Tough Guy: A Hero Club Novel

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  “Well, where is she?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I’m asking her friends and the people she worked with.”

  “She’s probably auditioning for a production down there. You should hit all the talent scouts. Maybe you’re being replaced.”

  She did not just say that.

  My mother continued on, oblivious that she’d fired an arrow into my gut. “Get a newspaper and find out who’s hiring for a lead dancer.”

  “No one uses paper anymore.” That was the most scathing thing I could come up with.

  “I’m sure now that she’s no longer bartending . . .”

  Stripping, I corrected mentally.

  “It’s only a matter of time before she calls in to tell us that she’s booked a new gig. Really, Jackie, you should have hustled more for your sister.”

  “Give me the phone,” Miles said, reaching for it.

  No, I mouthed at him and scooted away so he couldn’t take it from me. “Well, I’m glad you’re not worried. I guess I’ll go back to New York.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m going to dare to do whatever I want.” That wasn’t much better, but at least this time my attitude got through to her and her tone switched from strident to cajoling.

  “Jackie, your sister isn’t good with contracts or numbers. She needs you to stop people from taking advantage of her. Find her before she signs away all of her rights. Lisa is an artist. All she wants to do is dance. She doesn’t care about the mundane things like we do.”

  “I’m losing cell service,” I lied. “Gotta go. I’ll call you when I hear something.” I hung up. I wanted to turn it off, but I didn’t dare in case Lisa or someone who knew where she was called. I stared at it with trepidation. A few minutes clicked past, but Mom didn’t call back. Sighing, I tossed the phone back into my purse.

  “If you don’t mind me saying so, your mom’s a bitch.”

  “And if I do mind?” I didn’t, and it actually felt good to have someone take my side against my mother instead of trying to explain her behavior away.

  “Then I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your mom’s a bitch.”

  “Third time is the charm.”

  “She’s a fucking bitch.”

  “Thanks for that.” I wrapped my arms around his and laid my head against his shoulder.

  “I’m sensing the room service mood has been broken,” Miles said.

  “A little bit, yeah.”

  “Dee lived with her mother. If you’re not all mothered out, we could try there and see if we get lucky before getting lucky.”

  I kissed his arm because that coaxed a small smile out of me. “That sounds like a good idea.”

  “Has she always been like this?”

  I nodded. “Sometimes she’s worse. Usually I can ignore her. I’ve had to grow a thick skin when it comes to her blatant favoritism of Lisa. Sometimes though,” I said. “She still makes me feel like crying.”

  “If she was in my club, I’d toss her out on her ass.”

  “I think I’d pay money to see that.”

  “Why does she favor Lisa?”

  “My therapist thinks she’s living vicariously through my sister. Mom’s always been in love with the theater, but she didn’t have the talent. Lisa was a prodigy and I was merely good. We didn’t have a lot of money, so it made sense to her to promote Lisa.”

  “While you got left holding the bag?”

  “Lisa’s bags, yes. And later her calendar and her bookings.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Well, at first I had no choice. But after I moved out, I guess it was just habit. And the job pays well. It was numbingly boring and gut wrenching to make her dreams come true. I compartmentalized a lot of it.”

  “You locked yourself away from your life?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You make it sound so dramatic, but yeah, in a way. I guess that’s why it feels so good to be so trashy in Las Vegas.”

  “You’re one of the best dancers I’ve ever seen.”

  Blinking back tears, I clutched his arm tighter. “I needed to hear that.”

  “You know, maybe you should see if there are any shows hiring.”

  “You think Lisa’s auditioning to be a showgirl?”

  He snorted. “If she is, she won’t last past her first audition. She couldn’t do four sets of three minutes every hour without having to ice her knee.”

  “Then what would I find out at a cattle call?”

  “You could find out that your mother doesn’t know shit about talent and that you could become a Las Vegas showgirl.”

