recognize me.
“Um, hi,” I said, fooling with the belt on the trench coat.
“What’s your name, little sister?” he asked.
I looked over at the back of Ridgeway’s head. He put a bill on the stage at the dancer’s feet and his men quickly followed suit. She smiled in a vague sort of way, like a ticket taker in a movie theater.
“Vendetta,” I said. “My name’s Vendetta.”
“Okay, Vendetta,” the DJ said with a grin. “What’s your favorite song? I got both kinds of music, rock
I flipped through the CD wallet he handed me until I spotted a disk of
The tiny girl finished up in an awkward split and then gathered up her sweaty, rumpled bills and discarded bits of spandex.
“Let’s hear it for Missy!” the DJ said over the crackly PA system. “Show Missy some love, boys.”
The modest crowd clapped listlessly and a few threw in a bill or two.
“And remember, if you’d like to get to know Missy a little better, you can take this beautiful lady into one of our private champagne rooms for an unforgettable couch dance. Remember, you gotta to show the greenery if you want to see the scenery.”
An unkempt, dandruffy older man immediately nabbed Missy and dragged her off to one of the private rooms in the back. It looked like there were four rooms back there. Two were currently unoccupied, judging by the open curtains.
“Now boys,” the DJ announced. “Before you call it an evening, I’ve got a very special treat that’s gonna send you off with a bang. We’ve got a smokin hot new entertainer here at Sneaky Pete’s tonight. Gentlemen, I give you the luscious, the vivacious,
My music started and I did what I could to calm my crazy speeding heart. Then I climbed up onto the stage.
Funny how old habits never really die. Just like riding a bicycle. I grabbed the roll of paper towels and antibacterial cleanser thoughtfully provided by the management and quickly wiped down the length of the brass pole. Then I went to work.
I slithered slowly out of Vukasin’s leather trench coat to the familiar hoots and whistles of masculine approval. I made sure to set the coat down carefully and not let the pistol in the right pocket clunk loudly against the stage. As I shook my moneymaker, grinding against the pole as if I’d never quit, I realized that Angel Dare wasn’t dead after all. She was alive and well, and she was pissed.
I peeled off the dress and thrust my gyrating ass into the eager faces around me, working my way toward Ridgeway. The marks ate it up with two forks.
“If you want blood,” Bon Scott’s distinctive rusty-hinge howl bellowed through the cheap speakers, “you got it!”
By the time I made my way over to the corner of the stage in front of Ridgeway and his cronies, I was down to my g-string. There was a green snowdrift of dollar bills and fives around my clunky plastic heels.
I got down on my hands and knees and rolled my spine, undulating my ass inches from the bastard’s nose. I watched him in the mirror on the back wall. He was staring, mesmerized, right between my cheeks, almost like if he stared hard enough, he’d see through the leopard-print spandex barrier between him and the good stuff. After everything he’d put me through, and everything I’d gone through to get here, it was kind of shocking to discover that the big bad boss was just a man like any other. I had been worried that he would recognize me, but it was clear that he was paying no attention whatsoever to anything above my tits. The two goons were equally preoccupied, but they didn’t matter. It was as if Ridgeway and I were alone. Like there was no one else on the planet. I’ve never felt so intense a hunger for someone. Not even Jesse.
I flipped on my back and bounced my legs into a deep splayed V, then arched back up to my feet as the song ended. If that motherfucker wanted blood, he was going to get it.
I gathered up the bills and clothing without turning away from Ridgeway. His eyes never left my crotch. His face had gone dumb with lust. I had him.
I slipped the trench coat over my g-string and deftly dodged several amorous suitors, heading directly to where Ridgeway sat.
“Would you like to get to know me a little better, honey?” I asked, pitching my voice low and whisper-sexy, sliding my body catlike against his.
The goons, seeing their boss was otherwise engaged, moved away to give him some privacy. The messy- haired guy started chatting up the tired-looking waitress while the bald one headed for the john. After all, what kind of danger could a 115-pound bimbo possibly pose?
“I’d love to,” Ridgeway replied, running a sweaty hand over my thigh. “But I’m afraid I’ve got a prior commitment.”
“You can’t spare even ten little minutes,” I asked, brushing my bare breasts against his chest. “I swear I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I don’t like pushy women,” he said, mouth a tight line and suddenly chilly.
“You’ll like me,” I said, putting my arm around his waist and pressing the muzzle of the gun into his belly through the pocket of the trench coat. “What do you say?”
He said nothing but his body language told me he had finally recognized me. The messy-haired goon’s back was turned. The bald goon was still in the bathroom. I could see Ridgeway’s pulse ticking in the soft spot beneath his ear. This was where it could all go to hell in a heartbeat.
“All right,” he finally said, getting slowly to his feet.
He let me lead him back to one of the two available champagne rooms.
Despite its classy name, the champagne room was actually a dingy cubicle with a cheap futon on a folding metal frame that looked like it had been scavenged from the trash outside a college dorm. I didn’t even want to think about all the bodily fluids that soaked into that futon over the course of any given shift. Luckily, there would be no couch dances tonight.
“Pull the curtain,” I told Ridgeway.
He did what I asked in hostile silence. There was a dull, monotonous rhythm of thumps and groans filtering through from the next cubicle.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” he said.
“That’s funny,” I replied. “That’s what your nephew said right before I killed him.” I tossed him the cuffs. “Sit down and cuff your hands around that.” I gestured at one of the futon’s tubular metal legs.
He caught the cuffs against his chest and fastened them around one wrist, eyes never leaving mine.
“You can’t get out of here alive,” he told me as he slowly lowered himself onto the futon. “You shoot me, everyone in the place will hear it.”
“Other wrist,” I told him. “Put the cuff through the edge of the frame—no, behind that piece. That’s right. Now cuff your other wrist.”
He did what I said, eyes narrow. This left him slouched down with his cuffed wrists locked between his knees, trapped in place by the frame of the futon. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Why are you doing this, Angel?” he asked. “Why didn’t you just run with the money?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” I asked. “This is not just about me. It’s about Didi. About Malloy. About Sam.”
“Sam?” He shook his head. “Please. Sam sold you out, Angel. He set you up to save his own ass. You ought to be glad he’s dead.”
Ridgeway was just fucking with me, trying to get me to make a mistake.
“Bullshit,” I said. “He told me you had Georgie.”
But then I thought of seeing Georgie on the news, flanked by cops. I’d wondered then what had really happened and I was wondering now. Was it true? Had Sam set me up?
“People say all kinds of things,” Ridgeway said. “I bet Malloy said he would love you forever, right? Until he took off with the money. Or tried to, anyway.”
Malloy had never promised me anything like that. Ridgeway was grasping at straws, blindly groping for
