Tough Guy: A Hero Club Novel by Jamie Schmidt (the reading list .TXT) 📗

ton of food. He kept me in the black almost as much as the liquor sales did and he knew it.

“Then what do you need?” I wondered where I’d` put the number of that temp agency I used when the shit hit the fan.

“I’ve got my cousins coming in. You’re going to pay them under the table for tonight.”

I grunted. Not the way I wanted to do business, but I didn’t want a bunch of hungry, angry customers either. “They want permanent jobs?”

“They’ve misplaced their social security cards.”

Plugging my fingers in my ears, I said, “I don’t want to know about that.”

“Cash at three a.m.”

“Fine. But just for tonight.”

I pushed thoughts of the legality of my kitchen staff tonight out of my mind for the moment. Liu would handle it. What the heck was going on? Like any bar in a tourist town, we had turnover, but most people gave notice or at least the courtesy of a phone call. Zeke, Paulie, and Dee had been at Dalton’s for over a year. For all three of them not to come in tonight was suspicious. And if Dee hadn’t checked in for two days, something was up.

I went into the employee break room and glared at the missing staff’s lockers. They knew that I could search their lockers at any time. It was in their employee contract, but I hated doing it.

“Mav,” I said over the headset. “Can you ask around and see if anyone’s heard from Zeke, Paulie, or Dee?” A thought hit me and I didn’t like it. “See if you can find out how friendly they were with Ginny or Broadway.”

People moved on from Vegas all the time. They also got in trouble. Three people not answering their phones was suspicious. Four, if you counted Jackie’s sister. I remembered Ginny’s threats to me and suddenly they didn’t seem so silly.

I cut the lock off of Zeke’s locker first. He had a change of clothes and a pair of sneakers that could use a wash or at least a good dousing with Febreze. I found a carton of cigarettes, an unopened pack of condoms, and about fifty one-dollar bills. But I didn’t see any clues on why he had bailed on us. Or signs that he was leaving for good. He would have at least taken the cash and the cigarettes.

Dee’s locker was completely empty. I knew for a fact she kept an extra chef’s jacket and a change of clothes to change into after shift. So maybe Dee knew she wasn’t coming back. But for her not to tell Liu didn’t make any sense.

I hit the jackpot with Paulie’s locker. A large plastic baggie of marijuana, a smaller one of pills, and a pistol. He also wouldn’t have left this behind if he’d cut and run. The pistol was loaded.

“Stupid,” I muttered and unloaded it. I put the magazine into my pocket and the pistol into my pants in the center of my back. I stuffed the drugs into a fast food bag I found in the trash and hurried through the club to secure the drugs and the gun in the safe in my office. Grier was coming tomorrow and hopefully he’d have some insight on what was going on.

It was a coincidence that I was back on the floor when Jackie’s second number came up. At least, that was what I told myself. She was in thigh-high, white-studded leather boots, with a matching cap and jacket. I could see flashes of her breasts inside the coat as she stomped and shook her hips to “Does Your Mother Know” from the movie Mamma Mia. She must have tipped the DJ, because Javi put the strobes up all over her so they caught the silver studs on the jacket and cap.

She knew how to work the room. Her joy at being up there was infectious. Because she was sincerely having fun, so was everyone else. Most strippers played the crowd with vacant looks or practiced leers. Jackie was singing along to the music and entertaining the crowd, flirting outrageously. She had a way of making the man she looked at think he was the only one in the room. I was too far away for her to see me, but I had a bird’s-eye view of the spell she was weaving over the jaded crowd. Fresh and new, with a splash of youthful innocence, she was a big hit with the bachelor party.

And the way she moved her body sent mine into overdrive.

I didn’t date strippers. It wasn’t a rule. It was just good business sense. I was a shitty boyfriend because I was always working. But she wasn’t going to be here very long, and I couldn’t come up with a reason why I couldn’t be in Jackie’s bed tonight, especially if she was as eager to grind on me as she was last night.

The jacket came off and her perky breasts jiggled free. She wore shiny pasties that sparkled in the flashing lights as she high kicked and threw herself into the music with her entire body. She used the pole as a dance partner, but I could see a few of Kiki’s moves when she twirled around. Jackie was a fast learner.

She put her cap on Chance’s head and shimmied her chest at him.

Mav was already there to put a restraining hand on his shoulder when Chance would have joined Jackie on the stage. Her hands went to the studded belt she wore. She snapped it free of the loops and her shorts fell to her ankles. She was wearing butt floss. My cock nearly jumped up and cheered. Then she kicked her shorts away and ended her song in a deep split.

My mouth dropped open. If I had any business sense, I’d switch her to the prime-time slots. But I wanted to keep her all to myself.

Chance held up his credit card. “To the VIP room.”

My hands clenched into fists as Jackie took his