Cruel Comfort (Evan Buckley Thrillers Book 1) (26 page)

So get a different job
.

Customers were irritating
because they were drunk; they had negative attitudes towards women. The names
they called them summed it up—scum, mama's boys, child molesters, perverted old
men, assholes, pigs. She almost felt sorry for the other girls that they should
be so unhappy with their lives.
Almost
. It wasn't going to happen to
her. She wasn’t going to wake up one morning when she was sixty and look at her
wrinkles in the mirror and realize she’d wasted her life chasing someone else’s
version of it.

It was the private dances
she hated the most. It was hot and sweaty in the club, and even more so in the
small private rooms. It didn't matter how fit you were or how vigorously you
scrubbed the bearded clam beforehand, it always got hot and sweaty down there.
Especially if you put your heart into the dancing so you weren't just turning
around the pole with all the
joie de vivre
of a rusty weathervane in a
light gale. Then, when you had to shove your sweaty twat inches from their
noses, you could see them breathing in the warm smell of your sex. Almost
chewing it. Things couldn't have been much worse if they were allowed to touch,
which they weren't of course.

She got a lot of private
dances too. Precisely because she was more than just over-inflated plastic tits
and bleached hair. That, and the fact that she didn't look like a hard,
ball-breaking bitch with more tattoos than a stevedore. If she ever did decide
to get a tattoo she thought she'd have
Less is More
somewhere discreet.
The other girls wouldn't know discreet if it bit them on the ass. Probably
wouldn't feel it either, the size of some of them. Gina was different; she was
slim and petite with a good figure and long, auburn hair. She was also what
they called
purty
down here, with a light sprinkling of freckles across
her nose and cheeks, but it was her piercing blue eyes that sometimes made men
stop and stare in the street. 

If only that was all
there was to it, but lately there was something else tucked away at the back of
her that was trying not to drown. Call it her conscience. And it was eating her
up inside. She was pretty sure some of the girls were blackmailing the
customers. She'd seen them slip something into their drinks before taking them
off into the private rooms. The guys looked like they couldn't walk properly
and it wasn't because they'd enjoyed the show so much. More like they were
drugged—and she'd bet dollars to donuts it wasn't just bromide to make sure
they kept their grubby hands to themselves.

The only explanation she
could think of was that the girls were having sex with the guys and
photographing or videoing it to blackmail them. As far as she could make out
there were at least five of them actively involved. Out of all the girls, they
were the ones who bitched about the customers the most. Was this their revenge?
She'd been watching them closely for a couple of weeks now, ever since she
first noticed what was going on. She knew it was risky and although it was impossible
to know for sure, she didn't think they suspected she was on to them.

She knew she should say
something about it, but who to tell? The club management? They might be in on
it. The police? They'd want more proof than she would be able to provide.
They'd probably just ignore her anyway. She was only a
stripper
after
all, not a pillar of the community, someone to be believed. It made her laugh;
the pillars of the community—the No Funs and Shouldn't Dos—they were the ones
with their tongues hanging out in the front row, the minute their wives went
away.

The longer it went on,
the more it was eating her up, and it was starting to have an effect on her
studying. This was the second year of her MBA so she still had over a year to
go. She was determined she wasn't going to go the same way as her mother; she
wanted more from life. She hadn't been able to get an internship and that's why
she was doing what she was doing. There was no way her mother was able, or
willing, to help with the tuition fees and when a friend had suggested becoming
an
exotic dancer
as a joke she'd laughed it off. But the idea had stuck
and grown legs and the rest was history.

She had to admit there
were some unexpected perks as well as the money. She'd got killer abs—not the
six-pack that the guys go for but, even so, she was in better shape than she'd
ever been. There were some unexpected downsides too; small ones like glitter.
As one of the other dancers liked to say
Glitter is the herpes of craft
products: it gets everywhere and never really goes away
. And bigger ones
too; she got to meet more seriously odd people than other people meet in a
whole lifetime. The dirty talkers were the worst; men who wanted to say the
most disturbing things to you while you dance and take your clothes off for
them and get away with it. Their wives certainly had a lot to answer for. Or
their mothers.

