“I want to go in with you.”
We were parked outside Nighthawks, still in my car. Truth was, I would rather he came in, too-you never knew what he might notice. But I had a feeling it might not be a good idea. “You see, Darcy… this place… this is a grown-up place.”
“All those places where girls died were grown-up places.”
“Yeah, but this is… this is…” I took a deep breath. “Darcy, has your dad ever… had that talk with you?”
“My dad talks to me all the time. Sometimes I wish he wouldn’t talk to me so much.”
“Yeah, but has he ever talked to you about… the birds and the bees?”
His eyes widened. “I’ve read lots and lots of books about birds and bees. Did you know that the hummingbird is the fastest-”
“That’s not what I mean, Darcy.” I took a big breath. “See, Darcy… this is a sex club.”
He looked at me, then at the building, then back at me. “Do you mean-they do sex in there?”
“Yes. I mean, probably not. Certainly not all the-”
“I have never seen anyone do sex. Can I go in with you and see it?”
I pressed the palm of my hand against my forehead. “Are you sure you’ll be okay with this, Darcy?”
“Of course. This is not like gong to all those places where people got killed. Killing is bad. But I think doing sex is a good thing. Do you think doing sex is a good thing?”
I popped open the car door. “C’mon, Casanova.”
“Good afternoon,” the woman in black said as I stepped through the door. “I am the mistress of pain.”
“Stow it,” I replied, flashing my ID. “I’m the mistress of pain in the ass.”
She blocked my path, pressing up against me. “You prefer to be dominant?”
“I prefer to get what I need without any hassles.”
Her fingers toyed with my collar. “You should open yourself to new experiences. I could-”
I slapped her hand away. “Let’s get one thing straight from the start. If you think you’re going to intimidate me with your lesbian chic bullshit, forget it.”
Darcy was behind me, staring with a total absence of subtlety. But of course subtlety was a personality quality he didn’t have. The mistress was wearing brown riding pants, very tight, and a black leather bustier top. Not hard to guess where Darcy was staring.
“Do you have trouble breathing?” he asked. “Because it looks like you might have trouble breathing.”
The mistress pointed her riding crop at him and winked. “Breathing is overrated.”
“Do they make you wear that?” he continued. “Are you being punished because you misbehaved?”
“No, dear.”
“I’ve never seen a shirt that had to be tied up in the front like that. Do you like to be all tied up like that?”
She turned her withering expression my way. “One of your crack detectives?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. I have a few questions for you.”
“I’ve already spoken to several-”
“You haven’t spoken to me. I have some additional queries.”
“Well, I have a business to run.”
“I can change that.”
She jammed that crop under my chin, forcing it up. “You like to play rough. Is that what you’re into?”
“You don’t have any idea what I’m into.”
“I’ve been at this a long time. I can tell what a client wants in about thirty seconds.”
We were practically nose to nose. “I’m not a client, and if you don’t cooperate, I’ll send Vice over to shut you down for good.”
“Bitch.”
“Lady, you don’t know what bitch is till I get started. So are you going to talk to me, or what?”
“Well…” She glanced beyond the red curtain, down a corridor. “These are business hours.”
“And what business would that be? Nothing illegal, I hope.”
“Of course not.”
“I would certainly hate to find out there was”-I made a little gasp-“prostitution on the premises, because that’s still not legal in Vegas.”
“Contact dancing is permitted. At least for now.”
She was right. Despite Vegas’s rep as Sin City, prostitution had never been legal here. Customers had to leave town and go to joints like the famed Chicken Ranch for that. For it to be legal, anyway. In reality, prostitution was not uncommon. A lot of it passed under the guise of “outcalls” or “room dancing.” Escort services with girls who met you at your hotel room fronted a lot of it, too. After a 2002 law change, lap dancing became technically legal in Clark County, but dancers were not permitted to touch or sit on the customer’s genital area, which some would have said was the definition of a lap dance. What many people didn’t realize was that the Las Vegas Strip-and most of the clubs on it, including this one-were outside the city limits. Municipal officials had no jurisdiction.
“Is that what you give your customers?”
“In part. We’re about fantasy fulfillment.”
Darcy probably only understood a tenth of what was being said, but he was still red in the face, and I knew it was only going to get worse. “Darce, why don’t you take a stroll around the premises while we talk? See if you can spot anything the detectives missed.”
I could tell he didn’t want to leave me, but he did as I asked. If only my previous partners had been so compliant.
This chick was way over the top, but by Vegas standards, she was a perfectly average, ordinary working girl. After all, Vegas was the one city where a girl with no training, no education, and not incredibly bright could still make a good living, own a house, raise kids. Thanks to the Culinary Union, even nongaming cocktail waitresses got nine bucks an hour, plus tips, which was where the real action was. Gaming waitresses got fourteen. Where else could a cocktail waitress afford a mortgage and car payments? Where else could a high school dropout park cars and make enough to send his kids to college? Call girls-even run-of-the-mill ones-took home anywhere from five hundred to three thousand bucks a night, depending upon what exactly they were willing to do. Anywhere else in the world, this woman would be sleeping under a bridge in a cardboard box. In Vegas, she was the mistress of pain.
