light faded to black and the parking lot gave way to grass and trees. Though I had the creepy feeling of eyes staring back at me, I couldn’t see anyone. Maybe later.
As I approached the front of the club, I pulled a snapshot of Irina and Lisbeth out of my clutch and walked up to the valet stand. The kid working was tall and gangly and looked like a goose with acne. His eyes went wide at the sight of my fat lip.
“You should see the other guy,” I said.
“Huh?”
The future of America.
“Were you working Saturday night?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who was working Saturday night?”
“Yeah…”
He paused so long I thought he had gone catatonic.
“… Jeff was.”
Jeff looked up as he came around the back of a white Lexus, stuffing his tip money in the pocket of his baggy black pants.
“Jeff was what?” he asked.
“Working Saturday night,” I said.
He cut his friend a look like he had just ratted him out to the homeroom teacher. This one was a foot shorter than the other one, with orange hair and a cowlick.
“Yeah,” he said reluctantly, as if he would have much preferred to lie to me. Little weasel.
“Did you see this girl?” I asked. I folded Lisbeth’s half of the photo back and showed him the other half, tapping a finger beneath Irina’s face.
He barely glanced at it. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Maybe you should look again,” I suggested. “For more than a nanosecond.”
He glanced at it again. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You don’t know?” I said sternly. “Are you gay?”
He looked me in the eyes for the first time, shocked that I might think so, particularly in front of his cohort, who started laughing. “No!”
I held the picture up. “A girl who looks like this comes prancing n here dressed to kill, looking like more money than you’ll ever make in your lifetime, and you don’t know if you saw her.”
“We were really busy,” he said, evading my gaze. “It was some such guy’s birthday party.”
“She came out this door, late. The party was breaking up. Only the diehards were left.”
He was squirming like the kid who threw the baseball through he neighborhood witch’s window and got caught.
“Do you know why I’m asking you?” I questioned.
A black BMW 7 Series pulled in.
Jeff started leaning toward it. “I have to work.”
“It’s my turn!” the goose protested.
“It’s his turn,” I said. “You have to share, Jeffrey.”
He wanted to snap his fingers and become invisible. I tried again.
“Do you know why I’m asking you if you saw this girl Saturday light?” I didn’t wait for another stupid answer. “Because she’s dead, Jeff. She came here Saturday and had a good time. And then she left here, and someone took her somewhere and strangled her to death and threw her body in a canal to rot and be eaten by an alligator.”
The kid made a nauseous face. “Wow. That’s sick.”
“Yes, it is. Is your memory coming back to you? Did you see her leave here Saturday night?”
He stared at the photograph, then looked away, frowning. “No,” he said. “I didn’t see her.”
A Porsche pulled into the drive.
“I’ve gotta go,” he said, and bolted like a skittish horse.
I watched him, imagining him working Saturday night. A busy evening, money walking in and out the door. Big tippers. Someone slips him a little something extra to lose his memory. Just between us men-wink wink.
The goose came ambling back, oblivious of any tension around. He glanced at the picture.
“Hey, I know her,” he said. “She’s so hot!”
“You’ve seen her around here?” I asked.
“Yeah. She comes here a lot.”
“With anyone or alone?”
“With some other girls.”
“Have you ever seen her with a man?” Sure.
“Who?”
“I dunno.”
I wanted to reach my hand into his brain and pull the information out.
“Let’s try it this way,” I suggested. “Always the same man? Or different men?”
“Different guys.”
“Younger? Older?”
“Older. Old rich guys.”
“If I brought some photographs by, do you think you might recognize any of them?”
“I dunno…”
Even I can beat my hard head against a brick wall for just so long.
“Do you have a cell phone I can call you on?”
“Yeah.”
I dug a small notebook out of my bag. “What’s your number?”
He recited his number to me. I thanked him and went into the club, thinking I deserved a drink after that.
The gorgeous Kayne Jackson was tending bar again. Eye candy in a painted-on black T-shirt, biceps rippling as he prepared a cosmo to send away with the waitress.
“So, Kayne Jackson,” I said, taking an empty stool near him. “What are your goals in life?”
He glanced up at me and smiled. “Ketel One and tonic, big squeeze of lemon?”
I gave him the half smile. “There’s nothing more valuable or more dangerous than a bartender with a good memory.”
He chuckled as he scooped ice into a tumbler. “I’m not dangerous. Where did you get that lip?”
“They were having a sale at Wal-Mart. Lifelike, isn’t it?”
“Looks like it hurts.”
“Nothing a little vodka won’t cure,” I said.
“I’ve heard that story before.”
“Everybody confesses to their bartender. Considering this crowd, I’m sure you’ve got stories that would make the average person’s eyes pop out.”
“I’m valuable because I’m discreet,” he said, pouring the Ketel One. “Or I wouldn’t have this job.”
“Hmm…” I wondered if he drove a Maserati. Blackmail could be a profitable little side job. “I imagine some of your patrons value your discretion enough to pay you a little something extra on the side.”
“I have some generous customers,” he said, noncommittal as he squeezed the wedge of lemon.
He set the drink in front of me and went to the other end of the bar to take an order. I watched him pop the caps on a couple of beers.
“Back to my original question,” I said when he returned. “What do you want to be when you grow up, Kayne?”
He shrugged as he rinsed out some glasses in the sink. “This is it.”
“To be a bartender?”
“Do you think there’s something wrong with that?”
“No. I’m surprised, though,” I confessed. “You’re a young, extremely handsome, and charming man. You could be a model, an actor. Nothing against your profession, but I doubt your tips raise you to the same tax bracket as a
