Without a Net (8 page)

Ollie didn’t know how to talk about all the shit with Buck, so he focused on the only part he could. “Jackson is a het-pride extremist. I’d put money on it after what he said tonight.”

The captain nodded. “He implied all gay people are into shade. Is that about right?”

“Yeah. And he made it clear he didn’t think I needed any backup.”

The captain leaned forward in his chair, a look of horror on his face. “Did he refuse to do his job?”

“No, it was more about what he implied.” Ollie wished bigots would come right out and say what they meant, but they hid their stupidity behind jokes and claims that they had misspoken.
Assholes.

“He followed Huda into the department, so either he’s an old-fashioned idiot, or you’re right,” Greyson said. “He could be a fundamentalist following Huda because he knows the lieutenant will put up with that when most police would kick him to the curb. Kemboi is furious. He wants Jackson formally reprimanded.”

“Will you?” Ollie asked. Complaints about harassment did real damage to any cop’s career, but a complaint from the senior detective on scene would be a career killer.

Captain Greyson sighed. “I’m not sure. If I formally reprimand him, Huda will be forced to stand back and let his man take the hit. These fundamentalists are cowards at heart, and if they see that they don’t have any real protection, they’ll pull back and be more careful.” He sounded almost sad about that, but then Ollie got it.

“Which would make them harder to catch.” That was the truly insidious thing about hate groups. Whether they targeted blacks or immigrants or gays or gender fluid, it always came down to a group of insecure people hiding in the shadowy corners of society. If Jackson got nailed, the other haters would go running for deeper, darker corners. However, if these assholes thought they had a safe haven, then they’d come out into the open like cockroaches in the night.

“Maybe,” Greyson said. “Look, I don’t have a lot of answers here. This got out of hand a lot faster than I expected. We’re the third agency to try to get someone inside this shade club, and we’re the first to do it. That makes it more difficult, because now we’re trying to run the op against Huda at the same time we’re trying to work the kidnapping-and-slavery case. I thought you’d be stuck haunting the edges of the club without seeing anything particularly interesting.”

“I did better than you thought.”

“You did better than anyone thought, so yeah. Huda is trying to take credit for that, by the way. He says it was his idea to send in a sub instead of a Dom. Apparently he thought it would be less threatening.”

Ollie was about to work up the steam for a rant about how his sexual orientation didn’t make him one ounce less threatening, but the captain held up a hand to stop him.

“We’ve already established that he’s an idiot, so don’t take it personally. The other agencies weren’t willing to try the sub angle, and after a night in there, I think you know why. Those folks are hard on their subs.”

“And Lieutenant Huda sent me into the middle of it. I can’t figure out if he hates gays or subs or both. He’s twisted.”

“If he thinks subs are weak, yeah, he’s twisted. I played around with the dynamic when I was a teenager. I think most people do some sort of experimentation, and the subs I met were tough as nails. But then I get the feeling Huda and Jackson don’t go out of their way to meet many subs or many gays. So, what are we doing with this whole operation?”

Ollie’s guts untangled a little as the captain gave him his clear and unambiguous support. That was what Ollie had needed tonight. He offered the captain a wry smile. “Which operation? The stakeout at the club or the sting against the lieutenant?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re one and the same. Are we pulling the plug for now and trying later?”

Ollie wanted to say yes. Then he could walk away from this whole screwed-up investigation and let someone else worry about dirty cops and fucked-up sexual dynamics. He wanted that, but he couldn’t seem to say it. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I want you to keep something in mind. You’re a good cop—a good detective. I’ve seen what happens when good cops lose themselves to guilt, so can you handle it if we have another kid vanish?” Greyson studied Ollie.

Ollie also wanted to deny any sort of emotional entanglements at all. Cops were supposed to put the job in a neat little mental box, but he never knew a good cop who didn’t care too damn much. “Probably not,” he finally admitted.

“Most good cops can’t sit back and do nothing, especially not when they have the opportunity to do something,” the captain said softly. “So you tell me, what can I do to make this easier?”

“Convince the suspects in the club I’m a switch and I should be able to do the domming?” Ollie asked with an overly bright smile.

Captain Greyson snorted. “I’ll get on that. In the meantime, anything else?”

