2

First a drug dealer’s house and now the Peppermint Pony? Jim watched Erica enter one of the trashiest strip clubs in town. It had been a feat to gather his wits and his equipment in time to follow her from Edmond’s. What was Erica Floyd up to and why was she here looking for her sister? Last he’d heard Erica was working for some investment firm in Boston. And her little sister, Chris, was still in school. Not that he was keeping up with the traitorous bitch. His job was to know things, so he knew things.

She drove in and parked right up front. No way this was a mistake. From the parking lot, it was clear this was a seedy place. The large building sat a few miles from the Strip in an area that may have once been a thriving business park. Now it was run-down and most of the buildings were crumbling ghosts with empty parking lots. Weeds were all that thrived around here these days. Weeds and the Peppermint Pony.

Jim pulled open the blacked-out glass door. She was at the counter and glanced at him as he entered. He was still in the ridiculous painter clothes and he pulled the stained hat down and found something interesting to stare at on the floor so Erica couldn’t get a look at his face. Fortunately, the entryway was narrow, musty, and dark.

Glenda was working. She was a wrinkled, craggy old woman whose head was covered by an orange-and-gray camouflage bandana. She sat behind a display counter with cigarettes and T-shirts for sale. Frowning, the woman was leaned back against the wall behind an outdated cash register with her arms crossed. She regarded Erica rather suspiciously.

“I’d like to speak with the manager, please.” Erica’s voice hadn’t changed over the years. Its jazzlike tenor made the hairs on the back of his neck twitch. He scratched at it to stop the urge to grab her and … strangle her.

“The manager, huh?” Glenda looked to her left, into the darkened club. “He’d be back by the Far Bar, most likely.”

“Oh.” Erica looked very unsure as to what to do next. “Thank you.”

“Ten bucks,” Glenda barked before Erica could pass her by.

“I’m not here for the, um … entertainment.” She stiffened. “I need to ask the manager a few questions.”

“You go past me, it’s ten bucks.” Glenda’s overly red lips thinned. “I don’t care what you’re here for.”

Erica stomped past after tossing a bill on the scratched-up counter. Jim removed the hat and gave Glenda a wink and a twenty as he eased into the club. It paid to be nice to people who saw things. Glenda saw a lot of things.

As expected, Banks was lurking right inside in his usual spot, leaning against the half wall separating the hall to the restrooms and the main room. The goon was huge, but he wore his suit and spiked hair like the best of the pit bosses in the big casinos. On the rare occasions he smiled, you could go blind from the glare off the gold.

Erica found her way to the Far Bar. Wasn’t hard. A glaring neon sign marked its obvious location. The unimaginative name in blocky text cast a red glow on her hair as she waltzed to the bar.

Before deciding where to land himself, Jim scanned the room. It was midafternoon and slow. Two tables up close to the action by the main floor were occupied. A group of college-age boys were getting lap dances off toward the adjacent wall. Over there, it was dark and a little more private for those on the shy side. Jim would’ve liked to sit there, cloaked by the dark, but it was too far from Erica.

He moved as close to Erica and the conversation she was having as he could. One of the dance stages came pretty near the Far Bar, where Erica had hesitantly slid onto a bar stool. She sat stiff and spoke to the scruffy bartender. Jim eased into a table not far from the brass pole. Checked his exit routes. Banks seemed the only threat, but Jim counted him as two.

A couple of old guys were shouting over the music, holding a conversation with the stripper as she dangled from the brass. Regulars. The trio should be enough distraction to keep him from being noticed.

Then again, Erica was within seven feet of him in the lobby and she didn’t have the slightest clue. No way she even knew he was living in Vegas now. More interesting might be how she’d react if he did walk right up to her. He rubbed his unshaven chin. He was older, grungier, and living a new life as private investigator Jim Bean. Would she recognize the young man she’d known as Korey Anders in his paint-smeared face? His jaw popped as he clenched his teeth tightly at the sound of his given name echoing in his head. Korey was dead to him. Erased. Replaced.

Time had been good to Erica. Her hair was a little shorter, but her athletic build was still evident even through the stuffy business attire. Maybe she carried a few more pounds than she had in college, but who didn’t?

He pulled his flask from his boot and took a good long shot of Scotch. Banks frowned at him from the side but didn’t make any indication that said he gave a rat’s ass about what Bean was up to. Nope. He seemed as intrigued by Erica Floyd’s presence in his bar as Jim was. If Erica’s sister had been here for some reason … The hairs on Jim’s neck stood up again. Trouble was brewing. Jim suspected Hurricane Erica was about to slam into him in Vegas just as she had done in Columbus eight years ago.

He fought back the consuming anger it had taken him years and court-mandated classes to get past. But memories rolled right at him like a storm. He had no way to stop ’em. All he could do was take cover. He took another shot and tucked the silver flask back into his boot. That wouldn’t work either. He couldn’t drink away the repercussions of that late-August night back in Ohio. But he had tried.

The loud techno music the girls were gyrating to couldn’t begin to drown out the memory of the sound of his door being pounded on in the middle of the night.

