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“After the town or the legendary bird?” I asked.
“Both.” She smiled at me like I’d said a smart thing. I wondered how many of the customers didn’t know the origins of her stage name.
“Would you like a drink, Phoenix?” Newman asked.
“That would be lovely.”
He asked what she wanted. She ordered something with ice in it. I wondered if she’d drink it for real or sip it and let the ice melt. Nursing her drink so she’d stay in control would win her points with me, not that she cared what I thought of her, not for real. As she wiggled her short skirt across my lap again, I really hoped we learned something worth this level of up close and personal with a strange woman.
Newman went to put her drink order in, and she snuggled her face against the side of my neck. Her breath was very warm against my skin. She smelled of good perfume. Her hair was clean, thick, and smelled of shampoo. If there were hair-care products in her hair that were keeping it to one side, they had left her hair soft to the touch.
Movement caught my eye at the table nearest us. It was four men who looked like they’d run in from work for a late lunch, or an early dinner. They were in ties and suits with the food in front of them, but they weren’t looking at their food. They were staring at us. Shit, I was dressed for hunting bad guys, with more weapons than most people owned, so I hadn’t felt like a woman in that strip club anyway, but the woman in my lap was dressed feminine enough to make up for me—or maybe the fact that I was dressed more like a man fed some lesbian fantasy? I tried not to think too hard about it.
I glanced farther out into the club. Some of the other customers were looking at us, too. The ones around the stage were still watching the girl onstage, which was good, because it was considered bad form to distract from the stage act. The woman on the stage was moving even less than before, and she still seemed to have no idea there was a beat to the song.
The blonde brushed her lips against the skin of my neck, not a kiss but still more reality than usual t
his early in the game. Maybe she was just flirting to try to get the customers more interested in her for the stage show later, or maybe she just liked girls better than boys.
I laid my cheek against her hair, her face still buried against my neck. “What are you doing here this early, Phoenix? You’re too good for the early crowd.”
That made her raise her face enough to look into my face. “Oh, Beautiful, you say the sweetest things, and you’re right. Another dancer couldn’t come in at the very last moment, naughty girl.”
Her face was so close to mine. Her lips were parted just so, and her eyes held large like an anime character. It was so artificial, so practiced, that it didn’t move me nearly as much as the brush of her lips had. That had felt real, as if she’d forgotten the act for a second. Or maybe that was part of the act, too. With strippers, you never knew. One of the reasons I’d been able to resist Nathaniel and Jean-Claude for so long was that they both flirted professionally, so I hadn’t been able to tell that they were serious with me. Only years of living with them had finally helped me figure out the difference. The girl in my arms was a mystery still.
“Were you working two nights ago?”
Phoenix nodded, managing to get more hair-bobbing action into it than necessary. She had good hair, and she knew it, but then she knew exactly what her assets were and how to use them for work. I’d never have been that smooth, but that was okay. I had other skills.
I was debating if I could get to my phone without kicking her off my lap when Newman came back with Phoenix’s drink. He set it down next to my water, which reminded me that I hadn’t drunk anything yet. I was just letting my ice melt, which was okay for the water but not for the Coke.
Phoenix turned to flash Newman a very nice smile despite the less than happy look on his face. Her reaching for her drink let me do the same for mine. The Coke was already too watered down, so I reached for the water. It tasted cold and far better than it should have. It was another sign that I hadn’t been meeting my physical needs, which made all the metaphysical ones harder to control. Which explained why I’d leaned against Olaf in the interrogation room, which was the lycanthrope energy, and probably why I had a strange woman in my lap, which was closer to the issues/abilities I’d inherited from Jean-Claude. I’d gone from uncomfortable and almost angry about Phoenix in my lap to, if not enjoying it, at least not disliking it. It so wasn’t me, but to get information from her, maybe a little less me and a little more Jean-Claude wasn’t a bad thing?
I sipped my water and realized that my other hand was curled a little possessively around the woman’s hip. It did keep her steady on my thighs, but I hadn’t realized I’d done it. I needed to eat really soon. I asked Newman to show Phoenix the picture of our person of interest. It’s considered prejudicial to call someone a suspect in front of a possible witness, so everyone is a person of interest or someone we’re hoping can help us with our inquiries or some such politically correct phrasing.
Phoenix’s face clouded over. For a minute she forgot about being the sexy flirt and let us see the steel underneath the silk. “Oh, yes, she was here that night. She and her friends hung out with Giselle all night.”
“Are you sure the woman in the picture was here all night?” Newman asked.
“I’m sure.” Her eyes had darkened to the color of storm clouds. The anger rolled off of her, and suddenly she smelled even more like food.
I caressed my hand down Phoenix’s hip, and she was so angry that she didn’t react. For her job she should have either flirted back or told me I wasn’t allowed to touch her. Instead she sat up straight on my lap as if I was a hard chair instead of a person. Her skin felt hot under my hand, as if she were cooking in her anger. I could feed on that heat, skin to skin.
“How are you so certain?” Newman asked.
“Because that bitch Giselle did a lap dance with her while I was onstage.”
I rubbed my cheek against her bare arm, rolling my face through the warmth of her anger. “That’s not allowed,” I said.
“What do you mean, it’s not allowed?” Newman asked.
I forced myself to raise my face away from her skin and concentrate on Newman as I answered. God, I needed our food to come soon. “Doing a girl-on-girl lap dance would distract the customers from the stage show. It’s like stealing money out of the other dancer’s pocket.”
Phoenix looked at me then, really looked at me, not just as a mark, or as a way to make money, but like I’d said something interesting. “Exactly.”
She managed to roll her hip as if asking for me to pet her hip rather than just rest my hand on it. I rose to the invitation, because I wanted her to keep talking. We might not need much from Giselle by the time she arrived, or we might even learn enough that we could catch her in a lie. We needed to know if Jocelyn’s alibi was good or bust, and we needed to know it now, because Bobby was running out of later.
“Did Giselle give all three of them lap dances while other dancers were onstage?” I asked.
