Box Set: The Fearless 1-3 Page 10

  A bouncer I didn’t know politely asked us for our identification, looming over us in a white dress shirt that fit him as if it was sprayed on. He moved with the heavy rigor of many power lifters, but he was friendly and invited us in with a flourish as we pushed the second set of swinging doors open and stepped inside.

  Atmosphere cannot be underestimated in setting a tone, and Blue was hardly subtle in her shrewd approach. In essence, a well run strip club is a flawless business model. All efforts are made to peel as much money away from patrons over an extended period of time, with the least resistance possible. Liquor is king. Bar profits are astronomical when management is honest and present. Blue was both. Add to the mix loud music, beautiful nude women in numbers, and a charged atmosphere of lust and gender warfare, and you have a concoction that simultaneously creates and destroys.

  We loved it. It was like setting an ambush in a narrow pass. There was little chance of failure, given the realities of the business. Foreign women flooded the clubs, some working as dancers, others as escorts. They gyrated alongside American girls who were locals, or worked a circuit, or short-timers who stepped onstage with the sole intent of landing a man--or woman--who would see to their needs permanently. It was desperate, outrageous, and exhilarating, even genuinely fun at times, but I never forgot that peering from underneath the feast before me was danger. Petty crime, drugs, assault, and more sinister events percolated in a permanent cycle of chaos. The money held many of the dancers and other employees hostage. So did the late nights, late mornings, sexual freedom, and anonymity even under the glare of the club’s lights. I knew to be outwardly carefree but observant. We were here to learn something, hopefully.

  At least I knew I was, as the girls ordered a magnum of Cristal. Some nights, they were too clubby for their own good. I let the room wash over me. A miasma of noises and smells came to me uninvited, assertive and raucously lewd. Body spray, beer, whiskey, cigarette smoke, and lust were raw on my soft palate from my first inhalation as I leaned back in my chair. I assessed the patrons. And the dancers. None of the talent could compare to the natural beauty of Wally, but they were still tanned, prancing about for customers in a lazy circle. Like sharks, but with long, smooth legs and glittering makeup.

  The waitress, clad only in a thong, hat, and boots, brought the bottle to the table, and I gave her my credit card. On the tray was a folded note that simply read “Office.” As the girls poured and settled in, I stood and headed to the back corner, where the money room door was hidden behind a partition. Even inebriated, I knew that nothing would evade the constant, darting eyes of my partners, so I left, wondering only what we were here for, other than the scenery.

  The door clicked solidly behind me as I blinked in the glare of a modern, fully lit office devoid of nudity and western décor. Blue slid from her desk to embrace me and kiss my cheek with a, “Hullo, kid.” I smiled back and slid into a cloth chair, frankly admiring her in the process. She was naturally beautiful but tiny, with a competitive edge to her smile that made it known she was the pack leader on her premises. Her vibe was pure alpha out of necessity. She exuded confidence. In her business, the unending drama would consume a lesser human. There was no risk of that, I thought, looking at her intelligent green eyes in a face that was heart-shaped and capped with brown curls. A pair of sunglasses still rested, forgotten, on her head from her arrival at work earlier that day. She was driven.

  “I gassed up the boat and spooled the rods. I thought you guys might anchor at that rock pile where the coast guard cutters go to dry dock.” I knew Blue was not as interested in catching fish as her son was, but a productive spot would assure them of a single spot to anchor, eat, sun, and talk, without having to move due to inactivity among sealife. While Blue appreciated the Zen of angling, her son was more of a results-oriented sportsman.

  “Oooh, thanks. He loves that spot. Did they move that one ship so we can sit there without having our guts pounded by wakes all day?” The last trip there had been more like punishment than rest.

  “It’s gone. All clear. You’ll have no trouble. So, what day? It’s ready even for tomorrow, if you want,” I told her. Her excitement was plainly visible. It must have been some time since she had savored a day of motherhood that didn’t involve a sobbing stripper with a litany of problems. I felt a twinge of pity, which I knew she would hate. I schooled my face and smiled as she began to rifle through her desk.

