Cold Fusion Read online

  “Of course not, my dear. I may be a little out of sorts, but I’m not totally out of touch with reality,” she answers sweetly, making me feel so guilty I hate myself.

  I want to shake her to snap her out of the daze she’s been in since Dad died, but it won’t work. Nothing has worked. Lisa has tried everything but setting the house on fire, but she failed. Our mother is indeed out of touch with reality. She lives in romance-novel land, and the only thing she still has a handle on is taking care of the house.

  Living with her has its advantages. I don’t have to pay rent, and I have someone who changes my sheets, takes care of my laundry, fills up the fridge, and always has my favorite food ready when I get home. That’s the way I sold my moving back in to make sure Lisa didn’t give up her dream by staying with Mom. Now Lisa’s in law school in New York, and I’m here. Most of the time, I’m happy to be back, but today is one of those days I wish I lived elsewhere. Since yesterday, Mom’s been focused on the name of the unit…

  “If it’s a special task force, darling, it means that you’re assigned a special task. Why won’t you tell me what it is?”

  “Mom, I don’t know yet and probably will not be allowed to tell you anything when I do.”

  “That’s so silly,” she answered. “I never see anyone. Whom would I leak such precious information to?”

  The answer to that one is easy—she would say it to anyone who would listen. I’m sure all the staff at the local supermarket knows that my sister is in law school in New York and that I just came back home, unharmed, after five years in the Army.

  I plaster on a smile and ignore her question. If Lisa could put up with Mom during the five years I was away, the least I can do is stay with her as long as Lisa’s in law school. But one thing’s for sure—when Lisa returns, I won’t let her move back and sacrifice herself. Hell, I’d rather she move in with Brian at the MC clubhouse than stay here. That thought brings me a smile. I’d pay good money to see that happen!

  I look at my watch. In half an hour, I need to be in a diner next to the Category Five Knights MC clubhouse. I’m meeting with a guy named Slider about a job as a bouncer in a strip club. I bring my coffee cup to the sink and give my mother a kiss.

  She smiles and raises an eyebrow. Yeah, my biker’s clothing isn’t what she expected me to wear my second day on the job. She turns around and watches me slide in my favorite battered leather jacket.

  “Drive safely,” she says as I walk out of the kitchen.

  “Yeah, yeah, I will. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll probably get in late,” I answer before the door slams behind me.

  Once in the garage, I look at my two bikes. What I need today is to show that I mean business. This means I don’t want to take the light cross-country machine but my other baby. I pick an old-fashioned helmet and get on my way.

  As I ride, I remember what Captain Black said about Slider. He’s been undercover with the Category Five Knights for such a long time that when she met him, she wondered if he remembered he was still law enforcement. His loyalty to his MC scared her a bit, and she doesn’t seem like a woman who scares easily. Funny how that made me see the guy in a favorable light. He’s probably like Brian—conflicted. No one can live with a bunch of guys for years without bonding. It’s enough to make a man end up ripped by torn loyalties.

  When I get to the diner, Slider’s outside, pacing by the door.

  I recognize him from the picture Captain Black showed me, and I guess he’s seen my picture too, because the second I’m next to him, he says, “We met in a bar. I was hitting on your sister, you stepped in, and I didn’t care for the bitch enough to get into a fight.”

  It takes me a couple seconds to understand that he’s not insulting my sister; he’s telling he’s worked on our legend. Should anybody ask, that’s how we met. I pull my wallet out and show him a picture of Lisa.

  He takes a good look at her. “I would have fought you for a piece of that ass.”

  I take a deep breath and remind myself that when you’re undercover, you need to be who you need to be twenty-four, seven. Somehow, I can’t get myself to thank him for what I guess was a compliment! I smile when I think of what Brian’s reaction would have been. The poor guy’s been in love with Lisa forever and has only managed to bang her once. He did it the night before we ran away, and the idiot had waited so long for her that he was done before he even got started. Poor Lisa!