  I giggled nervously. He had to be joking. I looked up at his face. He was completely serious. “But I can’t get time off from my job in New York to work as a showgirl.”

  “So don’t take the job.”

  Don’t take the job? Was he nuts? I had wanted to be a Rockette from the very first Christmas I saw them dance at Rockefeller Center. A Vegas showgirl complete with feathered harness and the glittery body suits was the epitome of professional dancer to me.

  “How much do they make?”

  “About 40K a year, I think.”

  I couldn’t live on that in Manhattan, but maybe I could in Las Vegas. Wait, what was I even thinking? I had a life in New York, a great career, and my family was there. My phone buzzed and I dug it out to look at it. Winter storm warning was in effect in Manhattan for the next forty-eight hours. Letting go of Miles, I rolled my window down and let the hot desert air buffet my face.

  A Las Vegas showgirl.

  Me.

  “Do you think I can do it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? We’ve only known each other a few days.”

  “I’ve seen you dance. You’re gorgeous. You have great legs.” Miles ticked off the list on his fingers. “You’re not afraid of anything.”

  I gave a short laugh. I was afraid of everything.

  “You’re a free spirit.”

  “Me?”

  “Who else would decide to become a stripper to find her sister? And did I mention, you’re the best dancer I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot of them. Granted, most of them were naked,” he admitted. “But you outshone them all. If I didn’t want you for myself, you’d be making thirty thousand a month in my club until someone stole you away from me.”

  This time I did laugh. “Only if all my VIP clients were you and Chance.”

  Miles scowled. “Forget about Chance.”

  “He’s going to help us find Lisa.” I recounted the conversation Chance and I had.

  “It’s really tough to hate him,” he said. “He’s a nice bloke.”

  “Then don’t. You’ve got nothing to be jealous about. I want you, not him.”

  “Good.” Miles gave me a cocky smile and I was in the mood again.

  Too bad we had arrived at Dee’s mother’s place.

  We were in a more upscale part of town than before. I knew this because the communities were gated and the security at the kiosk outside of Dee’s mother’s condo was eyeballing Miles’s tattoos.

  “Who are you here to see?”

  Miles looked at his sticky note. “Eleanor Brandon.”

  “One moment.”

  “If she tells us to fuck off, let’s go to the Wynn,” I said in Miles’s ear while fondling him through his jeans when the guard was busy calling to see if we were welcome or not.

  “You got it.” He thumbed my nipple and it made me gasp.

  Unfortunately, the guard waved us through and told us where to park. Inside the gates, we could be in any city in the world. The shrubs and bushes were green and healthy, even though we were in the desert. As we walked up to the condo, a stunning woman in her mid-fifties stormed out of the house wearing a white one-piece bathing suit and a turban. The gauzy coverup she was hastily pulling on floated behind her like a cape.

  “Eleanor Brandon?” I asked.

  The woman nodded and turned to Mi
les. “Are you Miles Carvello?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Because of you, my daughter is a whore.”

  And then she slapped Miles hard across the face.

  Chapter Eleven

  Miles Carvello

  I took the crack even though I could have easily avoided it. It stung, but I sold it by rocking my head to the side. If it made Dee’s mother feel good, and calm enough to explain the bullshit she was spewing, it would be worth it.

  “She was going to be a chef. She was going to Cordon Bleu. Did you know that? Do you even care?”

  “She was a shitty cook.” At least that’s what Liu always said. “Lazy in the kitchen and her knife skills just plain sucked.”

  Yeah, that wasn’t the right thing to say. So much for calming her down. Before she could swing again, Jackie stepped in. I squared off on the mother and she blinked at me, probably noticing that I could break her in half and stuff her in the dumpster. Not that I would, but she didn’t have to know that.

  “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Jackie said soothingly.

  “No, there hasn’t.” Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears. “She’s a hooker at the Moondust Cherry Ranch.”

  “In Pahrump?” Jackie whispered.

  “Yes.” Eleanor started to cry.

