“OK, Irish will make arrangements for the ticket, and he’ll wire you the money. I’ll have him get in touch with you shortly with the details.
“Thanks, King, and I’m sorry for everything. Pic, the money, your son. Everything just got so fucked up, and I…well, I’m sorry.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to relieve the tension headache that was building. “Just take care of yourself, Cyn. Stay off the radar and out of trouble.”
I stabbed the button on the screen to disconnect the call, then stared at the other men.
“Irish, take care of getting her ass on a bus to Florida, ASAP. Do whatever you can to leave a minimal paper trail for the money.”
“On it, Prez.” He slipped out of the room, and I looked at Bull and Cowboy.
“I’m heading to Fallen Angels to talk to Star. I want to know who she’s been running her mouth to. Cowboy, I want you with me. We may need to talk to all of the staff there to get answers.”
“Bull, run your checks and see if you can pick up any trace of Pic around Cyn’s place. See if maybe the local police there managed to catch his ass.”
He nodded his agreement, and I motioned to Cowboy to follow me.
“Let’s go. I want to get this over with and get over to Ella’s place. Her kids left for Florida this morning, so we have the house to ourselves tonight.” Cowboy just grinned and shook his head as he followed me out to the parking lot, reminding me that he wanted to get home to Michelle, too. She’d moved in withhim a week ago. So far, Nathan and Hailey seemed to be OK with the new arrangement, and I suspected that it wouldn’t be long until Cowboy and Michelle made things permanent.
Once we got to Fallen Angels, I was pissed as hell to find out that Star hadn’t shown up for her afternoon shift. She hadn’t called either. A quick chat with the dancers and staff on duty hadn’t turned up anything helpful. They all swore they hadn’t seen or heard from Pic or Cyn since he quit the club and they had moved away together, which was the official story we gave for their absence. Unless they were better actors than I gave them credit for, the staff were telling the truth.
“Bodhi, get me Star’s address,” I ordered. “I need to talk to her.” He nodded and headed to his office to get her employment file. I glanced at the strippers still standing around in the dressing room, likely gossiping about my visit here and the questions I’d asked.
“Hey, King, you look a little stressed. How about I give you a private dance?” I felt the arms wrapping around my back at the same time as the sultry voice registered, and I turned to find Ginger standing there, wearing only a G-string and body glitter.
I grasped her arms and removed them from my body, pushing her away from me as I took a step back.
“You fuckin’ know better than that, Ginger. You know the policy. Don’t touch me again.” She pouted, or at least tried to. She had so much of that filler shit injected into her lips that they didn’t move much.
“Go on and get ready for your next set,” I ordered, not even trying to hide my anger. I stalked off then, joining Bodhi and Cowboy in Ace’s office. As usual, my half-brother was nowhere to be found, and Bodhi had no idea where he was.
“He disappeared about an hour after I got here, Prez. I ain’t seen him since.”
I held onto my temper by a thread as I traded knowing glances with Cowboy. I was heartily sick of Ace’s shit and wanted nothing more than to kick his ass to the curb. I knew Cowboy agreed with me, but we didn’t have enough evidence that he’d broken the club rules to kick him out of the MC. That didn’t mean I couldn’t demote him as the manager here, though, and that was probably going to happen soon.
“OK,” I sighed, throwing myself down into one of the chairs in front of the desk. Cowboy was sitting in the other one, and Bodhi was behind the desk pulling up something on the computer. “Do you have Star’s address for me?”
He nodded, then slid a small piece of paper across the desk to me. “This is the address she gave me when we hired her full-time here. It’s one of those big, old houses over off West Washington Street that’s been divided up into studio apartments. Ginger lives in one of them and told Star about the place when she moved out of the clubhouse.” I nodded, knowing the general area he was talking about.
“Thanks, brother. I’ll swing by her place on my way to Ella’s house.” I’d thought about trying to call her to ask about Cyn, but I wanted to do it face to face, so I could get a feel for how truthful she was being.
By the time I made it to the run-down apartment house she was staying at, I was as pissed off as I’d been in a while. Between Cyn, Star, Pic, and Ace, my bullshit quotient had been met and exceeded for the day. Not only that, but I was also going to be late for dinner with Ella, and she was making her lasagna, dammit.
The front door to the apartment house was propped open, and I made my way up to the second floor. According to Bodhi’s note, she was in apartment 2B. I knocked repeatedly, but there was no answer. Some instinct – the same instinct that I’d learned to listen to over the years – told me I needed to have a look inside.
There was no deadbolt on the door, and it only took seconds to slide my knife between the edge of the door and the door casing, popping open the flimsy lock on the doorknob. I grabbed the edge of my T-shirt and covered the doorknob with it before turning it, then eased my way into the apartment. I had no intention of catching a charge for breaking and entering by leaving my fingerprints behind if for some reason it ever came up.
I took in the small, almost empty space at a glance. The only furnishings were an old futon in the corner, which had been made up as a bed, and a rickety-looking card table with a couple of folding chairs in the corner. Based on the dirty carry-out food containers stacked on it was being used as her dining table. The air was ripe with the odor of spoiled food, made worse by the stifling hot temperature in the apartment. The window-mounted air-conditioning unit wasn’t running. I idly wondered if it was broken, or if she just didn’t turn it on unless she was home. Either way, I was sweating like a whore in church. The leather cut wasn’t helping any, but I wasn’t about to take it off and lay it down anywhere in this pigsty.
I looked around, trying to determine if she just hadn’t furnished the place with much yet, or if she had skipped out. There was a tiny closet standing open next to the bathroom – crammed full of clothes, with a pile of shoes on the floor. A quick glance in the bathroom showed a toothbrush in a cup onthe edge of the small sink, and bottles of shampoo and assorted beauty products on the shelf in the tiny shower stall.
It definitely looked like she planned to come back, and I debated sitting down to wait for her. As another trickle of sweat rolled down my temple, I decided that wasn’t happening. I’d call one of the prospects over to keep an eye on the place, and they could call me when she returned.
I stepped back out into the main room and looked toward the tiny kitchenette in the corner. I spotted a stack of napkins on the counter from various fast-food restaurants and grabbed one, using it to open the freezer door. I hoped a cold blast of air would provide a little relief to the oppressive heat in the room.
“Damn,” I whistled quietly, taking in the gallon-sized clear plastic baggie which was the only thing in the freezer aside from a half-empty bottle of top-shelf vodka. The baggie was filled with stacks of cash – mostly twenties and fifties, with a small stack of hundreds thrown in. At a glance, I figured there had to be close to twenty-thousand dollars there.
“Why the fuck would she be living in this shithole if she’s pulling down this kind of cash at the club?” I muttered to myself, filing that question away to think about later. “And why the fuck didn’t she put it in the bank instead of hiding it in the freezer?”