  “The bar was the Shamrock in Point Lookout,” I tell him. That’s the one bar where Lisa and I used to hang out to listen to country music.

  “Fine, I know the place.” He studies my hands and the visible parts of my arms. “No tats?”

  “None. I haven’t found anything that I’m ready to let under my skin yet,” I say.

  He shrugs. “Let’s go in.”

  We find an empty booth in the back corner, and the waitress magically appears to take our order. She notes what I ask for while staring at Slider. She’s obviously crazy about the man. She’s a plain girl in her thirties who I don’t think would be his type, but who knows? He smiles at her, a big predatory grin, and she blushes.

  “The usual, sweetheart,” he tells her.

  She takes my order and rushes away. When she returns, the waitress brings my eggs and the largest omelet I’ve ever seen. Slider looks up at her, nods, and grunts.

  She hovers next to him until he says, “Thanks, honey.” When she’s gone, he tells me with a boyish grin, “I thought about a pity fuck, but then I’d have to change diners, and I kind of like this place. They make the best omelets.”

  I nod and don’t comment.

  “Do you like pussy or are you a backdoor kind of guy? No skin off my nose if you are, but it wouldn’t sit well with your new boss.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” I answer. “What I take to bed is always of the female persuasion.”

  “Good, because you’re starting tomorrow night as a bouncer at the Bush Fire.” He notices my smirk and smiles too. “Yeah, it’s kind of an interesting name for a strip joint. Anyway, I manage the place as if it was my own, so I want my staff loyal to me and to me only. At times, there’re things happening that the owners are better off not knowing.”

  “But the owners do come on the premises?” I ask. If they don’t, then there’s no point in my being undercover in that place.

  “Yeah, they do. On the second floor, there’s a room where they meet to plot the way they’re going to take over the universe. There’re offices too. One’s mine—that’s where I do my administrative shit. The second’s a regular office where they get their own stuff done. It’s got concrete walls and a fucking steel-reinforced door that’s always locked. I got to look into it once when they left the door open because they thought I was gone already. It’s just an office with a filing cabinet and a computer. The last room is a bedroom—that’s the owners’ play room, they walk on the wild side. They get to bang the strippers who are in the mood for it.”

  I remember Captain Black telling me that she found it deliciously ironic that those prejudiced bastards zero in on the more exotic beauties.

  “You don’t get to touch the goods, by the way. Your job is to protect our talent against the assholes who won’t take no for an answer—nothing more.”

  He sounds adamant. It’s good to know that the lines haven’t been totally blurred in his mind. I sure am happy about that.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Working nights comes easy enough. My job is every teenager’s wet dream. I get to be the hero of drop-dead gorgeous, half-naked girls who call me Prince Charming and hug me when I get an overeager john to back off.

  Can’t blame the poor guys for going bat-crazy, because that’s precisely the purpose of the girls’ numbers. They strip and tease and hump the poles. It’s enough to make any healthy male lose it. So yeah, I pull them away because that’s my job, but I do it gently because I sympathize. Hey, during the first week, I walked around with a semi-permanent hard-on myself.

  But
not tonight. Tonight I’m on my best behavior ’cause I’m not only watching the room and the clients, I’m also taking care of a ten-year-old boy. His name is Toussaint, and his mom, Josette, is our superstar. Starla—that’s her stage name—brings in so many clients that the owners turn a blind eye when she comes to work with the kid. Sometimes she snorts away the babysitter’s money, so the kid tags along. This joint isn’t the healthiest place for a boy his age, but it’s probably better than staying alone in that fleabag motel they live in.

  Toussaint somehow manages to do his homework in the girls’ dressing room, where he gets hugs and kisses from all his mother’s coworkers. He doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that they’re barely dressed and wearing an outrageous amount of makeup. This is all normal for him. When I look at him smile sweetly at them, I wonder what this is doing to his libido. Will he have a high-heel-and-sequin fetish or go for a wholesome girl-next-door type? Who knows?

