Thirty-Three

Crawford didn’t see the humor in the situation, but Carmen did. Her belly laugh was audible over the blaring dance music, so loud that several patrons, even in the far reaches of the club, turned to see what was going on. What they saw was a hot-looking woman laughing at a less-hot woman and a pudgy man while a tall, stern-looking guy presided over the entire encounter.

“I thought you had court?” I asked.

“I thought you were going straight home?” he asked.

Tit for tat. “Well, I decided that I wanted to see where Sassy worked,” I said, telling only a half-truth. I also wanted to tell her to leave us all alone and go back to whatever rock she had crawled out from under, but that didn’t seem like something I wanted to say out loud at that particular moment.

He didn’t look amused. I looked around. Suddenly the bar area was much more sparsely populated, as was the main stage area, Crawford and Carmen’s cop pheromones clearing out the joint. The burly bouncer, the one who had taken Kevin’s and my cover fee, ambled over.

“Is there a problem, officers?” he asked, assuming that Kevin and I were part of the SWAT team that had descended upon the Elegant Majestic. “This is a classy place,” he said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“It is very classy,” I agreed. Kevin, the mute, stood beside me in dumbfounded confusion.

“Oh, shit, papi, they made us,” Carmen said, her surprise as fake as most of the breasts in the bar. She stamped her boot-clad foot. “I never thought that anyone would be able to see through your disguise,” she said, giving Crawford the once-over.

His “disguise” consisted of khakis, loafers, and an oxford shirt. All he had ditched from his regular work uniform was the tie and blazer. The bouncer looked at Carmen and then Crawford, waiting for their explanation of why they were casing the place, but neither gave it up.

Crawford placed a drink order with the bouncer, pulling up a chair in front of the table that Kevin and I had commandeered when we arrived. He looked at Carmen. “We are officially off duty.”

Carmen fell heavily onto the leather banquette next to me. “Oh, thank God. I thought we were going to have to frisk every dancer in this place until we found this Sassy person.”

“She’s not dancing tonight,” I said.

“We know,” Crawford said pointedly.

“Oh,” I said.

He pointed at Kevin. “What are you doing here?”

In the year since Kevin had given up the collar, so to speak, Crawford had slowly started treating him like he treated everyone else: like a perp.

Kevin stammered a bit, not used to the interrogation that came with being friends with Crawford. “Well … she…” He pointed at me.

“Forget it,” Crawford said, looking around for the bouncer. In his place was our original waitress, who came tottering back with two beers and two more glasses of wine, which she placed on the table, backing up into Crawford, her ample behind—although no match for Carmen’s—coming into contact with his nose. He backed up in turn, grimacing.

“Do you take credit cards?” I asked, before realizing I didn’t have one on me, my possessions locked up in the glove box of my car.

“They’re on the house,” she said, smiling.

I shot Crawford a look he couldn’t decipher. I threw my head in her direction and rubbed two fingers together. Finally, while she waited expectantly, he pulled out his wallet, peeled off some bills, and placed them on her tray.

She thanked him. “You remind me of my dad. He was a cop, too,” she said before sashaying off.

Crawford downed most of his beer. Carmen pushed hers toward him. “I’ll drive. Drink this before you spontaneously combust.”

After he had consumed most of the second beer and settled down, Crawford turned his attention back to Kevin and me. “So, you two brain surgeons want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

Kevin decided that remaining silent was the best way not to incriminate himself.

“What do you think, Crawford?” I asked. “I wanted to get some info on Sassy. If I got to see some creative interpretative dance while I was at it, all the better.”

Carmen stifled a giggle.

“Why did you lie about going to court?” I asked.

“Because I knew if I told you where I was going, you’d go there, too,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which I guess it was. He looked helplessly at Carmen. “You talk to her.”

“Listen, chica. We’ve got this under control. Girl’s got some crazy background, and we’re going to try to have a nice chat with her, in a controlled setting, to see if we can figure out what she wants so badly and why she’ll do anything to get it.”

“She wants the money,” I said.

Carmen knew that, too. “Right—but it’s our job to figure out why and get her to lay off.” She pointed a finger at me, the French manicure impeccable; woman had a lot of style. Not my style, but style nonetheless. “Not yours.”

“Why do you think she allowed her headlining act to be advertised?” I asked. “Even if it did get canceled?”

Carmen raised an eyebrow at me. “Maybe to smoke someone out who might have some information about the money? Someone who wanted to see her? Talk to her?”

In other words, me.

Crawford chimed in. “Maybe because she’s dumb?” He arched an eyebrow in my direction.

Kevin was going to have some kind of seizure if we didn’t get out of the club, and he didn’t need to use words to tell me that. The lone trickle of sweat running down the side of his pudgy face was evidence enough. I slapped him on the back. “Ready, Kev?” I looked at Crawford. “See you at home?”

“See you at home,” he dutifully intoned. “Carmen and I will just finish up here and then call it a night. Don’t wait up.”

“I never do,” I said, sleep being as important to me as the air I breathed. I gave his hair a tousle as I walked past him, knowing that he hated that as much as my amateur sleuthing. “Later.”

Kevin left the club as fast as his legs would carry him and was standing by the car before I had even gotten through the front door. I took a whiff of the sleeve of my sweater and found it ripe with the smell of smoke and something else that was a combination of all odiferous and bad things. I was just about to remark to him about how bad our car ride home would smell when I saw someone come up behind him, unbeknownst to the terrified former priest, and put a long bare arm around his neck.

“Well, if it isn’t the lovely Sassafras Du Pris,” I said, sounding bolder than I felt.

In her ubiquitous heels, she stood a foot taller than Kevin, and was solidly built. Kevin’s eyes grew wider, and I felt bad that I had dragged him into this caper, even though he was a willing, if initially reluctant, participant.

Sassy’s voice wasn’t what I expected. Sure, it sounded southern, and yes, it was all lady, even though the look of her suggested “drag queen,” but it was higher and thinner than I’d thought it would be, more Minnie Mouse than Demi Moore. “Where’s that fucking money?” she asked.

“With the public administrator,” I said.

“Don’t mess with me,” she said.

I decided to keep her talking because that was my best shot at having Crawford and Carmen come into the parking lot before she did something stupid. Sassy, however, had other plans.

There were a lot of things that were shiny about Sassy—her nails, her hair, the bling around her neck and that hung from her ears. Oh, then there was the gun she pulled out from her jeans pocket and held against Kevin’s temple. That was the shiniest thing of all.