“Security,” he said smiling, and signing Raven-hair’s book.
“She doesn’t look like security,” the brunette said.
“I’m new,” I said.
Brunette didn’t look like she believed me. She crossed her arms underneath her small, tight breasts and glared at me.
I smiled back sweetly.
That deepened her scowl and gave her little lines between her eyebrows. I felt better.
Nathaniel gave me a little flicker of a look that said as clearly as if he’d spoken, “Be nice.” I was nice. I smiled and stood and let the blondes touch his arms, his back, but when one of them patted his ass, that was it.
I pushed away from the wall, and said, “Ladies, Brandon here needs to get inside and prepare for his performance.” I managed to keep smiling even when one of the blondes threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek. Then the other blonde grabbed him and kissed him on the other cheek.
I grabbed his arm and moved him back far enough so I could open the door. The two women were still clinging to him. Raven-hair was blushing, and the brunette was still scowling at me. I kept my smile in place, though it felt more like a grimace.
Nathaniel said, “Beth Ann, Patty, if you don’t let me go, I can’t get on stage.”
“Stay out here with us, and we wouldn’t care,” one of them said.
I glanced behind me and saw a black-shirted man. It was Buzz, the vamp that usually worked the door here. He had the same black crew cut that he had always had, small pale eyes, and more muscles than you should need as a dead man. His black shirt said GUILTY PLEASURES SECURITY in red letters. I didn’t usually like Buzz much, but tonight I was glad to see him. Help had arrived.
I could have cleared the steps if I was allowed to be mean, but having to be nice at the same time I was trying to be firm was beyond me. My skill set simply did not include it.
He forced his face into a smile before the women behind me could see him clearly. He was the newly dead, around twenty years, which meant he looked very alive for a dead man. Most humans wouldn’t have spotted him in a crowd. Most people think that vamps gain the ability to pass for human, but that’s never been my experience. Older is less human, just better at the mind games so humans don’t notice.
“Ladies, you’re not supposed to be back here,” Buzz cajoled. He moved past me, and his chest was so muscle-bound that it looked like there wasn’t room for all of us and his upper body to stand on that small landing.
The brunette said, “Is she really security?”
“If that’s what she said,” he said in the same good-fellow-well-met voice. He was cheerfully extracting Nathaniel from the blondes. He managed to make a game of it, and they spilled around Buzz’s muscular body, as if to say, if they couldn’t cling to Nathaniel, any male would do. Of course, from the sound of the joking conversation, the blondes knew Buzz, too.
Raven-hair had backed down the steps, eyes a little wide. She didn’t want to play. It made me think better of her.
I drew Nathaniel in through the open door, with the brunette giving me a murderous glare. She was taking this way too personally.
It was sort of unnerving. Nathaniel and I were safely through the door, but I didn’t like closing it and leaving Buzz out there alone. I mean, he’d helped us. What were the rules about security guards? Did they get protected, too, or just the dancers and customers? If you cut a security guard did he not bleed? So I stood there uncertainly with Nathaniel. It was Nathaniel who gently closed the door.
“Buzz will be fine, he knows how to talk to them.”
“What, you read my mind?”
He smiled. “No, I just know you. He helped us, and now you feel obligated.”
I fought the urge to squirm or shuffle my feet. I hated when anyone figured me out that clearly. Was I that transparent? Apparently so.
I decided to change the subject. “How did they know that ’Brandon’ would be here tonight?”
“When we change headliners, we have an E-mail list that we notify.
There’s even a list just for Brandon.”
I looked at him. “You mean that some of these women dropped everything, changed all their plans, because they found out that Brandon was going to be here tonight?”
He shrugged and managed to look a little embarrassed. “Some of them, yes.”
I shook my head. I changed the subject again, because I was losing again. “Who was supposed to be keeping the fans away from this door?”
The door in question opened. Buzz laughed and joked, until the door closed behind him, then he leaned against it and looked tired.
“Primo was.”
It took me a second to realize that he’d answered the question I’d asked with the door closed. “You heard me ask the question?”
He nodded. Then he grinned flashing fangs, the sign of a new vamp.
“You didn’t know I could hear you through the door?”
“Hear, yes, but I thought you were too busy concentrating on the women outside.”
He looked past me at Nathaniel. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.”
Buzz pushed himself away from the door and stood, settling his big, overdeveloped shoulders like a bird settles its feathers. “I better go talk to Primo, for what good it will do.”
“What do you mean, good it will do?” I asked.
He looked at me. “Primo is old, really old. He wants to be one of Jean-Claude’s vamps, but he had his eye on like the number two, or at least number three slot. He’s pissed that he’s having to be security at a strip club. He’s more pissed that a baby like me is his direct boss.” Buzz looked worried. “He’s old school, and he thinks if he keeps pushing me, that I’ll call him out. But I am not going to challenge that thing. He’d kill me.”
“Have you told Jean-Claude what’s going on?”
He nodded. “He told Primo that if he couldn’t stomach this job and obey me, then he could get out of town.”
“Did that help for awhile?” I asked.
Buzz smiled. “Have you heard this story before?”
“No, but I know how the really old vamps can be. They are proud bastards.”
Nathaniel touched my arm. “I need to talk to Jean-Claude about tonight’s performance.”
“I’ll join you in the office in a minute.”
Nathaniel started to say something, then seemed to think better of it and just went down the white hallway. I watched him go into the office that was just a few doors down. Then I turned back to Buzz. “Is it just not doing what he’s told, or is there more?”
“He’s started taking money to let in people we don’t let in.”
“Like who?”
“Men.”
I raised eyebrows. “You don’t let in any men?”
“Not a lot. It makes the women uncomfortable, and some of the dancers don’t like it either. You’re either comfortable shakin’ your thing in front of other men, or you’re not.”
“I guess that makes sense, but you let some in.”
“Couples, just like they do at most female strip clubs across the river.”
“But Primo is letting in single men,” I said.
He nodded.
“What did Jean-Claude tell you to do about it?”
“He told me to deal with it. That if I wasn’t vampire enough to control Primo that maybe I didn’t deserve my job. Jean-Claude is old, too, Anita. I think they’re both setting me up for some kind of showdown, and Primo will hurt me, or kill me.”
“You look like you can take care of yourself.”
“If it’s just strong-arm stuff, yeah, but Primo isn’t a brute, Anita, he’s dripping with power. I even agree with him that Jean-Claude isn’t using him well. He’s too powerful to be down here doing this, and he doesn’t have the temperament for it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s more likely to start fights than stop them. He’ll take money from men to get in, then he’ll throw their asses out.”
I shook my head. “You know, Buzz, this doesn’t sound like a problem that Jean-Claude would let go this far.”
“Not normally,” he said, “but it’s like Jean-Claude is waiting to see what we’ll do before he steps in. I’d just as soon not be dead before he does it.”
“Is it really that bad?”
“The women out there were okay, but we’ve had one dancer that was stalked. Another one had an irate husband go after him with a knife, because he was jealous that his wife was a member of the dancer’s fan club.”