Good Girl Gone Bad (4 page)

Turning the flimsy outfit over and over in her hands, Phil decided she’d just see about exposing the maximum amount of skin. If she was going to play the part of a cocktail waitress at a high-class strip club, she’d make the men crane their necks all right. She smirked, and with that decision she knew she had a busy day ahead to prepare for her debut that night.

“I’ll bet you next week’s paycheck she doesn’t show,” Ty said to Jase as he pushed through the drudgery of paperwork that came with running a task force. The throb in his temple at Zorn’s entrance earlier picked up momentum.

“I’d take you up on that, bro, but I can’t afford to lose. I have that house payment now.”

Ty grunted. “As much as I wish she’d walk back in here and say she quits and mean it, I can’t see a way around using her. She fits the bill perfectly.”

Jase grinned. “I bet she cleans up real nice.”

Ty speared him with a glare. “She looked pretty damn good to me the way she was.”

“Oh yeah, she did; now put that body in that skimpy little cocktail number, and you’ll be plenty busy keeping her ass out of the hands of the paying customers.”

Ty swiped his hand across his chin and blew out an exasperated breath. “Just what I need, keeping one eye on her and the other on the regular perverts.”

“Hey, I’ll keep my eye on her, no hardship for me.”

“Keep your eyeballs to yourself. Let me worry about the floor and our newest edition.”

Jase nodded. “Fine with me. I’m out of here. I need to go chill. The last few Friday nights at Kashmir’s have been hopping.” He slapped Ty heartily on the back. “I want to keep up.”

Ty grunted a response that settled for good-bye. Just as he turned back to the storyboard, Jase popped his head back into the room. “Ty?”

“Yeah?”

Entering the room, Jase closed the door behind him. “What are you going to do when she finds out you were the one who turned her father over?”

Ty ground his teeth and worked his jaw.

“The files are sealed. She’ll never know.”

Jase shook his head and opened the door. “I hope you’re right, man. I’d hate to get the bad end of that.”

After the door closed behind Jase, Ty swore. “Son of a bitch. I don’t need this distraction.” Tension clenched his body. What was done was done. He had no regrets.

Ty stood and stretched his long muscles. Wound up, he paced the small space of the task force office. Refusing to think of Mac’s daughter and what she and her family had suffered, Ty stopped at the storyboard. Officer Marten’s fresh-faced academy pic stared back.

He’d made a fatal mistake allowing the rookie to go undercover. Knowing he hadn’t any choice didn’t soften the sting of losing one of his own. They needed a decent-looking female officer and she fit the bill. Simple as that. Not to mention, Marten was smart.

Apparently not smart enough.

His gut soured. Now he had another female to worry about, this one too smart for her own good. That didn’t bother him half as much as the fact that she came from IA.

He smiled wryly. If little Miz Rat thought she was going to keep book on him and his men, she had another thing coming. He’d show her how to play hardball in a real cop’s world.

He turned back and scowled at the load of paperwork on his desk, his thoughts still on Zorn. If she was half the cop he hoped she was, she just might lead them to the missing dancers and come out alive.

Although the club was not scheduled to open for another hour, the subtle energy pricked Phil’s skin. It pulsed, as some living thing: the chatter of the dancers, the clanking of glasses, and the blaring music as the stagehands checked the sound and light system roared to life.

She’d felt isolated the minute she entered through the back door. People buzzed around her, giving her no more attention than a stick of furniture. After checking out her surroundings, she remembered she had paperwork for Bud. She hustled out to the main bar and handed over the false documents. She stood alone for a long minute before Bud said, “Keep an eye out for a tall redhead. That’ll be Tammy. She’s house mom. Go to her for girly problems.”

Great.

Feeling more out of her element than she cared to admit, Phil started for the backstage area. She needed to get into character or she’d get fired for being a mouse. One thing she immediately took note of were the ladies that chose Klub Kashmir as their place of employment. They were a hard, dedicated lot. No little mice running for cover.

Candi, a one-time cocktail waitress and now featured dancer, took pity on Phil and showed her to her locker.

A locker that consisted of an open-front cubbyhole and a small attached bench with a locking lid. Nothing like the dancers’ dressing room she’d peaked at on her way in. No, her little corner of the club didn’t sport large locking lockers, expansive clothes racks for costumes, or a private shower.

