Identity Crisis (Sam McRae Mystery 1)

I smiled. “Thanks for coming. Made this a lot easier for me.”

“Hey, I had nothing on my busy social schedule tonight.”

Walt wandered off, and I followed Rhonda past the rest rooms and down a short hall, gloomy in the light of a single, bare bulb struggling to put out sixty watts. There was a cracked red-and-white exit sign at the end.

The office would have been roomy if boxes hadn’t filled most of it. As it was, it could barely hold a wooden desk with an upholstered swivel chair, both of which looked old enough to have been on loan from the Smithsonian, and a folding metal guest chair. Three filing cabinets in mismatched institutional shades of gray and putty lined one wall. Boxes and piles of paperwork filled the rest of the floor space.

Rhonda closed the door, muffling the blaring rock music down to a low throb. She plopped into the swivel chair, which squealed with disapproval. Her somewhat-more-than-zaftig frame wasn’t quite right for the black stretch pants she wore. The top three buttons of her white shirt were undone, and while plastic boobs may have been the norm on stage, I got the feeling her décolletage was real. Minus the extra weight and the facial scarring, she could have been out there dancing.

Rhonda gestured for me to take a seat. “Ever find that client of yours?”

“Yes.”

“She gonna be OK?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Mmm. Good luck with that. What can I help you with?”

“I’m trying to talk to anyone who knew Tom. Maybe get some leads on other suspects the cops might have overlooked.”

“I didn’t know him, though we did talk from time to time when he came in to work on the system.”

“How well do you know Bruce?”

“Not very well. We work different shifts, but we try to touch base every other week or so. More often now, I’d say.”

“I guess I assumed you were friends, since you were with him at the gym that night.”

She nodded, but said, “No. A problem came up with a delivery. Kind of a pain, because I was on duty that night.” An irritable growl edged her voice. “Fortunately, Skip was able to keep an eye on things.”

“Good that you guys look out for each other. This place isn’t exactly crawling with extra help.”

She gave a throaty laugh. “No kidding. That’s the biz for you. Some places are too cheap even to hire a waitress. Bartender does everything.”

The desk had paperwork strewn across it. The computer monitor displayed rows and columns of figures. “Looks like you’re having fun,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. Between you, me, and the fence post, I’m trying to straighten out another of Bruce’s fuckups. Pardon me, but that’s what it is. This is one of the reasons I feel like I have to stay in touch with him. This kind of shit’s happening more and more often now.”

“No offense intended, but how the heck did you end up working here?”

“None taken. And, yeah, managing a strip joint is not exactly what I pictured as my life’s work. It’s part-time, and it helps pay the bills.” She leaned forward. “But I guess you didn’t come here to listen to my life story. What can I tell you?”

“Can we keep this confidential?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m interested in finding out more about Bruce’s relationship with Tom, particularly before he was murdered.”

Rhonda nodded. “Well, Tom got his job here because of his friendship with Bruce. I had the impression they’d known each other a long time. They were having problems though, right before Tom died.”

“Can you tell me anything about that?”

“All I know is what Tom told me, and that wasn’t much. Sounded like he and Bruce were fighting over money.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

Rhonda hesitated, looking slightly uncomfortable. “It’s hard to remember. I wasn’t taking notes or anything.”