by Chelsea Cain
“I need you to tell him that I have to cancel lunch, okay?” Archie said. “Tell him that exactly. Archie needs to cancel lunch.”
“He has a phone,” Susan said. “Call him and tell him yourself.”
“Susan,” Archie said. “Please.”
He needed Susan to do this for him, and he needed her not to ask questions.
Susan groaned. “Fine,” she said.
“Thank you,” Archie said, trying not to let her hear the relief in his voice. He ended the call and started the car.
Henry had found the piece of birthday cake on the dash and had unwrapped the tinfoil and was eating it with his fingers. “Tell me that’s code,” Henry said, his mouth full, “and that you really didn’t just call to cancel lunch.”
Archie wiped some condensation off the windshield with his forearm. “We need to go celebrate my birthday,” he said.
“Your birthday isn’t until tomorrow,” Henry said.
“Do you have cash?” Archie asked, eyes on the rearview mirror as he put the car in reverse. “Small bills?”
“For what?”
Archie allowed himself a smile as he pulled away from the curb. “The strippers,” he said.
CHAPTER
3
Why Leo suddenly wanted to go to the Dancin’ Bare, Susan didn’t know, but she wasn’t happy about it.
She was dressed for the opera.
They weren’t going to the opera. They were supposed to be going to a musical stage adaptation of the Patrick Swayze eighties movie Road House, but she had just bought an embroidered silk cape at a thrift store and she was determined to wear it. It was silver, with a red lining and a rhinestone clip at the neck, and it grazed the back of her knees when she walked. She had paired it with a black sleeveless shift, hot pink tights, and her silver twenty-eight-eye Doc Martens. She had recently dyed her hair black with a white skunk stripe down the middle, and the whole look was very Cruella De Vil meets Daphne Guinness. It was perfect for a fringe theater performance. It was not ideal for a strip club.
Leo breezed past the doorman, while Susan stalked sullenly behind him, through the wood-paneled entryway into the dark bar. Posters on the way in advertised the chance to meet girls “up close.”
She did not like to go to strip clubs with Leo. It wasn’t that she had anything against strip clubs per se. She just didn’t like the way that everyone at the strip clubs seemed to know her boyfriend. Leo’s father owned some of those clubs. Leo did business at some of them. But there was more to it than that. Leo liked these clubs. He liked them in a way that Susan knew she could never fully understand.
It certainly had nothing to do with the decor.
You couldn’t smoke in bars in Portland anymore, but the club still reeked of stale cigarette smoke, and no one had bothered to collect the black plastic ashtrays that were still stationed on every surface. Candles flickered, Italian-restaurant-style, in red glass jars on the tables. Colored Christmas lights festooned the ceiling, some blinking, some not, every string a different style from the last, seemingly hung at random, as if the whole mess had been left behind by a rowdy bachelor party of drunken elves. Rope lights outlined the bar and the stages, the PVC tubing affixed with a staple gun. All that gaudy lighting, and the place was still too dark to see properly. Leo knew where he was going, though. He led Susan around the line to play Keno, past the first stage, toward the main stage at the center of the room. The club was bustling with the usual suspects. A dozen testosterone-fueled frat boys gathered around two tables and chanted encouragement to a poor asshole wearing a candy bra over his shirt and pounding a beer. Men in suits hunched over cocktails, ties loosened, wedding rings in their pockets. A few couples leaned close, giggling. Some Portland Timbers fans were so drunk that one of them nearly tripped over his scarf. And then there were the creepy guys, the ones who sat along the stage racks, their caps pulled low, nursing beers and clutching cash in their hands.
Susan could tell that Leo was looking for someone. He wasn’t obvious about it, but she noticed his eyes scanning the room. He must have settled on someone, because he beelined for a table at the far side of the main stage. A birthday boy, apparently—Susan could see the dorky paper birthday hat he was wearing. As Leo and she sidled past the stage, behind the creepy guys, Leo nodded at the stripper who was performing. She had dark hair and melon-sized breasts and a star tattooed over the pelvic bone she was swiveling. The stripper mouthed the words Hi, Leo. She was wearing a red headband with devil horns on it. Susan wondered if she always wore it, or if it was supposed to be some sort of Halloween costume. Maybe she’d started out in a full Satan ensemble and had slowly stripped it all away.