  His face lights up when he spots me. “Bonjou’, David!”

  “Bonjou’, Toussaint.” I work to pronounce it the way he has instructed me, dropping the R at the end of the French greeting. He says that if I’m going to correct his English, he should teach me something in return, so I’m learning bits of Créole. “I’m here to take you to your suite, my prince.”

  “You sure Slider don’t mind?” Toussaint asks.

  “I’m sure he does not mind,” I answer, correcting his English. “Come on, kiddo.”

  Toussaint grabs his backpack. After a stop in the men’s room, where he brushes his teeth, I walk Toussaint to the second floor of the building. Slider’s office has a battered old couch he sleeps on when he’s too wasted to ride home.

  When the kid and I walk into Slider’s office, he pulls out the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet and grabs a pillow and blanket. I guess I’m not the only one who likes the boy.

  “Not the Ritz,” Slider growls, “but good enough to grab some shut-eye.”

  Toussaint frowns. He has no idea what the Ritz is, and he’s a bit scared of Slider, so he doesn’t ask.

  “Now you know you have to stay put. You lock the door, and don’t come out until David or I come get you, you hear?” Slider says in a softer tone.

  Slider and I exit the room and wait in the hall until we hear Toussaint lock the door. Once he’s done it, Slider and I go down the stairs.

  “I’m expecting them anytime, so be ready in case we get another shot,” he tells me.

  I nod and take my place between the door and the podium. Kim, the incredibly lean and flexible Chinese girl, is walking away from the center stage pole, and Starla arrives. Her performance is magnificent, a graceful, moving ebony sculpture, but her eyes are dead. It’s as though she lost her soul somewhere along the way and keeps on going through the motions for the sake of her son.

  At the end of her number, she’s replaced by Sally, who’s a really funny girl. Sally’s in college. She was hired as a waitress, and she asked Slider to give her a chance on the pole when she realized how much the strippers were making. She soon discovered that she wouldn’t make as much as the others because she gave up on lap dances after almost throwing up on a john who stank. She also refuses to “date” her clients, but she claims that she’s still way ahead of the waitressing game.

  Sally is a brunette belle with an ample bosom that doesn’t look as if it’s been added on. I watch her swirl around the pole, upside down, and her long black hair sweeps the floor. She’s hot. I’ll probably ask her out once she graduates and quits stripping or when I’m done with this mission—whichever comes first.

  Next there’s Suzy, the redhead who cultivates the mean dominatrix look. She’s the poster chick for those with a black latex kink. I don’t think Suzy likes me, unless she just keeps her private and professional lives separate. She answers my greetings politely but never volunteers anything about herself.

  Each girl does her number three to four times each evening, depending on attendance. I doubt most of the snowbirds can get it up, but they still like to watch. So four dancers work on weeknights and sometimes double that on weekends during the season. The weekend girls are usually dancers from other MC clubs who hop on over for a couple of numbers.

  Slider believes that variety is what makes the club special, and he knows what he’s doing. We’re only missing a blonde right now. The last one quit after one of the owners got a bit too rough with her. Slider is recruiting, but so far no one has danced to his standards… or he’s enjoying the recruiting process too much to settle on one girl yet.

  Since Suzy’s good at cracking her whip during her number, I can usually walk around the room, get a drink, or do my own stuff. I think she scares the shit out of most of the guys.

  Just before Suzy’s done, I’m standing by the main door, and Sally comes inside to get me.

  Her makeup is running—from rain or tears, I can’t tell—and she whisper-yells in my ear, “It’s Josette. Come outside.”

  I follow her, and as we walk through the pouring rain around the building to the side entrance, I notice her bare feet are covered with mud. She’s holding her spiked-heel shoes.

  “I went out for a smoke,” she says. She’s been trying to quit for forever but relapses periodically. “I found her like this. She was face down, so I flipped her up, and she didn’t move. Shit, I hope she’s not dead.”

