AllFreeNovel
Share Us
89
Benjy came to me one night after the Veils closed. He had this real worried look on his face. “Lou? Can I talk to you?”
I wondered if Eyeball might be giving him shit again, but Eyeball knew better than that after his tattoo shop beatdown.
“What’s up, kid?”
“You know Ali?”
I had to think for a second. “You mean Venus, the stripper.”
“Yeah. I think somebody might be tryin’ to hurt her.”
That piqued my interest. Never fuck with a man’s primary moneymaker.
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
“I heard her outside the club on her phone, and she was sayin’ stuff like ‘I don’t wanna do this’ and ‘I’m not a narc.’”
Four-alarm fire bells started going off in my head. When a cokehead tells somebody she doesn’t wanna be a narc, there’s a big fuckin’ problem.
“Why don’t we go talk somewhere private?” I said, and put my arm around him.
I guided him back to my office, gave him a tumbler of my next-to-best scotch, and sat down opposite him. “Start from the beginning and tell me everything you heard.”
“Okay. Thanks for the drink, Lou.”
“You’re welcome. Go ahead, I’m listening.”
It was a pain in the ass sifting through his ramblings for the important parts, so I’ll save you the agony. Apparently he went off looking for Venus like he always does, hoping for a scrap of attention, but he couldn’t find her. One of the other strippers said she went outside for a smoke – which was another red flag. I don’t give a shit if my dancers smoke in the club, so Venus obviously wanted some privacy for something.
She was out in the parking lot behind the dumpster. That’s why she didn’t see Benjy walk up on her.
He couldn’t follow the conversation exactly, but he heard scraps of her conversation. He said she went back and forth between scared and angry.
Look, I don’t want to do this.
There was a long pause while whoever was on the other end said something.
I’m not a narc.
Pause.
Please… they could kill me…
Pause.
God damn you to hell, you son of a bitch… fine. Fuck you.
Then she looked around the dumpster and saw Benjy.
I gotta go, she said, and hung up the phone. Then she walked right over to Benjy. He said she was pissed – and a little bit nervous.
Benjy, were you spying on me?
No… I just wanted to tell you you danced real good, Ali…
Did you hear any of that when I was talking on the phone?