They got to the table and Leo put his hand on the birthday boy’s back. The birthday boy turned and looked up.
“Archie?” Susan said, the sound of his name swallowed by the music.
Henry appeared then, with two beers in plastic cups, and he set the cups on the table and sat down in the chair next to Archie.
Susan looked from Henry to Archie, expecting some sort of explanation, but she didn’t get one. Henry avoided her eyes.
Archie took one of the cups and lifted it in a toasting motion in her direction, and some of the beer slopped out of the cup onto the table.
Was he drunk? Was Archie Sheridan drunk in a strip club wearing a child’s birthday hat?
Susan wasn’t sure what to say. It was like the time she went to get her eyebrows waxed and one of her editors from back when she’d worked at the Herald was there making an appointment for an anal wax. She couldn’t get through an editorial meeting after that without picturing his smooth, hairless sphincter. There were things about people you just weren’t supposed to know.
Her face must have communicated her bafflement, because Archie pointed to the birthday hat. And then at Henry. “His idea,” Archie yelled over the music.
Susan tightened her fingers around Leo’s arm. She wanted out of here. She had fled the brow wax and never gone back to that salon again. Archie could get drunk and go to strip clubs. That didn’t mean she had to watch it.
Archie motioned for Leo to lean in close and then Archie said something to him.
Leo stood up and laughed and clapped Archie on the shoulder. “Let’s get you a birthday present,” he said loudly. He looked up at the busty brunette humping the stripper pole and beckoned her with his finger and she smiled and slid off the stage. Archie picked up his drink and stood up next to Leo.
Everyone else around the stage jeered and wolf-whistled.
“What’s going on?” Susan asked.
Leo said, “I’ll be right back.”
Susan was confused. They were leaving her? “No,” Susan said. “I’ll come with you guys.”
Leo leaned close to her and took her gloved hand. “I just bought Archie a lap dance,” he said. He nodded at the girl, who was now pressing her bare chest against Archie. “I think he’d be more comfortable if you stayed here.”
Susan laughed. Leo was insane. A lap dance? Archie didn’t want a lap dance. Archie Sheridan didn’t do lap dances. There was no way. This was some sort of miscommunication. Susan looked over at Archie, waiting for him to honorably reject the offer. The girl had her arm around Archie’s waist. He didn’t seem to mind. He was smiling. Susan felt her face get hot. “Oh,” she said.
She stood there stiffly, while Leo walked Archie and the girl off to one of the private rooms down the back hall, and all the creepy guys seated around the stage clapped.
Then she sank down in Archie’s empty seat and peeled off her purple elbow-length gloves. She could feel herself starting to sweat, the silk cape sticking to her skin.
“You changed your hair,” Henry said.
“Don’t talk to me,” Susan said.
A new song started, and another mostly naked girl climbed up on the stage and started wiggling. Susan took a sip of Archie’s abandoned beer. She didn’t know what it was, but it tasted terrible.
CHAPTER
4
Leo led Archie and the dancer into one of the club’s private rooms. It was the size of a walk-in closet with a built-in bench on all sides, and mirrored paneling custom-fitted to the walls and ceiling. The effect was disorienting—Archie’s reflection stared back at him from every surface. The dancer took his hand and he allowed her to guide him to the bench and sit him down. Leo grinned and took a seat next to him on the bench. Then Leo poured some of the Glenlivet he’d acquired as they had passed the bar into two glasses and handed one to Archie. There was a brass pole at the center of the room. Electronic dance music played through speakers that Archie couldn’t see. The dancer leaned forward and blinked at Archie with her heavily made-up eyes. Her breasts swung. Her chest was beaded with sweat. She was wearing devil horns. “Happy birthday,” she said in a breathy voice.
“Thanks,” Archie said. “But it’s actually not until tomorrow.” He looked over at Leo, who was already topping off his drink. “I don’t really want a lap dance,” Archie said.
