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Nathaniel took my hand as soon as I got close enough to be touched. The stranger touched Micah’s shoulder and let his hand linger there, just a second too long. He was smiling and asked, “Do the two of you like dick?”

I kept Nathaniel’s hand and moved up in front of them both, so that it forced the man to step back from us. He actually reached around me and touched Micah’s shoulder again. I had to let go of Nathaniel’s hand, but I moved up two more steps. For a moment the man was almost pressed up against me. He started to smile at me, then saw my eyes, and the smile faltered, and he stepped back.

I don’t know what look was on my face, but he stumbled a little over his words, “They said they liked dick.”

“I said, I liked my own,” Micah said.

“If anyone else asks,” Nathaniel said, “just say no.”

I said, “We’ve had a misunderstanding here.”

The man nodded. “Sorry.” He started to move away.

I said, “We’re trying to find our friend. She called drunk, needs a ride home.” I described her.

He gave me nervous eyes. He knew something, and I’d been scary, so he didn’t want to tell me. I should really learn to tone down the whole silent threat thing, but damn, I’ve just gotten so good at it.

Nathaniel’s hand snaked acround my shoulder. The hand had a twenty dollar bill in it. He said, “Ask again.”

I took the twenty and creased it down the middle. The man watched me do it. He seemed less nervous, but I could tell he still didn’t like me or what was happening. Things hadn’t gone the way they were supposed to go, and it had thrown him.

“Do you know where our friend is?” I held the twenty up.

“Maybe,” he said, and his voice sounded rough.

Nathaniel leaned over my shoulder. His voice was low and calm. “We want to find her before she does something she’ll regret. She had a fight with her boyfriend, they’ll make up, but not if she crosses too many lines, do you understand me?”

“This will get you a lap dance, a good one. I have to do something for the money, or he’ll know I told on him. He wouldn’t like that, and he’d make sure I didn’t like it.”

“Who?” I asked.

Nathaniel was standing so close to me I felt him sigh. “Ronnie is already in the back, Anita.”

“The back?” I asked.

“Wherever they go, she’s already back there.”

Shit. “Take us to her,” I said.

“Dallas would kill me. We don’t get that many beautiful women in here.”

“We could just start asking where Dallas is,” I said.

Something close to real fear went through his eyes. “Don’t do that, please.”

I hate when I start feeling sorry for them. “What’s your name?”

“Owen,” Nathaniel said, “he said his name was Owen.”

“Alright, Owen, we don’t want to get you hurt, but if you keep us talking and something bad happens . . .”

Micah said, “Give him another twenty, then he can take us to the back.”

I looked at him.

“We can find her on our own, and he can pretend that he took us to the back for business.”

My look said it all.

He shrugged. “He won’t get hurt, and we’ll all get what we need.”

I wanted to argue, but Nathaniel’s hand had already appeared with another twenty in it. “I had a good night,” he said. What did that mean? A good night? Good tips? Or did Nathaniel do lap dances when he wasn’t on stage? I’d never asked. I hadn’t wanted to know, hell, I still didn’t want to know. I took the twenty and folded it together with the first one.

“Take us to the back, Owen.”

Another dancer appeared in what I finally realized was the outfit; loose shorts, T-shirt, and socks. This one had more meat on him and was cute in a boyish, unfinished sort of way. “Need another hand?”

It was Nathaniel who moved up, hugging me from behind, smiling, suddenly. “We’ve got all the men we need, don’t we, Owen?”

Owen nodded, and I watched his face remold itself, so that when he turned to his coworker, he was smiling and at ease. He took the forty dollars from my hand and tucked it into the top of his white socks. He made the movement strangely graceful and more feminine than it should have been,