Death, Taxes, and Hot Pink Leg Warmers (15 page)

Nick glanced down at his shirt. “Oops. Busted.”

I crossed my arms and glared at him.

He slid into a chair across from me, probably afraid I’d punch him in the nose if he sat any closer. “Heather.”

“The one with the white angel wings?” She’d ripped off the theme from the Victoria’s Secret commercials. As if angels were supposed to be sexy. God had to be pretty pissed about that.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “She tripped in her heels.”

“And just happened to fall against you?” I rolled my eyes. “That’s awfully convenient.”

“It’s this magic mustache. Women can’t resist it.” He ran a finger over his upper lip and shot me a wink. “Besides, Tarzan’s still talking about your ‘fine little caboose.’”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Okay. I felt a little better knowing Nick was suffering some jealousy, too.

Aaron Menger walked into the room, putting an end to our private conversation. “Hello, gang.”

Christina followed him in.

Once we were all seated around the table, Menger asked everyone for an update. He gestured to Christina to go first.

“I’ve approached some of the dancers and waitresses I suspect might be drug users and asked them if they knew where I could score some meth. They played dumb, but I’ll keep working on them. Maybe they’ll open up once they get to know me better.”

“Why did Geils call you into his office?” I asked.

She waved a hand dismissively. “It was nothing, really. He tried to talk me into dancing, told me I could make a lot more money. He said one of the customers had come to him and requested a private lap dance.”

“The guy from Iowa?” I asked. “Mr. Windmill? The big tipper?”

“Could be,” Christina said. “A lot of the customers flirt with me, so I’m not sure. But if I had to guess I’d say it was probably him.”

Aaron’s eyes narrowed and he cocked his head, his expression thoughtful. “Geils may be trying to talk you into dancing with the hopes of eventually working you in the VIP room. What did you tell him?”

“What do you think I told him?” Christina’s face scrunched in disgust. “‘No, thanks.’”

“If it was the guy from Iowa who spoke with Geils,” Menger said, “I’m guessing he wants more from you than just a lap dance. Last night he took all three of those girls in the blue-jean shorts back to the VIP room.”

I still wondered how the four had managed the choreography. It was difficult enough sometimes with just two people in the mix. Heck, Brett and I had accidentally rolled off the bed once.

Menger pulled a laptop from his bag and booted it up. “I had an officer cruise the lot tonight and take down numbers on all of the license plates from out of state. Let’s see if we can identify your admirer.” Menger logged in to his e-mail system, found the list the other officer had sent to him, and scanned it. “We’ve got Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma. Ah, here it is. The only plate from Iowa.”

Menger ran a search on the number. “The vehicle is owned by a Wesley Prescott.” He punched a few more buttons, accessing the state’s public-information and vital-statistics records. “Looks like Wes has been married for fifteen years. He’s got three kids, two boys and a girl.”

I jotted down his name and address. “What a coincidence,” I said. “Mr. Prescott will be receiving an audit notice for his business-related entertainment expenses.”

If the guy had taken tax deductions for his prostitutes, the auditor would make sure they were denied. I supposed he’d be legally entitled to medical-expense deductions for his gonorrhea and crab meds, though.

“You think he might be the one transporting the drugs?” I asked. After all, if he’d driven down from Iowa, he’d had to come through Oklahoma. Maybe he wasn’t just a land man for a windmill company. Maybe he moonlighted as a drug mule.

“It’s possible,” Christina said.

Menger rubbed his chin as he eyed Christina. “If Geils wants you to dance, we might be able to use that to our advantage. Maybe you can tell him you’d do it in return for some meth. Of course, you’d have to be careful. He’ll have to think that any information you have you learned from working at the club. We don’t want him figuring out that law enforcement suspects he’s got drugs in the place and that we think more than dancing is going on in the back room.”

Christina nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Work on Theo, too,” Aaron added. “Maybe he’ll sell you something.”

I dug my wallet out of my purse. “What’s a hit of crystal meth cost?”

“Around twenty-five dollars,” Christina said.

I fished out a couple of twenties I’d snagged at an ATM on my drive over and turned Andrew Jackson on his face. I marked the backs of the bills, using a ballpoint pen to draw a stick-figure bird flying over the White House depicted on the bills and putting a small slash through the number 2 in the upper left corner. I snapped photos of the two bills with my cell phone to record their serial numbers.

