Authors: Olivia Rigal
“I’m sure he
does
not mind,” I answer, correcting his English. “Come on, kiddo.”
Toussaint grabs his backpack. After a stop in the men’s room, where he brushes his teeth, I walk Toussaint to the second floor of the building. Slider’s office has a battered old couch he sleeps on when he’s too wasted to ride home.
When the kid and I walk into Slider’s office, he pulls out the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet and grabs a pillow and blanket. I guess I’m not the only one who likes the boy.
“Not the Ritz,” Slider growls, “but good enough to grab some shut-eye.”
Toussaint frowns. He has no idea what the Ritz is, and he’s a bit scared of Slider, so he doesn’t ask.
“Now you know you have to stay put. You lock the door, and don’t come out until David or I come get you, you hear?” Slider says in a softer tone.
Slider and I exit the room and wait in the hall until we hear Toussaint lock the door. Once he’s done it, Slider and I go down the stairs.
“I’m expecting them anytime, so be ready in case we get another shot,” he tells me.
I nod and take my place between the door and the podium. Kim, the incredibly lean and flexible Chinese girl, is walking away from the center stage pole, and Starla arrives. Her performance is magnificent, a graceful, moving ebony sculpture, but her eyes are dead. It’s as though she lost her soul somewhere along the way and keeps on going through the motions for the sake of her son.
At the end of her number, she’s replaced by Sally, who’s a really funny girl. Sally’s in college. She was hired as a waitress, and she asked Slider to give her a chance on the pole when she realized how much the strippers were making. She soon discovered that she wouldn’t make as much as the others because she gave up on lap dances after almost throwing up on a john who stank. She also refuses to “date” her clients, but she claims that she’s still way ahead of the waitressing game.
Sally is a brunette belle with an ample bosom that doesn’t look as if it’s been added on. I watch her swirl around the pole, upside down, and her long black hair sweeps the floor. She’s hot. I’ll probably ask her out once she graduates and quits stripping or when I’m done with this mission—whichever comes first.
Next there’s Suzy, the redhead who cultivates the mean dominatrix look. She’s the poster chick for those with a black latex kink. I don’t think Suzy likes me, unless she just keeps her private and professional lives separate. She answers my greetings politely but never volunteers anything about herself.
Each girl does her number three to four times each evening, depending on attendance. I doubt most of the snowbirds can get it up, but they still like to watch. So four dancers work on weeknights and sometimes double that on weekends during the season. The weekend girls are usually dancers from other MC clubs who hop on over for a couple of numbers.
Slider believes that variety is what makes the club special, and he knows what he’s doing. We’re only missing a blonde right now. The last one quit after one of the owners got a bit too rough with her. Slider is recruiting, but so far no one has danced to his standards… or he’s enjoying the recruiting process too much to settle on one girl yet.
Since Suzy’s good at cracking her whip during her number, I can usually walk around the room, get a drink, or do my own stuff. I think she scares the shit out of most of the guys.
Just before Suzy’s done, I’m standing by the main door, and Sally comes inside to get me.
Her makeup is running—from rain or tears, I can’t tell—and she whisper-yells in my ear, “It’s Josette. Come outside.”
I follow her, and as we walk through the pouring rain around the building to the side entrance, I notice her bare feet are covered with mud. She’s holding her spiked-heel shoes.
“I went out for a smoke,” she says. She’s been trying to quit for forever but relapses periodically. “I found her like this. She was face down, so I flipped her up, and she didn’t move. Shit, I hope she’s not dead.”
I look up and down Josette’s body for any suspicious wounds while I check her neck for a pulse. I find one, but she’s burning up. She’s passed out. I pick her up easily—she weighs nothing—and Sally holds the side door open for me.
“Go get Slider,” I tell her. “He’s at the bar.”
I try to sit Josette in one of the chairs at the makeup mirror, but she slumps down. I catch her before she falls on the floor. I pick her up again in a fireman’s grip and look for something to use to dry her off. I find a half-clean towel in the shower room. Better than nothing.
