Urban Renewal (5 page)

THE ENTRANCE
to the Badlands was clearly marked … to those who knew. Those who didn’t became permanent residents. Land ravaged by toxic waste was always in need of fertilizer.

The Shark Car cut its lights and motored serenely past the rusted-out hulk of a semi-trailer, guided only by the thermal-image screen that had rotated to replace the instrument panel. The screen was bisected: one showing what was ahead, the other a rearview camera.

The city-camo car coasted to a stop parallel to a chain-link fence torn in so many places that even its ceremonial swirl of concertina wire couldn’t actually keep anyone out.

Buddha touched a button hidden under the console. Three parallel laser beams of blue and orange shot from behind the grille. They passed over an abandoned gas station lacking signs, pumps, and windows. All that remained was a squat concrete structure.

Both front windows zipped down. Ten minutes passed. Cross did not smoke. Buddha held his custom 4.5mm semi-auto pistol on his lap, watching the screen.

A figure appeared atop the fence. A teenager with a bright-blue Mohawk, folding his body into the shape that had given him his name, “Condor.”

“Any more surveyors?” Cross called out softly.

“Not since the last one,” the teenager replied.

“You’re doing good,” Cross told him.

“How come you ask?” the teenager said. “You gave us that cell to call you on if—”

“It’s machinery,” Cross said. “You can’t be sure it’s working unless you test it regular, and—”

“You told
us
never to do that,” Condor finished the sentence. “I get it.”

“Yeah, you do,” Cross said, flicking a thick roll of bills wrapped in rubber bands over the fence.

“
VISITORS?
”

“Mostly regulars,” Bruno answered Cross on his cell. “But a first-timer’s been sitting at the same table for over an hour. No dances, just buying booze. Asked one of the waitresses for powder. She told me. So I walked over and told him we don’t do that here. And we don’t
let
no one do that here, neither.”

Cross described the man in the photo the new dancer had shown him hours ago.

“Yep,” Bruno said. “That’s him. And he’s been drawing a bead on the new dancer—Taylor, right?—every time she goes up.”

“He doesn’t leave.”

“Got it.”

“
UH, BOSS,
”
Buddha said, “not for nothing, but Bruno’s not what you’d call a deep thinker.”

“So?”

“So, if this guy tries to leave, Bruno’s likely to make sure he never does.”

“So?”

“So Bruno can’t take another jolt Inside.”

“You think he doesn’t know that?”

“Sure. But if this guy’s carrying …”

“So much the better. Then we can hit 911 ourselves—we’re
as entitled to police protection as anyone else paying them off.”

THE SHARK CAR
pulled up behind the Double-X, into what appeared to be a stack of double-height Dumpsters sitting in a pool of black ink.

The three men exited the car and approached the extended wall used to allow dancers to park privately. Cross hit a sequence on a tiny keypad and a door popped open.

The man Arabella had called “K-2” responded with a slow shake of his head to Buddha’s shoulder shrug and spread palms. Nobody had left the club … at least not past the exit/entrance the Maori guarded.

Rhino slid off down an unlit corridor. Cross and Buddha entered a narrow tunnel, walked its length, and let themselves into a room built behind the corner where Cross kept his personal table.

As they did so, the lighting in the club shifted subtly. Only a few inside would recognize the signal, but Bruno had been watching for it. Now his face was a synonym for “perplexed.” He knew he shouldn’t leave his post, but he also knew that Cross would be expecting a report. Only Rhino’s cigar-sized finger, further distinguished by its missing tip, pointed him toward the correct move.

Bruno moved to the inset triangle table with confidence—if Rhino said it was okay, any worries he might have harbored about the front door being covered vanished.

“He’s at fifty-four,” Bruno told Cross, proud of his memorization of the seating chart.

“Still acting like he was?”

“No lap dances or anything like that, yeah. But I know he asked Brandi something. I don’t know what, but I could tell she was saying she didn’t know nothing about it.”

“Good. When you get back to the door, tell Brandi to bring us something to drink.”

