“What’s that?”
“Your muscles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dork with biceps like yours,” Roxanne said with a sweet smile on her face.
It was nice to see her smile. I didn’t think I had seen her smile at all since she and I had first met. She was a serious woman, and I respected that. She had a tough life and it wasn’t something I understood at all. I could tell that her life was based around a lot of difficult people and probably a lot of hurt. I wasn’t prepared to ask her more about it or support any woman and her emotions – it just wasn’t something I was equipped to deal with.
My life was simple, I liked it that way. I liked to keep to myself, and I wasn’t about to complicate my life with anything that I couldn’t control. I had learned a long time ago that women were not something I could control.
“I can’t make my muscles go away.” I laughed.
“Maybe we could get you some glasses, buy you a different type of outfit?”
“Sure, we can give it a try.”
“Do you have any idea what you would like me to say to the other women as I look for Ana? I don’t want to be too obvious about it.”
She had a good point. If Roxanne started asking around about Ana, people were going to get the wrong idea. They would worry that Roxanne was doing something different than she normally did.
“How long has it been since Ana was at the club?”
“A couple weeks.”
“Maybe instead of being concerned about her, you could say that you are pissed and you think she stole something from you. People tend to be less suspicious of anger than they are of concern.”
“That’s pretty messed up.”
“It’s human nature, though. People are angry more than they are helpful.”
“Wow, that says a lot about us as humans.”
It was true, though. People did get angry more often than they were helpful. As a general rule, people liked to think the worse of others much more than they thought about the good in people. Even as I worked on other investigation cases, I never went into a location and said I was looking for a friend. It was a telltale sign that I was not the person's friend.
How often did your friends actually come and look for you? Not very often at all. In comparison, if you owe someone money, they always came looking for you. There was no hiding from them. Same with if you had done something to piss someone off. It was inevitable that they would come looking for you.
“I agree, it isn’t always the best of our character traits, but we aren’t here to change the human race. Our job is to blend in as much as possible and figure out where Ana is.”
“You should order a private dance again,” Roxanne said.
I thought I saw a smile form at the corner of her mouth. She wanted to be alone with me in a private room and she wanted to dance for me. I would be more than happy to comply with her. The feeling of her breasts in my hands was a definite perk of the job.
“I’m fine with that.”
“Not that I want to do it. It would just give us a good opportunity to talk and review the information I have.”
“Sure, I totally get it.”
She just wanted to dance for me. After having her hand on my body the night before, I wasn’t about to turn away her offer. It was a logical way for us to communicate without everyone suspecting that we were talking about anything other than the dance.
“So, I’ll go into work a little early. I can talk with the other dancers and see what’s going on. But I don’t have a phone anymore, so I will have to just see you when you get there.”
“Yes, we don’t want to be seen arriving together or talking at all. Things will have to be totally professional between us.”
As we finished our breakfast, I had a renewed respect for Roxanne. She didn’t seem scared at all and, in fact, she was very focused on finding Ana and doing things the best way she could. Not many women would be willing to get involved, even with the kind of money that Roxanne had been offered.
It was nice that she listened to me, as well. I knew what I was doing and I didn’t need anyone trying to tell me what to do or not paying attention when I told them how things needed to happen. She started to earn my respect with how she was handling things so far. I wasn’t willing to say it was an entirely good thing to have her working with me, but at least it wasn’t horrible anymore.
“All right, the big question is how are we going to get Ana out from wherever she is?”
“Oh, I don’t know any of that yet. Let’s do one thing at a time.”