Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(39)

“Well, that’s all I can think of,” Peter said.

“Me too,” Larry said. Then under his breath, “Shit.”



Almost three hours later, at just past 1:30 a.m. on what was now Friday morning, Peter Burns sat in the driver’s side of his 1997 Ford Ranger truck and sipped on a cold Miller High Life. The other five beers that comprised the six-pack lay in the passenger-side seat, and the radio blared a favorite from Kenny Chesney. “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems.”

Peter was still dressed in his work clothes, which consisted of a pair of khaki shorts, an untucked navy-blue golf shirt, and flip-flops A faded Atlanta Braves hat was perched on his head, which covered his long but thinning dirty-blond hair. He had two days of stubble on his face, and he scratched it before taking another sip of beer.

Then he peered up at the second-floor apartment. No lights on inside, though that wasn’t unusual. Darla was religiously frugal and wouldn’t allow a light on in her place unless it was being used to read. So she could be in there, but Peter doubted it. He had tried to call her several times in the last two weeks with no answer, and like Larry he was worried. But—and he would never tell Larry this—he was also excited.

Peter finished the rest of the beer and grabbed the carton from the passenger seat. Then he opened the door to the truck and trudged his way to Darla’s apartment, his heart racing.

His relationship with Darla was not something he had publicized. He didn’t want Larry to know, because he knew Larry wouldn’t like it. Larry could have all the girls at the Sundowners he wanted, but he didn’t want any of the other male help touching them. The bouncer, big Steve, was gay, so it didn’t make much difference to him. But Saint Peter, as the dancers called him, liked the opposite sex, and it was a little much to ask him not to be interested in the women whom he watched dance naked all day long.

So he had gotten with a few over the years, including Darla Ford, a.k.a. Nikita. But Peter quickly figured out that Darla was different than the other girls. Darla was smart. Not book smart, mind you. She didn’t quote Shakespeare or read the classics every night. But she was smart in the ways of the street. She knew how to make money and she knew how to save it. And Peter had always felt that she wasn’t long for the Sundowners.

It seemed like every dancer that became employed by the Sundowners had a story of some kind. Studying up to be a doctor, a nurse, a hairdresser, an actress, screenwriter, and on and on. You name it, Peter had heard it. And though the stories all sounded good, Peter had never seen any of these girls ever follow through with their dream. To Peter’s mind, dancing nude for money had a way of killing the soul. A girl might start working toward her goal—sign up for school, start taking classes during the day or take a job in that field—but the nightly grind of dancing the pole would wear them down. As would the cocaine, the meth, the liquor, or whatever else a girl put in her system to allow her to take her clothes off and rub her tits into the faces of men twice her age who reeked of body odor and whose breath smelled like castor oil.

Darla Ford was different. She did no drugs and limited her alcohol intake to one Seven and Seven, which she’d sip on all night and which Peter would refill with just 7 Up. Every night Darla’s goal was always the same. To take home as much money as humanly possible. To do that she had to give the best show, and no one at the club had ever danced like Nikita. She was the most requested dancer for lap dances, and, outside of Tammie Gentry, a.k.a. Sweet & Nasty, and Wilma Newton, a.k.a. Smokey, the only other dancer asked to go up to the VIP room and make the big bucks.

In the VIP room Peter knew that Darla had sex for money. She had so much as told him. “But only a small minority get to sample the merchandise,” she had said. “Only the really deep pockets who I think might come back for more.”

Andy Walton had fit the bill to a tee. A lonely seventysomething-year-old billionaire looking for a good time because his wife had gone cold between the sheets.

Peter wasn’t sure how much money Darla had stored away, but one night, after a romp on the mattress in her apartment, she’d volunteered that she was just about ten grand short of being able to place a down payment on her dream.

“I’m going to have the best oyster bar on the Gulf Coast, you just wait,” she had said.

By the time Peter reached the door to Darla’s apartment, he had already popped the top on beer number two. He knocked, because it was the polite thing to do, but he knew there would be no answer. Then, taking out the key that Darla had given him two years ago, he opened the door.

No lights, no sounds . . . no Darla.

She’s gone, Peter knew, involuntarily smiling. He remembered that scene at the end of the movie Good Will Hunting when Ben Affleck goes to Matt Damon’s house and doesn’t find him there. Affleck smiles, knowing that his friend has finally moved on.

Walking back into the kitchen, Peter noticed the note on the table. It was handwritten on a three-and-a-half by five-inch index card. The message was short and to the point.

“Saint Peter, I’m out of here. You know where to find me. I hope you will come. If not, you are welcome to whatever’s left in the apartment.”

Peter Burns closed his eyes, the smile still playing on his lips. Her ship had come in.

The arrangement with Andy Walton had finally paid off.



Peter decided to spend one last night in Darla’s apartment. He drank the rest of the six-pack and watched old Seinfeld episodes on one of the three channels Darla had on her TV. Then, not quite drunk, he lay on the mattress in her bedroom and thought through his options.