“Uh, sure, boss. But shouldn’t I tell her what you—?”

“She’ll know.”

BRANDI MOVED
to the corner table without a hint of a wiggle. She was balancing herself on four-inch spike heels as smoothly as if she were still in the ballet slippers she had worn for years, before the constant pressure to lose weight had caused her to seek other employment.

Her job interview had been blunt.

“Would I have to—?”

“It’s a waitress job,” Cross told her. “The only difference is that you don’t get to wear much. And the tips are really good.”

“I heard … I mean, I asked around, and …”

“What?”

“In some strip clubs, the waitresses have to work
under
the tables.”

“Not here. Turn your chair just a little. Watch what happens.”

A few minutes later, Brandi asked, “You weren’t kidding about not wearing much, were you?”

“No,” Cross answered, as if the idea of him “kidding” was absurd.

“I’d get a W-2?”

“A 1099,” Cross told her. “You’re an independent contractor.”

“So no take-out for—”

“No take-out for anything. You get paid by check. A good check.”

“How good?”

“Good enough not to bounce. Pay here is ten bucks an hour. The tips, you keep for yourself.”

“I get it. If I want to make heavy tips, I have to—”

“Don’t act stupid. You
don’t
get it. None of the waitresses here are
allowed
to do anything but bring whatever the customer orders. If he wants a dance, you tell whatever dancer he picked—
she
tips you for that. If he wants the VIP Room, you tell him to just walk right in, make any selection he wants. You’ll get a bigger tip for that.”

“I don’t know.…”

“Okay.”

“What does that mean, ‘Okay’?”

“It means, if you make up your mind to do this, you do it. And if you don’t, you don’t.”

Since then, Brandi had been working anywhere between thirty and fifty hours a week. The tax bite was close to nothing, despite her diligent declaration of her 15-percent tips. The job was a dream, especially because she was the sole provider for her boy, whose father was a lot better at promises than payments.

On a bad week, Brandi would pocket thousands in cash as well as her paycheck. Some weeks were much better. She’d been at the Double-X for almost three years.

“What did he want?” Cross asked.

“Wanted to know when does Taylor—the new girl—when does she get off?”

“And you said …?”

“He’d have to ask the manager.”

“And the manager isn’t around.”

“Yep.”

“Good work,” Cross told her.

The former ballet dancer spun gracefully, leaving a table for the first time that night without some patron’s trying to squeeze one of her muscular cheeks.

“This’ll be easier than I thought,” Cross said, pulling a cell phone out of his jacket in response to Buddha’s raised-eyebrow silent question.

“Get Arabella,” Cross told whoever answered.

The wait was short.

“She know he showed?”

“Yes,” Arabella answered him. “She’s … kind of scared, I guess. But only about leaving. She knows she’s safe here.”

“Skip your next turn. You and her, both. Go out the back way. Drive over to where she lives. There’ll be a truck and a few guys waiting. Tell her this is a one-and-only. Anything she doesn’t take, kiss it goodbye.”

“How much time will we—?”

“All you need. Ring back here when you’re away. That means back in
your
place, understand?”

“But I’ll never fit all her—”

“Her stuff goes to a storage unit. The guys in the truck will know where to take it.”

“I’m going to miss the rest of the time I paid for. Three more turns.”

“Sell your shifts; there’s plenty of girls who’ll buy them.”

“Sure. But I would’ve made a lot more if I—”

“You brought her here. That’s what it costs.”

“Oh.”

“Storage unit is five a month. You two want to look for a bigger place, we can find one for you. Or, if she wants to go solo, that, too.”

“Really? In this town—”

“I know a real good broker,” Cross said, and pressed the “Off” button on his cell.

“
TWO, THREE
of K-2’s crew for the move?” Buddha asked.

“Sure.”

“They get paid a lot more than movers.”

“We’ll cover it.”

“All for this new girl?”

“She’ll be good for it.”

“Yeah” was all Buddha said, sliding off into the darkness.