Connections in Death (In Death #48)(24)

Then again, from her scan, a good portion of the clientele ran the same. Some of the glazed looks might have come from ingesting the Zoner smoke hazing the room.

A couple of women on the platform—too small to rate the term stage—pawed each other mechanically while a third attempted a clumsy routine on a pole.

Behind the bar a single male wearing nipple rings, possibly purchased at Bondage World, poured liquid the color of sludge into stingy glasses. The guy on a stool downed one while getting a lap dance from a sex worker so bony Eve could count his ribs.

If he’d seen his eighteenth birthday, she’d eat her badge.

A woman in a red skinsuit approached. Pasty flesh sagged out of the open lacing running down both sides while another pair of man-made tits rose improbably high from the snug bodice.

She wore a coal-black wig with a sweep down the left side that didn’t quite hide the puckering burn scars on her cheek.

“Looking for a table or a private room?” She had a voice like the smoke—thick and mildly drugged out.

“Neither. Dinnie Duff.”

“If you’re looking for personal service, I got better.”

Eve pulled out her badge. “Dinnie Duff.”

The woman hissed. “Just put that thing away. Business is bad enough around here. She ain’t working tonight. She ain’t come in for a couple, three nights.”

“Is this your place?”

“Shit no. I run what there is of it.”

“Name.”

“Taffy Pull. I had it changed legal when I was working the stage.”

“Okay, Taffy, Which is it, a couple or three since Duff’s been in?”

“Well, shit.” When the woman scratched her head, the wig shifted. “Monday night’s slow. Hell, most nights is slow, but we do decent on the weekend. I coulda used her over the weekend, but she didn’t show. So I guess she ain’t been in since last . . . maybe Thursday night she was in and working. Maybe the night before. I figured she musta made enough to hold her over or she got herself busted.”

“She told a couple people she was working here tonight.”

“Well, she ain’t. Look it’s no skin off mine if you bust her ass. She works, she gets paid.” The shoulder shrug didn’t move the breasts by a fraction. “She don’t work, somebody else gets paid. It’s all the same to me.”

“How long has she worked here?”

“Jesus, I guess about three years. On and off. And plenty of off. You find her, you tell her she’s off for good. I can’t have cops coming around here. Ain’t good for business.”

Eve caught sight of the three Bangers heading down the tunnel, led by Bolt. “If I find out you’re bullshitting me, I’ll shut this place down.”

The woman gave another shrug. “Got no reason to bullshit over some junkie whore too lazy to work. And this place—no big loss, right? You shut it down, there’s always another place.”

Eve left it at that.

Bolt stopped, eyed her up and down. “Bad shit happens to cops underground.”

“Worse shit happens to people who start something with a cop who has a stunner aimed at them.”

“One cop,” Roarke added. “Two stunners.”

This time when he looked down, she had the stunner in her hand, as did Roarke. Bolt smirked at them, but kept walking.

“That one has a very poor attitude,” Roarke commented.

“Yeah, I guess he flunked out of Manners 101. Too bad he’s only about five-seven and doesn’t fit the description of big from the wit’s statement.”

“Well, he appears to make up for his lack of stature by being a flaming fuckhole. But back to our charming hostess. I don’t believe she knows her former employee’s whereabouts.”

“No, neither do I. ‘Flaming fuckhole,’” she repeated. “I’ve got to remember that one.”

She ignored the cheers as another member of the wedding party stumbled up to the stage in Bang-O-Rama. Then the Bondage World demo of the Electric O, which made her think of a batt-operated cattle prod. And the howls of humanity in a chosen hell as they worked their way back through, and up to the street.

“Well now, after this fascinating evening, I could do with a good, long shower.”

“Sick bastards. What kind of sick bastard wants somebody to slap a shock stick across his balls?”

“Don’t look at me.” Roarke opened the car door for her. “So if neither the Banger chief or the curiously named Taffy Pull aren’t bullshitting, that only leaves a couple of possibilities.”

“Yeah, she’s pulled a rabbit, or she’s dead.”

Roarke walked around, slid behind the wheel. “She might have managed to score. She could’ve been paid for betraying Pickering. She got high and flopped elsewhere.”

“Not impossible,” she conceded. “Maybe Slice has it right, and it was a hit by one of the rival gangs. They recruited her, she helped with the hit, and now she’s flopping with them. But . . .”

“Why would a rival gang order a hit on a former Banger?”

“Why would anybody? It makes him more important than he seems.” And that was the puzzle. “I need to know more about the players.”

She pulled out her PPC, started runs.