Not Wanted in Hollywood (2 page)

“So sweetheart, how much for a lap dance?” my
charming companion slurred.

Before I could answer a voice came from
behind me.

“Way more than you’re willing to pay
buddy.”

I didn’t even
need to turn around to know who was talking. On the fifth day that
we had been filming here, I had noticed Travis Cooper, investigator
to the stars, hunched over in the back of the bar. He had been
following the husband of one of his clients, to get the goods for a
very messy upcoming divorce. The look of surprise on Travis’s face
when he saw me joking with some of the waitresses as if we were old
friends, was a sight that I will always cherish.

My companion took one look at Travis towering
over the both of us and obviously decided that my well hidden
charms were not enough to risk life and limb. He shuffled off,
muttering into his beer. I didn’t feel sorry for him. I’d seen him
in the bar before. When he got drunk, he got generous. I could
already see one of the girls had accurately determined his level of
inebriation and was heading in his direction.

“You still coming in here?” I asked turning
around. “I thought your case was finished.”

“
It is
sweetheart,” Travis said raising a glass to his mouth. “Just
thought I’d come in here on my time off, take in a
show.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow. “You’re
telling me that, considering the number of strip clubs that you
invariably visit while chasing after cheating men.”

“
And women,”
Travis interrupted.

“
And women,”
I agreed. “You’re telling me that you enjoy spending time in these
places even when you are not working.”

“
Not
exactly,” admitted Travis.

“Then why are you here?” I asked.

“
I’m waiting
for the moment when you finally succumb to the lure of the bright
lights and take to the stage,” Travis said, looking up to where the
current dancer was doing an energetic turn on the pole.

“
Keep hoping
there cowboy,” I said wryly.

“
I always
do,” Travis said. “So why are you out here, instead of backstage
with your boss, doing whatever it is that you do?”

I looked at the man sourly. “I was sent out
to chase after one of the girls that he’d manage to insult.”

“
Strippers
deal with drunk jerks all the time. They develop a bit of a thick
skin,” said Travis. “What the hell did he say that upset one of
them?”

“
I don’t
know,” I said, irritated with the situation. “The man is gifted at
being rude to everyone he meets. The first day I met him, he told
me that my eyes were too close together. I mean seriously, did he
need to bring that to my attention?”

Travis looked
deeply at my eyes. “They don’t look too close together,” he said,
holding my gaze for longer than I felt was absolutely
necessary.

“
Don’t tell
me that,” I said. “Tell the man who has managed to reduce several
of the women working here to tears due to his
insensitivity.”

“So, where is the woman he upset?” Travis
asked.

I shrugged. “Probably looking for a gun. I
tried to calm her down but she just seemed to get more hysterical.
I have a really bad feeling that Alistair may be sleeping with some
of the girls.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Travis.

“Just lately, I’ve been getting a bit of a
weird vibe from some of them and he’s been having some meetings
with the manager that I keep getting locked out of.”

“You want to be in on the meetings with the
guy who manages this place?” Travis asked.

I saw his
point. Hammy Pollard had tweaked every single one of my female
defenses the second I met him. The man had been the owner of
Hammy’s for decades, but I am sure there is a way to do that
without exuding the sleaziness that this man did. I had been
introduced to him the day we started and his first action was to
rake me head to toe, as if calculating the amount of money I could
bring into his business on a nightly basis.

“
No, but
they’ve been yelling at each other behind closed doors. Considering
the way this deal is worked out, they both need each other.
Alistair needs access to the place and permission for his cameras
and Hammy, from what I’ve heard, needs the money,” I
said.

“
What do you
mean, by what you’ve heard?” Travis asked.

“The girls talk and I listen. Hammy has got
some major debts to unsavory people. The girls say that he is
working them harder, trying to push them further as to what they
will actually do.”

“You know Trudie, there is a reason you get
into trouble. You need to learn to keep your nose out of other
people’s business, especially when you are in a place like this.
People who work here and come here do not like having someone
poking around in their affairs.” Travis had a worried look on his
face.

“
This from
the man who spends his life poking around in other people’s
affairs,” I said quietly. “I’m not asking for information, I just
listen. Some of these girls just want to talk to someone who is
actually paying attention to them.”

“
I thought
the documentary filmmaker was supposed to be doing that, you know,
going behind the scenes, finding out the gritty realism,” Travis
said.

I snorted. “Alistair wants his name in
lights. He doesn’t really care who he has to trample to get
there.”

“
Speaking of
which,” Travis said. “I think that’s your boss trying to get your
attention.”

I looked over and sure enough, there was
Alistair glaring at me.

“
See you
later,” I said to Travis, before heading off to whatever new
torture Alistair had waiting for me.

“
I don’t pay
you to flirt with the customers,” he hissed as I walked up to
him.

Technically
speaking, he didn’t pay me at all. His manager had hired me,
through my boss, Monique Petit, to keep an eye on him and try to
smooth the ruffled feathers that he invariably caused.

“
You told me
that my services were no longer required and that I should comfort
your interview subject, who had become distraught due to your line
of questioning,” I reminded him. Of course I was using much more
professional language than he had.

“Well, where is she?” barked Alistair.

“
She was
extremely upset and wanted to be alone. She asked to be excused
from filming for the rest of the day,” I said.

To be
perfectly honest, she had suggested that he put the camera
somewhere that would prove very uncomfortable if not anatomically
improbable. Of course I wasn’t going to tell the man who
though
t that he was the greatest
filmmaker alive that. Usually I find in these cases that honesty is
a pointless exercise.