  I look up and down Josette’s body for any suspicious wounds while I check her neck for a pulse. I find one, but she’s burning up. She’s passed out. I pick her up easily—she weighs nothing—and Sally holds the side door open for me.

  “Go get Slider,” I tell her. “He’s at the bar.”

  I try to sit Josette in one of the chairs at the makeup mirror, but she slumps down. I catch her before she falls on the floor. I pick her up again in a fireman’s grip and look for something to use to dry her off. I find a half-clean towel in the shower room. Better than nothing.

  Slider returns with Sally. One look, and he understands we probably have an overdose on our hands.

  “I don’t think we have the time to wait for an ambulance,” I tell him. “Someone needs to drive her to the hospital.”

  Sally looks at us for a few seconds and rushes to her locker. She comes back with her keys. “Take my car, I’ll find someone to drive me home.”

  “You or me?” I ask Slider.

  “You,” he answers. “Just drop her and come back. I’ll mind the shop and wait for you to close.”

  Since part of my job is walking the girls to their cars every night, I have no trouble finding Sally’s car. It’s a two-door number, so I just lean the passenger seat back as much as possible and tie Josette in with the safety belt.

  As I push the driver’s seat all the way back, I remember Toussaint is sleeping in Slider’s office. Fuck! I hope I get her to the hospital in time. I pray she wakes up real soon because otherwise, social services will take the kid away, and he’s much too sweet for the system.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As I enter the dressing room, Sally jumps off her chair and asks, “How is she?”

  Dropping her keys on the makeup table, I tell her the truth. “They’re not sure. It would help if they knew what she’d taken.”

  “You need to find her stash.” Kim’s onyx eyes set on me through the mirror.

  “Yeah, and to find out if she has anyone to take care of the kid while she’s in the hospital,” I answer.

  “Her stuff is in the storage trunk.” Kim points with her chin at the corner of the room. “It’s in a mini leopard handbag.”

  She returns to applying her eye makeup, ignoring my thank you. Kim always seems to be lost in her own world, but as I suspected, it’s a trick to make sure no one bothers her. She’s very aware of what’s happening around her.

  “While you search the trunk for her stash, I’ll look in her bag to see if I can find her sister’s number,” Sally says.

  “She’s got a sister?”

  Sally looks at me funny. “I know for a fact you
’ve seen her since you started here.”

  Right, give me a prize for the dumbest question of the year. I shake my head as I dig in the trunk searching for the bag.

  I find the pouch in which Josette squirrels away her poisons. I empty it on the mirrored surface of the makeup table. There’s an empty glass vial with a tiny spoon attached to the lid by a mini chain, some weed, a few tablets I can’t identify, and what look like acid blotters.

  “She finished the vial before she went on stage,” Kim says as she exits the room.

  The song Suzy uses for her whip tease is almost over. It soon will be Kim’s turn again, and she needs to get in her special headspace.

  “I’ll take a ride back to the hospital with all this,” I tell Sally as I put everything back in the pouch. “Could you—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll stay with the kid if Slider’s too busy to do it after we close,” Sally says. “But if she doesn’t make it, I’m not the one telling Toussaint that his mother’s gone.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I say before I exit the dressing room into the club.

  The bar is packed. It’s a big crowd for a weeknight. The president of the Wizards—Mr. Ezachia Smith—is at a table, watching Suzy crack her whip. Slider observes him with a predatory smile. He looks in my direction, and I know Slider savors the irony of the situation. The guy who claims he wants to dominate the world is fascinated by a woman who dominates him in private. His V.P., who is not honoring us with his presence tonight, has crushes on Josette and Kim, who sure aren’t sporting the proper party color. I guess his dick didn’t get the party’s memo.

  I walk to the corner where Slider is standing and show him Josette’s leopard pouch. “Taking it back to the hospital so they can try to figure out what she’s taken.” I slide the pouch into my leather jacket.

  “What about the kid?” Slider’s nostrils flare, and his pupils dilate.