Hey, it wasn’t called Sin City because of Wayne Newton.
“What can you tell me about Lenore Johnson?”
“Nice girl,” she answered. “Did whatever she was asked. I like that in an employee.”
“How long had she been here?”
“About three months.”
“Know anything about her background?”
“She came from Kansas, poor girl. Father was a police officer. She didn’t do drugs-something of a rarity in this field. She was well mannered, respectful. Didn’t have the attitude a lot of my girls get. She was trusting.”
Which was probably what killed her. “Did she do outcalls? For sex?”
“Not to my knowledge. That would be illegal, you know.”
“Yeah, but did she do them?”
“I don’t think so. She was a good girl.”
“But she was working here. The night she disappeared.”
“Yes, and two of my girls saw her leave with a customer. One of them actually referred her to him. She blames herself.”
“She shouldn’t. He picked his victim based on her name and her appearance, not any referral.”
“Really?” For the first time, her mistress-of-pain façade cracked a bit. “I’ll tell her that. I hope she takes some comfort from it.”
“I’ll want to talk to all the, um, employees who saw this guy.”
“I’ll assemble them. But you won’t get much. They can’t describe his face.”
“Surely if they saw him right here-”
“But my girls are trained never to look a customer in the eyes. The entire face is to be avoided, as much as possible. We don’t want attachments forming. It clouds the judgment. In this line of work, it’s important to retain a certa
in professional detachment.”
Just my damn luck. My only eyewitnesses are sex merchants who’ve been trained not to look at people’s faces. “I’ll still want to talk to them just as soon-”
I was cut off by a piercing scream from down the corridor. I raced past the mistress, fumbling for my weapon, remembering that I wasn’t allowed to have one anymore. Damn!
Another cry, this one even more terrified than the first. I tracked it to a closed door, grabbed the knob, flung it open.
There were two women in the bed, both stark naked. The one on top, the one with the surgically enhanced knockers who was holding a huge dildo in her right hand, appeared to be the trained professional. The skinny girl who had pulled the covers up to her neck was undoubtedly the customer.
Darcy was on the floor at the side of the bed, hunched over in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. He was making strange nonsense noises, babbling, whimpering.
The mistress came in behind me. “What happened, Kimberly?”
The silicone princess dropped her equipment. “We were just-”
The mistress shot her a harsh warning look.
“-having a conversation,” she continued. “And this simp comes rushing into the room.”
Darcy looked as if he were having a total meltdown. I’d never seen him like this. He began pounding his head against the floor. I ran to his side and wrapped my arms around him. “Darcy-what happened?”
He flapped his hands, rubbed the sides of his head. “Did you think that one was in trouble? Because I thought she was in trouble.”
“But why-”
He couldn’t stop rocking. “She was screaming. Screaming real loud. I thought the big one was hurting her.”
I closed my eyes. “So you rushed in to help?”
“And I saw she wasn’t wearing any clothes, and I remember the bad man took all the girls’ clothes away, and I tried to help, and she hit me with-with-that thing.” He was hand-flapping with a frenzy. His voice was never well modulated, but now it sounded as if he was shouting. “Why did she do that? Why did she hurt me? I don’t think people should hurt each other!”
I took his wrists and tried to get him under control. “It was a misunderstanding, Darcy. She wasn’t hurting the other woman. She was just-”
Okay, where did I go from there? Even if O’Bannon had had that little talk with his son, would it have covered activities such as the one he’d just stumbled upon?
“Let’s go back to the car, Darcy,” I said. “We’ll get a custard or something.”
“Why would she scream if she wasn’t hurting? I screamed last night when I stubbed my toe because it hurt and she was screaming and she didn’t have any clothes on and-”
“Come on,” I said firmly. “We’re leaving.”
I made a few excuses to the mistress and got him the hell out of there. Damn it all. I should have seen that coming. Maybe Granger had been right. Maybe I didn’t have any business dragging Darcy to these horrible places. All kinds of traumatic things might be going on inside his head that I knew nothing about. I had enough problems without playing with fire of this magnitude. O’Bannon’s autistic son. Christ, what was I thinking?
Those are bad girls and I know they are and they were doing bad things. Bad people go to hell and I don’t want to go to hell. Mr. Strickland said that we have to behave ourselves and if we didn’t we’d go to hell and he took me by the hand away from the others and told me he knew what I was thinking that I had these ideas and all the boys like me did and we couldn’t control them but I had to or I would be a dirty boy and I would go to hell. Bad girls! And the smell was so yucky on the big girl with the mole under her right knee and the holes all up her arm. Like the smell of Mommy’s dishwashing gloves when Mommy was still alive.
I hope Susan doesn’t stop taking me places even though I had a fit and Dad told me to control myself but I couldn’t help it and I wanted to rip my hair out but I didn’t and I hope Susan doesn’t stop taking me because I was bad but I’m afraid she will because she has been smelling really funny bad and it isn’t funny and Dad wouldn’t let me read the D. H. Lawrence books because he said they would be bad for me and I think this is all scary and I wish people wouldn’t do those things to other people. Bad girls! Bad girls!
