“I’m not working a pole,” I told Smithie.
“You’d be doin’ me a favor. Mandy told me today she’s gotta quit. She’s pregnant.”
I couldn’t help myself; I clapped. Mandy and her boyfriend Ronnie had been trying to get pregnant since before I worked there.
“That’s great!” I cried.
“That is not fuckin’ great. I’m a dancer down. You work a pole, you’d have my ever-fuckin’-lastin’ gratitude and so much money, you could buy a Porsche.”
“JoJo’s your best dancer and she doesn’t own a Porsche,” I told him and she didn’t. She drove a Corol a.
“JoJo can dance but her tits aren’t real and she’s short.
Guys can tel the real from the fake. Your tits are real and your legs go on for-fuckin’-ever in those fuckin’ shoes. Men look up those legs to those tits and they’l give you fifty dol ar tips.”
“I’m not working a pole,” I said in a way he knew I meant it.
it.
He sighed.
“You want me to have a guy look at your car?” He asked.
See, Smithie was a softie.
I nodded and smiled.
“You’re a pain in my ass. Get to work.”
I got to work and made extra nice with the drunks and idiots who paid good money, essential y for nothing.
Though they obviously didn’t see it that way. Tips were good, gropes were few and it was a decent night.
I arranged for Lenny to take me home and, when everyone was gone, I waited at the door for him.
Lenny was a bouncer, midnight skin and two hundred and fifty pounds of pure muscle on a six foot four inch frame. He was getting a Masters in Biochemistry at Denver University.
He walked to where I stood at the front door. “Wait outside, I’l do a sweep, set the alarm and lock up.”
“Gotcha,” I said and walked out to stand outside the front door.
Smithie’s was on Colorado Boulevard and even though it was three in the morning, traffic was passing steady. The days were stil warm, but the nights were chil y and I pul ed the cardigan closer around me. I was tired, my mind beginning to shut down and found myself dazedly looking to the right.
Something came at me from the left; I was thrown against the wal of Smithie’s and saw the flash of a knife from the lights of the club.
A hand was at my chest, pinning me to the wal . I could feel the cold blade against my throat.
“You Ray McAlister’s daughter?”
I was looking at a guy who was several inches shorter than me, due to my heels. He had black hair that looked dyed and it was greased back from his forehead. He was super thin, rodent looking and sometime in his life, his nose had been broken and not set wel .
He pushed up against me with his hand, body and the blade. “You hear me, bitch?”
I nodded, to both of his questions.
“You know where he is?”
I stared at him; my breath caught in my lungs and my heart was beating so hard I thought it’d jump out of my chest.
Instead of pushing for an answer, his head shot around and he looked over his shoulder.
Then he came back to me.
“Tel him Slick wants what’s owed him. Got it?” Then he pushed against my chest, hard, which hurt because I was already against the wal and had nowhere to go. Then he took off, got in a car and peeled out.
The next thing I knew, Vance was there, like he’d formed out of thin air.
Vance worked for Lee. He had black hair ( n o t dyed, definitely the real thing), long and straight and he pul ed it back in a ponytail. He was tal , lean, soft-spoken, Native American and hot.
I didn’t know if I was more surprised to be held at knife point or to have Vance materialize just afterward.
“You okay?” he asked, his hand on my shoulder, his dark eyes intense.
I was not okay. I was so far from okay that I might never be okay again but I nodded anyway.
“What’d he say?” Vance asked.
“He wanted to know where my Dad was.”
Vance made no comment to this because he was busy shifting as Lenny came out of the club toward us.
“Hands off,” Lenny warned, morphing into bouncer mode.
“It’s okay, Lenny. I know him,” I said.
An SUV came screeching up to us, another one of Lee’s boys, Matt, was behind the wheel. Regardless of this, neither Vance nor Lenny moved. They were in a face-off.
“Lenny’s taking me home,” I told Vance.
Vance looked from Lenny to me and nodded. Once.
Then his eyes moved back to Lenny.
“Walk her to her door,” Vance said, moved to the SUV, swung his body in and Matt took off.
Chapter Three
Then Life Got Really Interesting
Tips were so good at Smithie’s, the next morning, instead of the bus, I treated myself to a taxi. Before going to Fortnum’s, I went by LaMarr’s and bought enough donuts to feed an army. I couldn’t exactly get them for Dad and me without getting them for everyone else.