Stripped

by Brian Freeman

  Not that he really believed it

  He thought about his adopted mother. Bonnie Burton. She could still make his flesh crawl two decades later. It was crazy back then, how he had loved her and wanted to please her. He had actually hated his adopted father more, because he was the one who let it all happen and did nothing to stop her. Blake even enjoyed cuckolding him at first, when he began having intercourse with Bonnie. He could still feel her hands. It infuriated him that when he thought of her, he sometimes got an erection. That she still controlled him like that. She used to tell him that he was her best lover, that she would never hurt him, that her body belonged to him. Her body with its drooping breasts and doughnut-shaped middle.

  Once, she told him what a good idea it would be if he killed his father and the two of them could be alone. His father, who knew what went on in the bedroom, who didn’t care or was too scared to do a damn thing.

  He said yes, that would be a good idea, and didn’t add that the best idea of all was to kill them both. A month later, he stood in the dark yard and watched the fire consume them.

  He thought about the boy in the Summerlin street. Peter Hale. That was a lesson for him-that he wasn’t the rock he imagined himself to be, that the fury could come back and temporarily blind him. He had watched the boy throwing the ball against the garage door. Hypnotic, the ball going back and forth, bang bang, over and over. It wouldn’t be hard to smile at the kid, go inside, slit Linda Hale’s throat and go back to the car. Maybe toss the ball a couple of times with the boy. Then he thought about leaving this kid with no mother, and he realized he couldn’t do that. He sat there, paralyzed. Bang bang, back and forth. Happy kid. A kid who had everything Blake never had, for no reason at all, who didn’t have any Bonnie in his life, who hadn’t had his real mother stripped away and killed by Las Vegas. The anger rose up like a dust devil, spinning out of the sand. Insane jealousy. Disgust. It grabbed him so hard he thought he would break the steering wheel in half. That was when, without any more hesitation, he put the car in gear and slammed the accelerator down, gunning for the boy, wanting to erase him, wanting to see him disappear into nothingness under his tires.

  Sometimes nothingness was a blessing.

  In the Limelight showroom, Blake blinked. He had been gone for too long, not concentrating. The memories did that to him. He blamed it on the seduction of Claire’s voice, which was somehow both lazy and still as sharp as a razor blade on his wrist.

  Focus, he thought to himself.

  Amira.

  Blake had to move quickly. He had been to Claire’s show several times, and he knew there were three songs left in her second set. He had to go now or risk getting caught in the sweaty mass of fans elbowing their way for the exits. In a few minutes, he could use the chaos of the crowd to spring Claire loose from the blanket of security protecting her.

  He knew how to do that. With Claire’s help.

  When she finished her next song, a searing cover of Mindy Smith’s “One Moment More,” Blake stood up during the applause and picked his way through the tables to the nearest door. He wore a sport coat, shirt and tie, jeans, and dress shoes. Back in the casino, he stubbed out his cigarette at one of the slot machines and proceeded to the glass doors that led to the parking lot. He surveyed the small lot quickly. The Boulder Strip was on his left, and a two-way middle lane in the lot led to a series of rows where the cars parked diagonally. His own brown sedan was in the rear, where he could jump the divider and head straight to the highway.

  A plainclothes cop was leaning on the hood of a red Caprice Classic near the middle lane, eyeing the people who came and went from the casino. Blake felt their eyes meet and experienced a moment’s uneasiness, wondering if the man recognized him. With a friendly nod, Blake sauntered past him, heading for his sedan. He didn’t look back, but he listened carefully for the sound of footsteps following him. None did.

  He got in his car and took out his cell phone. He waited ten minutes until he saw people flowing out of the casino, exiting the showroom, then dialed a number. Claire answered immediately. Even when she was talking, not singing, he loved her voice.

  “This is Detective Jonathan Stride,” he told her. “I work with Serena.”

  He could hear her breathing and imagined her still flushed from the show. “I see,” she said calmly.

  “We need to get you out of there right away, Claire.”

