Hour Game

Chapter 21

When King and Michelle walked back to their car, Lulu went with them.

“Junior’s a good man. Loves the kids and me,” she said. “He works hard, but he knows things don’t look good for him, and it’s drilling a hole right through his belly.” She let out a long sigh. “Things were going good, maybe too good. My job’s going great, and Junior’s got more work than he can handle. We’re building a new home, and the kids are doing real good in school. Yeah, maybe it was all going too good.”

“You kept your maiden name?” said Michelle.

“I don’t have any brothers,” Lulu replied. “My sisters took their husbands’ names. I just wanted to keep the Oxleys around at least so long as I’m alive.”

“You work at the Aphrodisiac, don’t you?” asked King.

She looked a little startled. “That’s right, how’d you know?” She suddenly smiled. “Don’t tell me you been there.”

King smiled back. “Once. Years ago.”

“When I first went to work there, it was more a whorehouse than anything else. It was called the Love Shack back then, you know, after the B-52’s song. But I saw a lot more potential than that. Over the years we’ve turned it into a nice club. Okay, we still have the dancers and stuff, but that’s only in one section, the original part of the place. Junior did a lot of the new construction work. You should see some of the millwork in there now, wood columns, nice moldings, classy drapes and wallpaper. We got a real nice restaurant, with linen and china, a billiards room and a place to play cards, a movie theater and a first-class bar with a special ventilated place so the men can smoke cigars; and we just started a club for local businesspeople. You know, a place to come and network. We got Internet access, a business center. Revenue up eighty-six percent over last year, and last year was the best year we’d had in the last ten. And I’ve been pushing to change the name to something a little more…”

“Tasteful?” said Michelle.

“Yeah,” said Lulu. “I own a piece of the place, so that’s me and Junior’s retirement. I want it to be as profitable as possible. I got the costs in line, manageable debt levels and strong cash flow with little direct competition, and our target demographic is golden: male high income earners who don’t care how much they spend. You should see our EBITDA level compared to what it was.”

“You sound like quite the businesswoman,” said Michelle.

“Didn’t start out that way. I didn’t even finish high school. My daddy had an aneurysm when I was only sixteen. Dropped out to help nurse him. Guess I wasn’t much of a nurse; he died anyway. But then I married Junior, went back and got my GED and took business courses at the community college. I started working at the Love Shack part-time. As a waitress,” she added quickly. “I don’t have the necessary physical equipment to be one of the dancers. Worked my way up, learned the business, and there you are.”

“And one of your dancers was just killed,” said King.

Lulu stiffened. “How’d you know about that?”

“We’re sort of informal consultants to Chief Williams,” explained King.

“She was one of our former dancers,” corrected Lulu.

“Did you know her?” asked Michelle.

“Not really. We got lots of dancers come through. Most don’t stay all that long, nature of the business. And we play it by the rules. We don’t allow anything but the dancing. We’re not looking to lose our license to operate because some girl wants to make some cash on the side by spreading her legs.”

“Did Rhonda Tyler want to do that? Is that why she left?” asked Michelle.

“I already told the police all this. Is there some reason I got to tell you too?”

“No reason at all,” said King.

“Good, ’cause I got enough on my mind without worrying why some gal got herself killed.”

“I doubt she intended that to happen,” said Michelle.

“Honey,” said Lulu, “I been in this business long enough and seen enough that nothing—and I mean nothing—would surprise me anymore.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” said King.

As they drove off, Lulu watched them and then went inside the trailer.

Michelle eyed her movements in the side mirror. “She says she didn’t really know the woman, and yet she was able to ID her off an artist’s composite sketch, and she knew about the crotch tattoo? Come on, I’d call that a little inconsistent.”

“Could be,” said King.

“And while Junior may be too dumb to know what to do with bearer bonds and jewelry, I think his wife is plenty sharp enough to sell that stuff and make some decent returns.”

“If that turns out to be correct, our client is guilty.”

Michelle shrugged. “Those are the breaks sometimes. What next?”

“We track down who installed those secret drawers in the Battles’ closets. We check out the alibis of Junior’s friends, and we fill in Harry on what we’ve done so far.”

“And we wait for the next murder to happen,” added Michelle, sighing.