To Trust a Stranger (16 page)

Also just a sucker in general, he told himself sourly, for letting what should have been a fairly simple thing-get more information on Sid, check it out, see if it led anywhere he might be interested in following-get so involved. If he had an ounce of sense, he'd turn around right this minute, take her back home, give her the name of a couple of other private investigators she could contact, and wash his hands of her.

But even as he had the thought Mac knew he wasn't going to do it, so he gave up thinking for the moment and concentrated on keeping the Mercedes in sight as they left the expressway and made their way through Charles ton's crowded warren of streets.

“He's going to the same place. I knew it.” Julie leaned forward again.

“If he's meeting someone, they probably have a regular place to be together.” Mac glanced at her and sighed. “Look, why don't you let me take you home? I'll follow him-alone--the next time he goes out. One thing I don't need-and you don't need either, if you just had the sense to know it-is you creating some huge scene when we catch up to Sid and his cutie.”

Julie looked at him then, and he was surprised at the sudden glint in her eyes.

“I'm not going to make a scene,” she said. “I just have to know. Sid and I have been married eight years. That means something to me. I don't even think I love him anymore, but the fact that we are married means something to me. I just can't walk out without seeing with my own two eyes that he's cheating. Can you understand that?” Meeting her gaze, Mac found a new reason to want to stick it to Sid. A man who could cheat on a wife like his didn't deserve to keep her-but then, that was Sid. He always had been sure he could have his cake and eat it, too. “What I understand is that I'm nuts for not turning around right now and driving you home,” he said shortly, and she made a face at him. He turned a corner to find himself on the street where he had met Julie the night before. The Pink Pussycat was three blocks down on the left. Would Clinton Edwards be there again, blissfully ignorant that he had been busted by his wife? Probably. It had been his experience that people stayed true to their patterns. There were approximately four dozen bars, strip joints, massage
parlors
, and porn shops crowded into a six-block square. When he had been a cop, this area had been known as no-man's-land. Robberies, rapes, shootings, assaults, and various other crimes happened down here in multiple numbers every single weekend night when the weather was good. And in Charleston the weather was almost always good. “I can't see him.” Julie had one leg beneath her now, peering through the windshield at the press of cars. The street was congested with traffic; the sidewalks were thick with pedestrians looking for a walk on the wild side as part of their vacation. “I can.” No need to add that, if he lost sight of the Mercedes, he could always follow its progress on the handy-dandy little device stored at the moment in the console between the seats. That, plus the tiny transmitter he'd had the forethought to slip under the Mercedes' bumper not long after he'd dropped Julie off at her store earlier, made this particular part of tonight's surveillance not a problem. “What's he doing?” Julie's voice was urgent. “Parking. Sit tight. I would pull in right behind him, but no point in letting him spot us first thing.” That bit of sarcasm earned him a withering look. Mac finally allowed himself to smile as he drove on past the lot where the Mercedes had turned in. Truth was, he'd made up his mind: as far as keeping Sid under surveillance was concerned, tonight he was going to have to write off as a dead loss. The situation, if it played out the way it very well could, had the potential to get explosive, and nobody needed that, least of all his wrongheaded client. The thing to do was to take Julie on a nice tour of some of the area's establishments-not the hole-in-the-wall dives where perversions of almost unimaginable varieties gave the term “performance art” a whole new meaning, but the more mainstream bars proclaim Sid lost, and return her home again safe and sound with the clear understanding that he would do the job on his own another day. Or else. An alley up the street led to an out-of-the-way parking lot that was used mainly by clients of the rent-a-room-by-the-hour hookers that worked over the adult bookstore on the building's main floor. The lot was dark, its patrons were as bent on secrecy as he was, and the chances of encountering Sid in it were, he calculated, near zero. “He'll be long gone by the time we get back to where he parked,” Julie said, throwing him an impatient look that said some private eye you are. Mac didn't grin, but didn't miss it by much. Now that the evening's agenda had changed, he was starting to enjoy himself “I have an idea where he's headed.” Actually, he didn't-this whole area seemed out of character for Sid-but he did have a good idea of where Sid wasn't headed, and under the circumstances that worked just as well. “You do?” She sounded impressed, he noted as he parked the car. “Ma'am, that's what us PIs do.” His voice was suitably modest. Clearly she was in no mood to appreciate subtle humor. She was already reaching for the door handle as he turned off the ignition. He grabbed her arm-and in the process registered that it was slender, firm, with warm silky skin-before she could bolt off in pursuit of Sid. “Whoa. Slow down a minute.” “What?” She glanced around at him. Impatience came through loud and clear. “We're going to have to make some adjustments here. Unless your husband's a blind man.” There was always the possibility, however remote, that they might encounter Sid in the street. “What kind of adjustments?” Mac let go of her arm and reached into the back. He groped around the footwell behind her seat, and came up with the prize he sought: his Debbie wig, right where it had landed the night before. He handed it to her. “What ... ?” She looked down at the hunk of hair in her hand as if she thought it might bite her.

