Road Carnage (Selena book 4)

by Greg Barth

  “Oh come on. I’m not a nice person. I took advantage of that guy, and you know it.”

  “Still. You didn’t have to do it. You could have just taken the information and ran.”

  “I guess I wanted to.” I shrugged. “Besides, he was going to figure out who I was. I figured a blowjob would keep his mind off the seventy-five thousand dollars.”

  “Oh, sure. Right. There’s no such thing as a seventy-five-thousand-dollar blowjob.”

  I turned to her. My jaw dropped. “Chris Friday!”

  “What?”

  “Oh my god.”

  “What? Jesus, what?”

  “Oh my freaking god.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve never given a blowjob. Have you? Not once.”

  She sat there, mouth agape, a loss for words. Somehow her bruised face managed to blush.

  “Holy shit, girl. We get you outta that neck brace, I’ll show you how.”

  “You…most certainly will not,” she said.

  “Now, I recommend you start small, and yes, I am talking size here. But—now this part’s important—once you start, it’s considered bad form to stop. I mean, you’ll know when to stop. Just don’t stop until then.”

  “We are not having this conversation.” She took another drink of whiskey and passed me the bottle. “There’s no way I’m ever doing that. And you need to get on the highway here.” She pointed to the right.

  I couldn’t stop smiling. I took a swig of Jack Daniels. Swished it around. Lit a cigarette. I turned up the volume on the CD player. Girls Got Rhythm bled from the speakers as I pointed the car north. My foot got a little heavy on the gas pedal. I shook my hair around to the music—then felt bad because Chris couldn’t move her neck—but fuck it. After the day I’d had, it felt good to be alive.

  TWENTY

  THE CLUB WAS by the river, on a dark street south of the city. The dreary, urban skyline loomed in the rainy distance. Clouds hung misty and low in the sky. The street pavement was shiny black with rainwater.

  A nasty night.

  The Platinum Palace was a white building with a long parking lot in back. Pink and purple neon twisted in the form of buxom babes lined the outside walls. A purple awning wrapped the building.

  It was tacky and nauseating, but also felt like home to me. I’d spent a lot of time in places like this, and I knew how to command the attention of a group of men when on stage.

  But I hoped we’d get little attention this time.

  I parked by the dark edge of the parking lot, near some trees, checked my face in the mirror. Chris stared at me. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings—her face was a mess—so I flipped the mirror back up.

  “What’s the plan?” Chris said.

  “I’ll figure it out as we go along.”

  We got out of the car and crossed the parking lot. Being there, in that element, made me want a fat line of coke in the worst way. I was pretty sure I could find some inside.

  A door to the side was labeled NOT AN ENTRANCE. EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND. A couple of girls stood on either side of the doorway smoking. They were both better dressed that what I expected to find inside.

  We stepped through the main entrance and into an L-shaped hallway. A guy at the end had the entrance blocked with a wooden barstool. Nice turnstile.

  “Hello, ladies,” he said. “Who are you with tonight?”

  “Just us,” I said.

  “Well, that’s too bad. We don’t allow women in the club unless they’re with a male customer. It’s our policy. I can recommend another place.”

  I pointed a thumb back at Chris. “She’s a man.” I threw a hand up next to my mouth, arched an eyebrow, leaned in, and whispered to him, “You wanna see it?”

  “Nice try,” he said. “We ain’t gonna get shut down because of whores coming in here trying to peddle their twats.”

  “Do you know how many times in just the last two days we’ve been falsely accused of being whores?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t act like whores.”

  I turned to Chris. “Looks like you’re gonna learn how sooner than I thought.”

  Her face scrunched up. “Are you serious.” It wasn’t a question.

  I turned back to the guy. “Look. Can I pay extra for us and get past you? We’re not here to cause any trouble. Just looking for some wholesome entertainment.”

  He frowned. “Tell you what. Give me a hundred bucks. I’ll send a guy out in a minute that you can come in with. I’ve at least gotta keep up appearances.”

  I slipped him the cash, and we went out to the parking lot. By the time I’d finished a cigarette, a guy stepped out to walk in with us. He looked like he’d had a few drinks.

  “Fucking Draconian rules here, man,” I said to him.

  “Yeah. They don’t let you touch nobody, if that’s what you mean.”

  There were a lot of girls inside the boys’ club, and they all wore next to nothing. Or absolutely nothing.

  I led Chris to the bar and ordered beers for us.

  The club had two levels. A main stage on the bottom floor. Pole. Tip rail. Lots of guys and dollar bills down there. Laps getting ridden.

  Stairs led to an upper level. The edge of the upper level was open, and a metal rail wrapped around. There was a smaller bar up there and a second dance stage.

  I glanced around. Didn’t see Scott anywhere. Could be in the bathroom or a private dance room.

  I pointed upstairs. “We’ll go up there,” I told Chris. “That way we can see him and maybe he doesn’t see us.”

  Chris gestured to her neck brace and black eyes. “You seriously think I don’t stand out?”

  “Good point. You may want to keep your back to the entrance and let me watch for him.”

  “He’ll know you, though.”

