Extra Dirty Read online

  “Nothing. I didn’t come here to drink. I did too damn much of that last night.”

  I remember. Ruby said nothing.

  The woman leaned forward, speaking so low that the babble around her nearly drowned out her words.

  “Can you meet me outside, just around the corner? I noticed a coffeeshop there.”

  Ruby sized her up. Not a threat. Not only was she not a fighter—no muscle tone that you couldn’t get from an aerobics class three times a week—but her eyes didn’t carry that glint of intended violence.

  Instead, they held desperation.

  “I’m working,” Ruby said.

  The woman slumped and leaned forward, looking up at Ruby with desperate eyes.

  “Please.”

  Ruby paused, then relented.

  “I got a break coming up,” she said, more to calm her down than because she wanted to talk with her. This woman didn’t look like she’d budge, though.

  A pathetic amount of relief spread across the woman’s face. “Great. I’ll see you there.”

  Yeah. Great.

  After the woman left, Ruby busied herself with a couple of orders. Kristiano came up to her as she filled another beer mug at the tap.

  “What was all that about?” he asked.

  “No idea. Can you give me a few minutes? She wants to talk to me at the café.”

  “No problem.”

  No problem? I wish.

  Five minutes later, Ruby sat across from her in a grimy coffeeshop. The chipped Formica table didn’t look like it had been cleaned in years. Neither did the floor. The bright fluorescent lights didn’t help the café’s overall appearance.

  Not that it mattered. People didn’t come here for the coffee, but to make drug deals. Javon, a local pot dealer, sat at the next table, texting. Even though he came to The Pirate’s Cove almost every night, he didn’t acknowledge Ruby’s presence or make any sign that he recognized her.

  Ruby appreciated that.

  The woman sat, fidgeting with her coffee. Ruby sipped an orange juice. She’d been craving sugar all night. Rum had a lot of sugar and she wasn’t getting any in her usual way.

  “My name is Helen Pierce,” the weary-looking woman began. “I was in your bar last night with my friend, Bridget Hansen.”

  Ruby didn’t let on that she remembered. She wanted to see where this was going. Helen went on.

  “We’re here on vacation with our husbands. For the first few days we did the typical stuff, beach and nightclub, but Bob and Aaron are really into golf. Apparently, there are some really good greens here. I wouldn’t know. Bores the hell out of me. So we made a compromise. They’d spent the weekend golfing while we went off and did our own thing. The greens they wanted are on the other side of the island, so they got a hotel room over there so they could be the first on the green in the morning. We stayed here.”

  Helen stared into her coffee cup, unable to continue for the moment.

  So “doing your own thing” meant getting drunk and starting an amateur night at The Tropical Twerker? I can see this ended badly.

  Why am I wasting my time on this? I have to figure out that damn password.

  Tourist. Vacation. Palm trees. I should try all the words associated with the Bahamas.

  “We … um … got a little crazy. Well, a lot crazy.” She gave a nervous little laugh and grinned, as if seeking approval. “Nightclubs, bars, then we decided to hit the fun side of town.”

  Nassau. I should try that.

  “You mean the crappy side of town.”

  Helen shrugged and grinned again. Ruby found her sympathy for this woman sinking even lower.

  “We had a cab driver take us around and we went to a bunch of places, ending up at your bar. Woo! What a crowd! Anyway, after a few more drinks we decided to head down the street to that strip bar.”

  Helen looked uncomfortable. She set her shoulders, looked like she came to a decision, and went on.

  “So we went down there. But somebody must have drugged us because I passed out and woke up in an alley in another part of town.”

  Ruby’s stomach clenched and she felt cold all over. She must have gone pale too, because Helen raised a hand.

  “No, I wasn’t raped. I was robbed, though. All my money and jewelry. That’s not the worst part. Bridget is gone! I haven’t seen her since midnight last night, and now it’s what? Ten? She’s been gone almost twenty-four hours. Our hotel says she hasn’t been back. I’ve called a million times, but her phone is switched off.”

