouth, thought he’d never see it again.
“Hey. Jan,” he said. “How was Cleveland?”
“Cold. Boring,” she said with a not-quite-demure smile. “Had the meeting, fled back to civilization.”
She still had a faint flush from the chill outside, and her hair sparkled with rain. Her long, misty blue sweater brought out her eyes, made them bluer and deeper.
“Are you wearing really high heels tonight? I remember a really short Jan.”
She blushed. “Silly, given the weather. But I just felt like it. How’d you notice that?” She pretended to think. “Oh. I know. You’re a spy.”
“No. You’re just taller tonight. Not much tradecraft needed for that.” He eyed the space between them: too much of it. “You almost come up to my shoulder.”
“Wouldn’t want to be overlooked.”
“Never happen.” He eyed the narrowing space between them, smiled. They were both leaning in. “May I buy you a drink? Something to nibble? Teo’s nachos are killer.”
“What time will you close tonight?”
He calculated the house: the weather was keeping it down. The midnight audience would be sparse, everyone waiting for tomorrow night and the damned contest. He could leave early; Green owed him.
“I can probably break free just after eleven.”
“Why don’t we get that drink somewhere else?”
***
“Might be a little situation later on.” Green, the smell of alcohol on every word. Tanner stood at the waiters’ station gunning two seltzers. “That kid who claimed her sister was here and then vanished?”
“She have proof?”
“Photo.” He shrugged with indifference. “We get maybe a thousand women through here every fuckin’ week, how’m I supposed to keep track?” He grinned, no humor in his eyes. “I remember some titties, sure, but faces? Nah. Like Richie says, they’re interchangeable parts.”
Tanner glanced up at the small silver surveillance camera mounted to get a long shot of the bar. “What do the cameras show?”
“They don’t work. Richie wired only one, so’s he could spy in the ladies.” Another humorless grin. “Crapped out after a week.”
“Are the parking lot cameras duds? Some women might count on them as security.”
Green belched, pounded his sternum. “They shouldn’t.”
“This what you two goof-offs call work?”
Agostino, in his usual snit. Tanner glanced to Green.
Who fiddled with his tie. “I’m acquainting the staff to be on the alert for a possible troublemaker. As you requested, boss.”
“I didn’t request a half-hour gabfest. Get to it.”
He brushed past them, swept the groups of guests with a calculating eye. Green followed him with a blank stare as he trolled along the bar, smiling and greeting a few and ignoring the rest. He was as subtle as a bulldozer.
“Anyways,” Green summarized, waving one paw with the bleary precision of an almost-drunk, “our only security is Richie’s attitude and the locks on the outer doors.”
“And us.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.” Another belch.
Tanner looked down the bar, past the double line of high top tables, to the small group of three singles in the corner. He’d seen Jan to the inside corner, left her with a plate of Teo’s oughta-be-famous nacho stack. The lighting was subtle there, but he saw the thick, caramel-streaked gold hair above the misty blue sweater.
And the look of high-octane hatred as she stared at Agostino.
Tanner was mesmerized by the look. He hadn’t seen anything like it since Sonora. Absently, he fished out two lime slices, put one in each glass. Picked them up, sipped from the one in his left hand. Kept his glance between Agostino making his passes and the petite blonde in the corner. If looks could kill, Agostino would’ve incinerated. The guy was a douche, but Jan’s look was scalding. Why?
“Stan,” he said. “See the blonde in the far corner? Blue sweater? Has she been here before?”
Green peered; he might be soused but he still had a cop’s memory for faces. Tanner could see the photo files inside his head rolling, rolling. He nodded. “Night before last? Yeah. Before that? Nah.”
“Okay.” He caught Green’s calculating look. “Just trying to get some of the guests’ faces in my memory. Security.”
“Security. Nobody,” the head bouncer said to himself, “should ever feel secure in here.”
***
Tanner took the seltzer to Jan. She looked up from shredding a napkin and smiled as he set the drink down.
“You okay?”
She looked past him into the room, her focus jumping from one point to another. “Fine as frog’s hairs,” she said absently. Then sharpened. “Why?”
He adjusted the glass’s location. “I gotta get back to work. You need anything and you can’t see me, talk to Mike. The bartender in the red leather vest.”
He walked away, thinking hard. She had an agenda, something he hadn’t seen or even suspected. Why had she really come back? Maybe that cozy feeling in the semi-dark of a hallway had been just the dumb fantasy of a man who needed a bit of warmth and human connection. For some reason, Agostino had intruded. Not a good way to start out.
Were they starting out? Should they? Hell, he shouldn’t start anything right now, given his mental state. He didn’t trust his own judgment, didn’t trust his emotions. Too much in the way. And now he wasn’t trusting her, either. He might have to re-think his too-fast attraction to Jan Jones.
If he could.
***
Tanner went outside when the rain slacked, looking for the girl who’d said her sister had disappeared. Looking was, when he thought about it, absurd. Lightning still ripped the night open. She’d have had to be nuts to hang around.
As he headed back inside, Agostino steamed out, every line of his body wired. He paused as Tanner skipped puddles toward him.
“What the fuck? Your job’s inside, California.”
A car’s headlights illuminated them and Tanner thought how they must look. Two men caught facing off in the half-dark. The beams switched to high. Agostino raised his hand to block the glare. Tanner relaxed a fraction; the moment was over.
“I’d be, like, happy to go home, boss. Not many in there. Green and Cobb can take care of it.”
Agostino pressed the SUV’s fob. “And get your regular paycheck anyway? I don’t think so.” He yanked open the door. “Get back inside and stop costing me money.” He pointed a finger. “And show up tomorrow.”
“Whatever you say, boss. Have a nice night.”
He was careful not to walk behind the BMW. Inside, only partially visible behind the steamed-up glass, Jan stood, arms crossed tightly across her chest, her attention fixed on the departing Beamer. Which should’ve exploded.
“What does that jerk mean to you,” Tanner asked as he stepped inside. He noted the defiant lift of her chin. “Don’t tell me nothing.”
Instant frost. She wheeled toward the coat check. “Good night, Carl.”