"I'll fit it," said Maddox, holding out his hand to Solomon.
“Where did you get that?” I asked, proffering my hand. I didn’t wait for an answer. "I'll fit it. Just tell me what to do," I said, trying not to think about Maddox's hands in my bra. Or Solomon's. Certainly not both at the same time! I bit the insides of my cheeks before they could flush as red as my lipstick.
A couple of instructions later, and the wire was transmitting and tucked, by my own hands, into the right cup, away from the sound of my heartbeat.
Solomon handed a similar one to Maddox, which he tucked under his t-shirt, fastening it to his chest with a piece of tape. After a couple of “One, two, one, twos,” we were happy they were working. Some creative shuffling later (me alone in the kitchen, Lily generously offering to help Maddox) and they were switched off until needed.
Lily zoomed off to change while we went through the plan. A short time later, she reappeared looking like an Asian dominatrix in a tight, rubber dress and a black bobbed wig, her lips blood red and her face pale. "Trust me, I will not look out of place," she said at my raised eyebrow. "I'm going to head out. There's a parking lot for employees. You'll be on the guest list under fake names and I’ll wave you through. I'll text you if Tallulah comes in." She clattered out, her spike heels sounding like daggers on the stairs as I wondered what else she had in her closet that I didn't know about.
We gave her an hour's head start before I jettisoned the hip-length cardigan I’d wrapped around myself in favor of a jacket. We clambered into Solomon's car, and I crossed my fingers that none of the neighbors would happen outside and see me dressed like a prostitute, despite the long coat thrown over me, as I climbed into the Lexus with two men.
Solomon drove without speaking, steering the sleek car with ease through the light evening traffic and pointing it downtown. He pulled into a space half a block from the club fifteen minutes after Lily said the doors opened.
"Seriously? You expect me to walk in these things?" I asked, pointing at the heels.
Solomon twisted around and looked down at them, his eyes running up my legs before fixing on my eyes. I shivered. "Can't you?"
"Not a half block. These are “get-in-a-car-get-out-of-a-car-and-pose” shoes." They were also “flat-on-your-back-heels-over-your-head” shoes, but I decided putting that image into Maddox and Solomon's minds probably wasn't the best idea. Lily, however, would have thought it was brilliant.
"I'll drop you outside when we're ready. You need help switching on the wire?" Solomon asked.
"No. I'm good." I wriggled out of my coat and placed it over my front, shuffling to get my hand inside my bra and switch the wire on. When I noticed Solomon watching me in the rearview mirror, I stuck my tongue out, just a little bit. He laughed, which surprised me into smiling. "Is it working?" I asked.
Solomon stuck an earbud into his ear and said, "Say something."
"C cup," I said.
"It works."
"Try mine." Maddox switched his wire on. "Eyes forward," he said.
"Not as flirty," said Solomon, "but it works."
"Safe word?"
"Scarlet."
"Done."
"Pardon? Safe word?" I asked.
Maddox twisted in his seat. "In case we get any trouble. Just work 'scarlet' into a sentence and Solomon will be alerted that we need help. It's not a typical conversational word, but it's not so crazy that it would make anyone suspicious."
"Okay. Scarlet it is."
Solomon extracted a passport-sized photograph from his jacket pocket and passed it to me. "This is a recent shot of Dean. Find someone who recognizes him and can point out Tallulah."
I took it and slipped it into the tiny purse I carried. It was just large enough to hold my lipstick, a few dollars, my cell phone and bank card. "Anything else?"
"That's all for you." Solomon checked the traffic, pulled out and drove the half block before swerving to the curb and letting us out. "I won't be far," he said, quickly glancing at me. I think he was trying to reassure me.
Flames’ entrance was an anonymous black door set into a brick wall. A small emblem of a flame on the front was the only clue. Maddox gave the handle a tug and it opened. With Maddox in front, we walked up the stairs to the booth at the top where Lily waited. Before we could say anything, she checked our fake names off the guest list, stamped the backs of our hands with a flame stamp, visible only under the blacklight wand she waved over top, before signaling we could go in. The tuxedoed hulking wall of a doorman opened the door for us. I didn't even have a chance to ask if she had seen our mystery woman before she turned to a woman in a leather trenchcoat who entered right behind us.
