Kevin glanced at me around Marc’s shoulder, having evidently decided I was the lesser threat. I saw no reason to disillusion him. “He paid me.”
I cocked my head in mock confusion. “He paid you to hang out with him? Isn’t that a little ‘desperate-schoolboy’?”
Kevin glared at me, shaking his head as sweat dripped down his hairline. “He paid me to keep my mouth shut. To let him cross the lake and hang out in a city that doesn’t roll up its sidewalks at 9:00 p.m.”
“And you went with him?” I asked, prodding him on.
“Yeah, to keep an eye on him. So what if I got paid? Your dad should be paying me, anyway.”
“Why weren’t you with him yesterday?” Marc asked.
Kevin stared at the ground, nudging a broken bottle with one foot. “My boss called me in to work, so I couldn’t go. I had no idea he was dead till Greg called last night.”
Marc lunged forward, and his fists slammed into the Dumpster on either side of Kevin’s head, leaving two deep dents in the metal. “If you’re lying, you’ll walk with a limp for the rest of your life.”
Kevin glanced anxiously at Marc, then around him at me, and his left eyebrow began to tic. “It’s the truth.” Though he was clearly angry, his voice came out in a high-pitched whine. “You want to see my fucking check stub?”
Satisfied, Marc took a step back and dropped his hands to hang at his sides, but even then he was no less of a threat. He seemed to tower over Kevin, intimidating the smaller man with his very presence. “Do you know Kellie Tandy?” Marc’s question lent credence to my own suspicion that the missing stripper was somehow involved.
“Only by sight. She’s hot.” Kevin paused and shrugged, looking at me over Marc’s shoulder. “Well, I assume she’s dead now, but she was hot.”
Nausea rolled through me at his complete lack of sympathy for the missing girl. Diplomacy be damned, Kevin was inches away from stepping past my point of no return.
“You think Robby killed her?” he asked, completely unaware of my mounting irritation.
But his question gave me pause. I pushed damp strands of hair from my face, considering. I had no intention of answering him, but it would have been nice to actually have an answer. Did I think Harper had killed the stripper? Because if he’d attacked her at all, the only possible result would have been her death.
Okay, that wasn’t the only possible result, but definitely the likely conclusion. But did I actually suspect him?
I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t see how Kellie Tandy fit in at all. Not yet, anyway. And if Harper had killed her, was it mere coincidence that he’d been killed only two days later?
“Have you ever seen any other cats in the strip club, stray or otherwise?” Marc asked, when I failed to respond to Kevin’s question.
“Nah. There’re only two others in the area, that I know of. The youngest Pierce boy goes to Loyola, but the college kids don’t hang out around here. And Jamey Gardner lives near Baton Rouge, but I haven’t seen him in nearly a year.”
I nodded toward Forbidden Fruit’s back door. “Do you know Jeff the pip-squeak?”
“Yeah. He’s one of the bartenders. His brother owns the place.”
“Did he know Harper?” Marc asked.
“I don’t think Jeff knows either of us by name, but he’d probably recognize a picture. Or a description.”
“Good.” Marc stepped back from the Dumpster and from Kevin, gesturing toward the end of the alley. “Let’s go find out what the pip-squeak saw yesterday.”
I stood between Marc and Kevin in the foyer of Forbidden Fruit, bathing in the cool current of air flowing from the vent overhead. The artificial gust was quickly turning the sweat dripping down my spine into ice-cold rivulets, a transformation I welcomed.
We’d had to walk around to the front door in the one-hundred-three-degree heat, made worse by relative humidity hovering around the ninety percent mark. Luckily, the front door was unlocked, probably because the employees couldn’t get in through the back door, either.
The interior of the strip club was visible through a wide archway, and the sticky vinyl floor, collection of cheap tables, and room-length bar were pretty much what I’d expected—minus the naked women. The club wouldn’t actually open for ten more minutes, so the elevated dance platform was dark and empty. Thank goodness. The last thing our farce of an investigation needed was Kevin in a hormone-induced moronic frenzy.