  I hated when chicks did that. Jackie found some tissues in that gargantuan purse she carried and handed her some.

  “Thank you.”

  “My name is Jackie Mitchell. Miles is helping me look for my sister, Lisa, and I think . . .” Jackie took a shaky breath. “I think Lisa might be with Dee. Can we go inside and talk?”

  Eleanor glared at me. “He led them to do it. It’s that damn club. I knew I should have forbidden her to work there.”

  “No.” Jackie shook her head. “Miles is trying to find them. He cares about all his employees. When he found out Dee went missing, he went to Zeke’s place to track her down.”

  “That boy.” Dee’s mother shook her head. “He’s trouble. If Miles didn’t convince her she could make more money selling her body, then Zeke did.” She scrubbed at her tears angrily. “You might as well come in.”

  I nodded brusquely, but Jackie jammed an elbow into my side. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances,” I said, absently rubbing my ribs.

  Eleanor really looked at me this time and I could tell she liked what she saw. Well, maybe that would help open her up to our questions. I didn’t feel like smiling at her, but it seemed she didn’t need it. Straightening her shoulders, she let the gauzy wrap flutter down her back and put a sway in her step as she led us inside her condo.

  “Behave,” Jackie whispered fiercely to me.

  I kissed Jackie quick because I wanted to, and she gaped at me. She was still blushing when Eleanor led us to what she called the sunroom and bade us to sit on uncomfortable steel chairs that had been polished like chrome on a Harley. “Can I get you something to eat or drink?” Eleanor rang a little bell and an honest-to-God manservant appeared out of nowhere. He was dressed in a formal suit and jacket with tails. In this heat?

  “We’re good,” I said.

  “Nonsense, let me get you a drink. It’s the least I can do after behaving so horribly.” Eleanor leaned a little to give me a flash of cleavage, but I didn’t drop my eyes. Tits were a dime a dozen in my line of work and the only ones I wanted were Jackie’s.

  “I’ll have a beer,” I said to the manservant.

  “Oh you must try the lemon shandy.”

  I winced. “Yeah, no. Fruit doesn’t belong in beer.”

  I got elbowed again.

  “That sounds very refreshing,” Jackie said.

  I made eye contact with the manservant and he gave me a small nod and left the room.

  “This is my sister, Lisa.” Jackie pulled out that damn photo and went into the whole spiel.

  Letting my mind wander, I looked around the condo. It was an expensive setup. I didn’t go much for high fashion, but the place had character. There was marble and stainless steel everywhere, but one whole wall was a window that looked out over the desert and Lake Las Vegas. The manservant in his ridiculous little outfit was back with the drinks almost immediately. I took a sip of my beer. It was lemon free and surprisingly good.

  “You must be terribly worried,” Eleanor said, putting a comforting hand over Jackie’s.

  “Did Dee ever mention Lisa or Broadway? That was the name Lisa danced under.”

  Eleanor snatched her hand back. “Your sister was a stripper?”

  She said stripper the same way she’d said hooker. I didn’t like how ashamed Jackie looked. “My girls dance, nothing else,” I said. “Your daughter stayed in the kitchen. She got paid a decent wage, but the dancers make double her salary. Dee wasn’t talented enough to be a dancer, perhaps that’s why—”

  Jackie kicked me under the table, and I amended what I was going to say.

  “Perhaps she saw a faster way to pay for her Cordon Bleu tuition.”

  “You could have paid her better,” Eleanor said, looking down her nose at me.

  “You could have paid her tuition.” I circled my beer around, indicating the house.

  Eleanor deflated. “I should have. But she’s always been so unfocused. I thought if I made her earn her tuition, she would appreciate it more. I never thought she would sell her body, though.” She gave a bitter laugh. “After all I’ve done to give her the life I never had.”

  “Are you sure that’s what she’s doing?” Jackie said. “Maybe she just told you that to make you feel guilty or upset enough so that you would offer to pay the tuition.”

