Chapter Seventeen
Saturday nights were big nights at Always Heaven. Every girl who showed up for the evening got her turn onstage, then mingled with the customers. That, Maan knew, was where they made their real money. Tips tucked into bras or thongs onstage were nice, but it was sitting at the tables and giving lap and private dances in the back room that paid the bills.
And since Saturday nights were good for the dancers, they were good for the bartenders, as well. Not that Maan got to keep any of it. His salary and tips went from pocket to GBI, and the tips were often more than the salary.
He was working the bar with Vikram tonight. On weeknights, one bartender was enough. The customers drank a lot of booze, but their primary interest was the girls. On weekends, it took two to keep the booze flowing.
Vikram was in his mid-forties, thin in a bony scare-crow way, with sunken eyes and a head of hair styled to do Johnny Cash proud. He was on the lazy side, and he had an in of some kind with Rahul Agarwal. He also had a thing'unrequited, Maan was sure'for Annie.
During a lull when Geet, Annie and an Asian girl named Anh took the stages, Maan shifted the toothpick he chewed on to one side of his mouth and went to stand next to Vikram. "I heard Mr. Agarwal has a special scheduled for tonight. Does he do that very often?"
His narrow gaze riveted from Annie, Vikram shrugged. "From time to time."
"I want to get in on it."
"Why?"
"Same reason the girls do." Maan nodded towards the stage but was careful to keep from actually seeing Geet. She remained a blur of pale golden skin, blue garments and sensuous moves. "Money."
"Where'd you hear about it?"
"Being a good listener is one of the job requirements for tending bar."
Anyone else might have cracked a smile, smirked or had some kind of comeback. Vikram gave no sign he'd even heard. "Mr. Agarwal chooses the personnel for the specials. If he wants you there, he'll let you know."
"Why aren't you there tonight? He didn't want you?"
Finally Vikram looked at Maan, his blue gaze colder, narrower than usual. Annie probably felt a moment's ease as the creep factor for her ratcheted down. Maan's own creep factor just about doubled, making him grateful for the pistol strapped to his ankle. "I've done plenty of specials. I'll do plenty more in the future. Tonight I decided to be here."
Because Annie was here? Before Maan could do more than wonder, Vikram walked to the far end of the bar and turned his back to him.
Maan filled a couple of drink orders, wiped the bar a time or two, watched the second hand on the clock make a few rotations, then finally looked at Geet. Because there was nothing left to do. Because it was totally natural to look at a half-naked woman on display. Because he couldn't have not looked at her for one minute longer.
She wore a halter top, royal blue and clinging as if it were two sizes too small, with a skirt, also blue, made of some gauzy fabric. The hem was uneven, dipping lower in the centre and raising high on the outside, and it fluttered around her runner's thighs with every move she made.
This was the first song in her three-song set. Before it was over, she would remove the top. By the end of the second song, she would remove the skirt, and she would finish the set wearing nothing but bits of fabric covering the most intimate parts of a body meant to drive him nuts.
God, he needed a drink.
When she pulled off the top to reveal a bra that was tiny enough and flimsy enough to make a joke of the name, he bit the toothpick in half. When she removed the skirt, one agonizing inch at a time, and he saw the matching panty that was a shade smaller than decent, with ties that crisscrossed her hips before tying in a delicate bow right across her belly button, he damn near bit his tongue in half.
Aw, man, this was not the way he worked. Not once in fourteen years in law enforcement had he ever gotten turned on in the course of his job. Not once had he forgotten for even one second what he was there for, that he was the good guy and everybody else, whether bad guy or innocent bystander, was off-limits. He was undercover, for God's sake.
And he wanted to get wild and dirty under covers with Geet.
One good reminder that he needed to get his head straight chose that moment to come to the bar. Naintara had been seated at a table in the corner, watching everything, her encyclopedic brain taking it all in and cataloguing it.
Geet had already changed Naintara's hairstyle and makeup. Maan assumed he was seeing her influence in Naintara's clothes tonight, as well. She wore jeans, but they were world apart from the previous night's pair. These were faded, tight enough to make loss of consciousness a real possibility and long enough to require four-inch heels. I'm getting used to them. Naintara had told him when he'd first commented on them. For the night I audition.
Ms. Stick-up-her-ass had certainly changed her attitude in the past few days.
She'd come home at five in the morning, fumbling loudly enough at the door to wake him. He'd grabbed his pistol and taken up a defensive posture at the end of the hallway, only to relax when she'd come through the door. Oh, she'd said. What are you doing up?
She'd swayed a bit as she'd closed the door and secured the three locks. The girls think I'm tipsy, but I'm not. And as easily as turning off a switch, she'd straightened and, utterly steady on her feet, strolled past him to her room.
Damn, Naintara had never strolled.
She leaned her elbow on the bar, showing a nice bit of skin in the vee of her snug shirt. "Give me a twenty-dollar glass wine."
"Yeah, right." He pulled a bottle water from the refrigerator and sild it across to her. "Our cheapest wine is twenty-five dollars a glass. You're learning anything?"
"Uh-huh." She didn't offer anymore, but turned to watch the room. "I'm starting to think that actually dancing won't be nearly as intimidating as chatting up the customers."
"You talk to people all the time."
"I interview." Her voice lowered. "I interrogate. I don't chat."
"It's not like you're expected to carry on intelligent conversation. You flutter your lashes, use a breathy little voice, act helpless and you've got it made."
Naintara quirked one brow. "And you learned that... ah, having coffee with Geet. What other secrets did she tell you?"
