Chapter 12
Aiden hung upside down on the pole, gripping it with his thighs, spine arched as he spun around in a slow circle. He was working early tonight, in that twilight time before the majority of day jobbers were home from work and freed of responsibility for a few hours. The crowd was light, which he’d expected. But the vibe was wrong. The audience wasn’t rapt on his performance as they usually were. Instead, people kept glancing toward the door. And the guests who came in looked rattled.
Aiden flipped backward off the pole. He kept a come-hither expression on his face as he rocked his hips to the beat, but as soon as the music ended, he jumped down off the stage without looking back, foregoing the pause for applause and a final push for tips. He snapped his fingers to get the attention of the staff member in charge of stage collection.
“Hold on to my cash and clothes for a few minutes and I’ll double your tip out.”
“You got it, Glimmer.”
“Thanks.”
Aiden quickly made his way across the club to the exit. As he got closer to the door, the sound of shouting could be heard over the music. Heedless of the fact that he was dressed in nothing more than knee high boots and a gold studded black leather jock strap, he pushed the door open and walked outside, right into an in-progress protest.
“What the fuck?”
The bouncer looked over her shoulder at Aiden’s outburst and snorted. “Yeah.”
She didn’t move from her crossed-arms position at the curb. But Suzie, who was next to her, came over to stand with Aiden. Josephine, the club manager, was a few steps in front of the bouncer, imploring the crowd to disperse. On the other side of the street, there were about thirty people standing together in close formation.
Aiden looked them over. Members of the group held up signs cursing the Playground Players to damnation. Others used megaphones to amplify their demands that they close their business and get respectable jobs. And mixed in with the crowd were several people dressed entirely in white. They—or at least some of them—had to be the Purity Alliance.
A woman stood in front of the crowd. She didn’t have a sign or a megaphone, but her bearing and appearance made it clear that she was in charge of the protestors. Her hair was perfectly styled in a side-parted bob, the ends tightly curled under. A modest strand of pearls circled her neck. She wore a pink cardigan with a lapel pin over her left breast, pleated khaki slacks, and brown loafers. The woman looked like a creepy caricature of a suburban mom, especially since she stood there completely still, unphased at the shouting coming from behind her, with a smile on her pretty but nottoopretty face. When she held up a hand her band of protesters immediately quieted.
“We simply want to clean up this area of the seedier acts and businesses,” the blonde woman spoke calmly, but loud enough for her voice to carry across the street.
“And which acts would those be?” Suzie called out.
The woman cast a glance over Suzie in her pink, ruffled Lolita costume, then Aiden, who might as well be naked.
“From what I can see here in front of me, this particular establishment could use a lot of restructuring.”
Aiden lazily flipped her the bird. His outward demeanor appeared bored and over it but internally he was busy taking mental note of everything, committing faces and whatever important details he could suss out to memory. He’d need to report everything he could remember back to Strong and the team.
The woman lowered her hand and the crowd went back to their chanting right as a police cruiser rolled up. The siren was off, but the police lights on the roof of the car went round and round, red and blue lights competing with the bright glow of the Flirtatious Fox’s marquee.
Aiden didn’t recognize the officer who exited the patrol car. He looked at the group of protestors, then at Josephine, the Fox’s manager. He took a few steps closer to Josephine and directed his question to her.
“What seems to be the problem, ma’am?”
“This group showed up about an hour ago and started shouting and causing a ruckus. They’re making our customers nervous and I would like them to leave.”
Aiden held his breath as he waited for the cop’s response, half-expecting him to say as long as the protestors stayed on their side of the street it was fine. For the most part, the businesses in the Playground had developed a good relationship with many of the officers who worked this area. But there were some who were either too new to understand how the Playground worked, or too set in their ways to even consider building a rapport with the denizens of a red-light district. But to his surprise, even though the cop wasn’t one he recognized, he sided with the club manager. He walked toward the sign-bearing group with his arms out to his sides, waving his hands as if he were shooing them away.
“Okay, folks. You’ve been here for an hour and had your protest. I think it’s time to move it along.”
“We have the right to assemble!” one of the protestors shouted.
Others joined in with their own shouts but Protest Barbie held up her hand again. The yelling cut off as fast as it had begun.
“Of course, Officer. We’ll be on our way.”
At her comment, the group began lowering their signs and turning off the bullhorns. Aiden watched, reluctantly impressed as they marched away in two orderly and eerily quiet single file lines. The group marched to the parking lot, piled into three vans, and drove off. Aiden wished they’d parked close enough so he could see if any of the vans’ registrations matched the plate they’d been chasing the other night. Unfortunately, he couldn’t follow them to check and see without drawing unwanted attention to himself, so he stayed put.
“That was weird,” Suzie said after they’d driven away.
“Yeah,” Aiden agreed. “Very righteous Old West town folks here to run the whores out of town vibes.”
“But this is our town and we’re not giving it up.” Suzie crossed her arms over her chest, looking adorably like an angry porcelain doll in her ruffled costume.