  “Where’s Serena?” she asked. “I thought the two of you were coming to pick me up.”

  Blake frowned. He didn’t have much time and had to think quickly. “Serena’s tied up. We don’t think we should wait. I’m outside in the casino parking lot now. It’s a red Caprice Classic in the second row. The sooner you can get here, the better.”

  “Is that safe?”

  “We’ll have people watching your every move.” He added, “Candidly, if this guy is here, we want to flush him out, not scare him away.”

  “In other words, you want to put me on a hook and let me wriggle like a worm?” she asked.

  Blake smiled. “Something like that”

  Claire waited a few beats before replying. “Okay. If that’s how you guys want to play it I’ll see you in five minutes.”

  Stride pulled into the crowded porte cochere in front of the Limelight. He drove past the convoy of cabs and parked at an angle on the sidewalk.

  “The show’s out,” he said.

  They got out of the Bronco. Stride used his shield to wave off a valet, and they marched inside, pushing past people who were on their way into the hot night air.

  “Are you sure about this?” Serena asked him.

  Stride knew what she meant. Sawhill had suggested that Claire stay with them while they hunted Blake. He thought: Sure about letting Claire into their home? Sure about letting her seduce his girlfriend in front of his face? No, he wasn’t sure.

  “We need to babysit her,” Stride said. “Sawhill’s right. It’ll be easiest to do it at our place.”

  “I didn’t think she’d agree,” Serena said. “She’s pretty independent.”

  “It must be your charm,” Stride told her, and watched Serena flush.

  The showroom was almost empty. Waitresses were gathering half-empty wineglasses and wet napkins from the tables. Serena flagged down Cordy, who was onstage near the performers’ door. He was talking up a member of Claire’s band, a two-tone blonde with a nose ring and a tattoo of an eagle on her upper arm.

  “Is Claire in back?” Serena called.

  “You got it, mama.”

  They clambered up onstage. “Any sign of Blake?” she asked.

  Cordy shook his head. “Nada.”

  “No one’s been in or out through this door except the band?” Stride asked.

  “You got it. I also put guys on the casino door and the emergency exit, checking anyone who tries to get back there. They gave us a staff list. Nobody gets in unless they’re on the list and they got a photo ID to back it up.”

  Stride nodded. He and Serena exited through the stage door, winding up on a small landing, and then took a few steps down to a dingy corridor. On his left, he could hear the clatter of china from the kitchen. Serena led him the other way, to a wooden door near the emergency exit. Taped to the door were a crudely cut paper star and a black-and-white publicity still of Claire. Stride had never seen her before, and he was a little disturbed to realize how attractive she was. Like Serena, she was weak-in-the-knees gorgeous, with teasing lips that were all about sex, and haunted eyes that made you want to take care of her.

  Serena knocked on the door. “Claire!”

  There was no answer. Serena knocked again, louder. “She could be in the shower,” she said, but Stride had a bad feeling. He tried the door handle. It was locked. He thumped heavily with his fist

  “Shit,” he murmured.

  He crouched down on his hands and knees and put the side of his head on the floor, so he could look through the crack under the door. He didn’t see what he was afraid he would
find-a body-but the dressing room looked empty and dark.

  “I’ll check the casino,” Stride said.

  Serena nodded. “I’ll do the other side. She may have gone out for a smoke.”

  Stride took off back down the hallway. He heard Serena bolt through the crash door behind him. He nimbly dodged a cocktail waitress who was emerging with a tray of drinks, then ducked briefly inside the warm, humid kitchen to make sure that Claire wasn’t there. He continued through double doors at the end of the hallway into the pinging noise of the casino.

  A house security man barely looked at him. Stride felt sick He grabbed the man’s shoulder.

  “Did Claire come through here?” he demanded.

  “Who?”

  “Claire Belfort The woman we’re all trying to keep alive.”

  The man shrugged. “Oh, her. The singer. Yeah, she came through here a minute ago.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah, just her.”

  “And you didn’t try to stop her?” Stride retorted.