Leo reached his arm out and turned a dial on the wall and the music lowered to a tolerable background beat. Then he settled casually back onto the bench, the glass of whiskey resting on his thigh. His eyes moved to the dancer. “There’s a camera,” Leo said under his breath. He took a sip of whiskey and glanced at the far corner of the ceiling. “They can’t hear us. But they can see us.” His gaze flicked over to Archie. “What’s going on?”
The dancer stepped back and reached for the pole. As soon as her fingers found it, she dropped into a spin, her body moving effortlessly around the pole, legs crossed at the ankles, her feet wedged into five-inch high heels. Her face was blank, her eyes focused on the middle distance. Archie hesitated.
“She’s okay,” Leo said. “She’s a friend.”
“You can’t trust people just because you’ve slept with them,” Archie said.
“I didn’t say I trusted her,” Leo said. He took a sip of whiskey and smiled. “I said she wouldn’t say anything.”
The dancer continued to twirl around the pole, her hair grazing the floor. Her black thong matched the color of her shoes.
“Carl Richmond was killed tonight,” Archie said in a low voice. “Someone shot him in the head in the bathroom at the Gold Dust Meridian. Happened about two hours ago.”
Leo nodded. He didn’t say anything, but Archie saw the corners of his mouth tighten. Carl had recruited Leo. He’d trained him, and mentored him. He had been, for years, Leo’s only lifeline to his alternate identity.
“You okay?” Archie asked.
Leo finished off the remaining whiskey in his glass in one swallow, his eyes on the camera. “They know someone’s inside,” he said. “I don’t know if they think it’s me. But they know enough to be paying attention.”
“So get out of there,” Archie said. “Come with me right now. Walk away.”
“I’ve been doing this for ten years,” Leo said. “It’s not an assignment. It’s my life.”
“They’ll kill you,” Archie said. Leo had always been in danger, but if they were actively onto him, he was in serious jeopardy. And if Leo got himself killed, Archie knew that Susan would never forgive him. “Your father will kill you if he finds out who you are,” Archie said. “You know that, right?”
“I’m close,” Leo said. There was a gravity in his eyes that Archie had never seen before. “Richmond was right. About corruption. But my father isn’t just paying people off. He has partners, Archie. People high up in law enforcement.”
It was what Richmond had always suspected—the reason why Jack Reynolds’s shipments always made it through. If it was true, and Leo could identify the corrupt officials involved, it would be a game-changer. This was why Richmond had been willing to risk so much. “And you can get names?” Archie asked.
“He’s grooming me,” Leo said. “It’s a family business. He wants his kid to run the store. The man is loath to give anything up. But he knows he has to.”
“What kind of law enforcement?” Archie asked.
Leo poured more whiskey in his glass. “I don’t know.”
“DEA?” If Jack had someone in the DEA, Leo was in even greater danger. Richmond had protected him as a source all these years. But with Richmond dead, Leo would get a new contact.
Leo chuckled and lifted the glass to his mouth. “Probably,” he said. “Richmond worried about that. He always told me that if anything ever happened to him, to assume DEA was compromised. He said the Bureau would step in. They’ve been running their own investigation, but they don’t have anyone inside.”
There were only a handful of people who knew Leo was working against his father. If the FBI was taking over, Archie knew there was only one person Richmond would have trusted to run the operation.
Leo lifted an eyebrow. “You know who my new contact is, don’t you,” he said.
Someone banged on the door. Archie and Leo barely had a chance to exchange a glance before the person on the other side pushed the door open a crack. “Leo?” a gruff voice called through the opening. Leo signaled the dancer with his hand and she spun off the pole and moved in front of Archie just as a man pushed through the door. Archie kept his eyes on the dancer in front of him, but he could see the man’s reflection in the mirrored walls. He was tall and broad, with a face that had seen too many fists up close. Scar tissue had left his flesh lumpy and his features lopsided. His cheekbones and nose looked like they had been broken and reset more than once by someone who had no future in otolaryngology. His hair was a thick graying tangle that hung in wisps against his shoulders. His upper arms were the size of Archie’s thighs. No, Archie thought. Bigger. The dancer rotated her hips in low slow circles, her eyes leveled at Archie. Archie swallowed hard.
