33
There is almost no parking on The Landing. The streets are narrow, and most of them are cobblestoned. It's very quaint, but the streets were originally planned for horses, not cars, and it shows. There is no employee parking at Guilty Pleasures, because there isn't room. So I had to park the Jeep down a ways, and we got to walk, but Nathaniel touched my arm before I got too close to the bloodred neon sign and the front entrance. He took me down an alley that I hadn't even known was there. I mean, I knew it was there, but not where it went. I'd never really thought that there must be a performers' entrance just like for Circus of the Damned.
The alley was an alley, which meant it was narrow, cramped, not as clean as you'd like, not as well lit as you'd prefer, and made my claustrophobia complain. Not badly, but enough to let me know that any alley that I could touch both sides of was too damn narrow for comfort.
I'd meant to simply drop Nathaniel at the club and run to my next appointment, but a call on my cell phone had taken a lot of the angst out of my schedule. My second appointment for the night, now my first, had to cancel. Mary said that the lawyer had told her that he had to tend to the needs of another client unexpectedly. Translation: He needed to bail someone out. It didn't have to be that, but it probably was. I'd gotten better at translating lawyer over the years, though no better at legal jargon. Jargon is meant to be as unclear as possible, and it's good at its job.
So suddenly my first appointment of the night was at nine o'clock, and I had time to escort Nathaniel inside and talk to Jean-Claude. God knows there was enough to talk about. So that's how I came to be threading my way down an alley, following Nathaniel's broad shoulders. His shoulders almost brushed the walls. I don't think Dolph would have fit at all.
Nathaniel hesitated, and I couldn't see around him, but just his posture let me know something was wrong. Women's voices, high and excited, called, "Brandon, Brandon!"
He waved, then turned sideways so I could see past his chest. There was a handful of women near the steps leading up to a door with a bright light over it.
I leaned in to him and whispered, sort of, "Why do I think you're Brandon, and are they supposed to be here?"
He whispered back, smiling and waving at the women, who were beginning to come down the steps, as if trying to decide whether to come meet him. "My stage name, and no. Security is supposed to keep this area clear." He started to walk toward them.
I grabbed his arm. "Shouldn't we go back the way we came?"
"They probably just want an autograph or to touch me. It'll probably be okay."
"Probably," I said.
He patted my hand. "If I tell you I'm sure that they won't get bad weird, then I'd be lying, but probably they don't mean any harm."
"I'd feel better if we went back," I said.
"No," he said, and he sounded very firm. "These are my fans, Anita, and this is my job. I'm going to smile and talk to them, and you can pretend to be my bodyguard, or pretend to be security, but it's bad business for you to be my girlfriend. It hurts the illusion."
"The illusion?" I made it a question.
He smiled. "That they can have me."
I gave him the long blink, the one that means I've just received more information than I wanted and don't know what to do with it. "Okay," I said, "I'll be security." There, I was cool. I could handle this. Sure, I could.
He let me go in front, because that's what I'd do if I were security. He didn't try to argue, since he could wave and smile and call to them over my head. I fought to keep my face blank and not cranky, but I think I failed.
There were four of them: two blondes, one brunette, and one with hair as black as mine. Though I could tell hers came out of a bottle, because it was too solid, all-over black, no highlights. Black hair isn't supposed to look like you've poured ink on your head. But again, maybe that was just me being cranky.
Nathaniel, alias Brandon, chatted the women up like a pro. The two blondes were regulars, apparently, on a first-name basis. "We were so excited when we got the E-mail that you were going to be here tonight," one gushed. She kept touching his arm while she talked. They'd brought a friend, the one with black hair, who was new, but had seen his pictures on the club's Web site. I hadn't known that Guilty Pleasures had a Web site. Of course, I didn't own a computer, so what did it matter to me?
Raven-hair said in a voice that was breathy with nervousness, "Your pictures were amazing." She looked at him with little covert glances, as if she was afraid to stare at him head-on. One of the blondes got an honest-to-God autograph book out for Raven-hair, who was quote, too shy to do it herself, unquote.
The brunette wasn't joining in the squeal fest. She was looking at me, and it wasn't a friendly look. "Who's she?" she asked.
I was standing beside the door at the top of the steps, hands loose at my sides, trying to look bodyguardish, and probably failing. My little blue and black skirt outfit, complete with high heeled boots, didn't look much like security detail.
"Security," he said smiling, and signing Raven-hair's book.
"She doesn't look like security," the brunette said.
"I'm new," I said.
Brunette didn't look like she believed me. She crossed her arms underneath her small, tight breasts and glared at me.