  “Hey, no one said to stop anyone going out. I’m just here to make sure some guy doesn’t get in. Besides, she said she was meeting someone from Metro.”

  Stride began to sweat. “Who?”

  “Some guy named Stride.”

  Stride cursed and reached for his gun. “Which way did she go?’

  The guard pointed at the glass doors to the parking lot. “Through there.”

  Stride hid his gun under his sport coat and ran for the doors, attracting annoyed glances from the gamblers. There was still a crowd of people from the show clustered around the doors, spilling into the parking lot. Safety in numbers, Stride thought. Murder, chaos, an easy escape.

  He struggled past people to get to the door, feeling each second stretch out. He knew that seconds were all he had, the difference between life and death. In the glass, his reflection mocked him. He couldn’t see outside and see what was happening.

  Blake eased the body of the policeman into the back-seat of the Caprice Classic. He wiped his knife on the man’s pants and put it back in his pocket. He closed the car door and gave a broad smile to a couple getting into an SUV next to him.

  “Few too many,” he said, making a drinking motion with his hand.

  They nodded, uninterested.

  He strolled to the front of the car and watched the people emerging from the casino door. Women in clinging killer dresses. Men lighting up cigars and tugging at their collars in the sweaty weather. The couples strolled, in no hurry, holding hands, kissing, laughing. No one paid any attention to him.

  He kept his eyes on the door. Two minutes later, he saw her. Claire glided outside, her hair flying as the wind caught it. She stopped on the sidewalk, looking around with her blue eyes. She wore a long-sleeved red silk blouse and jeans, with high heels. Her skin glowed fresh under the light.

  She saw him standing by the car. He nodded at her, and she took a minute to size him up. Then she stepped off the curb, walking toward him. He stripped off his sunglasses and smiled. Their eyes met.

  She stopped, hesitating, still too far away.

  “It’s me,” he called.

  She began walking again, but slowly.

  Blake saw a flurry of motion over her shoulder, a man fighting to get through the casino door, and he scowled as he saw who it was. Stride. The real Stride. The detective had his hand inside his coat, hiding a gun. Blake began reaching for his gun, too.

  “Come on,” he urged Claire.

  She stopped again and followed his eyes. She looked over her shoulder and saw Stride. When she turned back again, she was frozen, paralyzed. Her eyes traveled up and down Blake’s body and came to rest on his hands.

  Shock and fear filled her face.

  Blake looked down at his hands and saw what she saw. Blood.

  Stride finally burst from the crowd onto the sidewalk. She couldn’t be far away. He studied each face as snippets of conversation floated past him.

  What a voice.

  She made me cry. When’s the last time that happened?

  Hot. God, she’s hot.

  He didn’t know Claire and hoped he’d recognize her from the photograph on the door. Did she even still look like that? Stride took a few steps onto the asphalt. He thought about calling her name but didn’t want to draw attention to her.

  A blonde brushed past him. He spun her around, then apologized when he saw it wasn’t Claire.

  “Jerk,” she hissed at him. He didn’t care.

  Where was she? His eyes traveled back across the crowd. Claire. Blake. He knew they were both here.

  She was meeting someone from Metro. A guy named Stride.

  He heard another fragment of conversation on his left, a low whisper.

  Is that her?

  Who?

  The singer.

  Stride followed their eyes. He saw her then, turning toward him, and his first impression was of strawberry blond hair catching the neon light, and then blue eyes reaching out to him. He felt a huge relief, but it only lasted a moment. Over her shoulder, he glimpsed a man with red hair, in a shirt and tie. His mind processed the man’s face and didn’t perceive a threat, but as he turned his attention to Claire, his head snapped back automatically.

  It wasn’t the face. It was the eyes.

  The eyes that had stared at him from the sketch.

  The man smiled at him. He knew. His hand was reaching into his jacket.

  Stride ran straight at them. “Claire! Get down!”