Though the dancers had yet to shake their well-proportioned hindquarters into action, Jeff and another, taller man in an identical hot-pink shirt were hard at work behind the bar, drying glasses and counting cash register drawers. And judging from the smell of fried food, someone was busy in the kitchen. The sign out front had advertised a lunch special of “hot wings and hot girls,” served with the drink of your choice.
And though my mouth felt dryer than a sand dune, the drink of my choice was any kind not served in the Forbidden Fruit.
As I watched Jeff-the-pip-squeak pour peanuts into a bowl on the bar, a short, busty woman walked past the foyer, barely dressed as a slutty version of Little Red Riding Hood. If she was looking for the Big Bad Wolf, she was out of luck.
“Sorry, boys, we’re not open yet,” Red said in a sultry Cajun accent, flashing a mouthful of small, bleached-white teeth at Kevin before she dismissed him entirely in favor of Marc. Only Marc. She hadn’t even glanced at me. Bitch.
“I hate to ask you to leave, sugar,” she said, batting her eyelashes at my boyfriend, her hands propped on the hips of a short, scarlet Lycra skirt. “But rules are rules. Come back in ten minutes, and I’ll give you a show. Then I’ll let you buy me a drink.” She cocked her head to the side and tapped her full lower lip with the end of one long red fingernail. “Oh, hell, I’ll buy you a drink.”
Marc stared down into her eyes, and his lips curved up in a slow, seductive smile. “As tempting as that sounds, I’m not here for pleasure. Exclusively,” he added, as if it were an afterthought. “My friend’s here to see Jeff about a job.”
My chin dropped into the cradle of my cleavage. Seriously. I nearly dislocated my jaw. And, of course, Kevin snickered, knowing he was safe for the moment because Marc wouldn’t hit him in public. And because I stood between them.
“Your friend?” Little Red Riding Whore asked, her gaze sliding in my direction for the first time.
I snapped my jaw shut in a hurry and did my best to wipe the astonishment from my face. It went willingly, but anger swooped in to take its place. I was not applying for a job as a stripper. Not even to find out what happened to Robert Harper. And especially not in a club that couldn’t account for all of its employees.
My teeth ground together as Red’s eyes boldly roamed my body. I’d never been checked out by a woman before—that I knew of—and wasn’t sure how to respond gracefully. Or if I should even bother.
Finally, she nodded, apparently satisfied by my appearance.
“So glad I meet your approval,” I said, my voice thick with irony. Marc was the only one who caught my tone, and I was only sure about that because he kicked my sneaker when Red turned to glance over her shoulder at the bar.
“You shouldn’t have much trouble convincing him to give you a chance,” she said, turning back to look at Marc, though she spoke to me. “We’re short-handed right now, anyway.”
“That’s right,” Marc said, as if he’d just remembered. “We saw the flyer about your missing dancer.” Taped to the front window were three more posters identical to the one on the back door.
“Yeah, that was weird,” Red said, her fake accent vanishing as genuine concern filled her eyes. Even her stance changed. She wrapped her arms around herself and bent one knee, balancing all of her weight on one red spiked heel.
“What was weird about it?”
She reached beneath her oversize, drooping red hood and withdrew a long strand of deep brown hair, twisting it around one thin finger. “Well—”
“Vite, Corinne! Five minutes!”
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Red, whose name was evidently Corinne, glanced over her shoulder at a tall, thin man in another hot-pink T-shirt standing on the now well-lit stage.
“Je viens!” she called out, then mumbled, “Gimme a damn minute,” under her breath as she turned back to face us. And by us, I mean Marc. “Honey, why don’t we talk some more after my set, ’kay? Sit down and save me a seat, and I’ll find you after I dance. Oui?”
“I guess I can spare a few minutes,” Marc said, flashing a dazzling smile.
My hands curled into fists as she spun on her stupid, dangerously high heels and sashayed—yes, sashayed, swinging ass and everything—into the main room, curling a finger over one shoulder at Marc to beckon him forward.