Jim shook his head. He didn’t want to relive it again. But sometimes it happened, replayed over and over, a jukebox with only one song. Push all the buttons you want, buddy. Patsy Cline and heartbreak is all you get. Seeing her standing there, arguing with the bartender, brought it all back.

He closed his eyes and memories pummeled him. Police pushing past him. Being slammed onto the cold tile floor. Arms being wrenched behind his back, shoulder tendons straining. Guns aimed at his head. Shouting …

He’d been half asleep and in his boxers but not dumb. He relaxed as the police pinned him down on his kitchen floor. So unreal, he could have sworn he’d been watching it happen to someone else. He’d even considered it a prank until he felt the bite of the cuffs and the roughness of the officers yanking on his arms.

Arrested? Him? A criminology master’s student. A candidate for the next FBI class. They had the wrong man.

Once the questioning started they would realize it. Right?

But that wasn’t how it had played out, was it?

The questioning wasn’t the end at all. The nightmare had just begun.

“Bean.” He wrenched himself from the images, back to the present and back into the club, as Toyota poked his shoulder. The portly stripper stood in front of him. Her round, overly tanned breasts were positioned right in his face. Jim blinked and wondered at the irony of a girl shaped something like a car actually naming herself after a car. “Where you at, sweetie?”

Nowhere I want to be. “Reliving the end of my youthful innocence.”

She tilted her head as if for an instant she considered delving deeper into the subject, but she nodded instead. “Dance?” Evidently his problems were not on her give-a-shit list. He almost chuckled.

He glanced back at the bar. Erica had turned and was looking around the room. He pulled another bill out and tucked it into Toyota’s G-string. He could watch Erica from around the girl’s generous hips. He retrieved the flask and took the last draw off it, wishing it held just a little more.

“Banks is gonna kick your ass if he sees you with outside hooch.” She turned sideways and did a move designed to show off her flexibility, her hips and shoulders moving in different directions, making her midsection slide close to his chest.

Jim glanced at Banks, who was now frowning at Erica. The big man looked pretty intimidating when he was unhappy. He pulled out his cell and punched at it with a sausage-sized finger. Awkward. Slow. A text.

Jim set the silver container on the table. “Wouldn’t want to get your boss man’s buzz cut in a twist.”

On second thought, maybe he did. With Banks no longer paying attention to Jim and his contraband Scotch, he was busy watching Erica, and Jim was none too happy with that. No one wanted to be scrutinized like that by this guy.

Banks then glanced down. Jim could see the cell phone light up in his paw of a hand. The big man nodded as he looked down at his screen. Jim sucked in a deep breath and turned his attention back to Erica.

Banks pulled away from the wall and trudged toward Erica. Jim closed his eyes. Fought feeling things he’d long ago buried. Jim should hate her. He did hate her. She’d played a huge part in destroying his life. He didn’t want to be involved with this. He had another job to be doing.

She’d said her sister was missing.

Two jobs, really. What the fuck should he care what Erica or Chris had gotten themselves into? If the trail led from Edmond Carver to this joint, it was likely Chris had turned junkie and come to Vegas. What did he care?

Banks loomed over Erica’s shoulder. She turned and gave him a very businesslike smile. She was in over her head.

Too damn bad …

“You could give a girl a complex, Bean.” Toyota thumped his chest with her thick fingers.

He found himself looking at her naked breasts again. He felt no need to apologize. “I paid you. Do I have to watch?”

“I guess not, but—”

“Move.” He pushed Toyota out of his line of vision. Erica was no longer at the bar.

“You’re an ass.”

“I hear that a lot.” He stood and twisted to see the entire club. He’d gotten caught up in the past, and the present was getting away from him again. Hadn’t done that in a while. The thought made him twitch. Erica and Banks were nowhere to be seen. As a matter of fact, most of the staff had pulled the find-somewhere-else-to-be act.

He should walk right out that front door and let Banks do his worst with the traitorous bitch. That was exactly what a smart man would do. Not his business.

He turned to make his way back to his truck. Getting roughed up by a bouncer might serve her right. She’d abandoned Jim back when he was Korey Anders. She’d broken his heart and his general belief in people. Why should he stick his neck out with Banks—and, more importantly, Banks’s boss—for her now?

“Goddammit.” He stopped, staring down at the division of the dark club and the light of day. It was a line in the sand waiting to be crossed.

If someone was going to scare the crap out of Erica Floyd, it should be him. He deserved that revenge. No counting the times he’d thought about inflicting some kind of revenge on her and Gretchen Bates in the years right after the arrest. He stepped away from the light. He was not about to let Banks take the opportunity from him.

“That hurts.” Erica was on her tippy toes as Banks dragged her down the narrow painted cinderblock hallway cluttered with closed black doors. The private rooms for private dances. “I don’t suppose you’re the manager of this fine establishment, are you?” she squeaked out as he yanked her around a corner.

Jim pulled back before Banks spotted him.

“Do you know Chris Floyd?” he heard her ask Banks.