  She froze for an instant, torn between the two men, then ducked behind a parked car and rolled away. Stride drew his gun into plain sight and squatted in firing stance, both hands on the barrel, but he was too slow. Blake moved like a ghost. The man dropped to the ground, spun to his left, and came back up with his own gun ready to fire. All Stride could do was leap to the asphalt, feeling his clothes tear and his shoulder burn on the pavement. A rain of bullets streaked past him and into the casino window, shattering it into popcorn shards.

  Bedlam erupted around him. People dropped to the ground, and others ran for the street. Screams wailed through the parking lot.

  “Police!” Stride shouted. “Everyone take cover and stay down!”

  He stole a glance at the lot and saw bodies scrambling between the cars. Blake had vanished. He crab-walked to the first row in the lot, where Claire was sitting by the rear tire of a truck, her arms wrapped around her knees, her eyes staring vacantly at the ground. He came up and put a hand over hers.

  “I’m Stride,” he said. “Don’t move. Stay right here.”

  “There was blood,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “On his hands.”

  Stride swore. He risked a glance through the windows of the truck and didn’t see anyone. The people in the lot had disappeared, as if they had been lifted off the planet, some hiding in the rows of cars, others heading for the Boulder Strip. There was still a sea of potential hostages.

  “Stay here,” he told her again.

  He slipped between the cars and darted across the open row without drawing fire. He recognized the red Caprice in front of him as a Metro undercover vehicle, and he rose up high enough to look inside. A body was slumped in back, half off the seat onto the floor of the car. Stride pulled the door open, and blood dripped out, puddling on the ground and staining his pants. He grabbed the man’s wrist, feeling for a pulse, but there was nothing.

  Stride backed away. He heard footsteps behind him, running for the opposite side of the lot. When he twisted around, he caught a glimpse of Serena, just as another series of gunshots exploded from the rear of the lot. He watched her dive behind the cars and saw sparks as the bullets bounced on metal.

  “Serena!” he screamed.

  There was an excruciating pause. “I’m okay, I’m okay!” she shouted back.

  Stride felt his heart start beating again. He ran to the next car in the row and rose up behind the hood in firing position. He spotted Blake three rows away and go
t off two shots before the man ducked under cover. His bullets took out the windshield of a Cadillac.

  Sawhill would chew out his ass for that.

  He moved again, using a minivan for cover. When he tried to cross the next row, Blake spotted him, and another flood of bullets chased him across the open space of pavement. Just as he reached safety, he felt a stinging pain in his chest and looked down to see a two-inch tear in his shirt that was oozing red. He tore his shirt open and concluded that he hadn’t been shot, just cut by a metal fragment ricocheted off one of the cars. Even so, it hurt like hell.

  He heard the muffled chiming of his cell phone in his pocket. He retrieved it and heard Serena’s voice. She was whispering.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Slightly damaged, but nothing serious,” Stride said.

  “Backup’s on its way. We should have ten cars here in two minutes. If we can keep him pinned down, we can surround him.”

  “We’ve also got a shitload of civilians.” Stride listened to the silence and didn’t like it. “Can you get over to Claire?”

  “I think so.”

  “Do it I’ll cover you. Then stay with her. I don’t want this guy doubling back on us.”

  Stride scooted to the end of the Grand Am he was crouching behind. He came up in firing position, wincing as the skin on his chest tore further. He balanced his elbows on the trunk of the car. Behind him, he heard Serena running across the middle lane, and he saw a flash of movement a few rows ahead of him. He couldn’t tell if it was Blake, so he fired high in the air. The person went down again.

  Serena shouted, “Clear!”

  Stride ran, dodging between the cars, his body bent over as he sped through three rows. Blake couldn’t be far away.

  Blake was low on ammunition, and he could hear sirens in the distance. Lots of sirens. In another minute, the Limelight would be overrun with police, and even though he knew he could escape in the confusion, it would be ugly and violent.

  He saw the female detective, Serena, bolt for the opposite side of the lot, where Claire was hiding. Stride gave her cover. Blake didn’t have a shot, and he knew tonight’s plan was a bust. Claire was out of reach.