  “And you won’t recognize him. There’s just no other way.”

  We went up the stairs and settled in at a table where I could keep an eye on who came and went below.

  I watched the dancers. Got a feel for the layout. A girl wearing only a half t-shirt and g-string walked by. She looked strung out but holding it together. I caught her eye.

  She came over to me. “You want a dance, sweetie?”

  “Actually, do you have a ladies’ room?”

  “I gotta go too. Follow me.”

  “Be right back,” I said to Chris.

  She took me around the corner away from the bar. “We don’t get a lot of women, so the ladies’ room ain’t much.”

  She led me to a room the size of a closet. A single toilet sat in the middle along the wall, no partition. A sink by the door.

  “Can you hook me up?” I said.

  “What do you need?”

  “Coke?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ve got some of the loudest weed you’ve ever tried too.”

  “I’ll take both. Coke for now. Weed for later.”

  She told me her price and I handed her the bills.

  “I’ll swing by your table with it. I’ll sit down, give you a dance, leave a cigarette pack at the table when I leave. Your stuff will be in there. Your friend need anything? She looks sweet but kinda banged up.”

  “You got any Percocet?”

  “Oxy.”

  I nodded. Slipped her more cash. “How does your private room work?”

  She told me the cost and the protocol.

  “If I want to pay for a guy to get to go back there without him knowing who did it, can I do that?”

  “Sure. Just wave me down. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  She reached for the door knob but hesitated before opening. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. I’ve totally gotta piss.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  EVERYONE WAS WATCHING the blonde dancer on the lower stage. Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl” gave context to her moves, but it was the blonde who commanded attention.

  She was perfect—long, healthy hair, tall, l
ean, beautifully proportioned. She had great ink on her legs. She wore nothing except pink kneepads. These weren’t the kind of pads you see jocks wearing on the field. These were slender, sexy, dancer’s knee pads.

  The tip rail was covered with singles. She’d make her way to each viewer, rake in the bills with her fingers, let them fall to the dance floor, and mouth a few words to them. Then she’d follow up with a special pose or flip around on the pole. It took me a bit, but I was finally able to read her lips. “Ass, pussy, or pole trick?” she said to each man in turn.

  The coke had me in a good place.

  Chris was loose and comfortable from a combination of OxyContin and beer.

  I was so entranced by the girl on stage, the music, and my buzz that I almost missed Scott’s entrance.

  He wore dark pants and a white business shirt. The shirt was wrinkled, his hair a bit long, and he hadn’t shaved. He sat by a table and ordered a drink. His eyes were glued to the blonde.

  Before Rob Zombie finished singing about the living dead girl, Scott made his way over to the tip rail. He chose ass. I wasn’t surprised. The dancer was a master of pole tricks, but Scott always struck me as the kind of guy that’d pay a buck to look at someone’s asshole.

  She bent over for him. Scott cocked his head to the side, squinted his eyes, and tightened his lips.

  “That’s it, fucko,” I mumbled. “Take it all in. Enjoy while you can.”

  Chris looked my way.

  I nodded. “That’s our guy.”

  She took a drink of beer.

  The song ended. The dancer left. Marilyn Manson’s version of “Personal Jesus” filled the air. Chris bounced to the music.

  I made a mental note to get her some more pain killers before we did whatever it was we were going to do.

  My girlfriend came back up to the second level. She went to the bar, talked to a guy briefly. I watched her until she felt my stare and looked my way.

  I leaned my head toward the ladies’ room.

  She nodded.

  This time I led the way back to the bathroom.

  Once the door was closed, I blew the rest of the coke off the back of my hand.

  “Need some more?”

  “Yeah. More everything. Pills. Coke. More weed if it’s as loud as you say.” I handed her the bills to cover it. I peeled off five more hundreds. “I want to buy two thirty-minute sessions for the guy downstairs. The one with the white shirt that needs ironing? Handsome guy. Dark hair.”

  “You want to buy him a VIP?”

  “Yeah. Two full sessions. With the blonde. Kneepads?”

  “Ashley.”

  “The other hundred is for you. I don’t want anybody noticing he’s gone until at least thirty minutes have passed.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. The lady I’m with, we’re buying an hour’s VIP with you.” I handed her more hundreds.

  “It costs double if there’s two of you.”

  I stared at her.

  “Hey, I’ve gotta pay rent, you know.”

  I handed her more cash. “Another thing. I’m paying you for an hour. We won’t need an hour to do what I’m going to do with this guy. The girl I’m traveling with? She’s had a very bad day.”

  “She looks pretty rough.”

  “Yeah. So me and you, we’re going to make sure she has a good time before we leave here.”

  “She don’t look ready for that yet, if you ask me.”

  “Of course she’s not ready. She’s suffered serious trauma today. Nobody can just shake it off the first time. But I need her—and I don’t mean some psycho version either—I need to see if she’s got a reset button.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “She fell off the horse. We’re gonna get her right back up on it.”

  “That—”

  “Yeah. I fucking know. Costs extra. Shit.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE VIP ROOMS were down a dark hallway on the lower level. Four of them. Only one other was in use, so I figured Scott and Ashley were in there enjoying champagne, him looking at her asshole.