The man took in the scene with barely a flicker of eyeball movement, and Archie had the feeling that he’d been watching on a monitor somewhere, and that he knew exactly what he’d find.
“What are you doing?” the man asked Leo.
“Celebrating with a friend,” Leo said, lifting his glass. “Are you following me, Cooper?”
“He’s a cop,” Cooper said with an almost imperceptible nod in Archie’s direction.
The dancer was still writhing in front of Archie. She traced her fingers around her nipples and moaned.
“He’s a family friend,” Leo said. “My sister, as you may recall, was murdered by Gretchen Lowell.” Archie had scooted back on the bench as far as he could go. The dancer was caressing her abdomen with her hands. Leo chuckled. “This is Archie Sheridan.”
“Nice to meet you,” Archie said.
Cooper grinned at Archie from every mirrored surface in the room. His teeth were stained gray from old fillings. “The hero cop,” Cooper said. He crossed the room in four steps and stood with his arms crossed, behind the dancer, who appeared not to have noticed that Cooper had entered the room, or was pretending that she hadn’t. “I know who you are,” Cooper said. He regarded Archie with head-cocked suspicion. The dancer ran one of her hands along her inner thigh. Cooper sat down on the other side of Leo. The bench shook. “He almost gets himself killed going after your sister’s killer,” Cooper said to Leo, “and all you get him is a lap dance?”
“You’re right,” Leo said. Archie glanced over at Leo as Leo poured himself another drink and lifted it to his mouth. Then Leo turned to Archie and said casually, “You can fuck her, if you want to.”
Archie coughed. The dancer kept moving her hips. The star inked over her pelvic bone was black, about the size of a nickel. “Maybe I’ll play that by ear,” Archie said.
The conviviality left Cooper’s face. “What’s your problem?” he said. He leaned forward, toward the dancer. “Is he hard?” Cooper asked her.
Her expression didn’t shift. For a moment Archie hoped she hadn’t registered the question. Then she squatted in front of him and pushed his knees apart. Archie glanced at Leo for help, and got only a faint shrug. Cooper reached under his jacket and made a movement like he
was unsnapping a shoulder holster. The dancer slid her hands slowly up Archie’s thighs. Her eyes were still fixed on his, that dead stare, both seeing and not seeing, and Archie let himself look back. Her mouth was open a little, her head between his knees. She licked her bottom lip and arched her back a little so that her breasts lifted. She let her fingers dance over his zipper. She smiled at what she found.
“So is he a eunuch, or what?” Cooper asked.
“He’s hard,” she said. Her thick lashes fluttered in Cooper’s direction. “Want to feel?”
Cooper stood up, and for a moment Archie thought he was going to take her up on the offer. But Cooper just stood looking at Archie. “So fuck him,” Cooper said.
The dancer glanced at Leo.
“Wait,” Archie said.
“Do you want to get off or not?” Cooper asked.
Archie grasped for something to say, some way to get out of this without compromising Leo. The dancer was still between his legs, a hand on each of his thighs. “I’m a little drunk,” he said.
“Maybe he wants some privacy,” Leo said. “Turn off the camera.”
Cooper’s eyes went to the corner of the ceiling. Then back to Archie. The room refracted all of their faces. Cooper. Leo. Archie. The dancer. It made Archie dizzy.
Cooper studied Archie for another minute and then seemed to make a decision about him. He reached into his pants pocket, got out a clip of cash, peeled off three hundred-dollar bills and laid them on the bench between Archie and Leo.
“It’s on me,” Cooper said. Then he pointed at Leo. “Walk with me,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Leo gave Archie a weary look. “Have fun,” he said.
The dancer climbed back to her feet, tucked herself between Archie’s open legs, and began rocking back and forth against his groin. Archie was going to kill Leo for this. “Thanks,” Archie said.
The door closed behind Cooper and Leo, and Archie was left in the mirrored room with the girl. The rocking turned into slow circles. Archie could feel his face flush.
