Gabe cocked the pistol. “Try me.”
Ricky gulped.
Gabe pointed the gun at a chair. “Sit.”
Ricky did as he was told, grumbling all the way.
“June Gardner. Everything you know,” Jodie said.
“You’re a real bitch,” Ricky shot at her.
“You haven’t seen the worst from me yet.” Then she walked across the room and punched Ricky in the face. She pulled back hissing, but the crunch of Ricky’s nose breaking and the blood gushing from it were all too perfect.
He bent over, holding his nose. “I don’t know shit about June. She worked here for a couple months two years ago. She was in and out like all the pathetic girls who filter through the place. She didn’t leave a forwarding address. She just stopped showing up. Christ.”
“What?” Jodie asked in horror. The realization that she’d been working here for no reason hit her. “But you told me you knew where she was.”
He shrugged. “That’s the biz, baby.”
“Motherfucker,” Reyna spat.
Gabe shook his head. “A bullet is too good for you—but man, I would love to use one.”
“We need the tapes,” Jodie said.
Reyna and Jodie ruffled through his office until they found the system that recorded the interior of the strip club. The video screens were up for his viewing pleasure, including all the private rooms. Not so private.
Jodie ripped the machine from the wall and watched as the screens flickered and then the images disappeared. “There. That’s better.”
“For real,” Reyna said, as she looked for something to destroy the machine with, but she finally shrugged and tucked it under her arm.
Gabe passed Jodie a gun while he tied Ricky to the chair with some rope. Always prepared. Once that was done, Gabe clocked him across the head with the butt of his gun. Ricky collapsedforward, unconscious.
“Good riddance,” Jodie spat. She nodded her head toward the door. “There’s a back way out.”
“You’re going to need to change,” Gabe said.
“I’ll meet you out there after I grab my stuff.”
“I’ll go with you,” Reyna insisted.
“It’ll be less suspicious if I go alone,” Jodie said.
Reyna opened her mouth and then eventually nodded. Jodie needed to be able to make her own decisions. “Good luck.”
Jodie smiled a real smile at her this time before hurrying down the long hallway. Reyna followed Gabe out the back door with the recording machine. It was about ten minutes before Jodie dashed from the doorway in street clothes with a worried look on her face.
“No one liked that I quit,” she said with a grimace. “We should get going. I bet they’ll all complain to Ricky soon. We do not want to be here when that happens.”
They jogged away from the club, back to the car. They kept glancing over their shoulders, wondering if someone would come after them. It was a long shot, but totally possible that they would at least call the cops.
The trio jumped into the car and zoomed away from the scene of the crime. They were tired and breathing heavy but jubilant and excited. Jodie even giggled from the back.
“That was amazing. I can’t believe we just did that,” she said. Then she seemed to sober up. “But what am I going to do about June?”
“We’ll keep looking,” Reyna assured her.
“Yeah,” Jodie said with a sigh. “I thought this was going to be easier.”
