16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

“And one more thing,” said Billy. “Lemme borrow your coat.”

Billy approached the brownstone and started up the stairs. He hit the buzzer and waited.

“Hello?” A voice through the intercom.

“Mayor’s security detail,” Billy said, making sure the emblem on his coat was front and center for any cameras that might be watching. “I need to talk to him.”

“The mayor isn’t here.”

“We drove him here, dumbass. I need to speak with him.”

The light in the foyer came on. A tall, wide man in a suit approached the door. There was a bulge in his jacket at the hip. He was armed. And he probably didn’t appreciate being called a dumbass.

The man opened the door slightly. “Why don’t you call him?” he said.

“See, that’s the problem,” Billy said as he leaned in and pushed the door fully open. He stepped forward and drove a quick jab into the man’s exposed throat. He expelled a wet choking noise before losing the capacity to make any noise at all.

“Green, green,” Billy called into the radio attached to his collar while simultaneously seizing the big man, throwing him up against the railing of the stairs and keeping the door propped open with his foot.

The other detectives, followed by blue suits, swarmed up the stairs.

“Keep your hands on the railing, feet apart,” said Billy before handing the big guy over to one of the uniforms. “He has a piece on his left hip.”

And a sore throat.

Billy led the way inside. The lighting was dim, and the air smelled of incense. A staircase led up to the second floor. Next to it was a door to what looked like a closet. The faint sound of music—a thumping bass—came from below.

“Crowley,” said Billy, “clear the main floor. Sosh—”

From behind a curtain straight ahead, a man emerged, holding a shotgun upright. Before Billy could yell Police—don’t move, Katie was on him. She braced the shotgun, kneed the guy in the balls, then, when the man bowed forward in pain, drove her other knee into his midsection. The man crumpled to the ground with nary a sound, Katie triumphantly holding the shotgun.

Well, there’s that.

Another man came through the curtain—this was like clowns in a circus car—and once again, before Billy could say anything, Katie swung the butt of the shotgun into the man’s face, knocking him backwards off his feet.

Don’t fuck with Katie.

Billy directed officers forward and upstairs. He walked over to the door by the staircase and opened it up. It was, in fact, a closet, but an odd one. There was no horizontal bar for hanging coats. Nothing on the floor. No hooks, even.

But the thumping bass was more audible.

Billy stepped into the closet, placed his hand against the back wall, and pushed. It gave immediately. A false wall. This was the door to the garden level.

Billy motioned for some uniforms to follow him. He took the stairs down to the lower level slowly, his gun raised, the music pounding between his ears.

Wondering, Did they hear the commotion upstairs?

But he thought not. It seemed like the place was soundproofed.

The music was loud, the female singer’s voice sultry, almost a moan over the pounding bass. Billy hit the bottom stair and spun, gun raised.

The lighting was dim, a purplish glow. A stripper pole in the center of the room, a lithe, naked woman working it, upside down, her legs interlocked around the shiny steel beam. Around her on all sides, women in various stages of undress or erotic costumes—naughty nurse, Catholic schoolgirl, dominatrix—and men, some in costumes, all of them wearing masks of some kind to obscure their faces.

Caught up in their fantasies, nobody noticed him right away. The bartender, at three o’clock, was the first one, and he was a threat, obscured behind a small bar.

“Police—don’t move!” Billy shouted, his gun trained on the bartender. The bartender showed his hands as Billy shuffled toward him.

And then it was chaos—Billy’s team behind him, shouting commands, forcing everyone to the floor. The participants had nowhere to go; their only exit was cut off by the police, and none of them was in a position to challenge the authority of a half dozen cops with firearms trained on them.