How the hell does he do that? I thought as we followed Corinne to a booth against the back wall. Somehow, Marc had gotten a potential witness to beg him to question her. Over drinks. Without losing even a shred of dignity.
Yet I’d have to pretend to want to take my clothes off for money in front of a room full of strange men, just for a chance to drag some information out of the bartender. Fat chance.
Marc slipped into the curved booth, and Corinne bent to whisper something into his ear, her hand resting on his shoulder. Only she didn’t really whisper anything. If she had, I’d have heard it. So whatever she did must have involved her tongue, rather than her voice box.
A warning look from Marc kept my mouth shut, but it didn’t keep my fingernails—my short and unmanicured but very practical fingernails—from digging into my palms.
“Jeff, bring these gentlemen something to drink,” the red-clad whore, excuse me, exotic dancer, called out on her way to a door marked Employees Only on the other side of the room. “And I think the girl with them wants a word with you.” Somehow, she made that sound dirty, in spite of the fact that I was supposed to be applying for the very job she already had.
I shoved Marc over and sat next to him, repressing the overwhelming urge to express my displeasure aloud. Unfortunately, we were in public, in a manner of speaking, and I had no choice but to stick to the story Marc had made up for me. But he would pay later. Boy, would he pay.
“What’ll it be?” Jeff called out, leaning on the bar with both palms flat against the polished surface.
“Whiskey and cola,” Marc called, raising one eyebrow at Kevin, who’d taken a seat across the table from us. We had no rules against drinking on the job, because it takes a great deal of alcohol to impair a cat’s judgment or coordination. And that was pretty damn convenient, considering that teetotalers didn’t stand a chance in hell of blending into the crowd at a strip club. Especially a New Orleans strip club.
“Michelob,” Kevin said, just as hidden speakers crackled from somewhere near the painted-black ceiling and grungy background music blared to life.
Only once the music was playing did I realize it had been missing before. That accounted for the uncomfortable, exposed feeling I’d had since walking through the front doors. Well, that, and the fact that I was in a strip club.
Not that the nudity bothered me. But the blatant advertisement for sex with perfect strangers made me a little uncomfortable, and while I knew there was a difference between nude dancing and prostitution, I was a little fuzzy on the legalities. And hoped to stay that way.
Less than a minute after the music began, the first real patrons came through the front door, a gaggle of men about my age, in neat civilian clothes with identical military haircuts—clearly a sample of our country’s finest on leave from the nearby naval air station. They chose a table near the raised dance platform and sent an emissary to the bar to order their drinks.
As the bartender reached beneath the bar for a bottle, the background music screeched into silence, and bright lights burst to life at the foot of the stage. Seconds later, new music came over the speakers, louder and faster than the previous sample, and within four beats, Corinne pushed through a heavy black curtain and pranced onto the platform, almost completely covered by her red hooded cape. For the moment.
Immediately, the young men up front began hooting and laughing, daring one another to call Little Miss Hood closer.
“Here you go,” Jeff-the-bartender said, less than a foot from my left shoulder. I jumped, startled by his sudden appearance. I’d been so distracted by the spectacle of the only striptease I’d ever seen that I hadn’t noticed a human approach. That was just sad.
Jeff set a short glass full of dark liquid in front of Marc, and a foaming mug of beer in front of Kevin. “Enjoy the show, guys,” he said, then turned his attention to me. All of his attention. He dismissed Marc and Kevin the way Corinne had dismissed me. Selective vision must be contagious.
“You change your mind about that job?”
I glanced at Marc to see whether he intended to make me go through with the fake interview. He did. He shoved me half off the bench with a not-so-subtle thrust of one hip.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, standing awkwardly to keep from falling to the floor.
Jeff grinned and took a second opportunity to appraise my…um…qualifications. He nodded, much as Corinne had, and gestured toward the bar. “Step into my office.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Marc tense, and knew he would watch me wind my way among the tables to make sure I wasn’t actually going into another room. He’d make me play along, but he wouldn’t let me out of sight. Or out of earshot.