Slider returns with Sally. One look, and he understands we probably have an overdose on our hands.
“I don’t think we have the time to wait for an ambulance,” I tell him. “Someone needs to drive her to the hospital.”
Sally looks at us for a few seconds and rushes to her locker. She comes back with her keys. “Take my car, I’ll find someone to drive me home.”
“You or me?” I ask Slider.
“You,” he answers. “Just drop her and come back. I’ll mind the shop and wait for you to close.”
Since part of my job is walking the girls to their cars every night, I have no trouble finding Sally’s car. It’s a two-door number, so I just lean the passenger seat back as much as possible and tie Josette in with the safety belt.
As I push the driver’s seat all the way back, I remember Toussaint is sleeping in Slider’s office.
Fuck!
I hope I get her to the hospital in time. I pray she wakes up real soon because otherwise, social services will take the kid away, and he’s much too sweet for the system.
As I enter the dressing room, Sally jumps off her chair and asks, “How is she?”
Dropping her keys on the makeup table, I tell her the truth. “They’re not sure. It would help if they knew what she’d taken.”
“You need to find her stash.” Kim’s onyx eyes set on me through the mirror.
“Yeah, and to find out if she has anyone to take care of the kid while she’s in the hospital,” I answer.
“Her stuff is in the storage trunk.” Kim points with her chin at the corner of the room. “It’s in a mini leopard handbag.”
She returns to applying her eye makeup, ignoring my thank you. Kim always seems to be lost in her own world, but as I suspected, it’s a trick to make sure no one bothers her. She’s very aware of what’s happening around her.
“While you search the trunk for her stash, I’ll look in her bag to see if I can find her sister’s number,” Sally says.
“She’s got a sister?”
Sally looks at me funny. “I know for a fact you’ve seen her since you started here.”
Right, give me a prize for the dumbest question of the year. I shake my head as I dig in the trunk searching for the bag.
I find the pouch in which Josette squirrels away her poisons. I empty it on the mirrored surface of the makeup table. There’s an empty glass vial with a tiny spoon attached to the lid by a mini chain, some weed, a few tablets I can’t identify, and what look like acid blotters.
“She finished the vial before she went on stage,” Kim says as she exits the room.
The song Suzy uses for her whip tease is almost over. It soon will be Kim’s turn again, and she needs to get in her special headspace.
“I’ll take a ride back to the hospital with all this,” I tell Sally as I put everything back in the pouch. “Could you—”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay with the kid if Slider’s too busy to do it after we close,” Sally says. “But if she doesn’t make it, I’m not the one telling Toussaint that his mother’s gone.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I say before I exit the dressing room into the club.
The bar is packed. It’s a big crowd for a weeknight. The president of the Wizards—Mr. Ezachia Smith—is at a table, watching Suzy crack her whip. Slider observes him with a predatory smile. He looks in my direction, and I know Slider savors the irony of the situation. The guy who claims he wants to dominate the world is fascinated by a woman who dominates him in private. His V.P., who is not honoring us with his presence tonight, has crushes on Josette and Kim, who sure aren’t sporting the proper party color. I guess his dick didn’t get the party’s memo.
I walk to the corner where Slider is standing and show him Josette’s leopard pouch. “Taking it back to the hospital so they can try to figure out what she’s taken.” I slide the pouch into my leather jacket.
“What about the kid?” Slider’s nostrils flare, and his pupils dilate.
“Sally says she’ll stay with him until I come back.”
The look of relief on Slider’s face is priceless. We’re all afraid of something, and it seems that Slider’s freaked out by the idea of being alone with a child. I won’t make fun of him. My weakness is the folding razor blade. The mere sight of it is enough to freeze me.
“I’ll try to get back as soon as possible, but I don’t think it’s happening tonight,” I say.
He shakes his head and throws up his hands in a those-are-the-odds gesture. We’ve been waiting for weeks for that bastard to come back here alone. We figured that while he and Suzy shared some quality time—him being tied up and blindfolded—we would go through his pockets and search his office. The plan was for one of us to carry out the search on the second floor while the other remained downstairs by the steps to make sure the searcher was undisturbed.