“Use these when you buy the meth.” I pushed the bills across the table to Christina. “I want to see if the bills come through the cash office.”

Aaron turned to me next. “Got anything?”

I told them about the girl Geils had fired, about the enormous tips reported by the dancers who worked the VIP room, about Theo’s unusually large bar take.

“Theo’s definitely on my radar, too,” Aaron replied. “I’m fairly certain he sent drugs back to the VIP room. He’s also the only bartender with keys to the storage room and he doesn’t let anyone else back there.”

I told them about the truck from Stillwater Spirits, about the rebates and bulk discounts Merle had mentioned. I also told them about the meat and produce trucks and the cash payments made to the deliverymen. “Any of them could be delivering drugs to the club or picking them up.”

Nick cocked his head. “You may be on to something there. See if you can get your hands on those invoices.”

“It won’t be easy,” I said. “I’ve already tried to access the computer files and couldn’t get in. The bookkeeping system is password protected and there’s a security camera aimed right at my desk.”

“There’s always Josh,” Nick suggested.

Josh could hack into any computer system in ten seconds flat. We’d already been authorized by a judge to execute a secret search and seizure, so we wouldn’t be violating any laws. The biggest risk would be me getting caught nosing around where I didn’t belong.

Aaron pointed at Nick. “Got anything?”

Nick leaned forward in his seat, resting his arms on the table. “I’m afraid I won’t be much help. The only thing I know is that Geils tells the security staff to keep a close eye on the girls and each other, to make sure all the money gets run through the cash office. We have to pat down everyone going in and out of the dressing room, VIP room, and administrative offices.”

“It’s weird,” I added. “Geils obviously has no scruples. I mean, he’s pimping out his dancers and dealing drugs. But when it comes to the money, he seems to be playing by the book. He may be laundering some of the funds, but as far as I can tell it all seems to be going into his bookkeeping system.”

Then again, he could have a second set of books somewhere, a set that had been cooked. I made a mental note to compare the data in the bookkeeping system to his tax return.

Aaron told us he’d have the plainclothes officer stationed in the parking lot to identify johns. He gave each of us a phone number to text with identifying features if we saw one leave the club. He also instructed Nick to step outside and give a signal to the officer in the parking lot when a john left. “Swipe your hand across your forehead. That’ll be the sign to the officer to follow the guy to his car and obtain his plate number.”

Our powwow now completed, Nick walked me and Christina out to our cars in the parking lot. Christina hopped into the same pink Cadillac she and I had used on an earlier case and took off with a honk and a wave.

Nick and I were alone now. Time for some action.

I grabbed him by the glittery front of his shirt and pulled him toward me, pressing my chest up against him now. “Lay one on me, big boy.”

Nick willingly obliged.

chapter seventeen

Downloading on the Down Low

Despite my vociferous protests, Alicia dragged me out of bed at ten the next morning and we set out on a quest to find the perfect bridesmaid dress.

She and Daniel had planned an early June date for their wedding. The perpetually organized and obsessive-compulsive Alicia had prepared a series of spreadsheets to stay on top of the wedding details. One spreadsheet detailed their budget, another listed the guests by the table number to which they’d been assigned, and the last one contained various to-do lists with the name of each person involved in the wedding at the top of the column.

My to-do list as maid of honor contained several entries, the first of which was to choose my dress. Frankly, planning the bachelorette party sounded like a lot more fun to me, but that task was currently near the bottom of the list.

Nick had been disappointed I wouldn’t be able to spend the day with him, but I couldn’t break my promise to Alicia. Of course, when I made the promise I hadn’t realized the Guys & Dolls investigation would prevent Nick and me from getting time alone. Our ten-minute make-out session in the police department parking lot last night had left me wanting more.

Lots more.

“Only seven months to go!” Alicia sang as she slid hangers aside in the bridal shop, sorting through the offerings.

Though she and Daniel planned to host a black-tie wedding, she’d agreed to let me, her maid of honor, wear a dress in my signature red.

Alicia pulled a dress from the rack. “What do you think of this one?”