But on balance, it was
okay. Sure, the minute she finished her course and got a proper job she'd quit
but for the moment it paid the bills and working nights meant she could go to
her classes, even if she was dog-tired the whole time. Until now. Up until now
she'd managed to compartmentalize the different parts of her life, but not any
more. Her conscience was giving her a hard time and she was finding it
increasingly difficult to concentrate.
Something's gotta give
. That was
another great movie; made her not worry so much about getting old.

Evan hadn't seen Jesse
Springer for years. Back in college they'd called him Sticky. Something to do
with what went on in the dorms at his prep school. It was best not to ask. His
family had a ton of old money and the last Evan had heard, Sticky was a hedge
fund manager at some company called Grabbit & Fukkem or something like
that. Money goes to money. They'd kept in contact for a while after college,
invited each other to their weddings and then drifted apart. Then, out of the
blue, he'd got a call from him wanting to make an appointment to come to see
him. Yesterday, if not sooner.

It was a beautiful day;
sunny with a warm breeze that wafted the smell of freshly baked bread from the
bakery next door through the open window of Evan's office. The sort of day that
made Evan glad to be alive. Sticky, however, didn't look quite so chipper.
Dressed in chinos and penny loafers
sans
socks, he looked about as
preppy as you can get. And, despite the breeze, it was a warm day so did he
really need the sweater draped round his shoulders? Then again, it would
probably get a little chilly out at the yacht club later on. But sitting in
Evan's new visitor's chair at that moment he looked very hot and ill at ease.
Evan had bought a new chair because he couldn't stop thinking about Kevin
Stanton every time somebody sat in the old one. Stanton had killed himself
after Evan proved his wife was cheating on him and Evan had never forgiven
himself. The idea now was that Evan did the kind of work that helped people
out, not made them want to top themselves.

'So you've got yourself
into a sticky situation,' Evan said, trying to keep a straight face. It wasn't
easy.

Jesse groaned and rolled
his eyes. 'Don't start. Nobody's called me that for years.'

'Sorry. I couldn't resist
it.'

'If only a quaint old
phrase like
sticky situation
covered it. Take a look at this.' He opened
his expensive looking briefcase and pulled out an envelope. He selected a
photograph and pushed it across the desk. 'This was hand delivered to the house
yesterday morning. Along with a load of others.'

Evan leant forward to
look at it.
Mmm mmm mmm
. 'Nice tits,' he said. He looked back up at
Jesse. 'This is at the yacht club is it? No wonder there's a waiting list.'

Jesse shifted in his
chair and sighed. Evan had noticed that visitors didn't find the new chair as
comfortable as the old one. 'For Christ's sake, Evan, it's not funny.'

Evan looked back down at
the photograph of Mr Preppy nestled between the girl's ample bosom while her
friend busied herself in his lap. 'You look like you're having a nice time
anyway.'

Jesse managed to squeeze
out a tight smile. 'That's what they said. Now look at this.' He got out his
cell phone and found the text message and passed the phone to Evan.

Evan read through it.
'What's that about then?'

'I checked my credit card
statement. It seems I spent over thirty thousand dollars that night.'

'That's a drop in the
ocean to someone like you isn't it?' Jesse's face told him to give it a rest.
'I assume they're demanding more money.'

Jesse shook his head.
'No. They've had their thirty thousand and that's it. Just take it on the
chin—'

'A bit like the girl you
mean.'

Jesse ignored his puerile
comment and carried on.

'—or we'll tell your
wife. I'm sure you remember what Diane's like. Little Miss Jealous.'

Evan nodded. He
remembered Diane. Nice girl but he wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of
her. 'I'm not sure I understand what you want me to do. You had an expensive
night on the town, but it's all legit, it's on your credit card after all.' He
opened his palm in Jesse's direction. 'It's not like they're demanding cash in
a briefcase. Maybe they overcharged a little.'

