He put the car back in gear, let the engine roar once or twice to signal his departure, then took off for the Blue Bayou.
By the time he arrived, all the spots out front were taken, but Greer took his handicapped placard out of the glove compartment, hung it from the rearview mirror, and parked the car under a Permit Only sign. When he was just driving around, he didn’t like to leave the sign out, advertising his condition, but at times like this it came in real handy.
Inside, the lights were shining on the runway, and a woman with black hair, cut short and straight across, was swinging around the pole in a G-string. It took a second for Greer’s eyes to adjust, then he saw that it was Ginger Lee, Sadowski’s girlfriend. She was half-Chinese or Korean or something, and Greer had always wondered how that jibed with Sadowski’s general attitude toward anybody who wasn’t white.
At the bar, Zeke was pulling a beer, but spotted Greer, nodded, and made him his next stop.
“What can I do you for?” he asked.
“Make it a Jack Daniel’s, a double,” Greer said, “and a taste of what we did last time.”
“How big a taste?”
Greer peered into his wallet, and said, “Make it a hundred.”
Zeke poured the drink, palmed a tinfoil packet into Greer’s hand, and said, “My team won the semis last week.”
“That so.” Zeke was a tall blond volleyball player, who was only bartending—and dealing—until the big volleyball money started to roll in.
“Yeah, you ought to come to the finals. We play down on the beach in Santa Monica.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Seriously, you ought to—you got to get some sun. You need sunlight to make vitamin D, and vitamin D is good for your bones.”
This was some night, Greer thought; everybody was looking out for his welfare. “Sadowski here?”
“Haven’t seen him.” Somebody called out for a Black Russian, and Zeke went back to work. Greer turned on his stool so he could see the runway. Ginger was upside down now, with her feet, in black spiked heels, wrapped around the pole. How’d she do that? The music was blasting Prince, “1999,” and the stage was littered with tightly crumpled bills. Greer knew that routine; you wanted to look like a sport, but you didn’t want to spend too much, so you crumpled up your bills—ones, maybe a five now and then—and tossed ’em to the girl, hoping she wouldn’t notice what they were until she’d already given you a little personalized attention.
He had a nice buzz on just now, and maybe that was just what he needed. Personalized attention.
He sipped his drink, and thought about Indira—that was going nowhere, what had he been smoking?—and then he thought about Ginger, bending down now to scoop up the bills lying around, and then, after she left the stage and another girl, dressed in a red, white, and blue bikini, came out, he thought about al-Kalli again. And how he could make that pay.
“Hey, Derek,” Ginger said, popping onto the next barstool. He hadn’t seen her coming.
“You catch my set?” she asked.
“Most of it.” She was wearing a sequined tube top and high-cut black panties.
“What’d you think of the new music?”
“Prince is old.”
“I mean, it’s new music for my act. I think a lot of these guys like the oldies.”
Greer wondered how old Ginger was—nineteen, twenty? “You could be on to something.” And she looked good in what there was of the outfit. What was she doing with Sadowski?
“You want to buy me a drink?”
Greer snorted. “Why don’t you use some of that cash you just picked up?”
She raised a finger toward Zeke, and he brought her a glass of something green.
“Stan’s not here,” she said.
“So I noticed.”
“He doesn’t come in till later. After his shift.”
If only Sadowski weren’t so stupid, Greer thought, he’d be somebody he could discuss the al-Kalli angles with. But knowing Sadowski, he’d just recommend that Greer kidnap the guy and hold him for ransom.
“You want a dance?” she said, tilting her head toward the Blue Room in back, where the lap dancing went on.
Greer gave her a look. “What about Stan?”
“What about him? He doesn’t care.” She licked the rim of her glass. “Only rule he’s got is, you got to be white.”
“How’s management feel about that?” Greer asked, looking around. Maybe half the men in the room fell something short of that high standard.
“Who cares? I do what I want anyway.”
Maybe she and Sadowski did deserve each other. She put a hand suggestively on his knee.
“I’ll make it special for you,” she said. “Other guys can’t touch, but I’ll let you.”
Her hand slid up his thigh. “What about it?”
What about it indeed. For the first time in ages, Greer felt something in his thigh that wasn’t an ache or a pain. He swallowed the last of his drink. She spread her fingers, letting them fall between his legs.
She didn’t say another word—maybe she knew she didn’t have to. Instead, she slid off the stool, taking Greer by one hand, and without looking back led him, the way you’d lead a horse by the reins, toward the Blue Room. A burly guy with a clipboard stood in front of the silver Mylar strips that made up the entryway, reeled off the prices, and checked them in. Then Ginger guided him to a big, plush wing chair in the corner. Another guy was already being serviced on a love seat. The music in here was slower, lower. You were paying for the privacy, of sorts, and the romantic mood.