The dress was sleek and sophisticated. It also featured tightly crisscrossing laces down the back. “I don’t know. It looks kind of complicated. What if I tie myself in a knot when I go to take a pee?”

Her lip quirked. She returned the dress to the rack, rejected the next three, and pulled the fourth one out, holding it up with the skirt draped over one arm. “How about this one?”

This choice was pretty and feminine, but the abundance of ruffles was a bit over the top. “I’d look like a flamenco dancer in that.”

She exhaled her impatience. “I’ll get you a rose to clamp between your teeth.”

“Let’s keep looking.”

Alicia’s next choice had potential. It was a sleeveless model with a knee-length skirt underscored by layers of netting that made it flounce. It had a cute, retro look to it. Unfortunately, when I tried the dress on, it itched worse than that darn ballet tutu had.

Alicia scowled as I scratched the back of my thigh. “We can’t have you standing up in front of all of our guests scratching like you’ve got chiggers.”

I cringed. “Sorry.”

We stopped for a quick lunch and tried a few more stores afterward, including Neiman Marcus. Unfortunately, nothing felt quite right.

“How about we try again on Black Friday?” Alicia suggested. “The stores will be having sales then.”

“Good idea.” I slipped back into my jeans and red sweater.

By the time we returned to my town house, it was after four o’clock. Alicia headed off to spend the evening with Daniel, while I wolfed down a quick frozen dinner before heading off to Guys & Dolls.

*   *   *

I’d recruited Josh to hack into the Guys & Dolls computer network. While Nick, Christina, Eric, and I were busy inside with the Saturday-evening crowd, Josh sat in the parking lot with his laptop, attempting to worm his way into the club’s wireless system. Unfortunately, given that the building was windowless, he couldn’t get a decent signal in the car. He sent me a text.
Signal too weak out here.

I excused myself and went to the ladies’ room. Luckily it was empty. I placed a quick call to Josh. “What are our options?”

“I’ll have to come inside,” he said.

“It’ll look suspicious if you bring a laptop in here.” I wasn’t even sure security would allow it. I’d seen them toss out more than one patron who’d attempted to take videos of the dancers on their cell phone cameras.

“I’ll see what I can do with my cell.”

As I walked back to the cash office, I spotted Christina at the bar, working her charms on Theo, flirting with the lunkhead in an attempt to gain his trust and make a buy. Meanwhile, five girls paraded around onstage to the Donna Summer classic “Bad Girls.” Three wore hooker outfits, while two wore black go-go boots, navy blue hot pants, and blue shirts with gold police badges over their left breast. They’d topped the look off with whistles, dark sunglasses, and cop hats, swinging their plastic nightsticks around to the beat of the music. While the dancers had a fairly entertaining dance routine going at first, they took things a bit too far when one of the cops cuffed a hooker to the pole and began to frisk her while the other stuck her nightstick between her legs and ran her hands suggestively up and down the shaft. The men in the audience went nuts, of course.

“Men are disgusting,” I said as I stepped back into the cash office.

“Yes,” Merle agreed. “We are.” He raised his glass of scotch in acknowledgment and took a drink.

I didn’t totally believe it, though, at least not insofar as Merle was concerned. He never ogled the dancers, even averted his eyes when girls were undressing in the changing room. Then again, he only seemed to have eyes for one girl. A girl who hadn’t been a girl in three, four, maybe even five decades.

As I set back to work, I saw Josh come in and sit at a table near the back of the room, using his stylus to peck away at his cell phone as his girlfriend, Kira, also an expert hacker, looked over his shoulder and offered suggestions. Kira wasn’t the only female customer in the club. At least two other men had brought women with them. I supposed some couples got off on this type of thing, but all I’d ever need to get turned on was Nick.

Around ten o’clock, my phone vibrated in my pocket with an incoming text. Josh had decoded the password for the accounting system.
BerniceVasilakis.

Sheesh. Merle was as bad as an adolescent girl with a crush, doodling what her name would be if she married the man of her dreams. Still, I was proud I’d come close earlier when trying to guess his password. Maybe I wasn’t such a bad judge of character after all. Part of me felt for Merle. He’d never married or had children. The poor guy had to be lonely.