He didn't actually feel
very sorry for Sticky at all. He obviously had more money than sense.

'There's just one
problem,' Jesse said. 'I don't remember a thing about it.'

Evan picked the photo up
again. 'Now that
is
a shame,' he said. 'If I paid thirty thousand for a
blow job I'd want to remember every second of it. All ten of them.'

Jesse laughed. 'Me too,
actually. But I don't.'

'Hot damn. So you don't
feel you got value for money. Sounds like you want the Better Business Bureau,
not me.'

Jesse ignored him again.
'I think I was drugged.' He pointed at the photo. 'Look at my eyes.'

Evan studied the photo.
He couldn't really make anything out. 'A little too close together perhaps—just
like any other hedge fund manager if you ask me. But no, I couldn't say whether
you look drugged or not,' he added quickly. 'Why don't you tell me what you do
remember?'

***

'I had to go to Louisville last week to meet with some clients,' Jesse said, 'and they insisted on taking
me to this club called Chi Chi's in the evening.'

Evan laughed. 'No prizes
for guessing what you're going to get there.'

'Exactly, except at this
place anything goes. You've got the regular floorshow and then there's the
one-on-one rooms and private dancers.'

Evan finished his coffee,
then pushed back in his chair and swung his leg over the arm rest.

'So what happened?'

Jesse leaned forward to
take a sip of his coffee but it was cold. He pushed it away. 'We were having a
few drinks, watching the show and then these girls came across and joined us.
It looked like they knew some of the guys I was with. The guys are probably
regulars there.'

'Not the two girls in the
photo?'

'No. I never saw them
before that arrived.' He jabbed a finger at the photo lying on the desk. 'At
least I can't remember ever seeing them before.'

'How about if we showed
you a photo of the top of their heads? Do you think you'd recognize them then?'

'Very funny. Anyway, the
girls had a hell of a thirst; it's obviously thirsty work sliding up and down
those poles.'

'I'm sure. And I'll bet
there's only one drink that hits the spot, right?'

Jesse nodded. 'You got
it. Vintage champagne. Or, failing that, some cheap shit decanted into in a
vintage bottle they found in a dumpster.'

Evan nodded with him.
They'd found the rhythm. 'And you paid, of course. Some small recompense for
the amount of money you've taken off them over the years.'

Jesse carried on nodding,
although Evan wasn't sure which part he was agreeing with. His eyes were
looking through Evan.

'Show me your wallet,'
Evan said, swinging his leg off the arm rest again and leaning on the desk.

'You sound just like one
of them,' Jesse said with a grin.

'My ass doesn't cost
thirty grand either.'

Jesse got out an
expensive alligator skin wallet and held it out. Evan grabbed his wrist and
turned his arm to look at his watch. It had more dials and knobs on it than a
jet fighter's cockpit.

'What's that? Breitling?'

Jesse didn't manage to
keep the smugness off his face. 'Something like that. Not quite so
commonplace.'

Evan looked in the wallet
and whistled. 'There must be a couple of thousand dollars in there.'

Jesse shrugged. 'There's
no point in earning it if you can't spend it.'

'Jesus Jesse, you might
as well walk around saying
I'm Jesse and I'll be your mark this evening
.
Did you flash this around in there?' He waved the wallet in the air, then threw
it on the desk.

'Probably. I don't really
remember.' He slipped the watch off his wrist and looked at it. 'I suppose I'm
lucky they didn't steal this as well. Diane bought it. She'd see it was missing
in an instant. She gets pissed if I don't wear it in the shower.'

Evan tried to dig up some
sympathy for a man forced to wear a twenty thousand dollar watch night and day.
He didn't get very far with it.

'What happened next?'

'Some of the guys left.
There was just me and one other guy and the two girls. They kept ordering more
drinks and putting it on my tab, but even at their prices there's no way it
could come to over thirty grand. I was pretty drunk by then.'

'So that's when you
decided to go for your private dance with your new friends.'