He moved to the corner of the bar to fill an order, then returned, leaning across the bar. To anyone who saw them, they'd look intimate, but all he really wanted was privacy. "Both Tasha and Samaira liked doing the specials. We need to find out if Shasha did, too. Maybe it's got something to do with those."
"I'll have someone get in touch with Shasha's sister."
"When do you audition?"
Finally, a glimpse of the Naintara he knew. She swallowed hard and something flashed through her dark eyes. "Tomorrow night. Since it's illegal to sell liquor on Sundays, the club's not busy and Romeo will have time." She looked away, then back. "You'll be off."
Illegal to sell liquor, Maan thought, but they did it anyway, at least to their regulars.
Auditions weren't formal. A girl came in, talked to Romeo, he put her on one of the smaller stages, she danced and if he liked her or thought his customers would, he gave her a shot. She could pay her seventy-five-buck house fee like all the rest and hope to make more.
"You don't want me here?" he asked with a grin.
"No."
"Aw, come on..."
She shot him a sharp look.
Truth was, he'd rather not sit in on her audition. He had to work with her when this case was over. He'd rather no know what she looked like in stripper clothes. He'd really rather not find out just how much she'd learned.
"You comfortable being in here alone?"
Another sharp look. "I can take care of myself."
He leaned close enough to smell her perfume. The other prim stuff in her life might be temporarily banished, but the perfume was as sweet and innocent as cotton candy. "I don't think you can hide a pistol or pepper spray in those outfits you bought."
"Geet will be here, and Annie. They're enough."
"What will Geet think when you have your big debut and I'm not here to see it?"
"She'll think what we tell her to think."
Maan reached for another toothpick. Chewing them was a habit that had driven his mother crazy. When are you going to stop that? She'd once asked. And he'd quickly replied, The day I take up smoking. She'd never said anything about it since.
"People don't tell Geet what to think," he pointed out. Though he might like someone to try.
Naintara fluttered a hand. "She'll think I want to give you a private show."
At home. In his bedroom. Ending in wild, wicked incredible hot sex.
He wasn't a horny kid anymore. He knew wild, wicked, incredible hot sex happened, but not every time. Not with every woman. Most of the time it was good. It was great. But it didn't usually turn him inside out. And truthfully, sex with Naintara sounded about as much as a turn-on as kissing the sister he didn't have.
But sex with Geet... he watch her disappear from the stage, knowing she would come out again in a moment or two and circle through the audience. Someone would ask her to sit with him a while and buy her a drink. She would offer her usual'water'and he'd get charged the eighteen-dollar minimum for it. She would listen more than she would talk and she would smile a lot and he would think that maybe, just maybe, he could be the one to make a difference in her life. For a few minutes, he could live the fantasy that he could have her.
Maan knew she didn't rescuing. But he wouldn't mind at all being her hero.
"About that..." Naintara took a drink, then tightly screwed the lid back on the bottle. "I'm thinking that after I get this job, we should break up."
She couldn't have said much that would have surprised him more. "Breakup?"
"You're getting cozy with Geet. I'm getting cozy with Annie and Pari. We don't need to be together anymore."
Nah. Uh-uh. She was one of the things keeping him from making that fantasy reality. He didn't want to breakup. Didn't want to be available in any way, shape or form.
"It's really pretty limiting."Naintara went on, not seeming to notice that he was staring at her. "I need an in and I've got it. Now I need to be free to take full advantage of it."
"I'm holding you back from that?"
"Having a boyfriend who works here is. Besides, they've noticed that you and Geet..." she finished with a shrug.
"That we what?"
"That you take breaks when she does. That sometimes you're waiting out back when she leaves. That you two went out for coffee after work Thursday night. They don't think Geet would do anything wrong. They just think'" she smiled unexpectedly "'you would."
"You went out drinking." He protested.
"I know, but I was with the girls. You were with one girl. And it wasn't your live-in girlfriend."
"Because you went out drinking with the other girls."
She smiled in that smug, condescending way women had with men when there was no logic to their arguments but it didn't matter because they were going to win anyway. "It won't even be a big breakup. We've been together for a long time, we've been growing apart, we thought of moving in together might bring us closer, but now we've come to the conclusion that we want out of the relationship. No one's hurt, no one's holding a grudge, we're still friends."
No logic. If Maan had really been seeing a woman for three years and was living with her, it was a sure bet that a breakup, even a mutually-agreed-upon one would leave some hard feelings.
She patted his hand. "We weren't really fooling anyone. They must think we're the most unaffectionate couple in the entire world. We just don't act the way lovers should. There's no chemistry."
He gave her a narrow scowl and muttered, "Go ahead. Trample my ego."
"If anyone's ego can survive trampling, it's yours."
Her logic might be skewed'more like nonexistent'but he could find fault with her conclusion. She needed to be chummy with as many of the dancers as possible and, since none of them were involved seriously with just one man, a boyfriend could be a hassle. And there was no chemistry between them. Hadn't he just thought that sex with Naintara would be worth skipping out on?
Truth was, breaking up was good for the case. He would lose her as his buffer, but what she might learn but insinuating herself more closely with the dancers was more important than helping him resist his personal temptations.
"Okay," he agreed. "But you'll stay at the apartment."
"Yee-ah," she said in a nice imitation of the younger dancers' sarcasm. "I don't want anyone here knowing where I really live. I'll tell Geet tonight. And I'm going out with Annie and Pari again tonight. Okay?"
When he nodded, she squeezed his hand, then returned to her table, greeting several girls on the way. She was going to fit here better than anyone had imagined.
And him? His life was about to get a whole lot harder.
Precap: You really should consider doing something with Maan tonight... 😉
There, finally done.
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