Throbbing techno music assaulted us as soon as we entered and a sea of scantily clad bodies, both male and female, paraded in a wave of human flesh. Lily was right. My bra, hotpants and skintight dress combo was positively overdressed compared to the buttless chaps, skimpy lingerie, PVC and rubberwear, stomach-roilingly worn by both sexes. I could see dancers on a far stage performing, their movements fluid and spry as they dipped and swung around poles. A small dance floor divided them from us. Beneath the sparkling disco ball, couples gyrated, their hands freely roaming the places that should not be groped in public.
"Montgomery has a wild side," I said against Maddox's ear and he shot me a bemused glance.
"Let's start at the bar," he said, nodding in the direction of where I assumed he could see the bar over the small crowd blocking the way. As we pushed past, hands seemed to find their way onto my butt, brushing over my thighs and arms, each receiving a sharp jab from me.
As we proceeded, I turned and saw a woman bent over a chair, which wouldn't have been interesting at all, if not for the Victorian-costumed woman spanking her enthusiastically with a ping-pong paddle.
I stumbled and Maddox caught me, yanking me past the line of the onlookers. "Make mine a double," I said.
"I think a man just groped me," said Maddox, worried lines furrowing his forehead.
"Everyone just groped me," I muttered. Somewhere, not far away, I imagined Solomon smiling.
The bar was several people deep. When I felt a hand on my arm, I jumped, expecting another groper, but instead found Lily. "Your table is ready," she said, her Geisha lips pursed. She cracked a whip. I blinked. Where had my friend gone?
"Our what?" I wheezed as she recoiled the whip.
"Your reservation is ready," she repeated slowly, flashing wide ‘get with it’ eyes before beckoning us to follow her to a small booth. As we sat down, I realized I could see across the small dance floor to the corridors that sprang off at the far end: the bar and the "entertainment" areas. We had an excellent view of the club. I sent Lily a mental pat on the head. "Your waitress will take your drinks order shortly." And with that, Lily was gone. I noticed no one dared grope her and the one hand that did get too close got a sharp sting from her whip.
"Can you imagine you-know-who in here?" I said to Maddox as he edged closer to me, his forearms resting on the table. He clasped his hands together. I felt grateful that he blocked me mostly from viewing the club, even if I were tempted to peek. Montgomery was a lot more exciting than I gave it credit for, I decided, when a man in a rubber mask and hotpants stalked past. "I wonder what Dean wore."
"I'm trying not to think about it."
"Do you think he was a rubber man or chaps?"
"Jeez."
"PVC must get pretty hot in here." I mimed peeling it off, my tongue making a wet, popping sound.
"Sounds like you know what you're talking about."
"Me?” I shook my head. “Heavens, no."
"Maybe he wore a rubber thong like that guy." Maddox nodded and I shuddered the moment my eyes hit on the skinny man in, yes, a rubber thong, incongruously paired with a pair of dress shoes and black socks.
"I didn't need to see that."
“No one does.”
A woman in a black tutu with a frilly apron and an impossibly small-waisted bustier,
which she was nearly popping out of suddenly blocked out our view. "I'm Ruby. Can I take your order?" she asked, before blowing a very large bubble of pink gum, which deflated after a loud pop. She sucked it in and gave us an expectant look.
I pulled the photo of Martin Dean out of my little bag and placed it flat on the table. "Actually. Maybe you can help me. Do you know this man?" I asked. Okay, it wasn’t subtle but I bet my tiny dress that if anyone would recognize our man, it would be the waitress.
Ruby studied it for a moment. Her jaw stiffened and she glanced at me, then somewhere across the room, and back again. "I'm not sure," she said finally, looking from Maddox and back to me with suspicion. "What'll it be?"
Instead of a flash of uncertainty, I thought she sounded pretty definite. I rooted in my bag, pulled out a folded twenty and slid it next to the picture. "How about now?"
Ruby palmed the money in a smooth movement and it disappeared. "Yeah, he's a regular. I don't see him tonight and he's usually here by now. What did he do to you? Get a bit too frisky in the dungeon? Boyfriend gonna spank him back?"