“That’s where us showgirls go, sweetie,” Candi informed Phil when she craned her neck toward the brightly lit makeup bar. “You want to dance, honey?”

Phil shook her head. “No, I just want to make enough to pay my rent and get by.”

Candi dug her two-inch neon blue nails into her tiny sequined purse and pulled out a pack of gum. She offered it to Phil, who declined. The blonde shrugged and deftly unwrapped two pieces and popped them into her mouth, noisily chewing. “So, honey, how does your boyfriend feel about you working at the Klub?” Not giving Phil a chance to comment, Candi answered for her. “Most don’t like it much, but they get over it real quick when they see all the cash coming home.”

Phil began what would be a string of lies. She’d gone over her cover dossier until she’d nailed her new persona. “There’s no one waiting for me at home. If I disappeared into thin air, the only one to notice would be my landlord when I didn’t pay rent.” Realizing she spoke an almost truth, sadness washed through her. The only deviation from her story was she had no landlord, it was the bank she paid her mortgage to that would notice her disappearance.

Candi patted her arm and smiled, her big, pink lips pursing. She popped her gum and shrugged. “Well, sweetie, consider me your friend. You’ll find the girls here real sweet, so long as you don’t swipe a client. We dancers are very territorial.”

Candi’s platinum blonde hair shimmered down her back as she caught her reflection in one of the numerous wall mirrors and gave herself a quick once-over. Clearly happy with her reflection, she smiled at herself. Chomping loudly on her gum, she continued, “Territorial as lions, we are.”

“I’m only cocktailing, nothing to worry about from me.”

Candi stopped in her tracks and slanted her head at Phil. Her petite bombshell of a body quivered and Phil thought she was going to get poked in the chest with one of Candi’s bullet-shaped breasts. “Cocktailing or stripping, sweetie, with your looks, you’re bound to snag a few players. They like pretty new faces.”

She popped her gum again. “Whatcha say your name was?”

She hadn’t. “Katharine, but you can call me Kat.”

Candi nodded vigorously and popped her gum again. “I like the sound of that, Kat. Can I call you Kitty?”

Phil shrugged. “Fine with me.”

Candi looped her arm through Phil’s. “Well, Kitty Kat, you have a great bod and big blue eyes and your hair is so thick and gorgeous, I’m jealous. If your ass is half as tight as it looks in those jeans, plan on lots of offers tonight and
big
tips.”

Phil smiled. She’d pleaded with the stylist at the local hair salon to squeeze her in and give her dark brown hair a new life, and the aesthetician to whip her skin into shape and wax what hair she didn’t need for survival. The results stunned her. Joey, her stylist, couldn’t pat himself on the back more, and Lynette wouldn’t stop admiring her extreme makeover.

Phil had to admit when they spun her around she was shocked. But as her Auntie Kay had always told her, “You’ve got the bones, Philly, you just need the paint to cause a ruckus.” And so she had the paint, the lighter hair, the perfectly arched brows, and bikini waxing that even wearing the skimpiest of costumes would not reveal what shouldn’t be revealed. After all the pulling, cutting, and poking, Phil felt the epitome of female. She wondered what her ill-tempered lieutenant’s reaction would be, and her skin warmed. Would Ty even recognize her? She smiled. She was definitely warming up to this undercover work.

“Has Tammy given you the lay of the land yet?”

“No, Bud said to go to her for girl problems. What kind of girl problems?”

Candi shrugged and popped her gum. “The girls can get nasty sometimes. She plays referee. She helps with costumes and routines, and she’s a shoulder to cry on. But mostly she makes sure the rules are followed.” Candi popped her gum and looked past Phil’s shoulder. ”Oh, there she is.”

Phil turned and followed Candi’s gaze to a tall, almost elegant redhead. She had the lithe body of a dancer, her pale face scored with the deep lines of a woman who’d had a hard life, yet her watery, cornflower blue eyes showed compassion. Phil looked hard at her. Her gut reaction was that Tammy didn’t have it in her to kidnap anyone. She’d felt the same about Candi, but her training had taught her never to take a person at face value.

“Hey, Tammy,” Candi called. “This is Katharine, a new cocktail.”