So Ollie was doing this. He hoped he was not going to look back and say that this was the moment where it all went wrong. “The panic switch on my thigh is not a workable solution. The edge of the patch was curling up when I got dressed, and I couldn’t reach it most of the night. If I’d had a serious situation, I had no way to call for backup, and while I trust Kemboi, he’s not the one sitting on the microphones all the time. I don’t want my life in Jackson’s hands.”

“That’s a reasonable concern. I have a tech geek out in the van, so I’ll ask him to come in and explain some options.”

“You left IT support staff sitting in the van?” Ollie was shocked.

“I knew you’d had a bad night, and if you decided to say something particularly stupid, I didn’t think either of us wanted an audience for that,” Greyson said before standing. “We have some next-gen patches, more permanent, harder to detect. They can’t be taken off at night, though, so a lot of officers don’t like having a tracker affixed to their skin in a way that removal will take three weeks or a lot of dangerous chemicals.”

Ollie thought about the hunger he’d seen on the faces of some of the men and women in that club. “I would find it reassuring,” Ollie admitted. “Is it small enough to fit on the forearm?”

“Maybe. Let’s get the techie in here and see what sort of magic she can do.”

A little of the fear in Ollie’s belly faded. Kemboi was on his side, and so was the captain. The rest of the world… Ollie couldn’t count on them.

Chapter Six

Ollie’s whole body sang with tension as he slipped through the doors of the Happy Whip. He’d taken erection pills again, so his cock was half-hard, but genuine fear kept him from going for full-scale humiliation. Either the same sub or a new one was Worm tonight, and he was scrubbing the floor. Cold, brutal terror gripped Ollie at the idea that Buck wanted him in that outfit.

Suppressing an urge to touch the new and improved panic button hidden near the inside of his elbow, Ollie inched forward uneasily. He turned toward movement behind the bar, and Buck stood.

He had on a heavy black harness, and the lower half of his face was hidden by a gag. Given how long his face looked, the gag apparently forced his mouth dangerously wide. Ollie’s gag reflex twitched in sympathy, but Buck seemed fine. When he spotted Ollie, little wrinkles formed at the outside corners of his eyes, which was the only way Ollie had to know that Buck would have been smiling if he’d had the option.

He came out from behind the bar, moving slowly. The butt-plug waddle—that was what one of Ollie’s partners had called it. He’d talk Ollie into using a plug bigger than usual and then grin as Ollie tried to move around the apartment awkwardly.

Buck gestured for Ollie to come closer. This was the moment of truth. If Ollie was lucky, the lieutenant would screw up in some spectacular way, and then they could call this whole operation over and done. Well, except that young men were vanishing out of this place. Ollie didn’t feel right allowing some predator to hunt the sort of messed-up people who came to a shade club looking for the sort of hard-core sex they couldn’t bring themselves to ask for. Ollie’s rule was that if you weren’t old enough to ask for it, you weren’t old enough to handle it.

Ollie ignored that part of himself and tried to focus on the sight of Buck’s harness pressing into his flesh. The black leather and dark chest hair contrasted against his pale skin and all those beautiful muscles. Yeah, Ollie did enjoy the sight of a beautiful man. Clearly he stared too long, because Buck flexed his chest. His muscles bulged around the straps, and Ollie swallowed as he suddenly developed the urge to drool. Damn, but the man was gorgeous.

Buck gave a huffing sort of laugh through his nose and then had to wipe it with the back of his hand.

“I guess I got you in trouble, huh?” Ollie asked, not that Buck could answer. Instead, Buck strode across the room and caught Ollie by the arm before dragging him toward the back.

“I can walk,” Ollie protested, but he did his best not to fight the controlling grip. Buck finally stopped in front of the dressing room and shoved Ollie inside. Ollie stumbled forward and caught himself by grabbing a tall woman with rich, thick blonde hair.

She raised an eyebrow at him, and Ollie retreated as fast as he could. “I’m so sorry. I stumbled!” He gave Buck a dirty look, but the man was leaning against the edge of the door with an amused expression.

“Oh, so you’re Buck’s newest stray. I’m Naida, one of the head servers. Normally Buck would be giving you this speech, but since he’s a pain slut who can’t keep himself out of trouble, it falls on me.” She sent Buck a blisteringly unhappy glare.

He shrugged.