Midnight. Most of the operatives had gone home, but Dr. Spencer and several others were still in the hotel ballroom. The phone rang incessantly. He had an hour to go before his shift ended.
“This is really something, isn’t it?” Harv said with his usual conversational panache.
“Did you have a specific this in mind,” he replied, “or just a general this?”
“This. Everything.” He waved his arm about. “The whole works. Can you believe this operation was pieced together by one woman? What a pistol.”
“A… pistol?”
“Yeah, you know. A hot tamale. Proactive. Ballsy.”
“I don’t see that her efforts have produced much in the way of results.”
“Give her time, Ernie. They will. Everyone knows it. She must have that sick son of a bitch quaking in his boots.”
That might be something of an exaggeration, all things considered. “You seem to be enjoying this assignment.” Which might explain why Herb was still hanging around, even though his shift had ended half an hour ago.
“ ’Course I am. Didn’t I tell you I always wanted to be a cop?”
“Yes, but you weren’t and you still aren’t. You’re a security officer temporarily assigned to a private room. No one here is a cop.”
“I’m a lot closer than I was bagging pickpockets in the blackjack pit. I mean, you can feel the excitement in here. You can breathe it. Makes my whole body tingle. Hell, I’m having a moment as we speak.”
That was really more information than I required, he thought ruefully.
“On this detail, we’re a part of something that matters. The whole world is watching this investigation.”
“The whole world is watching the police investigation. This gang is little better than a well-financed vigilante squad.”
Harv ran a hand through his russet curls. “You’re pretty damn down on this operation. But I know you volunteered for it. Why? If you dislike it so much, why don’t you go back to policing the slot machines?”
Well, there was a very good answer to that question, but he wouldn’t be sharing it with Harv. “I need the money.”
“That bonus in the pay envelope was pretty good, wasn’t it? I may be able to take Elaine on that Halloween holiday she wanted.” He took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped it across his brow. “No disrespect to my Elaine, but Dr. Spencer looks pretty damn good for her age, doesn’t she?”
He made a slight clicking noise with his tongue. “Too much hair. And the plastic surgery was a mistake.”
“Yeah, like you’d kick her out of bed for eating crackers.” He laughed. “The ladies are tough on you little guys, aren’t they?” He gave his co-worker a gentle jab that was not returned.
A few minutes later, a trim black man with a cell phone in each hand approached them. “Which one of you two officers is in charge?”
“I am,” Harv chirped.
He burned. Was that because you’re so incredibly tall? “We’re both of equal rank and stature on this security detail,” he replied.
“Well, the doctor needs someone to drive her to the airport.”
Behind them, Dr. Spencer approached with her usual no-nonsense deliberateness. “Hello again, Ernie. Car’s parked out back, same lot you people use. These bodyguards can get me to the parking lot. But I need a driver. So which of you lucky boys is going to do the honors?”
He cut Harv off before he could speak. “I would be pleased to escort you, ma’am.”
“Sure you wouldn’t mind? It isn’t an official part of your job description.”
“That doesn’t matter. I would be honored.”
“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind, let’s be off.”
“Maybe I should be the one to go with her,” Harv cut in.
He felt his jaw clenching. Steady, old boy. Steady…
“Well, you’re still on duty, aren’t you?” Harv added.
“My shift ends at one.”
“And we don’t want to leave the door unguarded.”
“But if the good doctor is leaving now-”
“I got off half an hour ago. I’ll take her.”
“I could still-”
“No, he’s right,” Spencer said. She was looking at him, staring with an intensity he had not felt before. Did she… see something? Was he too anxious? Was it possible she suspected? “It makes more sense for him to go.”
“Yes, of course,” he said, acquiescing as gracefully as possible. “Take care of the good doctor, Harv. You never know what might happen out there.”
Infernal imp, he thought, swearing to himself as he pushed his way into the break room. He’d almost had the woman exactly where he wanted her, where he needed her. A moment of vulnerability handed to him like a gift. Until Harv, with his inveterate imbecility, pursuing his infinite dreams with his infinite ego, intervened.
He poured himself a cup of the hotel’s mediocre coffee. In truth, he did not feel overly disappointed. Was it possible his heart wasn’t in this work? It had seemed important, but there was no denying that it was not in the plan. And for that matter, the plan had failed to produce its desired results. Perhaps this was a signal that it was time to rest and reconsider. Perhaps he should take a leave of absence, at least until the TV doctor lost her zeal. He could travel, read. And then perhaps-
“Why have you betrayed me?”
The voice was deep and reverberating, shaking him to his core.
“Why have you betrayed me?”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“Why have you strayed?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“What did I tell you to do?” The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, from no one place. “What did I tell you to do?”
“I made three offerings. Just as the texts prescribed.”
“And were you successful?”
“No. Nothing happened.”
“What have you learned from this?”
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