  “So, business first. Two women were here, for, like, a week. Even the slow times. They smoked ciggies from somewhere I didn’t recognize and laughed at our best liquor like we were bumpkins. But they left killer tips, so the girls let them camp out without hassling them for dances. I watched them, sort of casual at first, but, the third night, I wondered if they were vice or something. Although the one woman, she was a bit older, maybe thirty-five, she was dressed way above pay grade for a cop. I never really saw them that well but the older one was, according to our bouncer Brian, “shit your pants” beautiful, which is saying something, given his record with the girls here. She was white, had dark hair, came from money, I think, just a hunch. It wasn’t flash. It was real. She drank a lot less, but they both sort of sized up the girls. And some of the patrons, too, I think. The younger one was well dressed, too, but more like a vacation wardrobe than someone who took their life with them, you know?”

  I did. It was the difference between a tourist and a traveler. A traveler hired cars, had things done for them, and never lifted a finger unless it was to hail a sommelier.

  “Brandi waited on their table the last two nights. She said that the younger one kept flashing a ring that looked like big money, a diamond with other stones around it. And here’s the fun part: she left it as a tip when they finished their last drink on Thursday night. Brandi showed me, I’d say it was worth enough to buy a house. Maybe a small one, but a house. And I haven’t seen Brandi since. She was sleeping with our new liquor rep, they met out one night away from here, and he said she’s gone. Like, totally gone. Her apartment is empty, and her car is sitting right where it has since that night. It just feels a bit more like, I don’t know . . . they were recruiting for something? Brandi had a degree, you know. Chemistry. She was going to finish her master’s in Industrial Chem. But she got knocked up by some asshole from the Navy who headed for Guam on the next boat. She was book smart, not street cagey like the other girls here. And I know she was dead set against hooking, so my question is, what did they want her for?” she finished and folded her arms. I could tell she was pissed that something--although she didn’t know exactly what--had transpired here, in her place.

  I thought for a moment. “Brandi, was she pretty, not makeup pretty, but smart or elegant, a sort of cerebral beauty?”

  “Exactly.” Blue edged closer.

  I had to tell her something, so I offered her what I could. “Nothing is happening in here now, I know that. Let me talk to the girls, and we’ll discuss it before you fish. Everyone is safe here, this was a sort of search. That’s all I can tell you now. More soon, I promise.”

  That was good enough for her. She was a pragmatist at heart. She opened the door and kissed me again, reaching up on her toes to do so. I felt like a liar and was ready for a drink.

  “Come get the boat. Then we’ll talk,” I said as I walked back into the barrage of the club.

  36

  From Risa’s Files

  Dear Pat,

  Since you won’t return my calls and you’re too frigging dumb to get online, I have to write you a letter even with my arthritis. Thanks a lot.

  You need to get your ass out of Virginia and come down here and talk sense to your idiot brother before I kill him. He’s got himself a whore that is gonna spend every single dollar he made with my sister in twenty years of busting ass at the shop. I met her and let me tell you, it ain’t going the way you want it if you think the kids will have a penny left to their name come Christmas. Her name is Silky (some kinda stripper name or some other kinda slut) and fo
r starters she’s thirty years younger than he is. She’s got him buying her high priced sushi every night up on Las Olas like he’s some Prince and she dresses him like a retard on vacation. She won’t eat a damn thing except for expensive fish! They got a apartment up on the water and she’s got him swimming like a frigging dolphin every day and now she gets him to swim at night cause she likes the quiet, she says. I think she’s full of shit and believe me one day he ain’t coming back from that swim. You get down here right now and send this whore packing so I don’t have to bury him because he likes the young stuff, you hear?

  I mean it!

  Marion

  37

  Karolina

  Sixty feet to feed a world. The greenhouse was twenty yards long but was filled with miles of potential. A new strain of beans, his creation, grew riotous, hemmed only by their artificial borders of matrix made to perfectly aerate and distribute water for their hardy roots. Adam surveyed the agricultural project with the satisfaction of a man whose life’s work had come to fruition. Eleven years, three million dollars, and a flash of brilliance as a newly minted Ph.D. had brought him to this point of triumph. Long monofilaments run as trellises groaned under the weight of the latest trial. With more than a dozen replications of the initial wild success, Adam was ready to publish. More importantly, he was ready to feed people. The accolades and money would come, he knew it, but his gift would be to everyone who went to bed hungry. No more. And they would thank him.