What kind of mess were the sisters mixed up in that had Banks knocking Erica around? Holy hell, Jim needed to leave. Banks wasn’t only a bouncer in this tacky strip club; he also worked for Zant. Casino owner, mobster, racketeer, and all-around bat-shit crazy Andrew Zant. And that meant Banks did all kinds of things. The big boy was like a human utility knife Zant wielded as needed. Like roughing up people who owed Zant, as Jim well knew, since he currently owed the casino owner a huge debt himself. A debt that he’d chipped away at but was almost sure would never be forgiven.

“This is very eighties-movie cliché. You know? Being taken out back by the bouncer.” She was nagging at him as he pushed her forward. This time her shoulder hit a stack of boxes. “Hey. Lug Nut. You can’t do this!”

Aw. Fuck. Erica was going to destroy his life again. Not that this shit of a job and a city was much, but it was his now. He cringed as he heard her squeak and the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the wall.

Jim took a peek around the bend in time to see her kick back at the huge man as hard as she could, jamming her heel down his shin. Banks’s grunt of surprise and pain was not accompanied by a loosening of his grip. On the contrary. Next, she flailed her free arm in attempt to scratch and claw any part of him she could reach. Her efforts to break free would be admirable if they weren’t so pathetic. As it was, she was just pissing him off.

“Fuck me.” Big Banks snatched up her other arm and shook her like a ragdoll. “Hold still, dammit.”

Jim saw the moment Erica realized how bad this situation was. Her face paled and her eyes widened with an adrenaline rush of fear. He knew the feeling. Her toes would be tingling with it, her heart racing so that she could hear the pulse of blood in her ears. Though Jim doubted she had the time or inclination to study how her terror was affecting her body functions.

This is the dirty side of Vegas, girl. And you walked right into it. She let out an ear-splitting scream. That would be useful in the back of a club pounding techno music turned up to hellish levels on the other side of the cinderblock.

He had no real choice. He may be an ass, but he wasn’t leaving Erica to Banks or Zant.

“Fine.” Banks’s voice was low and even. Jim saw it coming; Erica did not. Banks smacked her face-first into the peeling cinderblock.

Her body gave up, drooped, but Erica managed to reach for and awkwardly snag the frame of the opening to a room with her fingertips as he pulled her deeper into the bowels of the club. Between his grip and her rubbery limbs, she couldn’t hold on but she’d managed to slow their progress a little.

“Stop being such a pain.” Banks shook her hard. The door slipped from her weak grip. Her head looked like a wooden puppet moving in slow motion as she looked back at Banks’s large leathery face.

“Dammit,” Jim muttered. He moved swift and silent, glad for the element of surprise. Banks would never expect to be bum-rushed in his own place. Jim took advantage of the big guy having both hands full.

He had to jump to get onto Banks’s back. The man must be six-foot-six. Not having a better solution, Jim wrapped his arm around the man’s thick neck, cranked it tight with his other hand, and hoped for the best.

Erica fell out of Banks’s grasp and against the wall. Good start. Now all Jim had to do was hold on and keep pressure on Banks’s larynx until the man’s oxygen-deprived brain started to falter along with his strength. With any luck, the oaf would pass right on out and Jim could slip away without having his identity disclosed.

“Korey?”

Jim glanced down at the heap of woman trying to right herself against the wall.

“Shut up,” he said to Erica as Banks tried to turn to see him. Jim had him tight. Fighting a monstrous boa constrictor would be easier than bringing Banks down. At least a snake wouldn’t hold a grudge or be likely to beat the crap out of Jim later. It was taking all his strength to maintain the correct position to cut off Banks’s air and keep his big head facing forward.

“Leave off,” was all Banks managed to say before launching himself backward and slamming Jim’s already aching back into the cinderblock. Jim almost let his grip lessen with the force of being sandwiched between a behemoth and the brick, but he held fast.

“Korey Anders. Is that really you?” She was sitting and rubbing her bleeding forehead. Her eyes looked crossed. No wedding ring.

Evidently, Banks was losing his patience. He turned in a circle with Jim still on his back. With a ham-fisted move, Banks tried to fish his revolver out of its holster. Jim grabbed his thumb and twisted with a pressure move. Judo 101. Banks lost his grip on the weapon. Jim took the gun as easily as shaking hands.

And with a good arching swing, he popped poor Banks in the sweet spot. The big man tried to hold his ground. He stumbled a few steps forward before his knees gave and he crumpled into an unconscious pile between Jim’s feet.

“Oh, crap. Korey.” She looked up from Banks and her mouth fell open. Her eyes were still dilated, but she looked better.

If she called him by his birth name again, he might whack her with the gun butt. Korey Anders had ceased to exist in Columbus eight years ago. He’d worked long and hard to become Jim Elwood Bean and establish his identity, his reputation, and his business. Well, his reputation wasn’t stellar, but he got the job done. Lawyers loved him for getting the dirt they wanted for clients. Housewives with cheating husbands loved him.

“Don’t call me that again.” He grabbed her hand.