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Ok, what just happened? Did I inadvertently pass some sort of blondeness test? It seemed unlikely. I was only sort of blonde, certainly a far cry from the peroxide level of the guys waiting in line (all of which were shooting daggers at me as I was ushered into the lounge).
Maybe the manslut outfit was even more effective than I’d realized.
The atmosphere back here was different from the rest of the club – calmer, quieter, soothing shades of blue instead of black and neon. A long bar took up all of one wall. Several large booths lined the other walls, and maybe a dozen tables were scattered around the center of the space. The crowd in here appeared older and certainly richer than in the main part of the club, tight jeans giving way to dark, tasteful suits.
Except for the boys at the bar.
So this was where the Stepford Blondes that made it into the lounge ended up – preening at the bar like a bunch of peacocks. A barstool opened up, and I tossed my jacket over it and took a seat, then ordered a beer (which cost ten dollars. Seriously? Would it blow my cover if I asked for a receipt so I could expense it?)
I sucked down half of it before realizing that at these prices, I really should be nursing this beer. And then a man of about forty in an expensive grey suit appeared beside me and said with a smarmy grin, “Hey handsome. Can I buy you a drink?”
“No thanks, I’m good,” I told him, and turned away from him and toward the bar. A huge mirror ran the length of the wall, and in it I could see most of the room. I scanned the crowd for Dmitri Teplov, trying to recognize him from the written description and grainy surveillance photos in the file I’d been given to prep for this assignment.
I didn’t see anyone matching his description, so idly, I scanned the faces of the bar blondes, not one of which was over twenty five, and all of whom looked like they belonged in an ad for Nordic ski equipment. And then I caught my own reflection in the mirror.
I stared at myself long and hard – at my gelled-for-the-occasion hair, at the tight turquoise shirt that brought out my blue eyes and hugged my toned body, at my tan, and yes, at my blondeness after a summer riding the waves at Fort Point. And I realized that I matched the bar babes – I looked like I was one of them.
Was that why I’d been selected for this undercover assignment? Not because of my stellar police work, not because I’d earned it. But because I looked the part, because I was the right physical type to make it in the door of Teplov’s club?
Ok, so why hadn’t Halpern, my police captain, just told me that? Why let me think this was some kind of promotion? And when this assignment was over, was he planning to chuck me back into uniform, at least until another assignment came up that called for a blonde bimbo?
Make that a gay blonde bimbo, I amended, as another guy in a suit tried to hit on me. This one was more tenacious that the last, and it took a while to convince him I really wasn’t dying of thirst and really didn’t want the drink he kept insisting on buying for me. I ended up pivoting on my barstool to turn my back to him, and he finally got the hint.
And that’s when I caught sight of Dmitri Teplov.
He was seated in a big booth in the corner. And though he wasn’t saying or doing much, it was clear that all the action in the room revolved around him, like he was the sun in this strange little universe.
Teplov was strikingly handsome, even more so than the surveillance photos had led me to believe. His hair was glossy and black and hung just past the collar of his finely tailored black suit jacket, his pale skin luminous in the soft light. His shoulders were broad and his body, what I could see of it, was long and lean.
A sleazy-looking businessman sat to the left of him, and – oh, here was a surprise – a blonde boy toy sat to his right. The businessman currently had his attention, but the blonde was doing his best to change that, running his hand up and down Teplov’s thigh. A phone on the table even seemed to be getting more attention than the blonde though, with Teplov glancing at it every so often and tapping the screen.
The blonde decided to increase his efforts, apparently trying to upgrade his status to at least above that of the smart phone, and he slid his hand into the club owner’s lap. Teplov gingerly plucked the blonde’s hand off his crotch and turned to him with a little smile, whispering something in his ear. And then he shot a quick glance at a short, heavy-set man in a loud burgundy suit jacket, who stood beside the booth. Burgundy Jacket immediately went around to the blonde and whispered something to him, and the boy toy slid out of the booth, looking both disappointed and a little wistful as he made his way back out into the crowd.