“So, have you been a server before?”

Ollie hadn’t expected that question. “Um, no.”

“Great,” she said sarcastically. “Okay, here’s your crash course. Don’t fuck it up.” She pulled a handheld computer off a shelf and shoved it toward him. “You’ll have an order station. Let the customer enter his order. Then he’ll either charge a card or give you cash. If he gives you cash, you have to take the money to Buck before Buck will make the drink. When you get back to the bar, pick up any drinks and then head back toward the customers. Leave the computer on your tray, and when you are within six feet of the customer who ordered, an arrow will appear along with a picture of which drink the customer should get.” Naida poked the computer, and a green flashing arrow appeared along with the picture of a beer.

“Really? I don’t have to remember who ordered what?” Ollie thought he might be able to handle this.

“With all the traffic in and out?” She scoffed. “No. Don’t even try that crap on the floor. Now some of the guys have ghosted phones, you know?”

“Two or more legal identities on the same phone, which skirts a few laws,” Ollie said. They weren’t big laws, but most of the time one of the identities was stolen, which was a big law.

“Yep. They’ll switch the electronic signature on their phone so you can’t find who to give the drink.”

Ollie frowned as he tried to figure out the logic in that. “If they pay for the drinks up front, why would they want to stop me from delivering them?”

Naida touched his cheek and gave him a sad look. “Oh, sweetie, you are so young.”

“Actually, I’m not.” Ollie pushed her hand away. “I was a sergeant in the army, and I went to prison after that.”

“And you’re still young, and I’m not talking about that baby face of yours. If you don’t deliver the drink in a timely fashion, they will consider that a good reason to punish you.”

For a second, Ollie couldn’t form words. The image of the spanking bench and torture horse came to mind. “They what?”

“Oh, don’t look so panicked. They won’t do more than put you over their lap and give you a good spanking before one of us shows up to take them off your hands. However, before you walk out of here, I suspect your ass will be cherry red.”

Most of the blood drained from Ollie’s face. “Aw, crap.”

“Come on. You were a sun dealer. You must have seen worse when your clients were strung out on that shit.”

“I wasn’t a dealer. I sold a little to feed my own habit, that’s all.”

She gave him an amused look that Ollie recognized. It was the one he usually gave perps who spouted that exact same lie. “Right,” she said, not even pretending to believe him. “Well, tonight, those Doms and Dommes on the floor are going to try to catch you in mistakes so they can give you an old-fashioned paddling.”

“And if it gets too much, I can come back here, right?” This job was sounding less and less like a good idea.

“Sure,” she said with a shrewd look that didn’t quite match her nonchalant tone. “If you want to give up any tips.”

“They’ll tip me for a spanking? I don’t think most Doms are that generous.”

“They’re not. However, some of us have our holes unstuffed so we can do things to earn a few tips. So you fluff them up by letting them spank you and blushing sweetly, and then one of us will come in and finish them up.”

And that was the sound of the other shoe dropping. “You want me to be a fluffer?”

“Your job requires it, sweetie. Now, don’t assume that the subs around here are any sort of touchy-feely loving brotherhood or sisterhood or whatever. No, we are a bunch of cutthroat, strong-minded individuals who are out for ourselves. So don’t think that anyone plans to tiptoe around you and your feelings, particularly when it comes to gratuities. That’s how most of us make the majority of our pay. So keep track of which of the subs picks up for you after you’ve finished with a customer, and at the end of the night when we’re all getting back into street clothes, you go up to the server and ask how it went with the client you prepped for them. Don’t get all confrontational, but make it clear that you expect them to share the tip money.”

“Which sounds a lot like prostitution without a license,” Ollie pointed out. “I can’t afford to get arrested again. I hate to tell you, but prison is not as much fun as the vids make it look.”

“I don’t doubt that, but trust me, we subs see the cops coming from a mile away. Those sanctimonious bastards come in here acting like subs are some sort of weak, frail subspecies they have to rescue form the big, bad Doms.” She rolled her eyes, and Ollie took offense for all the good cops who tried to protect people—and not just subs. “The first time a sub screams, the cops get all twitchy. Besides, you’ll have your holes plugged, which is proof that you weren’t doing anything sexual with the customers. So, don’t worry about that.” She took the computer out of his hand and put it back on the shelf.