Chapter 15 #3
He was under the old loading dock, same as always.
Shepherd mix, ribs like a ladder, one ear that wouldn’t sit right.
The girls had been feeding him — a margarine tub of water, a paper plate scraped clean.
A building full of women nobody had looked out for in years, quietly looking out for a dog nobody wanted.
I crouched down slow, hands where he could see them. He backed further under the dock and watched my hands. Somebody’d been quick with theirs around him once — you could see it in his reactions.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know the feeling.”
I didn’t reach. Just stayed down in the cold a while, a grown man talking low to a stray that wanted nothing to do with him.
He was a little less far under the dock than he’d been on Monday. Not much.
“Tomorrow,” I told him. I set out fresh water and food, and pushed a couple of old blankets in under the dock, out of the wind. Then I locked the place up and rode back to the clubhouse.
?
The other thing Glitch told me to do took until Saturday.
Wren came down before we shut the doors to gut it. I’d half figured she’d back out — shy little Wren, in a strip club, with me. Instead Glitch texted We’re outside at two in the afternoon.
She came in tucked under his arm in leggings and an old hoodie, hair up, like she was headed to the gym instead of a dead strip club with the work lights up. Then she let go of his arm, and I watched something happen to her that shocked the hell of me.
She walked the whole floor first, slow, hands in her hoodie pocket, head tipped like she was listening to music the rest of us couldn’t hear.
Then she walked straight up the steps onto the main stage — didn’t ask, didn’t hesitate — got a hand on the pole, and swung herself around it once.
Stopped dead center and looked out at the empty room the way a girl on a Friday night would’ve looked out at a full crowd.
“Okay.” She hopped back down.
She walked the room a second time, and this time I watched her eyes go to the exact spots Glitch’s had gone — the blind corner off the side of the stage, the entrance to the private room hall, the back door.
“Here.” She stood off to the side of the stage.
“You can’t see this corner from the pole.
Lights in her face, this spot’s black to her.
A hand comes out of here, she doesn’t see it coming, she just feels it.
” No heat in it — just a woman reading a room.
“Put a light in it. Not bright. Just enough a man knows he can be seen.”
I wrote it down.
She walked the private room hall slower, trailing a hand along the wall. “If I was running this place, I’d replace the doors with curtains.”
I shot Glitch a look — Wren, running a strip club? — and he just gave me a small shrug back, like told you.
Wren stepped into the nearest room and shut it behind her. A few seconds later she let out a scream. Muffled. Barely made it past the frame.
She opened the door, pleased with herself. “Hear that?”
“Barely.”
“Exactly. Now put a curtain there instead.” She stood in the doorway. “Same scream. Whole floor hears it.”
Glitch had gone quiet, watching her with something that wasn’t amusement anymore. “Sweetheart,” he said. “You ever been in that situation? When you were working?”
Wren’s grin softened into something shyer, and she shook her head. “No, Seb. I had the best security in the business. Never had a man lay a finger on me.” She reached out and squeezed his hand on her way past. “Never once worried one would.”
She walked to the back door and stood at it a while, arms crossed, chin up. “Where do they park?”
“Out back. Prospect walks them to their cars, watches till the lot’s empty.”
She nodded, pleased. “Good. That’s the one nobody thinks of. The fifty feet of dark between the door and your car with your night’s cash on you.”
Then she turned around and pointed at Glitch before he could even open his mouth. “And before you ask — no, Seb. Never once worried about that either.” She patted the side of his face. “Best security in the business. Remember?”
Glitch caught her hand and kissed her palm instead of answering, which told me he’d been about to ask.
Wren turned back to me, spun once on her heel to take in the whole ugly room.
“Shitty owner.” She said it like a diagnosis.
“Good bones, though. You’ll make it decent.
” She looked at me — really looked, not the quick, careful glances I was used to getting from her. “I think you’re the right man for it.”
I stood there a second not knowing what to do with that.
Glitch was watching me over her shoulder, one eyebrow up, a look that said told you she’s something and don’t get used to it in the same breath. I gave him a small nod back and tried to remember how to talk.
“Wren.” My voice came out rough. “Thank you.”
She just nodded, still smiling, and ducked under Glitch’s arm. Stage-Wren was gone and the woman who went pink ordering coffee was back, tucked into his side like she’d never left it.
Over the top of her head, Glitch mouthed told you at me, slow and deliberate, so I couldn’t pretend I’d missed it.
“Let’s go, sweetheart.” He pressed a kiss to her hair and steered her toward the door, throwing one last look back at me. “Put the light in the corner.”