Page 48 of Reaper
“Ten bucks?I gave you a twenty!”
“Eight bucks for a Guinness, two bucks for tip, ten for information.And that’s not enough for information.”
“Motherfucking hipster bars and their motherfucking hipster beer prices.I guess I’m glad I don’t drink IPAs,” I muttered, putting two more twenties on the bar.“I’m looking for a man.”
“I thought you said you were with a hot fed?”
“Not like that, asshole,” I said.He gave me a smirk that said he knew exactly what I meant and was still fucking with me.I pulled out my phone and showed him the photo of Jameson Stoller Xia had texted me.“This dude has been coming in here a lot and meeting somebody.I need to find that somebody.”
The top of Baldy’s head turned pale.“No, you don’t.”
“The fuck?”I asked.“I think I know?—”
Baldy held up a hand to stop me.“No, trust me.You don’t need to find that guy.I recognize your little nerd boy.He’s been in here a bunch.And I know who he meets.”Baldy slid the two twenties back across the bar to me.“But I ain’t sayin’ nothing about that guy.He’s fuckingscary, dude.”
“Come on,” I said.“You work at a biker bar.How scary can one dude be?”
“I work at a fake biker bar in a trendy-ass part of town where most of the people who walk in the door think a fucking Vespa is edgy.But that guy’s the real fucking deal.Him and his boys used to be Outlaws before they got kicked out.”
The Outlaws were the biggest bad boy motorcycle club in the Charlotte area.They didn’t have the national rep of the Hell’s Angels, but they were into the same shit.If this guy got tossed out of that club, he might actually be a legit bad guy.“What do you have to do to get thrown out of a one-percenter club?”I asked.
Baldy’s eyes kept darting around the bar like he was worried about who might be listening, but he leaned forward and said, “I don’t know, I don’t want to know, and I’m never fucking asking.I’ve heard rumors, but it’s been everything from sleeping with the chapter president’s old lady to sleeping with the chapter president’s daughter, then killing the president when he got pissed off about it.But for real—this dude has dropped bodies.He isnotsomebody you want to fuck with.”
If only Baldy knew who he was talking to.“I’ll take my chances.Just gimme a name, and I’ll handle the rest,” I said.
Baldy still looked reluctant, although terrified might be the more accurate way to describe him.After a long moment, I slid the cash back across the bar to him, putting a couple of rectangular portraits of Ben Franklin on top of them, and said, “Nobody ever hears where I got my information from, and I promise never to set foot in this place again after tonight.”Not that I ever wanted to darken the door of any place that goddamned trendy again.
“Connelly,” he said.“Richard Connelly.His boys call him Big Dick.”
“Thanks,” I said, and turned to leave.Well, at least Big Dick Connelly wasn’t lacking in confidence.Now to see if he had information to go with his namesake energy.
37
It only took a couple phone calls to find out where Big Dick preferred to swing, so after giving Becks and the team a heads up on my plans, I rolled over to a far less trendy side of town, out Wilkinson Boulevard where the city’s two biggest gun shops vied for attention among the three biggest topless bars.I parked in the Hyatt Guns parking lot, deserted in the middle of the night, and walked across the street to the Hustler Hollywood gentleman’s club.I learned a long time ago that if you’re likely to get in a bar fight, it’s best to leave your car in a different business’s lot.That way when your brawl inevitably spills outside, you’re far less likely to be shoved through your own windshield, adding financial insult to whatever injuries you might sustain.
The Hustler Hollywood Gentleman’s Club bore only a passing resemblance to a club, and none whatsoever to Hollywood, or a place where gentlemen could be found.There were a couple hustlers working the lot, though, offering two-for-one lap dance coupons that I’m sure were totally legit despite misspelling both “Hustler” and “dance.”Half a dozen Harleys lined up out front, and the bouncer wore a club cut with “Sergeant At Arms” on his left chest, so I kinda figured I was at the right place.
“Twenty bucks,” he said, looking down at me with a cold stare.
“I need to see Big Dick,” I replied.
“You got the wrong club, buddy.Swinging Johnson’s is across town.”He laughed at his own joke, but stopped laughing when I held up another one of the very popular Ben Franklin portraits.I was gonna have to get creative on my expense reports to get this shit reimbursed.Hard to get receipts when you’re bribing people, and the governmenthatesreimbursing without receipts.Good thing I was sleeping with the boss.
He took my hundred and jerked his head toward the door.“Dick’s booth is in the back corner by the stage.Tell Tiny that I said you’re okay.”
“What’s your name?”
“Why do you care?”
I don’t mind criminals, and I usually don’t even mind the knuckle-dragging leg breakers.But I hate stupid thugs.“Because I can’t just tell Tiny that the stupid ugly guy at the door said I’m okay.I need a name for the stupid ugly guy, don’t I?”
“I’m not stupid, asshole.”At least he didn’t argue with me about the ugly part.This dude had a face that looked like somebody dragged him down Wilkinson behind their bike, topped with scraggly brown hair that hadn’t seen shampoo since Obama was president.He was fat, with some of the worst prison tattoos I’d ever seen crawling up his arms, and there were gaps where more might once have been, but they had long since fled for more attractive climes.Like a sewer.
“Okay,” I replied.“I’ll tell Tiny that Not Stupid Asshole at the door said I was okay.Got it.”And I slipped past him while he pondered whether or not I’d insulted him again.So much for not being stupid.
I walked into a wall of sound, with bass pounding in my chest as the dulcet tones of the late, great, Janie Lane screamed about his cherry pie.I’m not sure why that song is playing every time I set foot in a strip club, but it’s almost like it’s a universal law.And I fucking hate hair metal.I liked glam rock.Hell, I got shitfaced with The New York Dolls on the regular back in the day, before David Johansen decided there was more money and better coke in being Buster Poindexter.God rest all their maligned, abused, drug-addled souls, but those boys knew how to rock.And party.I lost a month after one of their concerts in Newark and woke up under a bridge in Amsterdam with a hash hangover like you wouldn’t believe.
The bar was typical cheap strip club decor, with colored lights splashing across the walls and the lights kept intentionally dim around the tables, as much for anonymity as privacy.There was a roped-off section between the stage and a dark doorway with “VIP” over it in pink neon, and a handful of guys seated in a semicircle around one massive dude who I assumed was Big Dick.