Tammy slowed her hurried pace to a stop in front of Phil and smiled. Extending her hand, she said, “I’ve been looking for you. I’ve got costume issues, so I’ll give you the abbreviated version of the facts of life around here.” She let go of Phil’s hand and angled her head. “First rule, cleanliness is next to godliness. Keep yourself clean at all times and don’t overload the perfume. If you get your period, cut the string of your tampon short enough so even at close quarters it can’t be seen. If you smoke, wash your hands regularly and invest in gallons of Scope. Rule two, if you’re late, you pay. You’re fined two dollars for every minute you’re late, and we go by Bud’s bar clock. I suggest you synchronize before you leave tonight. Rule three, you’ll have your own locker next to the dancers’ dressing room. Even if you’re invited in there, it’s off limits unless you dance. Rule four, if you end up on the stage, twenty-five percent of your tips go to the house. And speaking of the house, we aren’t a whorehouse. Anyone pushes it, let me know, or the manager.”

Tammy took a deep breath and called to a brunette dancer who came strutting from backstage in nothing more than a G-string. “I’ll be right there, Misty.”

She turned back to Phil. “Any questions?”

Even if she did, Phil realized now was not the time. Tammy was on a mission that didn’t involve Phil. She’d play the good worker. “No, ma’am.”

Tammy nodded and moved past them both. “If any come to mind, ask, don’t assume. And my name is Tammy or you can call me Mom, you pick, but don’t call me ‘ma’am’ again.”

Phil couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, Tammy.”

The redhead hurried off, ushering the nearly naked dancer backstage.

“She’s really not that hard, unless you break the rules,” Candi said.

“I don’t plan on breaking the rules. I need this job.”

“Then you’d best get ready to get to work. In a few minutes the boss man will be coming in to make sure all the ladies showed up, and he’ll be doing an inspection. He’s a looker, too.” Candi smiled and popped her gum. “Oh, and speaking of territory, I have dibs on him.”

Phil shrugged. The thought of dating anyone who worked in this seedy atmosphere gave her the willies. Although Klub Kashmir was touted as
the
premier gentlemen’s club in Lansdowne, it was what it was, a strip club. The girls were served up in the back rooms for private lap dances as effortlessly as alcohol was ordered at the bar. She shivered at the thought of dancing so intimately close to a stranger, taking her clothes off, rubbing up against him, feeling the hard ridge of his privates against the fabric of his pants, him smelling her sex.

Candi continued her quick tutorial on life as a cocktailer. “You don’t have to worry about clients touching you during a lap dance. They can’t. Mr. Z. could lose his license, so he forbids us to allow the clients even to breathe on us. But to make sure, there’s always a bouncer standing in a dark corner of the room.”

“I’m a cocktailer, Candi, not a dancer.”

“That doesn’t matter, honey, lots of cocktailers get asked to lap dance. Big bucks.”

“You mean, one of the clients can just say they want me for a lap dance and I have to do it?”

Candi laughed, happily chomping her gum. “Sure. Why not?”

A wave of warmth permeated Phil’s skin. She visualized herself dancing with her eyes closed, pretending the man beneath her taut thighs and heated pussy was her lieutenant, with no bouncer lurking in the shadows. She gasped. Oh Lord, not
him
.

“You okay, honey?” Candi asked, tightening her grip on Phil’s trembling arm. “Don’t be scared, these guys can’t hurt you. The bouncer’ll be right there, and Ty, he don’t take shit from no one, not even our own people.” She let go of Phil’s arm and winked. “Honey, you play them poor slobs right and they’ll treat you like a princess.”

“Play them?”

Candi nodded and popped her gum. “Honey, it ain’t called ‘cocktail’ for nothing. You got the tail and the cocks crow.” Candi laughed. “Hey, I like that.” She nudged Phil. “C’mon, jump on the cash train. You make ’em feel special, like they’re the only ones in the room and you would love nothing more than to go home with them. ’Course when they ask you to, you just sweetly smile and tell them it’s against company policy, but if you ever quit working the Kashmir you’d be happy to give them a call.” Candi popped her gum. “’Course if you really want to go off with them, nobody has to know.”

Phil nodded and felt a flash of pity for the men. Didn’t they know they were being played?

“They know what we’re doing, but if you’re good at it? They forget fast and think with their cock, and if you’re
real
good, you can empty plenty of wallets by the end of the night.”

Phil smiled. The scene Candi painted was empowering. She’d never considered sex as power, but she supposed it was. Every woman in their right mind knew men thought with their little head, and so long as they did, a smart girl could capitalize on it.