In a few minutes they had a cabby on the line who knew the Gold Spurs manager. The manager was new. Very professional. A straight-up guy. One of the cabby’s wealthy regular fares went to the place twice weekly and usually paid for the cabby to go in. Since the patron was a high roller, the manager came around. Always count on the cabbies.
Sam was on the freeway, headed to the establishment, in minutes; for another two hundred dollars the cabby greased the skids with the manager and the bartender on duty. (Of course both names went immediately into Big Brain for future use.)
Gold Spurs was a big sprawling place with a lot of limos. Money obviously flowed here; bouncers were thick and Sam saw plenty of tuxedo-clad floor managers. The place featured semiprivate rooms, nonalcoholic beer and soft drinks, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a menu of sorts.
Sam wanted Grady Wade, known as Mirage, in a semiprivate room. Normally the rooms would hold a party of eight and went for three hundred dollars per hour. Plus the girl at thirty dollars a dance for steady lap dances or a hundred and fifty dollars per half hour for friendly chats and lap dances, as the customer required. Before Sam went into the room he needed some background. There was a little bristling from a floor manager at the request for information about Grady, but it could be arranged for two hundred dollars-just local color about her work at the club, no address, no phone number.
Upstairs in the VIP lounge he found Nester, the so-called bartender who poured soft drinks. The guy was handsome, not too smart, and obviously spent the better part of his mornings pumping iron. Sam elected to go straight to the manager.
Two twenty-dollar bills got Nester to flick his head with practiced vanity at the office door.
Sam was greeted by a man with a neatly trimmed beard, a slim build, and a seemingly genuine smile. Not the sort he expected to find.
“I’m Will,” Sam said.
“Come in. I’m Guy.”
The office was nice, even plush. Guy had putters and golf balls in the corner and a carpet cup and fake green behind his desk.
“What can you tell me about Grady Wade?”
“You don’t look like the type to get moonfaced over a young dancer.” Guy smiled to take the sting out of the comment. “Or a serial killer.”
“That’s gratifying,” Sam said.
“It would be helpful if I knew your motives.”
“I’m a friend of her aunt’s. I think maybe Grady needs some help, but I’m not sure, and I want to find out.”
“Fair enough.”
“Tell me about her. I mean about her, not how she wiggles her ass.”
“Men admire her in droves. They follow her around like sick puppies. Her hair is golden, her eyes are the deepest blue. None of the customers can usually catch the sadness. They watch the plastered-on smile.
“She loves to please the crowd, she wants them all to fall in love so that she can walk away and leave them hurting, wanting more. She succeeds.
“She can smile and touch a head or pat a shoulder, and some old guy with his tobacco-stained teeth will lay his head over where that hand touched. He’s trying like hell to remember what it was like to be eighteen.
“She likes all the downtrodden. If a rich man catcalls a dancer, she’ll walk up and throw a Coke square in his face. Of course I threaten to fire her; half the men in this strip club are here to watch Grady throw her butt at the door boy. Or they’re sitting around waiting until she pats their shoulder, or if the planets are lined up right and the gods are smiling, kisses their cheek and squeezes their ass.
“More than anything else she wants someone to discover that she’s something special and yet she’s terribly afraid of it.”
Sam nodded his understanding.
“She had a baby when she was seventeen. She loved that kid out of her mind. That baby was the light in her soul. Maybe she loved him too much. He died when he was a year old. Name was Jace. Dad’s nickname as a kid was Jace. Her dad didn’t come to the funeral.
“All the men move across the room to be near her. Her regulars, the guys with the big money that she goes for, have learned to be cool and sit in the shadows. That’s how you get to be a Grady regular.
“Her dad has never come to the place but if he showed an interest, he could maybe motivate her to make something of herself. She’s smart enough to go to college but won’t. She is jealous as hell of her aunt’s success and won’t admit it. Since you’re sort of the Salvation Army, I think she just started coke. Maybe in the last week. Maybe only once, but I think she started.”
“When did you fall in love with her?” Sam asked.
The man laughed and shook his head. “Back when I was just a customer, managing another business.”
“You couldn’t land her. How come?”
“You tell me. Once when she’d had a couple too many Harvey Wall Bangers, I thought I was making headway. We talk but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
“Have you slept with her?”
“Of course. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Sam rose. “You’ve been more than helpful. Thanks.”
Sam held out a fanned handful of cash. Guy shook his head and waved it off.
“Thanks again. I’m going to see if Grady can do something for herself,” Sam said.
“Have at it. Once Grady makes up her mind it’s history. You’ll see. Good luck.”
“I’ll wait for her to come around,” Sam said, shaking his hand. “You think I could buy her shifts for five days, starting tonight?”
“No need. She is a free agent. But you won’t get to her. She wants no part of her aunt and she’ll smell you coming a mile away. I could talk to her for you…”
“No, thanks. I’ll go down in flames by myself.” Sam let himself out.
He parted with another twenty-five dollars to find his way to a semiprivate room with the help of a floor manager. Then he parted with the three-hundred-dollar room cost. At least the couch was comfortable. For some reason Guy wanted Sam to believe that he was a straight-up in-love guy. That was interesting. He read a magazine to pass the time.
Grady was standing over him before he realized it. “Expensive place to read a magazine, under that pathetic little light.”
The way she said it, she sounded as if she were talking about his genitals.
“You haven’t met me and already you don’t like me.”
“I don’t like people throwing their money around asking about me. Especially ones sent by my aunt.”
“One hour of your time-a thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of lap dances.”
“No dances, just talk. You have to talk for the money.”
“What do I have to talk about?”
“Your life.”
“Oh, I get it. You’re here to save me. That’s why Anna sent you.”
“That’s right. And something tells me you want to be saved.” Sam stood and looked into her eyes. “Now do I stay or leave?”
She hesitated. “What’s your name?”
“Sam. Make up your mind. I haven’t got all evening.”
“All right.”
“For another thousand you come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. I talked with Guy. He’s got no objections.”
“Is he part of this?” She looked surprised.
“No. But he seems like maybe he wants you out of here almost as much as you want out. I know you’re in this for the money. There’s two grand for you to come talk to me. Way more than you typically net in an evening.”
“It’s just business? Just talk? Nothing more?”
“Just business; go get dressed.”
“I’d like to talk to Guy first.”
“What’s he going to tell you?”
“I don’t know. What do you know?”
“I know a lot. Enough to care. Now go get dressed.”
While Grady changed her clothes she dialed Guy’s office on her cell phone.
Guy’s first reaction mirrored her own: This Sam was just another droid sent by her aunt. When Guy couldn’t dissuade her from going with Sam he encouraged her, and she thought that a bit odd.