I smiled back sweetly.
That deepened her scowl and gave her little lines between her eyebrows. I felt better.
Nathaniel gave me a little flicker of a look that said as clearly as if he'd spoken, "Be nice." I was nice. I smiled and stood and let the blondes touch his arms, his back, but when one of them patted his ass, that was it.
I pushed away from the wall, and said, "Ladies, Brandon here needs to get inside and prepare for his performance." I managed to keep smiling even when one of the blondes threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Then the other blonde grabbed him and kissed him on the other cheek.
I grabbed his arm and moved him back far enough so I could open the door. The two women were still clinging to him. Raven-hair was blushing, and the brunette was still scowling at me. I kept my smile in place, though it felt more like a grimace.
Nathaniel said, "Beth Ann, Patty, if you don't let me go, I can't get on stage."
"Stay out here with us, and we wouldn't care," one of them said.
I glanced behind me and saw a black-shirted man. It was Buzz, the vamp that usually worked the door here. He had the same black crew cut that he had always had, small pale eyes, and more muscles than you should need as a dead man. His black shirt said GUILTY PLEASURES SECURITY in red letters. I didn't usually like Buzz much, but tonight I was glad to see him. Help had arrived.
I could have cleared the steps if I was allowed to be mean, but having to be nice at the same time I was trying to be firm was beyond me. My skill set simply did not include it.
He forced his face into a smile before the women behind me could see him clearly. He was the newly dead, around twenty years, which meant he looked very alive for a dead man. Most humans wouldn't have spotted him in a crowd. Most people think that vamps gain the ability to pass for human, but that's never been my experience. Older is less human, just better at the mind games so humans don't notice.
"Ladies, you're not supposed to be back here," Buzz cajoled. He moved past me, and his chest was so muscle-bound that it looked like there wasn't room for all of us and his upper body to stand on that small landing.
The brunette said, "Is she really security?"
"If that's what she said," he said in the same good-fellow-well-met voice. He was cheerfully extracting Nathaniel from the blondes. He managed to make a game of it, and they spilled around Buzz's muscular body, as if to say, if they couldn't cling to Nathaniel, any male would do. Of course, from the sound of the joking conversation, the blondes knew Buzz, too.
Raven-hair had backed down the steps, eyes a little wide. She didn't want to play. It made me think better of her.
I drew Nathaniel in through the open door, with the brunette giving me a murderous glare. She was taking this way too personally. It was sort of unnerving. Nathaniel and I were safely through the door, but I didn't like closing it and leaving Buzz out there alone. I mean, he'd helped us. What were the rules about security guards? Did they get protected, too, or just the dancers and customers? If you cut a security guard did he not bleed? So I stood there uncertainly with Nathaniel. It was Nathaniel who gently closed the door.
"Buzz will be fine, he knows how to talk to them."
"What, you read my mind?"
He smiled. "No, I just know you. He helped us, and now you feel obligated."
I fought the urge to squirm or shuffle my feet. I hated when anyone figured me out that clearly. Was I that transparent? Apparently so.
I decided to change the subject. "How did they know that 'Brandon' would be here tonight?"
"When we change headliners, we have an E-mail list that we notify. There's even a list just for Brandon."
I looked at him. "You mean that some of these women dropped everything, changed all their plans, because they found out that Brandon was going to be here tonight?"
He shrugged and managed to look a little embarrassed. "Some of them, yes."
I shook my head. I changed the subject again, because I was losing again. "Who was supposed to be keeping the fans away from this door?"
The door in question opened. Buzz laughed and joked, until the door closed behind him, then he leaned against it and looked tired. "Primo was."
It took me a second to realize that he'd answered the question I'd asked with the door closed. "You heard me ask the question?"
He nodded. Then he grinned flashing fangs, the sign of a new vamp. "You didn't know I could hear you through the door?"
"Hear, yes, but I thought you were too busy concentrating on the women outside."
He looked past me at Nathaniel. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
Buzz pushed himself away from the door and stood, settling his big, overdeveloped shoulders like a bird settles its feathers. "I better go talk to Primo, for what good it will do."
"What do you mean, good it will do?" I asked.
He looked at me. "Primo is old, really old. He wants to be one of Jean-Claude's vamps, but he had his eye on like the number two, or at least number three slot. He's pissed that he's having to be security at a strip club. He's more pissed that a baby like me is his direct boss." Buzz looked worried. "He's old school, and he thinks if he keeps pushing me, that I'll call him out. But I am not going to challenge that thing. He'd kill me."
"Have you told Jean-Claude what's going on?"
He nodded. "He told Primo that if he couldn't stomach this job and obey me, then he could get out of town."