Ginger playfully pushed Greer back into the chair—he could tell she was already going into her regular act—and ran her hands across his chest and onto his shoulders. She unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, while Greer, who knew the usual rules, sat back passively, with his hands resting on the arms of the chair.
“Oooh,” she cooed, as if she’d never laid eyes on him before. “You are so . . . sexy. You make me want to come, and we haven’t even got started yet.”
Greer put his head back against the chair; the fabric was still warm from the last guy’s head.
“Do I make you want to come?” she whispered, leaning in so close her lips actually brushed his. Was that, Greer wondered, part of the special service he was going to get? He could taste something sweet—left over from that green stuff she was drinking—on his own mouth.
“Yeah,” he said, just to keep things rolling along, “you sure do.”
“That’s good, ’cause what I want is for us to come together.”
Greer wondered if anybody ever fell for this nonsense. Even in his present state—with a few drinks in him and several pharmaceutical products still percolating through his veins—he was well aware that he was being played. Ginger rubbed her cheek against his—“oh, it’s rough,” she said, “I like rough”—and then she playfully nipped at his ear. Only she really got it between her teeth and gave the lobe a sharp little tug.
“I call that my Mike Tyson,” she said, giggling.
Greer had to smile. Despite himself, he was starting to get into it. She had a very tight little body, and she knew how to use it. Her fingernails, painted different colors, were a few inches long, and she used them to rake his forearms and his pecs. Her breath was warm and her lips were sticky; she planted another little kiss on his chest, in the space where she’d opened his shirt. “You really do turn me on, Derek,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”
He was momentarily confused. The use of his name wasn’t supposed to be part of the game; he had just gotten used to the fact that she was playing him—and he was okay with that—and now she had to go and make things personal. He wished she hadn’t.
“I’ve wanted to do this,” she said, “ever since Stan brought you in here that first time.”
She kissed him again, lower down, then whipped herself around. Her ass, straining against the black panties, gyrated in front of him. His hands wanted to reach out and grab her, but he knew the rules.
She was doubled over at the waist, moving her ass, and looking back at him now. “You want to touch it?” she said.
Greer didn’t have to answer.
She glanced over at the entryway—the burly guy was talking to somebody just outside—and, pulling the panties up so that only a tiny strip of fabric ran right up the middle, she said, “Go for it.”
He lifted one hand and cupped her butt cheek. The skin was smooth and taut; she pushed her ass back against his hand, and it was just then that Greer happened to glance over at the entry.
Sadowski was standing there, still talking to the burly guy, and watching the whole thing. When their eyes met, Sadowski laughed, gave him a thumbs-up, and went on talking.
Greer felt his own temperature drop about ten degrees. He took his hand back, and Ginger said, “I told you, he doesn’t mind.” She turned around again and, propping herself on the arms of the chair, leaned into him. “You’re white, aren’t you?”
Yeah, she was right about that. But it still wasn’t until Sadowski stepped back outside that Greer could really focus on Ginger again. It had been years since Iraq, but something in him still felt as if he’d just betrayed one of his soldiers—even though the soldier himself clearly didn’t give a damn. Ginger, perhaps sensing his diminished involvement, exerted herself doubly hard.
Greer let her do her stuff, but his thoughts had gone back to other matters. He was back on that al-Kalli business, and he suddenly saw what it was he should do. Sadowski, of all people, had shown him the way.
He should go back out on patrol!
Why was he worrying about writing letters and making shakedown demands? The first thing to do—had the army taught him nothing?—was to reconnoiter the terrain, to figure out where your enemy was, what he had in his own arsenal, and what you could do to defeat him. Maybe he could even find out what had been in that damn box he’d retrieved. Once he thought of that, once he knew that he had a plan, however rudimentary, Greer was finally able to focus again on the urgent business at hand.
“We’ve only got till the end of this song,” Ginger warned him, “and then you get charged all over again.”
Greer had no intention of being overcharged.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“MR. AL-KALLl HAS arrived,” Mrs. Cabot said excitedly, popping her head in the door of Beth’s office. “Security is showing him upstairs.”
Beth was just on the phone to Robin—who was telling her that little Joey had eaten two big bowls of applesauce—but she nodded her head in a serious fashion and continued to pretend that she was on a business call. “That’s very interesting,” she said to Robin, “and I would like to hear more about the acquisition.” Robin was used to this kind of charade and would surely catch on. “May I call you back for more details? Thanks so much.”
She hung up the phone and said, “He’s bringing the book with him? The bestiary?”
“Why else would he be here?” Mrs. Cabot said. “Are you prepared?”