  “What did the police say?”

  Helen looked away. “I-I didn’t call the police. We kinda got crazy. Coke, you know, nothing bad.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes. So a tourist goes slumming, gets high, and gets rolled. Oldest story in the book. She drained her orange juice and stood.

  “I’m sorry, but this is something the police should handle. You should have called them as soon as you woke up. I’m not sure why you’re asking me to help in the first place.”

  Helen’s eyes lit up and she reached for Ruby’s hand. “Because they were all talking about you last night! About how you found a body in the dumpster and you tracked down the murderer all by yourself. You’re like a private detective.”

  “I’m not a private detective. I’m a bartender, and my break is over.”

  Ruby left. Her side was still sore from the cracked ribs she got on her last investigation, and the only reason she had done that one was because the cops had labeled her a suspect.

  She had no skin in this fool’s game.

  Ruby went back to the comfortable chaos of the bar, wanting a drink more than ever.

  A minute later, Helen Pierce walked back in and sat down in front of her.

  “The answer is still no,” Ruby told her.

  “A shot of rum, please.”

  Well, I can’t say no to a customer. Not with all the expenses of fixing the bathrooms. This place has thin enough margins as it is.

  Ruby gave her a rum, and some advice.

  “Go to the police.”

  “Please. I don’t know what to tell Aaron, Bridget’s husband. He’s getting worried and I’m running out of excuses. At least he’s too preoccupied with golf at the moment to try calling her much, but he’s asking questions. I’ve got to find her.”

  “Call the police. Skip the part about the coke.”

  “It’s not just that,” Helen said with an annoying whine. “What do I tell Aaron? Or my husband Bob? They’re really straight-laced. Nice guys, but a bit boring, you know?”

  “Not the kind of guys who would want their wives dancing in a strip club?”

  Helen looked at her sheepishly, a slight smile playing across her lips. “Oh, you overheard that, did you? No, they’re not those kind of guys at all.”

  “Lady, you got yourself and your friend into this mess, I think it’s your responsibility to get out of it.”

  “I can’t. I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know how to find her and if the police get involved, it will wreck our marriages. Look, I know it’s all my fault. Bridget didn’t even want to go to the strip club. She’s a bit of a quiet girl. I was trying to get her out of her shell, see? So I kind of pressured her.”

  Ruby remembered that the previous night, it had been Helen who had done all of the talking. While Ruby hadn’t paid all that much attention, she had noticed that Bridget had looked reluctant.

  “Sounds to me like it’s even more your responsibility to fix it yourself.”

  “I can’t. I told you. If I go to the cops, Bridget might lose Aaron. She doesn’t deserve that.”

  “Losing her husband might be the least of her worries right now.”

  Helen shuddered, looking down at her drink. “I know. And that’s another reason I need your help. There were some pretty rough characters in that place. I’ve seen how you can handle yourself. That woman over there,”—she pointed to Desaray—“was showing around a YouTube clip of you beating up three drunk guys and tossing them out of
here. You’re like a martial arts expert or something.”

  More like a failed MMA champion.

  “Look, this is really something for the police to handle,” Ruby said, getting tired of repeating herself.

  “I can pay,” Helen said, desperation making her words come out in a rush.

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Please,” she wheedled. “I know I made a mistake. Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

  “Heaps of them,” Ruby mumbled, “and I solved them myself.”

  Well, some of them.

  “But this is family we’re talking about! We could lose our husbands. Yeah, we cut loose a little too much, but that was my fault, not Bridget’s. She doesn’t deserve to lose her husband over it. Family is everything to her, and to me. You know how important family is.”

  Team Wayne!

  Guilt washed over her. Yeah, family was important to Ruby. Her mom had died when Ruby was young, and it had been just her and her dad. They’d been so close.

