Неизвестный - 6. Justice For All

Fifty dollars for ten minutes’ work, maybe less. Food money for a week. She could blank her mind for ten minutes, hell, she could be somewhere else in her head for a whole night if the price was right.

“Suck my cock. You know you want it.”

Sandy almost laughed as the car kept pace with her, the passenger window rolled down. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him leaning across the space between the front seats, steering with one hand while the other most likely worked his cock. You know you want it. She so didn’t want it. She didn’t have anything against cocks. She loved

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Mitch’s. She loved to watch his eyes get all fierce and hot when she rode it, and she loved the way she felt connected to him all the way through when he was inside her. Yep. She liked cock just fine, as long as it was Mitch’s.

“You got to see my man about that,” Sandy called back, never breaking stride. The car zoomed off. Married guys from the suburbs always panicked at the mention of a pimp. An anonymous blow job in an alley was okay, but they didn’t want to be reminded of exactly what it was they were doing. Paying another man for a piece of a woman’s body.

Sandy angled across a parking lot lit sporadically by the few remaining lights that hadn’t been knocked out. The Blue Diamond was another strip club in a long line of sex clubs, and just as popular with women as men. In a lot of ways it was safer than some of the other clubs because men didn’t hit on the women in the audience as much. A girl like her could still turn a trick, but nobody would expect her to. And that was good. Because fifty bucks wasn’t worth getting on her knees for. Five hundred wasn’t even enough. She wasn’t foolish enough to think she might never have to do it again, but tonight she had a choice.

“Hey, hot stuff,” the Mini Cooper–sized bouncer at the door said, treating her to a thrust of his bulging crotch. “Look me up later and I’ll give you a present.”

“It’s not my birthday, but thanks,” Sandy said, breezing by him.

He always had a come-on line, but unlike some of the bouncers and bartenders, he didn’t bother the girls if they didn’t put out. She was pretty sure he was gay.

Inside, the place was indistinguishable from a dozen others like it—dark, crowded with tables, smelling of beer and smoke and sex. The namesake recessed blue lights shrouded everyone except the dancers in a ghostlike pallor. Three gleaming poles jutted from a stage set against the far wall, and a woman in white cowboy boots, a suede vest, and red tassels on her nipples slithered up and down the center one.

On her way to the bar, Sandy scanned the crowd. One of her friends, Lily Chou, was giving some guy a hand job under the table.

Sandy caught her eye and tilted her chin toward the far end of the bar.

Lily nodded, never slowing the steady up and down of her arm. Sandy hopped onto a stool, stretched a leg out across the stool next to her to save Lily a place, and waited for the bartender to make his way down.

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Justice for All

The African-American’s head was huge, completely bald, and gleamed like polished wood beneath the blue lights. The massive muscles in his shoulders and arms strained his black T-shirt.

“What can I get you, honey,” he asked in a bored voice.

“Beer.” Sandy didn’t want it, but she needed the prop. After all, she was supposed to be working. When it came, she sipped at the tepid foam. God, the beer in these places sucked. She shifted her leg aside as Lily stepped in beside her. “How’s it going?”

“The same. You know.” Lily made a subtle jerk-off motion and dropped onto the adjacent stool.

Sandy smiled wryly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I heard you’ve got some new kind of action going on.”

Sandy’s pulse jumped. Frye was always careful not to be seen with her unless she made it look like she was rousting Sandy. Fuck, maybe someone had seen them in the diner the other night. She’d had her arm around Frye’s waist while they were walking down the street.

Hell, Frye had had her arm around her shoulders. Being cozy with a cop was not a good way to make friends around here. “What would that be?”

“Some pretty boy who rides a big bike?” Lily cocked her head.

“Maybe a boy with something a little different in his pants.”

Sandy shrugged. Not Frye, then. Mitch. “He’s fun to play with.

And he knows what to do with it, you know what I mean?”

“Hey, if it works, why not.” Lily laughed. “Does he have a friend?”

Sandy bumped Lily’s shoulder. “Three of them.”

“Maybe someday.”

“Let me know.”

“So what do you hear?” Lily asked.

That was just the question Sandy was hoping for. The fewer times she had to ask for news, the better. She looked around to be sure they wouldn’t be overheard, then leaned closer. “I heard some guys are looking for new talent. The party circuit, maybe films. You get anybody asking, I want in.”

“Funny,” Lily said. “That kind of action dried up earlier this year, but Julie told me last night a couple of guys were asking around for models. Stills, and maybe some videos. Said there might be other work soon too. Parties and like that.”

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“Damn, I could have used a little something extra.” Sandy signaled the bartender to get Lily a drink. “Did she say who the guys were?”

Lily shook her head. “Uh-uh. None of the regulars. They were talking up the girls at the Zodiac.”

“Oh well,” Sandy sighed, pretending to check out the room. “I ought to be able to score something here.”

“Don’t go in the back,” Lily said. “There’s a cop hanging around there somewhere. Getting a blow job, I think.”

Taking the easy excuse, Sandy stood up. “I don’t need any of that.

I’ll catch you later.” She started away, then turned back. “Listen. Tell the others to call me if those guys come around again.”

“Gotcha. Thanks for the beer,” Lily called after her.

Once outside, Sandy headed back the way she had come to catch the subway home. She heard footsteps keeping pace behind her, but she neither sped up nor slowed. At one in the morning the streets were nearly deserted. An occasional cab zoomed by, and now and then someone staggered out of a bar, but she was on her own.

She was used to that, but for the first time she realized she had someone who would care if she didn’t come home. She liked the feeling. A lot.

v

Talia sipped her pinot noir and watched numerals scroll on her computer screen. A fire burned in the marble fireplace across from her antique carved walnut desk. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined her study walls, the uppermost shelves accessible by a brass ladder rail that ran around three walls. Behind the double glass doors, first editions mingled with contemporary works. Opposite her desk, a matching 1930s art deco sofa and chair bordered the edge of a Persian wool rug.

The understated elegance of the room and the rich, warm atmosphere afforded by the rare books and furniture filled her with pleasure.

Taking another mouthful of wine, she let the velvety liquid play over her tongue, then tapped a few keys. She always worked better when her senses were sated, and the wine was very smooth, its fruitiness underpinned with just a hint of earth and wood. She studied the screen intently. Reconnaissance was one of her favorite parts of

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Justice for All

hacking into a remote system. Sending out probes and enumerating the OS parameters, generating port maps, looking for the forgotten opening—the chink in the armor, the way in. Cracking was very much like seducing a woman—teasing out her desires and her weaknesses and playing to them, until she invited you beyond her defenses. Those early encounters were so exciting that Talia rarely stayed beyond the moment of capitulation. Bedding a woman was certainly pleasurable, but far less rewarding than that explosive moment when the object of her campaign surrendered.