  Drought resistant, impervious to blight, and hated by insects, the beans were loaded with the nutrients for a starved world that was too poor in money and water to turn fields from dust to life. The first ripples from Adam’s success were being felt. No less than ten genetics firms had made initial forays into acquiring his variant. Some had been less than noble in their attempts to apply pressure to him for a sale, and he suddenly had numerous volunteers and applicants for farmhand positions, all of whom he turned down ,knowing full well they were spies and thieves. He trusted himself. He trusted his staff, all of whom had been with him for years.

  But he loved Karolina. Coltish, shy, brilliant Karolina. She had a mind more beautiful than any he had encountered in his thirty years of life. Studious and hardworking, he had first met her when the university had ended his funding after four contentious years of no progress. When a private charity asked for a grant proposal, he was met by Karolina alone at a suite in a bland business hotel in Miami. Across three yards of faux mahogany table, he exhausted what few oratorical tricks he knew within moments, finally reduced to staring helplessly at a woman who held the key to his future. As an idealist, he saw it as the world’s future, too. Karolina had asked him, simply, if he was right. Could he grow a plant to feed the masses?

  In a meteoric moment of bravado, he had slapped the table and said yes. And she had opened her briefcase without a word, arched a brow on her plain face, and asked, “How much?”

  Karolina was as plain as she was intelligent, tall and thin with long brown hair that she wore in a hat more often than not. Hardly shy of work, she was more proxy venture capitalist than charitable liaison, joining Adam in the greenhouse and lab daily. He came to know her wry wit and inquisitive nature. In time, they came to know each other. He was penniless and smelled of soil at all times, his hands chapped with labor, but, on the rare occasions he showered and dressed for the world outside, Karolina would tell him, “I like you in your own element, love.”

  The confirmation of his work meant that he could have things a bookish dreamer once thought impossible, even a woman like Karolina and her unending passion as she climbed him like ivy. Many times, they lay twined on the soft earth of the greenhouse, the ventilation fans wafting humid air over the rise and fall of their bodies, perfect in their syncopation. Today would be the day for rewarding himself. They could marry. A family, and the money to support them and let Karolina live a life free of work. She would wear the ring her mother gave her until he could afford something more modern. For now, the antique gold and opal would have to do.

  This plant is from Eden. I will have everything now. Years of rooting in dirt, squinting into a lens, and now . . . all of it. Money, books, Karolina. Any woman at all, actually. It’s all here for the taking. And I am going to take every bit of what I can, and people will love me for it. Adam and his magic beans. It’s no fairy tale.

  A car door thumping closed broke his reverie. Karolina was here, now, and they would celebrate this final step before his glory. He stiffened in anticipation as the inner door to the greenhouse opened and she stepped in.

  “You’re certain about it?” she asked, moving to him. She shrugged out of her wet coat; it was raining lightly. His concentration had blocked the sound of the rain pattering on the transparent roof, rivulets running hurriedly to the ground. He heard it now over the rush of the ventilators. Karolina sniffed at him and toyed with the buttons on his denim shirt that were ringed with sweat and grime. Her nose was very sensitive.

  “Take that off. I want you, not that rag.” Her green eyes were shining, her brown hair hanging limp in the moist air. She kissed him hard twice in succession and slid the shirt from his back as she slid back onto the potting table they leaned against. In a violent sweep, Adam cleared the surface and lifted her cotton skirt. She wore nothing underneath, and he was in her smoothly, his gallantry outmatched only by his need.

  “My turn” she croaked, turning him to lay him flat and never breaking their intimate contact. She rode him in a wave, biting his chest in tiny nips and pushing his arms over his head. He relaxed, letting her work. Her tongue flickered across his chest, his neck, coming to rest at the tender pulse of his axillary artery. She inhaled, her eyes rolling in delight at the unmasked scent of his flesh. So pure.