Jesse gave him a dirty
look. 'No, smartass, the next thing I remember it was morning and I was back in
my hotel room feeling like shit with a plane to catch. At that point that's all
there was to it. Too much to drink and I crashed out.'

Evan could understand
that. It had been known to happen to him on occasion. He made a mental note to
be a bit more careful in future.

'It's definitely your
body in the photo is it? They haven't photoshopped your head onto some other
guy? Some guy with a much bigger unit?'

Jesse laughed and shook
his head. 'It's all me; you can see a scar on my stomach.'

Evan picked up the
photograph and looked closely. The girl's blond hair was hanging down tickling
Jesse's stomach but he could just about make out a long, jagged scar. It was
probably caused when Jesse tried to stuff too many hundred dollar bills at once
into his already over-stuffed wallet causing it to burst suddenly. Evan
pictured Jesse writhing on the yacht club lawn trying to hold his intestines
in—a bit like in the opening scenes of
Saving Private Ryan
.

'So you think they
drugged you? Some kind of date rape drug maybe?'

Jesse gave a small shrug.
'I guess. What else can it be?'

There's always the
possibility you're lying your face off and this is for show in case it all
comes out

Evan looked back at the
photo. There was definitely something about Jesse's eyes. He could see it now.
'You look wide awake in the picture.'

'I don't know; maybe
she'd just bitten my johnson.'

'Any bite marks?'

'You want to check it
out?'

'We're not back in the
prep school dorms now, Sticky.'

Jesse admitted defeat
with a smile and a nod of his head. 'Is there something they could have used
that lets you function but gives you amnesia?'

'I don't know. I'll check
it out.' Evan reckoned he could ask Tom Jacobson, the dentist downstairs. 'What
about the other guy? Have you spoken to him since?'

Jesse stood and walked
over to the window and looked out. The smell of fresh baked bread was still
strong on the breeze. 'No reason to. Until the photos arrived I had no reason
to think it was anything other than temporary memory loss brought on by too
much booze. Since then you're the only person I've told.'

'Do you think he could be
involved?'

'Who knows. Anything's
possible but I've known him a long time.' A thought suddenly crossed his mind.
He turned to look at Evan. 'Same thing might have happened to him.'

'Is he rich too?'
And
stupid too?

Jesse looked pained. He
took his sunglasses off the top of his head where they'd been protecting his
hair from the harmful UV rays in Evan's office, folded them and put them in his
shirt pocket. 'I'm not rich, Evan. I do okay, but I'm not rich. Forrest St.
John Jnr. is rich. Stupidly rich. Or at least his father is. Most of our
clients are.'

'Where does his money
come from?'

'Whiskey and tobacco
originally. It's mainly real estate now.'

'Is there any way you can
sound him out?'

'Difficult without
showing my hand.'

'I suppose so. Have you
thought about going to the police?'

Jesse rocked back on his
heels as if Evan had hit him and held up his hands. 'No way. One, I can't risk
Diane finding out, and two, they've been through my wallet and my phone; they
know where I work too. Just think how it would look; the company sends me down
to see some important clients and what do I do? Get shitfaced and walk smack
bang into some sordid scam. What if that gets back to the clients? It's an
expensive mistake if we lose a client as a result of some scandal. You know
what rich people and scandal are like. I'd be out on my ear before I knew it.'
He snorted. 'They'd probably fire me first just to be on the safe side. No job
and no wife; I'd rather pay the thirty grand.'

'That's what they're
relying on. That's probably why they're not pushing harder.'

Jesse considered the
implications of what Evan had just said. He started to fiddle with knobs on his
watch as he thought. Evan thought there was a good chance the manufacturer put
them on just so people could play with them.

'What, you mean like
they've got some scumbag's algorithm—plug in my job, my wife, an expensive
watch and a fat wallet, push the button and out comes thirty grand. He'll roll
over on that but don't push any harder.'

'Something like that.
They've probably got an app on their phone does it for them.'