"Uh, no.” The idea of Maddox spanking anyone had not crossed my mind until that very moment. But now… I thought about Solomon snorting as he listened. This was a bad idea. Now, he would really think I was stupid. I took a deep breath and persisted, “Actually, I'm more interested in the woman he came with. What can you tell me about her?" Also: what was Dean into? And what was the dungeon? I had to ask Lily. Frankly, I had so much to ask her, I should make a list.
Ruby glanced up, quickly looking around the room, then pulled out her pen and pad. "You gotta order drinks," she said, her voice rising above the thump-thump of the track playing.
"Are we being watched?" asked Maddox.
She smiled brightly like we'd just complimented her. Definitely the right question. "You betcha. My boss likes to make money not small talk."
"Okay. Let's discuss the cocktail list..." I picked the menu off the table, adding, "and the woman."
"She's about my height. Red hair in a bob, though I think it's a wig. A lot younger than him," Ruby said, tapping her pen on the cocktail menu as though giving advice.
"Is she here tonight?"
"Yeah. I saw her ten minutes ago."
"Where?" I asked.
"She was at the bar. There was another guy with her. Not that dude.” She nodded at the photo. “She’s with a short guy."
"What did he look like?"
"Kinda average. White guy. Thirties, maybe. I wasn't really looking. You don't here, ya know. Unless, you... ya know."
I got her point. I didn't want to “ya know.” I darted a look at Maddox. Not in public anyway. "Where'd they go?" I asked.
"I dunno." She tapped her pen on the pad impatiently. "C'mon guys, you gotta order or I'll get in trouble."
"Martini," I said, placing the menu I held on the table, right over the photo, which I palmed just as smoothly.
"And a beer," added Maddox.
She jotted our order down. "Coming right up," she said, turning on her heel and sashaying away, her hips wiggling like nobody's business.
"We need to find this woman," said Maddox.
"And the guy," I said. "You think he's here for the spanky-panky? Or is he part of the gang?"
"I’m not sure I want to guess." All the while Maddox talked, his head was facing me, but I could see his eyes roaming the room. "I don't see her," he told me. He relaxed, resting his back against the padded upholstery of the booth.
Ruby, the waitress, returned, cutting off his view and we waited while she lay down cocktail napkins and our drinks. As she slid my martini in front of me, she whispered, "I just saw the woman go down the hall towards the ladies’ room. The guy was with her. Not the one in the picture, the one she's here with tonight. I think he’s new. He had that look about him." She looked pointedly at us. Yeah, okay, so we stuck out.
"Thanks," said Maddox as he slipped her enough money to cover the drinks and a tip. At this rate, the waitress was going to be our best friend the whole night. Not that I planned on staying that long.
"The sooner we find this woman and find out what's going on, the better," I said, after taking a sip of my martini.
"Whoa. There's no 'we' here," said Maddox. “We find this woman. You go home. We take her in for questioning.”
I raised my eyebrows. "No way! You wouldn't have gotten in here without me. And you're sure as hell not getting into the ladies' bathroom." Hah. Take that, Maddox. I got up, grabbing my purse, but before I could slide around the other side of the booth, Maddox caught me by the wrist.
"Fine. I'm coming with you," he said. "I'll wait in the hall. Don't approach her. Just make sure she's in there, then come out as soon as she leaves. I'll catch her outside."
"Okay." We walked hand-in-hand to the narrow hallway that veered off, away from the dance floor, towards the bathrooms.
Just as we entered the hallway, I caught a flash of red hair by the door to the ladies’. I hurried forward, teetering in the stripper heels. A groping couple peeled away from the wall, blocking our view momentarily, and we stepped past them, avoiding eye contact when they turned to assess us. Behind them, the hallway was empty. A thought occurred to me. I really, really hoped I wasn't about to walk in on the red head and her new man doing the nasty in a public restroom, but my nosiness won out. Plastering on my game face, I ducked inside the bathroom and walked forward, hips about three inches ahead of my icked-out face and pulled-back shoulders, poised to leave the moment I heard any humping.
"Hello?" I called.