  Hidden beneath her upper lip, a single, needle-like tooth slid from hiding, luminously hollow. Her bite was serpentine, the pleasure exquisite, and his flavor much richer for having cultivated him for so long. The fang sank to the root without resistance, filling the artery in a perfect diversion. Patience made him delicious in her mouth. He continued thrusting into her, unaware his lifeblood pumped down her greedy throat ounce by heated ounce in a coppery flood that left him pale, and then softly wheezing, only to buck slightly under her iron grip. At last, he slipped from inside her, limp, bloodless, desiccated, his heart silent and still. His booted foot kicked once and swung to a stop.

  She wiped her mouth on the hair of his chest, pausing once to take a questing lick at his sightless eye. You were never meant to feed the world, Adam. Only me.

  38

  Florida

  Among my vices are fishing, beer, my boat, sunshine, and trading vehicles. I planned on indulging in all of them within the next twenty-four hours. Purchasing an unending array of used cars wasn’t just a hobby, it was a tool. At times, an unobtrusive ride was a much-needed accessory for surveillance, travel, or transporting the former personal property of immortals that had departed the premises. My current ride, a solid but forgettable tan sedan, had served its purpose, but, after six months, it was time to move on. I called the least reputable used car lot in Broward County, owned and operated by one Jim Broward, whose true name was an incomprehensible Armenian monstrosity I knew he kept wisely hidden as part of his nom de guerre.

  Jim answered on the second ring, a voice that was nicotine-scorched, deep, and Southern, all the more impressive considering he was from Chicago.

  “Broward cars, here,” he managed to drawl, making the last word a polysyllabic cough.

  “Jim, it’s Ring. I think it’s time I took a look at your lot. You around later?” I enjoyed the familiarity of a frequent customer.

  “Sure am, Ring, I was wondering when you’d get the itch. How ‘bout an SUV this time? I’ve got something special sitting in the wash bay, pretty as a peach.” He wasted no time in appealing to my habit.

  “I’m interested. It might be nice to sit up high. I’ll see you after lunch with my checkbook.” I couldn’t negotiate on an empty
stomach.

  “Music to my ears. See y’all later.” And we were done, as I wondered what color my new vehicle would be. Jim was a heluva salesman. I was sold before I left my house.

  Suma texted, and we agreed to dinner on the boat with a side of fishing. That meant that I had several minor but enjoyable errands, not the least of which was a trip to Publix, which I treat as a sort of pilgrimage each and every time. I entered, turned right, and headed to the deli. I sampled. I wandered, perused, picked up vegetables, and engaged in flights of fancy in which I envisioned myself a white-coated chef with minions of followers, all as I selected a masterful array of ingredients for two immense sandwiches. I then added tubs of salads and chips and made an inevitable trip through the beer aisle. When I arrived at the checkout lane, a relentlessly perky employee briskly moved me through the line. I was then disgorged into the sunlight, my wallet lighter, boat meal in hand, belching happily from Sample Row.

  I keep a cooler in my car. It’s the habit of an inveterate fisherman, beer aficionado, and resident of Florida who respects the heat. In went the boat lunch, to be covered with beer, ice, then beer and ice. I pack in layers. Since salmonella was being held at bay by my prescience, I turned west and headed to University drive, where Jim had my new vehicle waiting for me.

  It was time to get acquainted with my new ride.

  39

  The lot was crowded with cars roasting in the sun. I parked near the office, which was a converted hamburger franchise from the 1950s, covered in white stucco, with a single steel sign announcing that Broward’s cars did, indeed, refuse to be undersold. To the left of the building, a three-bay steel hut housed the get-ready area, where Jim’s staff buffed and scrubbed years of use off of cars. The glass door swung open, and Jim ambled out, his cabana shirt straining over his stomach. His grey hair was slicked back, and his intense brown eyes sized me up as I stuck out my hand. He was having none of it. I was pulled into an Armenian bear hug as he said, “Good tuh see you, Ring!” and then deposited back on the ground, a bit flustered.