“Don't you want to find out for yourself if blondes really do have more fun?” He grinned. She didn't. Her eyes met his. “You're kidding, right?”

“Nope. Put it on.” Julie looked revolted, but after one more glance at the wig she flipped down the visor and did as she was told, twisting her own hair around her head and smoothing the long platinum strands down over it.

“I look like Jennifer Lopez disguised as Britney Spears.” She sounded appalled.

“Just as long as you don't look like Julie Carlson, we're in business.”

He flipped her visor closed, and leaned across her to open her door. “Let’s go.” The temperature had cooled off considerably from the steam-room conditions that had existed that afternoon, but it was still hot and humid, he noted as he got out of the car. Street noises, indistinguishable voices, and throbbing strains of music provided a background for the closer sounds of Julie shutting her door and walking around the Blazer toward him. Actually, he thought, appraising her almost unwillingly as she rounded his front bumper, she looked pretty good as a blonde. Then he permitted himself a wry inner smile. Might as well face the truth: With that killer
bod
and those yard-long legs, she could dye her hair neon green and still knock men dead at forty paces. “
Yo
, man, it cost you twenty dollar to park here.” A hulking kid in a wife beater and homeboy jeans appeared out of the shadows, walking forward with his hand out and an insolent swagger that told Mac he'd gotten lucky with this scam before. “You collecting for Fitch now?” He turned to face the kid, keeping his posture relaxed-he wasn't expecting trouble, but you never knew-and Julie came up on his left side. Her hand curled around his arm just above the elbow as she stepped close, facing the kid too, pressing against his side as if for protection, and her perfume wafted up to his nostrils. The whole I-didn't-inhale thing was
crapola
in this case, there was no way he could resist it, and the scent of her plus the gentle slide of her fingers against his skin sent his libido into overdrive. He gritted his teeth in sheer self-
defense
.

“You know Fitch?” Luckily-with Julie disordering his senses, he -wasn't in any shape for the situation to get aggressive-this gave the kid pause. “Yeah.”

“Oh. Sorry, man.” Easy as that, the kid melted back into the shadows. Beside him, he heard Julie let out a sigh of relief. Her hand slid down his arm and over his wrist, trailing fire every millimeter of the way, to nestle into his. His fingers closed around hers automatically. Still holding her hand, because he found that he was absolutely incapable of not holding it once presented with the temptation, he started walking down the alley toward the main drag with her tap-tapping on those sexy little heels right beside him.

“The punks who stole my car looked just like that.” She was sticking close. He could feel her arm brushing his, generating a heat that radiated throughout his body.

“They all look just like that.” He was feeling tense, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the thought that the kid or others even worse might be lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.

“Is Pitch the owner of the parking lot? And do you really know him?”

