Page 9 of Strip Search

M iles Carvello

I deliberately scheduled Jackie for the shit shift, noon to six p.m. It would very nearly guarantee that she’d have a hard time booking a VIP lounge or a lap dance.

Even though it was a Friday, things didn’t get going until later.

Unless she was aggressive, she’d collect the tips from the horndogs around the stage and escape their greedy hands mostly unscathed.

I wasn’t sure why I cared so much, but the thought of someone else’s hands on her soft skin made me want to punch something.

Of course, I hadn’t counted on Darcy and the bachelor party to come in this early. And it figured that they now took up the entire first row around the stage she was going to use. They ordered beers and tipped the waitress a fifty to keep them supplied.

“For someone who’s going to make a killing on liquor this month, you’re not looking too happy,” Highway said, leaning up against the support pole so he could watch both the door and the stage.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I growled.

“I want to see the new girl.”

That was the problem. Everyone did. During her orientation yesterday, I tried to stay as far away as possible from Jackie.

But it hadn’t worked out so well. Mav had said I hovered like a helicopter mom and Kikki remarked that I’d never watched the girls warm up before.

The only saving grace was that Jackie looked as distracted by me as I was by her.

In the end, I told myself to find something to do in my office or nothing would get done while she and I eye fucked each other.

But of course everyone noticed and it caused more buzz than I would have liked to have given a newly minted stripper.

My off-duty staff was here anyway, working the bachelor party, doing lap dances and keeping the Aussies happy.

That should have pissed off the on-duty staff, but curiosity was a great equalizer.

Everyone was positioned to see the stage, like sharks scenting blood in the ocean.

They were going to make her first dance hell and I hoped it scared her off.

Jackie Mitchell shouldn’t have to strip because her sister was an inconsiderate bitch.

“What name did she pick?” Highway asked.

“La Vie Bohème. It’s also the name of the song she’s dancing to now.” The somber strains of the song from the musical Rent started, and Jackie slowly strutted out wrapped in what looked like a thousand scarves. She’d told me she spent most of the day yesterday shopping for costumes.

“This sounds like a dud.” Highway frowned as the tempo slightly increased. Every time the chorus of the song said, “La Vie Bohème,” Jackie did a hip bump and a scarf fell to the floor.

“It picks up,” I said.

“She knows they’re not here to see a ballet, right?” he said as Jackie went up on her toe and spun like a ballerina in a music box.

“Just wait.” Jackie had run the concept by him, but hadn’t actually rehearsed the song in front of anyone at the club, which was another reason why it was standing room only out here.

As the lyrics got more suggestive, her hips went wild and the scarves flew in all directions until Jackie was left just wearing pasties over her nipples and hot red booty shorts.

She acted out the voice parts, getting the audience involved.

She was a natural and a damn good dancer.

She leapt and twirled around the pole and it looked like she was floating.

“Are you sure she’s never done this before?” Highway squinted at Jackie.

“To S&M,” she sang with the music, flinging her arms wide.

The Aussies roared and jumped to their feet.

“Holy shit,” Highway croaked.

Jackie slid around like a snake on the stage, accepting bills into the waistband of her shorts. Then she coiled away and slowly sauntered off the stage as the song wound down.

“That was a hell of a way to warm up the room.” Highway said, and went back to his post by the door.

She killed it. I hid a grin behind my hand, ridiculously proud of her.

I noticed that some of the dancers weren’t so happy that Jackie had made such a splash on her first number.

But they were reaping the benefits of the excited audience.

Kikki and Mina took two of the bachelor party guys into the VIP room.

Darcy was all in, dancing by his chair this time, to Nalia’s gyrations to J Lo and Pitbull’s “On the Floor.”

“Make sure Darcy stays off the stage tonight,” I ordered Mav over the headset.

Making my way back to the kitchen, I saw that we were a little short staffed, so I put a load of bar glasses into the dishwasher. “Where is everyone?” I asked Liu, my chef.