  Until the injury, and then Ruby left, feeling ashamed she had let him down. Winning the championship had been just as much his dream as hers, and a silly slipup had gotten her injured and destroyed that dream for the both of them.

  “We can’t lose our marriages over this,” Helen moaned.

  “I’m sorry,” Ruby said, unable to meet her eye. “Go to the police.”

  Helen Pierce sighed, laid down some money for the drink, and rose.

  “Keep the change.” Her eyes welled with tears. She turned and left.

  Ruby took the money, changed it out in the register, nodded to Desaray who was calling for another drink, and put the change in the tip jar. Then she removed Helen’s glass to put in the sink.

  A slip of paper lay underneath. On it was written a phone number.

  Zoomer scampered along the bar, picked it up and sniffed it, wrapped it around his finger, and scampered off.

  That’s the end of that, Ruby thought.

  She tried to put it out of her mind. Tried and failed.

  * * *

  It was getting late, and one by one the regulars stumbled home. Reece managed not to puke again, the Ufologist finished his lecture on alien grays, and Desaray groaned about having another long day at work as a chambermaid in one of the hotels.

  “At least I’m on the afternoon shift and I can sleep in,” she sighed. “Still, eight hours cleaning up after tourists is eight hours cleaning up after tourists.”

  “Want to spend every night cleaning up after Reece?” Ruby asked.

  “You think white people only puke in bars? They puke in hotel rooms too.”

  Ruby laughed. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  The last holdouts shuffled out the door. Kristiano turned on the lights to reveal the aging bar in all its decrepit detail. Neville came out of the office to count the cash. Kristiano and Ruby played rock paper scissors to see who cleaned the bathrooms. Kristiano lost, cursed, and got a chaste peck on the cheek as compensation.

  As he went off to clean the bilges of this foundering pirate ship, Ruby scrubbed down the counter and counted out the tip jar, taking half and leaving half for Kristiano. Out of habit she turned toward the bottles arrayed on the back of the bar, her mouth watering. Usually she’d use her tips to buy a bottle of Bahamian Gold to ease the rest of the night away.

  She stopped herself. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Neville glance up from his counting.

  With a force of will, she put her tips in her purse, along with several pieces of paper she had covered with possible passwords.

  “I’m going to take out the garbage,” she said.

  “I can do that,” Neville offered.

  “It’s all right.”

  Neville may have been an overgrown child, but he was a sweetie as well. He worried about her after finding that body, and worried even more about the meat grinder she’d been through trying to find out who had dumped that body behind the bar. She’d only told him a little bit. It had been more than enough.

  She grabbed the two heavy garbage bags filled with the waste of an evening’s carousing and headed out, kicking open the back door.

  And that’s when it hit her.

  Not fear, not trauma from the memory of finding that man with his throat slit amidst all the trash.

  Guilt.

  Her initial response after finding the body had been to slam the lid shut and pretend she hadn’t seen him. She had walked down the alley and dumped the garbage into the bin behind The Tropical Twerker. Then she had gone back inside and pretended nothing had happened.

  It had taken a full day before she had she called the police. Then she had investigated the man’s murder and put herself in mortal danger to find the culprit. She had made good, but nothing could wash away that initial sin of weakness she had shown by slamming the lid shut on a dead body.

  Tonight she had slammed the lid shut on Helen Pierce, or more to the point, Bridget Hansen.

  Ruby had plenty of reasons for not wanting to get involved. Her situation was precarious enough. Hiding out in the Bahamas, not knowing what sort of people might be looking for her in connection with Senator Wishbourne’s murder, and with the police already suspicious of her strange lifestyle, she could not afford to get involved in another person’s troubles.

  Besides, it was a missing person’s case, not a murder. Not a dead body dumped right where she worked. The police had no reason to tie her to it, not like the last time.

  Ruby opened up the dumpster lid and tossed in the bags, slamming the lid shut.

  She shuddered.