I pushed the first stall door and it opened, clanking against the stall divider before swinging shut again. Empty. I tried the second, then third. At the fourth, I got something. No woman in a red bob, but the lid of the toilet tank was slightly askew. I stepped inside and looked closer. I could see small scrape marks around the edges. The lid hadn't been moved by accident, but worked off. I peeked inside, but couldn't see anything except water and the flush mechanism.
Stepping out of the stall, I looked around. No one was in the bathroom and there weren't any security cameras.
My reflection in the mirrors frowned back at me. There was only one reason someone would have fiddled with the toilet tank on a club night, other than to fix it. It was the perfect place to hide something small.
I left the bathroom and rested my back against the wall, next to Maddox, leaning in to talk to him. "No one's in there," I said. "But I think something was hidden in one of the toilet tanks—the lid was off—and whatever it was, the red head's got it."
Maddox scanned the hallway towards the dance floor and didn’t say anything about how farfetched my idea seemed, which gave him extra points. "She didn't come back out this way," he said, turning to look the other way, past me. He jerked forward, stepping past me, and jogged along the hallway. I followed him through an “Employees Only” door at the end, and saw a dark blur then a flash of red. Someone squealed. A bang, barely audible over the pumping music, rang out and Maddox broke into a run as a rush of light suddenly lit up the room as the exterior door opened and banged shut.
I barreled as fast as I could on high heels out of the emergency exit moments after Maddox. The cold night air blasted over me as I found myself on a small iron platform, one story up. I just had time to look down, see Maddox jump the last few steps off the fire escape and race into the alley, swallowed up in the darkness.
I turned, my arm knocking the door, and it banged shut. An alarm sounded inside, probably alerting someone that a door had unexpectedly opened. I sighed and looked down. Maddox was off chasing someone, and I had no hope of keeping up in the heels. I gave the door a hopeful tug, but it was shut tight.
Shivering against the cold, I wrapped my arms around myself and tutted. The only way forward was down, unless I wanted to wait for whomever to come and investigate the door opening. Clinging onto the railings, I made my way down the rickety fire escape, my spiked heels catching in the steps’ iron mesh surfaces. As I
hit ground zero, I pulled a face and groaned. I landed in something soft on putting my foot down. Typical. Maddox got to run after the bad guy. I got to stand in garbage, wearing a hooker dress.
Looking around me at the litter-strewn dark alley, the overflowing dumpster probably the source of the disgustingly ripe smell, I knew I was stuck. Running into the dark would be as stupid as standing still. My best hope was to make my way to the front of the club and find Lily, or wait for Maddox to pick me up there.
I took a couple of steps forward, stumbled, and with both arms flailing to steady myself, I tripped and landed palms down. "Oh, great," I mumbled in annoyance as I peeled my hands off something dark and sticky. I hoped I hadn't cut myself in the fall because God knows what was breeding in this alley, seeking a human host.
I rocked backwards, crouched on my haunches and took a deep breath, preparing to wobble back to my feet. I brushed my hands against my hotpants, my dress somewhere around my hips. I looked for something to grab onto and help me up.
My breath caught.
A pale leg protruded across the alley. Not a mannequin, not a fake limb, but something fleshy and undeniably human. Worst of all, it wasn't moving. I followed the line of the leg, past a limp knee to a scrap of fabric and higher up until I saw her face.
There was no way the red head was ever going to talk. She sat like a ragdoll propped against the wall, her fists clenched to her sides, her red wig slightly askew. Blood trickled from her mouth and dripped onto her top. Her chest bore an unmistakable bullet wound, leaving the flesh puckered around the hole. I froze, unable to move, but unable to look away. She was dead.
"Deep breaths," I whispered, trying to focus on breathing in and out as my stomach heaved and I turned away.
Maddox would not be a wimp. Maddox would look for a clue. I steeled myself as I turned back to her. Yep. Still dead. I edged closer and looked over her, when I noticed something jutting out of her hands. I reached forward gingerly and grasped the object, giving it a little tug. It slipped through her still warm fingers. In my hand, I had a small silver key ring, no fob. Flicking through them, feeling awful, I guessed the keys were to her house, her car, and two smaller ones, probably locker keys. I forced myself to check her other palm, and this time, I found a single small key. I snatched my hand back and stared at her.
Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) Page 12