“Paulie is a no-show. No answer at his house.” Paulie was the dishwasher. “Dee hasn’t been into work for two days. Her mother hasn’t seen her.” Dee was his sous chef. “And Zeke’s phone has been disconnected.” Zeke was a waiter.

“What the actual fuck?” Was someone stalking my staff, discouraging them from coming to work?

“Something in the water,” Liu grunted as he took stock of the supplies. “I need some help.”

“What can I do?”

Liu gave me a dismissive look. “You can stay the hell out of my kitchen. Go knock heads together and let me create.”

I rolled my eyes. He made the best damn appetizers I’d ever tasted, and he did it cheap and made a ton of food. He kept me in the black almost as much as the liquor sales did and he knew it.

“Then what do you need?” I wondered where I’d` put the number of that temp agency I used when the shit hit the fan.

“I’ve got my cousins coming in. You’re going to pay them under the table for tonight.”

I grunted. Not the way I wanted to do business, but I didn’t want a bunch of hungry, angry customers either. “They want permanent jobs?”

“They’ve misplaced their social security cards.”

Plugging my fingers in my ears, I said, “I don’t want to know about that.”

“Cash at three a.m.”

“Fine. But just for tonight.”

I pushed thoughts of the legality of my kitchen staff tonight out of my mind for the moment.

Liu would handle it. What the heck was going on?

Like any bar in a tourist town, we had turnover, but most people gave notice or at least the courtesy of a phone call.

Zeke, Paulie, and Dee had been at Dalton’s for over a year.

For all three of them not to come in tonight was suspicious.

And if Dee hadn’t checked in for two days, something was up.

I went into the employee break room and glared at the missing staff’s lockers. They knew that I could search their lockers at any time. It was in their employee contract, but I hated doing it.

“Mav,” I said over the headset. “Can you ask around and see if anyone’s heard from Zeke, Paulie, or Dee?” A thought hit me and I didn’t like it. “See if you can find out how friendly they were with Ginny or Broadway.”

People moved on from Vegas all the time. They also got in trouble. Three people not answering their phones was suspicious. Four, if you counted Jackie’s sister. I remembered Ginny’s threats to me and suddenly they didn’t seem so silly.

I cut the lock off of Zeke’s locker first. He had a change of clothes and a pair of sneakers that could use a wash or at least a good dousing with Febreze.

I found a carton of cigarettes, an unopened pack of condoms, and about fifty one-dollar bills.

But I didn’t see any clues on why he had bailed on us.

Or signs that he was leaving for good. He would have at least taken the cash and the cigarettes.

Dee’s locker was completely empty. I knew for a fact she kept an extra chef’s jacket and a change of clothes to change into after shift. So maybe Dee knew she wasn’t coming back. But for her not to tell Liu didn’t make any sense.

I hit the jackpot with Paulie’s locker. A large plastic baggie of marijuana, a smaller one of pills, and a pistol. He also wouldn’t have left this behind if he’d cut and run. The pistol was loaded.

“Stupid,” I muttered and unloaded it. I put the magazine into my pocket and the pistol into my pants in the center of my back.

I stuffed the drugs into a fast food bag I found in the trash and hurried through the club to secure the drugs and the gun in the safe in my office.

Grier was coming tomorrow and hopefully he’d have some insight on what was going on.

It was a coincidence that I was back on the floor when Jackie’s second number came up.

At least, that was what I told myself. She was in thigh-high, white-studded leather boots, with a matching cap and jacket.

I could see flashes of her breasts inside the coat as she stomped and shook her hips to “Does Your Mother Know” from the movie Mamma Mia .

She must have tipped the DJ, because Javi put the strobes up all over her so they caught the silver studs on the jacket and cap.

She knew how to work the room. Her joy at being up there was infectious.

Because she was sincerely having fun, so was everyone else.

Most strippers played the crowd with vacant looks or practiced leers.

Jackie was singing along to the music and entertaining the crowd, flirting outrageously.

