Неизвестный - 5. Justice Served

dated any of these girls?”

“For more than one night?”

From the other side of the table, Phil snickered.

“Doesn’t matter,” Mitch answered. “I was wondering if you ever went home with one of them.”

Ken, bulkier than Mitch in his chest and shoulders, the barest suggestion of a beard darkening his angular jaw, shook his head. “They don’t take you home. They do you in the back hall or the john. These girls don’t date.”

“They don’t date or you don’t ask them out?”

“Why would we?” Ken asked with no suggestion of censure in his voice. “They’re all working girls. If that’s your pleasure, a Þ fty will get you anything you want.”

A muscle on the edge of Mitch’s jaw twitched, and he carefully kept his voice even. This wasn’t about Sandy. It wasn’t about him. This was about the job. “I don’t know—you guys don’t strike me as the hit-and-run types, and it wouldn’t be the Þ rst time some guy tried to rescue one of them.”

He intentionally took a swallow of his beer and let his gaze drift over the woman who danced closest to them. She was nude, bathed in an unforgiving light that revealed the faint sheen of sweat covering her body, which was slightly thinner than was healthy, but attractive nonetheless. Her breasts were high and Þ rm, her belly long and sensuous, her legs suggestively sinuous. As the music pulsed, she squatted with her hands on her knees—legs spread, hips rolling—opening herself for their inspection. He wasn’t aroused, but he couldn’t help but look at her. When he did, she smiled and extended a hand with a come-hither motion. He feigned interest, letting his eyes follow her hand as it dropped down between her thighs. “She’s hot.”

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Justice Served

“Yeah,” Ken said dismissively, “but she’s not going to have your babies. These girls don’t settle down. It’s too late for that.”

“So you don’t know where they live, who they really are?”

“Never thought about it,” Ken acknowledged. “Besides, like I said, they’re not here that long.”

They’re not here that long.

There’ve been a lot of new girls in the clubs the last eighteen months.

“How long?”

“Huh?” Ken asked, angling his body and craning his neck as he followed the particularly acrobatic maneuverings of a tall blond working out on a pole.

“How long are they usually here?”

Ken seemed to pick up on the urgency in Mitch’s voice and Þ nally gave him his full attention. “Somebody catch your eye?”

“Maybe.”

“With that little hottie you have at home?” Ken’s tone was incredulous.

“I didn’t give her a ring yet.”

Ken looked skeptical, and Mitch Þ gured the Kings’ leader wasn’t buying his story. He wouldn’t either, not after getting one look at Sandy.

“I’m…looking for someone I saw last week. Maybe she’ll be back.”

“It’s not like I actually counted,” Ken said.

“But you noticed.” And if you noticed, there must be a pattern.

“Yeah,” Ken agreed thoughtfully, turning to the other members of his troupe. “Hey, guys, listen up.”

Mitch waited impatiently while the other guys talked.

“What’s going on?” Jasmine asked.

“Remember what the lieutenant has always said—it has to do with the girls?”

“Yes, why? You have an idea?”

“Maybe.”

Ken turned back. “Okay, we think two months, no more than three.”

What exactly did Trudy say about the nights that she Þ lled in for the video shoots? Lieutenant Frye had asked Sandy.

Every few months, is what she told me.

“I need to hit the head,” Mitch said abruptly. He looked around

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RADCLY fFE

the table at the other kings and Jasmine. “Anybody need a beer or anything?”

As the group chorused no, he slipped from the booth and headed back to the bar.

“Back again, huh?” the bartender from the previous weekend asked in a bored tone as he wiped down the bar.

“Best show in town,” Mitch replied. He pulled a folded twenty from his front pocket and slid it across the bar. “Let me have a Bud.”

The bartender took his time squeezing out the rag and folding it carefully before reaching into the cooler under the bar and extracting a dripping bottle of beer. As he took the bill and turned toward the register on the narrow counter underneath the mirror opposite the bar, Mitch said, “Keep the change.”

After ringing up the sale, extracting the change from the cash drawer, and whisking it into his pocket, he swung back around to face Mitch. “Something you want?”

“Irina,” Mitch said. “She here tonight?”

The bartender smirked. “Setting your sights pretty high, aren’t you, stud?”

Mitch lifted a shoulder. “She liked it pretty well the other night.”

“You’d have better luck with one of her girls.”

“She’s like, what, their keeper or something?”

The bartender’s face hardened. “You ask a lot of questions.” He leaned his elbows on the bar and peered over it, his gaze sliding down to Mitch’s crotch. “I can think of one or two who might go for what you got in there.”

“How much?” Mitch asked, his heart pounding but his voice steady.

“Depends on what you’re after.”

“Just some company.”

The bartender laughed. “Yeah, and my dick don’t get hard watching those girls up there either. You gotta spell it out, or no deal.”

“All right, I want to fuck, but not back there in some corner. I want to take my time.”

“It’s here or nowhere.”

“I’ll pay for a room. There’s plenty of rent-by-the-hour places around here.”

“No deal. The girls don’t leave this place.”

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Justice Served

Mitch watched the guy’s eyes, trying to judge how far to push.

“Five hundred for an hour.”

The bartender shook his head. “You get a room in the back. Take it or leave it.”

“I want Irina.” Mitch hadn’t seen her so far that night, but somehow he sensed that she was the key. She was the constant. He was praying that she would remember him and still be interested.

“You must have a lot in those jeans, boy.”

“It’s not how much you got, it’s how much you do with it.”

The bartender stared at Mitch impassively for a long moment, then cracked a smile and Þ nally laughed out loud. “Yeah, and you got the balls too. I’ll see what I can do, but it’s not gonna be tonight.”

He tilted his chin toward the stage. “Those are new girls. Irina always keeps close tabs on them when they Þ rst start working. She won’t hang around tonight.”

“Let me talk to her. Maybe tomorrow night.”

“You must have a hard-on that won’t quit.” The bartender laughed again. “But then, yours never does, does it.”

Surprisingly, he sounded just a bit jealous.

“Working around here, I’m surprised yours ever lets up either,”

Mitch said.

“Ah, you get used to it after a while.” He sighed. “Look, I’ll see what I can do, okay? But you’re gonna have to keep it in your pants for tonight.”

Mitch dropped his hand between his thighs and squeezed. “It’ll be a challenge.”

“Big balls, boy, big balls,” the bartender muttered as he walked away.

v

Mitch stopped with the bottle halfway to his lips as a hand came around his middle from behind and dropped into his crotch.

He registered the unmistakable press of breasts against his back and the brush of warm lips over his right ear. Unprepared for the sudden onslaught of sensation, he forced himself not to shudder.

“Greg said you wanted to talk to me,” the silky, accented voice he remembered murmured.