  I hid a snort. “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt,” I muttered and moved away before I could get another kick. I got beat up less at Dalton’s on frat night.

  Eleanor grabbed onto that like it was a lifeline. “You think so?”

  “I don’t know,” Jackie said. “I’m just looking for my sister. Did Dee ever mention her?”

  “No. She didn’t talk about work a lot. She hated her boss.” Eleanor flicked me a look. “Not you, the chef.”

  “Is that why you told him you haven’t seen her in two days?”

  Eleanor made a face. “I wasn’t about to tell him that she quit to become a hooker. I still have hope that I can talk her out of this mess and get her back into the kitchen. I just doubt it will be yours after what he put her through.”

  “Liu can be a diva,” I admitted. He also didn’t suffer fools and ruled the kitchen like a medieval fiefdom. Dee wasn’t completely incompetent, but she didn’t move as fast as Liu liked. I hadn’t thought there was that much friction between the two, but maybe I didn’t see it because I didn’t want to. “Dee should have come to me if there was a problem,” I grumbled, mostly because I was feeling guilty.

  “She didn’t hate her job and, aside from Liu, she liked the people she worked with. They would go out and party after work. I’d catch her coming in at all hours of the morning. It’s possible that she knew your sister.” Eleanor took a long pull of her lemon shandy and slipped the gauzy coverup completely off so she sat there in her bathing suit. It was obvious now that it wasn’t her first drink of the day as she tried to catch my eye. “I hope she didn’t lead Lisa down this path.”

  “You said she didn’t talk about work, but you recognized the name of one of my waiters, Zeke. What’s the story with him?” I asked.

  “She went out with him a few times. I didn’t like him, but she seemed to have a good time with him. He called the house if she didn’t pick up her phone.” Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I had to have a good talking to him about boundaries and he wised up after that.”

  “Did Dee ever mention someone threatening her at work?” Jackie asked.

  Eleanor frowned. “Not that she told me, but there are bad elements that hang around clubs like yours.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Not my bar.”

  She shrugged with one shoulder and patted her turban delicately. “I’m famili
ar with the area.”

  “Not lately.”

  Jackie missed with her kick this time too. I was going to spank her ass red if she didn’t stop it. I tried to put that into a glare, but she wasn’t looking at me.

  “Would you ask her about that the next time she calls?” Jackie asked. “And ask if she’s seen Lisa?”

  “I’ll call her right now,” Eleanor said and pulled the latest iPhone out of the pocket of her coverup. It had sparkles and glitter all over it. I had to look away before I was blinded. “Hello, darling,” she said into the phone after a moment. “Your boss, Miles, came to see me. He’s offering to hire you back at double your salary.”

  I choked on my beer. What the fuck?

  “I’m sure something could be done about Liu.”

  There was a long pause while Eleanor listened. At least Dee was answering her mother’s calls, which was more than I could say for Lisa.

  “I didn’t raise you like this, Deidre Marie Jones.”

  Jackie raised her eyebrows at me. “She got the full name treatment. That’s how you know it’s serious.”

  I kicked her in the shin.

  “Ow,” she said, rubbing it.

  “How do you like it?”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Keep it up,” I warned her in a low voice.

  “I don’t care how much you make a night!” Eleanor shrieked, banging her palm on the table so hard the glasses jumped. “I don’t want to know anything about it. I just want you to come home. I’ll pay for Cordon Bleu. You won’t have to go back to that nasty bar.”

  “Hey,” I said warningly.

  “Dalton’s is a really nice place,” Jackie said.

  I gawked at her in surprise. I hadn’t expected her to defend my club.

  Eleanor listened intently to what her daughter was saying and then she gave a huge sigh. “You need to leave.”

  “Ask her about Lisa,” Jackie hissed.

  “Right.” Eleanor closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “Have you seen any of your coworkers while you’ve been there? Zeke or Lisa?”

  “She might know her as Broadway,” Jackie reminded her.