She had a way of making the man she looked at think he was the only one in the room.

I was too far away for her to see me, but I had a bird’s-eye view of the spell she was weaving over the jaded crowd.

Fresh and new, with a splash of youthful innocence, she was a big hit with the bachelor party.

And the way she moved her body sent mine into overdrive.

I didn’t date strippers. It wasn’t a rule.

It was just good business sense. I was a shitty boyfriend because I was always working.

But she wasn’t going to be here very long, and I couldn’t come up with a reason why I couldn’t be in Jackie’s bed tonight, especially if she was as eager to grind on me as she was last night.

The jacket came off and her perky breasts jiggled free.

She wore shiny pasties that sparkled in the flashing lights as she high kicked and threw herself into the music with her entire body.

She used the pole as a dance partner, but I could see a few of Kiki’s moves when she twirled around. Jackie was a fast learner.

She put her cap on Darcy’s head and shimmied her chest at him.

Mav was already there to put a restraining hand on his shoulder when Darcy would have joined Jackie on the stage.

Her hands went to the studded belt she wore.

She snapped it free of the loops and her shorts fell to her ankles.

She was wearing butt floss. My cock nearly jumped up and cheered.

Then she kicked her shorts away and ended her song in a deep split.

My mouth dropped open. If I had any business sense, I’d switch her to the prime-time slots. But I wanted to keep her all to myself.

Darcy held up his credit card. “To the VIP room.”

My hands clenched into fists as Jackie took his hand after wrapping the belt over his shoulders. It was only Highway’s hand on my shoulder that stopped me from following.

“Not a good idea, boss.”

I thought it was a fucking great idea.

“Did you know that Paulie was selling drugs out of the club?” I asked instead.

Highway frowned. “I never saw anything, but it makes sense.”

“Why?”

“I couldn’t figure out why Ginny was fucking that little prick.”

Paulie was the supplier. I had a solid lead for Grier. “What about Dee or Zeke?”

“They weren’t fucking Paulie.”

I supposed that was information that was important to someone. “Do you think they were selling to him or buying from him or Ginny?”

“I don’t think so. They did hang out with the dancers after their shifts.”

“Which ones?”

“The ones who had a side business after hours.”

I snorted. That wasn’t drugs. That was sex. I didn’t care what the dancers did when they were off the clock and off my property, as long as it didn’t affect their jobs when they were on stage.

“Did they hang around with Broadway?”

“Zeke did. He was the only one who liked her. I don’t think she let him fuck her though.”

Holding up a hand, I said, “I don’t care who is fucking who. What I want to know is what’s going on with my employees. They’re dropping like flies.”

“Shit happens.”

I couldn’t argue with that. My eyes slid over to the closed VIP door where Jackie and Darcy had gone. “Has it been fifteen minutes yet?”

“No, but Darcy paid for an hour.”

“What?” I whipped my head to Highway. “How the fuck do you know that?”

He tapped his headset. “I heard her call it in. His card went through.”

I usually didn’t need to be on the headset until later in the evening so I hadn’t turned on my Bluetooth. “That son of a bitch spent four hundred dollars on Jackie?”

“La Vie Bohème,” Highway corrected me. “More like five twenty after the booze.”

I forced my jaw to unclench.

“And that’s not including tip,” he added helpfully.

“Fuck.”

“You shouldn’t get involved with strippers, boss. They’ll break your balls, your heart, and your bank account. And not necessarily in that order.”

Just what I needed, love advice from my head bouncer. “Look, just ask around and keep your ears open. Find out everything you can about Paulie, Dee, and Zeke—especially if it has to do with Broadway. I don’t think Broadway’s white haired friend is going to come back.”

“Where are you going?” Highway asked.

“My office,” I snarled. If Zeke and Broadway met up outside of work, he might know where she was. Or if I was really lucky, Lisa would be with him and her sister could get off the stage and away from Darcy fucking Ross. I had some calls to make.