  Yeah, “only” a missing person. A clueless woman missing after getting drugged in a strip bar.

  Damn. If it isn’t a murder case yet, it soon will be.

  Groaning with frustration, Ruby went back into the bar.

  “Zoomer!”

  The monkey peeked out from the rigging on the ceiling.

  “Come here, bro.”

  Zoomer swung down and landed on her shoulder. To her relief, the slip of paper Helen had left was still around his finger, twisted and a bit chewed.

  “Give me that.”

  Zoomer screeched and leapt onto the bar, looking at the bottles and then back at her.

  “Haven’t you had enough tonight?”

  “Aargh! The ship’s mascot be needing his grog ration,” Neville shouted in his best pirate’s voice, which wasn’t very good. “What be that paper you’re after? A treasure map, mayhap?”

  “If only.”

  Ruby poured out some rum in a bowl. As the monkey brought it to his lips and began to drink greedily, Ruby unwound the paper from his finger.

  To her relief, the number was still readable.

  She texted. It was late and she figured Helen would probably be asleep by now.

  “I’ll help. I’m headed next door right now.”

  The answer came back almost immediately. “THANK YOU!!!!! I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “Somehow I doubt it,” Ruby grumbled.

  She texted back, “Send me a photo of the both of you so I can show it around.”

  A minute later a photo came back showing Helen and another woman of the same age, with a short blonde bob and rather unfashionable clothes. They were at a beachside bar somewhere on the island, raising their glasses as Helen took a selfie. Helen looked tanked. Bridget had that awkward smile of someone who wasn’t having as much fun as they were supposed to.

  Ruby and Kristiano finished up, Ruby moving slowly, unwilling to head to The Tropical Twerker even though she had already committed to it. She really, really didn’t need this.

  What she really needed was a drink.

  In the parking lot out front, Neville, Zoomer on his shoulder and playing with his pirate hat, said good night and got in his beat-up old car. Kristiano got on his motor scooter. Ruby headed in the direction of the bus stop. They had long since stopped gallantly offering her rides. They knew she could handle herself, even in this nei
ghborhood.

  Once they both had driven out of sight, Ruby turned around and headed for The Tropical Twerker. Even that little deception gave her a twinge of guilt. Neville and Kristiano were two of her best friends on the island. She didn’t like misleading them.

  She didn’t like going into strip bars that acted as fronts for brothels either, but she didn’t have a choice. Balling up her fists, she strode toward the low, windowless concrete building, its neon sign of a curvaceous woman flickering on and off.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  While Ruby’s bar shut at 2 am, at that hour The Tropical Twerker had just gotten into its stride. Even from outside she could hear thudding rock music reverberating through the concrete walls. A musclebound Bahamian bouncer in his thirties stood in the doorway.

  “Hey, John,” Ruby said, coming up to him.

  “They throw that guy in jail?”

  “The guy who tried to mug me the other night? Yeah. His court date is coming up in a couple of weeks. With the video footage, he’s got no choice but to cop a plea. Even so, he’ll be doing some time. A ton of priors.”

  John grinned. “You’re cleaning up the neighborhood!”

  “If I was planning on doing that, I’d have to shut you down.”

  John laughed. For a bouncer at a titty bar, he was surprisingly nice.

  “Actually I’m looking for someone,” Ruby said. “Last night they came to The Pirate’s Cove and then they headed over to your place.”

  Ruby pulled out her phone and showed him the photo.

  “Oh God, those two!”

  “So you remember them?”

  “How couldn’t I? Trouble from the moment they came in.”

  Why am I not surprised?

  “What did they do?”

  John got a cautious look. “What’s this all about?”

  “The one on the right is named Bridget Hansen. She’s missing. Her friend hired me to find her.”

  “You’re a private detective now?”

  “No, just unlucky.”

  John made a face. “Well, they thought they were getting lucky last night. I guess not.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They came in here drunk and screeching like a two-woman hen party.”