“Yes. To both.” His replies were terse. He realized that, but bending his mind around more eloquent conversation was beyond him at the moment. The mind-over-body thing he prided himself on was taking a couple of minutes to work. “You know some interesting people.” They reached the street before he had to reply. Stepping onto the sidewalk, they were immediately caught up in a river of people sweeping along porn central. Having Julie go up on tiptoe and crane her neck both ways brought them a great deal of unwelcome attention as the current was forced to part around them.

“I don't see Sid anywhere.” She was keeping her balance by resting the hand that wasn't clutching his flat in the
center
of his chest. He could almost feel the outline of her fingers like a brand through his shirt. “I know where to look.” The reminder that she was not free was timely. This was not some hot little honey that he would be getting better acquainted with between the sheets later. This was Julie Carlson, his client, Sid's wife. Too bad the part of him that most needed to know that didn't seem to have much of a brain.

“Come on.” He removed her hand from his chest and started walking. Her fingers were entwined with his now, and, short of wresting his hand free, which with the best will in the world he couldn't seem to discover within himself an inclination to do, he appeared to be stuck with that. Not even bothering to look for Sid-if they ran across him it would be pure bad luck-he headed toward Sweetwater's, one of the more mainstream of the girlie bars on the strip. Everybody and his daddy ended up at Sweetwater's sooner or later. If Sid was meeting a lady on the sly, Sweetwater's was the one place he wouldn't go. It was both too raunchy and too public for a lying, cheating, fornicating pseudo family man and pillar of the community like Sid. “You really think he's here?” Julie asked after Mac had paid their cover and they were ushered inside. The question, which should have been hushed, had to be almost shouted to be heard over the pounding music.

“Maybe.” The warehouse-sized front room was aglow with a disorienting purple light. The reflecting walls were the silver of aluminium foil. Pairs of women, naked except for swirls of glitter paint decorating their already decorative bodies, danced back to back in Plexiglas cages about seven feet above the floor. Couples-basically fully dressed men and half naked women, except for the few female tourists who were as easy to spot as skunks on snow-shook their booties with enthusiasm. The hostess, a fine-looking redhead in a silver thong and glow-in-the-dark pasties, met them at the door and led them toward a purple leather banquette that stretched most of the length of one wall. Small rectangular tables stood in front of the banquette at approximately four-foot intervals, leaving just enough room for a couple behind each table. There were about half a dozen couples sitting there now like ducks in a row. Mac took a closer look at some of the action going on behind those tables and amended that to, like depraved ducks in a row. Two lap dances, one spanking, one woman busy beneath the table, and one
titty
grope were in progress as they approached. The hostess indicated their table-a lap dance to the left, the
titty
grope to the right-and he stood back to let Julie slide in before him. Her eyes were as big as saucers as she glanced around, and he felt a momentary stab of compunction at exposing such an obvious neophyte to the seamier side of Charles ton's nightlife. He appeased it with the reflection that, given the area, this was one of the more mainstream places he could have taken her.

“What can I get you?” When they were both seated a silver-thongued waitress appeared, smiled at him rather than Julie, and bent deliberately close as she waited for his answer. The resulting view was well worth looking at, but considering his company he refrained. Fortunately, this far from the car-sized speakers it was possible to hear and be heard without being right in the waitress's-uh-face. “Heineken.” He glanced at Julie.

“White wine.” The waitress smirked, gave Julie a pitying glance, and turned on her heel. And yes, she was wearing heels. Spikes. Silver. And they and the minuscule silver strip snaking between her cheeks were it. Whatever other faults Sweetwater's had, he mused as he reflexively eyeballed her retreating form, at least the scenery was good. “Oh my God, there's Sid!” What? Mac didn't say it aloud, but his head whipped around in the direction Julie was looking so fast he was surprised his neck didn't snap. There was Sid all right, dark suit, slicked-back hair, wire-rimmed glasses, the ultimate preppy sleazeball, headed straight toward them with the redheaded hostess all smiles as she said something to him over her shoulder and two women, both lookers in thongs just like the redhead, hanging one on either arm. It was all Mac could do to keep his jaw from dropping in amazement. Christ, had the prescient SOB somehow gotten the drop on them?