I followed Jeff to the bar and took a seat on the backless stool he pulled out for me. To my surprise, instead of returning to his post behind the bar, he sat on the stool next to mine and swiveled to face me, his smile broad and a little too eager.
“The best part about my job is the preview of coming attractions. You’re not shy, are you?”
I blinked at Jeff, then turned to face Marc, anger no doubt blazing in my eyes. “I’m going to kill you,” I mouthed, but he only chuckled.
The joke’s on you, I thought, swiveling to face the bar again. It’ll be a long time before I feel like taking my clothes off after this….
Thirteen
Jeff’s eyes wandered down from my face as he waited for my answer, and to my extreme frustration, I didn’t feel justified complaining, because my assets were a legitimate part of the application process. So I said the first thing that popped into my head, just to draw his gaze back up.
“I need the money.”
“Then you’re in the right place, um…. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Julie.” Better than Jane Smith, right?
“Okay, Julie…” Jeff grabbed a clipboard from the bar and slid it toward me along with a pen. “Let’s get the paperwork out of the way first.”
Paperwork? For strippers? My eyes widened as he peeled back the layers of documents to reveal an application, a W-4 form, a release form in case of personal injury, and an official-looking page outlining what the customers were and were not allowed to do, some of which were transgressions I’d never even considered, and flushed just thinking about.
After a lifetime of casual, nonsexual nudity among my fellow werecats—after all, I was related to most of the members of our household—I found the idea of flaunting my body for cash…distasteful, to say the least.
Jeff noticed my shell-shocked expression, and possibly the awkward way I held the clipboard, as if the metal clip might bite my fingers off. “First time?” he asked, forehead wrinkled as if in concern.
I nodded, lifting one thigh from the now-sticky vinyl, so I could cross my legs at the knees. It felt like a cross-your-legs kind of moment.
“Well, then I’ll need to see you dance, of course. Do you have your own costume?”
I shook my head, and he smiled at the bewildered look on my face. “That’s okay. We’ll put our heads together and come up with an act for you. Are you allergic to feathers or double-sided tape?”
My blank look must have clued him in to my confusion.
“You know, personal adhesive?” His eyes wandered back down to my breasts,
and suddenly I understood.
Personal adhesive? Eewww! Spinning around on my stool, I leveled a furious gaze at Marc from across the room, but he just smiled and waved. You’re gonna pay, I mouthed, and he laughed, clearly enjoying my humiliation. Vicious bastard.
“Is that a ‘no’ on the feathers?” Jeff asked, and I nodded mutely. “Okay, we can do fur. You don’t mind fur, do you?”
It was all I could do not to laugh in his face. “No, I don’t mind fur, and I’m damn fond of claws,” I said, more for Marc’s benefit than Jeff’s. In the booth, Marc spewed whiskey out his nose, spraying Kevin from the forehead down.
“Claws…” Jeff mumbled, clearly picturing an outfit I had no urge to ever see. “I never considered putting claws on the cat costume. Kellie never thought of that.”
Kellie? I shuddered at the realization that they were not only preparing to replace the missing stripper, but that they were ready to give away her outfit. I couldn’t put on a dead girl’s costume, much less dance around in it.
Jeff went on, oblivious to my reaction. “But then, she had long nails, kind of like claws. But for you—” he took my left hand in his and examined my ragged nails “—fake claws might be just the thing. Not too long or sharp, though. You want to turn the customers on, not scare them off.”
That’s what you think….
“Okay, go ahead and fill these out,” Jeff said, standing as he glanced over the growing crowd in the club. “When you’re done, we’ll go back to my brother’s office and you can show us what you’ve got.” He grinned. “Normally we’d do that first, but something tells me you know exactly how to keep a man’s attention.”
Indeed I did. Get a tight grip on his balls. A man’s attention never wandered far from his crotch, especially when it was in mortal jeopardy.
Stifling a smile, I nodded and picked up the pen, and Jeff went back behind the bar to help the other bartender keep up with a rush of drink orders.