Instead, I get to ride back to Point Lookout hospital with a bunch of illegal substances. At least it’s not raining.
At the hospital, I park by the emergency-room door. In the middle of the night, the visitors’ parking lot is empty. Once I’m in the emergency ward, I zero in on the nurse who took charge of Josette when I dropped her off earlier. The nurse’s name is Patricia something. We were in high school together, and she and I had a thing way, way back then, but for the life of me, I can’t remember her last name.
“Here’s what she had in her bag,” I tell her, offering her the pouch. “Maybe the lab can identify what she took.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she says, shaking her head.
I slide everything back in my pocket. “She’s dead?”
Fuck!
I don’t even know if Toussaint has a father.
“No, but it’s been touch-and-go. Do you want to see her?” Patricia asks, putting a comforting hand on my arm. “I’m sure her sister won’t mind.”
“You found her sister?”
The nurse turns around without answering my stupid question. This probably isn’t Josette’s first rodeo. I bet her hospital file lists her sister as the person to call in case of an emergency. Patricia takes me to one of the isolated rooms in the emergency unit, knocks, and cracks the door open without waiting for an answer.
“Josette has a visitor,” she says and moves away to let me in.
Josette is on a bed. Despite the tube in her throat, her chest is barely moving. If not for the noise of the machine, I would swear she’s no longer breathing. Her skin has turned ashen, and the contrast against the ebony of her sister’s hand is striking. The woman is sitting next to Josette on the bed, caressing her cheek and whispering what must be sweet nothings in Créole.
She turns around and doesn’t try to hide her tears. She seems proud and defiant when she asks, “Who are you?”
The resemblance is amazing, yet it would be impossible to confuse them. Josette’s skeletal beauty pales in comparison to her sister’s. The other woman is breathtaking, and despite her tears, she’s vibrant with life. No matter what Sally says, I’m certain I’ve never seen her before—I would remember. She stirs something in me that makes me want to wipe her tears away and promise her that everything will be all right.
“Who are you?” she asks a little louder. Her tone is aggressive, as if she suspects me of being the one who fed drugs to her twin.
“He’s the man who brought your sister in,” the nurse answers.
“What do you want?”
From the hostility in her gaze, if looks could kill, I would probably be dead already. “I came to check on her and see how she’s doing.”
“He also brought in the drugs your sister had to help us understand what happened,” the nurse adds.
“Too little, too late.” The sister turns back to face Josette.
Patricia looks at me then leaves the room. I stand against a wall and remain silent. At first I think the woman is unaware of my presence.
She proves me wrong when, with her back to me, she asks “Why are you still here?” Her voice has softened, as if she’s trying not to startle her sister.
“Toussaint,” I say.
She jumps up and walks to me. She has the same feline grace that makes her sister an amazing dancer, but she has more flesh to her. She’s wearing flats, and she’s almost as tall as me. Either the drugs or the pregnancy must have stopped Josette’s growth in her teenage years.
“What about Toussaint?” she growls like a panther ready to fight for her cub. Of course, Toussaint’s not hers, but he may as well be. After all, he’s the child of her twin.
“When you’re ready to go,” I say as gently as I can, keeping my hands in the pockets of my leather jacket, “I’ll take you to him.”
By the time Jeanne-Michelle is done with the paperwork for her sister, it’s almost five in the morning. I’ve been following her like a puppy, fetching her coffee and a suspicious-looking donut from the cafeteria. Unlike her sister, Jeanne-Michelle eats. Her name is quite a mouthful, but she smiles every time I mispronounce it. That smile hits me in the gut every single time.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods, all puffy-eyed. Josette is probably brain-dead, and Jeanne-Michelle needs to decide whether she’s bringing Toussaint to see his mother one more time or not. Of all the shitty decisions to have to make, I’m happy this one isn’t my call.