  I hoped he’d stay interested for a good while.

  We slipped into our room with my new friend.

  “What are we doing?” Chris asked me.

  “Relaxing a minute before we take off.”

  The room was small. Mirrored walls. Small stage with a pole. A long, black vinyl couch faced the pole.

  “You can call me Jasmine,” our dancer said.

  Jasmine sat against one arm of the couch. She slipped off her t-shirt exposing her breasts. She tousled her medium length hair. Jasmine looked good in just panties. She spread her legs and patted the couch in front of her. “Sit here,” she said. “I’ll see if I can loosen you up.”

  Chris took a seat between Jasmine’s legs.

  “Okay, lean back,” Jasmine said.

  I took a pipe out of my purse, packed it with weed. I lit it, took a long draw, and passed it to Jasmine along with the lighter.

  Jasmine held the bowl to Chris’s lips and put fire to it.

  We passed the bowl a few times. Once it started to hit me, I backed off. I’d need to keep my wits about me for what was to come. I didn’t worry about driving so much, just the part that would come before.

  After a few hits, Chris started giggling. I watched as she rubbed her arms.

  Jasmine looked to me.

  I held up a finger, telling her to wait a second. I took out one of the Oxys, crushed it under the side of my lighter on the edge of the small stage, and scooped up the powder in my fingernail. I put my finger in front of one of Chris’s nostrils.

  “Deep sniff, baby,” I said.

  Jasmine pressed her other nostril closed.

  Chris inhaled. She made a face, eyes opening wide.

  “Sniff again.”

  She did. Then she sneezed. I watched as the dreamy look returned to her face. She leaned back against Jasmine, nestling her face into Jasmine’s neck.

  I nodded.

  Jasmine rubbed her fingers against Chris’s breasts. I watched her nipples stiffen through her shirt.

  Chris tried to push her head back, but the neck brace didn’t allow much movement. Her mouth opened.

  I got on the floor in front of the couch. Slid my hands up Chris’s bare thighs. Once my hands were under her skirt, she tried to push me away.

  “No,” Chris said.

  “Baby, I’ll be so gentle with you,” I said. “I won’t make anything that’s sore hurt any more. I promise.”

  She moved her hands.

  I flipped the front of her skirt up, pushed her legs apart.

  Chris struggled with the neck brace.

  “Here,” Jasmine said. “Let me help.” She peeled the Velcro off and set the neck brace aside.

  Chris turned her head further and kissed Jasmine on the lips.

  Jasmine pulled Chris’s shirt up, exposed her breasts. She cupped them in her hands and rubbed the nipples with her fingers.

  I pushed Chris’s underwear to the side and leaned in.

  I heard giggles from the room next door. Scott was apparently enjoying his gift from a mysterious stranger.

  The man had no idea how much I was going to fuck his shit up.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I PARTED THE curtain and stepped into the room. I held the pistol in my hand, hidden in the folds of my short skirt.

  Ashley sat straddling Scott’s lap. She had her hands on his shoulders, her breasts pressed into his face, and her bare ass grinding against his crotch.

  “This is a private party,” she said, without looking to see who was interrupting.

  “Scott Howard,” I said.

  He looked over her shoulder. His eyes widened, and he tried to push Ashley off.

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  “So you remember me?”

  Ashley dismounted and turned to see me. The pistol got her attention, and she slid down to the far end of the couch.

&nb
sp; “Fucking Selena,” Scott said.

  “I thought you’d be glad to see me, Scott. After all, you guys have been looking for me a long time.”

  “Not me. I don’t do that anymore.”

  “If you want to get dressed, Ashley, you can.”

  She nodded, picked up her shirt and slipped it on. She grabbed her panties.

  “I like your kneepads,” I said. “Very hot.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  To Scott, I said, “I can let you get back to your party. I think you’ve still got some time left.”

  “You…you’re not…going to shoot me?”

  “You’ve got options, Scott. Getting shot is one of those options.”

  He swallowed.

  “Another option is you tell me where I can find Harding. And I mean where to find him before he’s back in the office.”

  “What makes you think I’d know anything about him?”

  “Because I don’t think you’re stupid, Scott. So don’t act that way. I won’t tolerate it.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not telling you shit.”

  “Why do you still feel loyalty to him, after all you guys went through?”

  “You’ll kill him. You’ve killed so many already. I won’t be responsible for his death. He’s a good man.”

  “What makes you think I’d want to kill a good man?”

  “Because I know what he did to you.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What you did to me.”

  “It’s routine,” Scott said. “Hell, everybody does it. They do it to bad people because it works.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re saying ‘no’ to option one?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Ashley, I’m going to step outside with Scott for a bit. Now, I’ve paid you for sixty minutes in this room. I expect you to stay in this room for the full sixty minutes. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  I fished out more cash and passed it to her. Her slender hands didn’t tremble a bit when she took it.

  “You didn’t see me tonight, did you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’d love to hear you say it.”

  “No. I didn’t see you.”

  “Good. And after his dance, Scott left out the emergency exit, and you didn’t see him after that. Right?”