“
I need you
to speak to the dominatrix. She is still refusing to be on camera
without her mask,” Alistair grumbled.

“
I’ve already
tried talking to her,” I said. “She is adamant that her face never
appear on camera.”

“
Well I need
you to change her mind, that’s what I pay you for,” he
snarled.

Once again I had to stop myself from
reminding him that he didn’t pay me at all.

Heading towards the back rooms I heard some
familiar yelling. Rounding the corner I found Hammy with one of the
girls pinned up against the wall in a threatening manner.

“What do you want?” he snapped at me.

“
Alistair
asked that I speak to Amber,” I said indicating the young woman he
had cornered.

“
She’s busy,”
he snapped.

This was where my negotiating skills needed
to come in.

I shrugged in
what I hoped was a nonchalant manner. “I have got an overwrought
filmmaker out there,” I said, hoping I was putting the correct
amount of stress into my voice. “I am trying very hard to make sure
that he doesn’t pull out of this deal. You know how much money we
all stand to lose if he decides to walk.”

I could see that got through to him, the
mention of money usually did. He stepped back.

“
We’ll be
discussing this later,” he growled at Amber as she walked past
him.

I followed her quietly back to the dressing
room.

“
Thanks for
that,” she said, as she sat at a mirror and started putting on
makeup.

I sat down next to her. “I wasn’t lying,
Alistair does want me to try to talk you into being in the film
without your mask on.”

“
It’s not
going to happen,” Amber said quietly.

“
I know,” I
said, “but I had to ask. It’s my job.”

“
You’ve got a
jerk for a boss,” she said.

“
Your
boss
isn’t exactly Prince Charming
either,” I replied.

“
That’s the
truth,” Amber said. “I just need to get enough money together to
get out of here. I just want somewhere that I can be safe. I just
want a home that can’t be taken away.”

“What’s Hammy pushing you for?” I asked.

“He wants me to do more for the customers,
give them a bit more of the fantasy.” She turned to me. “I came up
with the dominatrix act so that I could at least keep a bit of
distance between me and them. I hate that I’ve ended up here but I
can’t seem to find my way out. The problem is Hammy tells me that
the way to make more money is to do more, show more.”

I nodded,
trying to understand. The one thing that I’d realized talking to
these women over the last couple of weeks, most of them were
exactly like me. Sometimes the smallest things can lead you down a
different path. Amber was a smart girl, trying to survive the best
way she knew how. She’d ended up working for Hammy, but so far she
had managed to do it on her own terms. The dominatrix act she had
come up with was pure theater. It appealed to the clients but it
also allowed her a measure of control that some of the other girls
didn’t have.

Later as I watched Amber on stage I could see
her talent. She was athletic and she had a presence. She was able
to promise much but only seemed to have to deliver a small amount.
I had told Alistair that she was never going to take the mask off
for him. He had reacted with his usual temper. Finally he realized
that yelling at me wasn’t going to work at all. I was then informed
that I needed to put my time into sitting in a back booth of the
bar transcribing some of his riveting thoughts on the stripping
industry and how it could be used as a metaphor for the American
economy. To be perfectly honest I had no idea where he was going
with this, but I would never be paying to watch this movie, so it
really didn’t make much of a difference to me.

After spending an hour trying to type on my
laptop while there was pounding music going on in the background
and cheering drunk men around me, I soon decided that I needed to
find a new location. Travis, who had continued to lurk around the
bar sat down in the booth next to me.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“
I am about
to try to find somewhere quiet to work. I think I might go out the
back.” I started packing up my laptop.

“
Can I keep
you company?” Travis asked.

“Please tell me you are not just wanting to
get a look at naked strippers.”

“Really,” said Travis. “If that’s what I
wanted I’d just stay out here. No I’m getting a bit tired of all
this in your face and just needed a break.”

“
Then go
home,” I said. I stopped packing and looked at him seriously. “I
know what you’re doing Travis. I know you’re worried about me
working here and I know the only reason you have spent the last
week sitting in a stripper bar is because you are making sure I’m
okay. The fact you are doing that makes you, despite all previous
evidence to the contrary, a really nice guy. But it’s not your job
to protect me.”

Travis looked
slightly embarrassed. “This is not a good place for you to be
Trudie,” he said quietly. “If Griffin knew where you were he would
have a fit, you know that. I’m guessing it’s probably the reason
why you haven’t told him about it.”

It was
definitely the reason I hadn’t told him. Having Travis point it out
to me though had me feeling even guiltier than I already
did.

“Fine, if I can’t convince you to leave, you
may as well come with me.”

I had become
very familiar with the backstage area of Hammys. Between calming
down women who wanted to kill Alistair for his interviewing style,
and stopping the cameraman from doing another impromptu shoot in
the dressing room, I had pretty much found all the quiet and
private areas in the place. My preferred area was one that
unfortunately the cameraman, Hugh, had shown me. It was a little
alcove, not far from the dressing room. It was kind of hard to find
and I really did not want to know how Hugh had found it, or what
exactly he had been doing in it, but for now it fulfilled my
requirements.

“
Where
exactly are you taking me?” asked Travis as the area got quieter
and more secluded. “I’m not complaining but I really think that I
should point out that I am not that kind of guy.”

I choked on the laugh that came out. “Who are
you trying to kid? You are exactly like that kind of guy. I would
bet a lot of money that you have led many a wayward young lady into
a secluded part of a building.”

Travis smiled and I turned back to make my
way through the dimly lighted area. Finding a light switch, I
flicked it, glanced back at the alcove and froze.