"Did that help for awhile?" I asked.
Buzz smiled. "Have you heard this story before?"
"No, but I know how the really old vamps can be. They are proud bastards."
Nathaniel touched my arm. "I need to talk to Jean-Claude about tonight's performance."
"I'll join you in the office in a minute."
Nathaniel started to say something, then seemed to think better of it and just went down the white hallway. I watched him go into the office that was just a few doors down. Then I turned back to Buzz. "Is it just not doing what he's told, or is there more?"
"He's started taking money to let in people we don't let in."
"Like who?"
"Men."
I raised eyebrows. "You don't let in any men?"
"Not a lot. It makes the women uncomfortable, and some of the dancers don't like it either. You're either comfortable shakin' your thing in front of other men, or you're not."
"I guess that makes sense, but you let some in."
"Couples, just like they do at most female strip clubs across the river."
"But Primo is letting in single men," I said.
He nodded.
"What did Jean-Claude tell you to do about it?"
"He told me to deal with it. That if I wasn't vampire enough to control Primo that maybe I didn't deserve my job. Jean-Claude is old, too, Anita. I think they're both setting me up for some kind of showdown, and Primo will hurt me, or kill me."
"You look like you can take care of yourself."
"If it's just strong-arm stuff, yeah, but Primo isn't a brute, Anita, he's dripping with power. I even agree with him that Jean-Claude isn't using him well. He's too powerful to be down here doing this, and he doesn't have the temperament for it."
"What do you mean?"
"He's more likely to start fights than stop them. He'll take money from men to get in, then he'll throw their asses out."
I shook my head. "You know, Buzz, this doesn't sound like a problem that Jean-Claude would let go this far."
"Not normally," he said, "but it's like Jean-Claude is waiting to see what we'll do before he steps in. I'd just as soon not be dead before he does it."
"Is it really that bad?"
"The women out there were okay, but we've had one dancer that was stalked. Another one had an irate husband go after him with a knife, because he was jealous that his wife was a member of the dancer's fan club."
"The dancers have fan clubs?"
"The headliners do."
"Nathaniel has a fan club?" I made it a question, because it seemed like it should be.
"Brandon has a fan club, yeah." He looked at me and laughed. "You didn't know."
"I don't really pay attention to the day-to-day business here."
He nodded. He was back to looking worried.
I'd never liked Buzz. I didn't exactly dislike him, but he wasn't my friend. But, if his version of what was going on with Primo was accurate he was in a bad spot. A spot that I didn't understand. Jean-Claude was a good business vampire, and this didn't sound like good business.
"I'll talk to Jean-Claude, Buzz. I'll find out what his thinking is about Primo."
Buzz sighed. "Well, I can't ask for more." He grinned, suddenly flashing those fangs again. "In fact, until now I thought you didn't like me."
It made me smile. "If you thought I didn't like you, then why pour your problems in my ear?"
"Who else do I have to go to?"
"Asher is Jean-Claude's second in command."
He shook his head. "I work here, problems stay here, all the businesses are run that way."
"I didn't know that," I said. It was probably a holdover from the days when each business was run by a different vamp. "So, because I visit all the businesses, I'm what, an ambassador?"
He gave that fang-flashing grin again. "Kind of."
"I'll try to find out what's going on, that's the best I can do. If Jean-Claude is really setting you up for a power struggle with Primo, I'll tell you."
He looked relieved. "I just need to know where I stand, ya know."
I nodded. "I know."
A black-shirted man came running through the door at the end of the hallway, accompanied by a sudden blast of music and noise. He was blond and looked like a college student, but he ran down the hallway like he was on springs. Lycanthrope of some kind.
He was talking before he got to us. "We got a problem out there. Primo let a bunch of guys in, they started heckling Byron. You said come get you the next time it got ugly. It's ugly."
Buzz was already moving down the hall, not exactly running. I hesitated for a second, then started trotting with them.
Buzz glanced at me. "You coming along?"
I sort of shrugged. "I'd feel funny just walking away."
"Our job is to tone things down a notch," he said. "Not make it worse."
"Are you saying you don't want me?"
"Hell no," the blond said. "The Executioner on our side. I'll take that."
"Who are you?" I asked, running to keep up with their fast walk.
"Clay," he said, offering his hand over the front of Buzz's body.
"Be sociable later," Buzz said. He hesitated at the door, as if he were gathering himself. There was suddenly a faint hum of energy coming off of Buzz. I'd never felt anything from him before. His gray eyes glowed--if gray could glow. "I am so tired of this shit," he said, and opened the door.