Chapter 6

Greg knew immediately that the three men who entered the club weren’t there to watch women get undressed. Well, one of them was, sort of. The smaller one’s eyes went to the stripper who was performing and stayed there as he followed the other two to the stairs that led to Bob’s office.

The two bigger ones had tattoos all over their faces, and things glistened in the light on their faces that suggested lots of piercings. Their clothing was paramilitary and they just screamed Mexican cartel. He didn’t know which cartel but he would bet big that they were cartel. When they went past him at the bar, he saw the little one was merely younger, maybe sixteen or seventeen.

Nobody suggested that the age limit for coming into the club was twenty-one. In fact, nobody said anything to them at all. They knew where they were going and all the employees he could see seemed to know who they were and ignored them. What that meant was that these men had been here before. Greg walked to the front door and went outside, heading directly for his car. Along the way he saw two cars that had men standing around them, doing nothing. Soldiers. Guards for the cars. Greg took off his jacket, opened the rear door and threw the garment inside. Then he leaned into the front and as soon as he stood back up he pulled the cellophane off a fresh pack of cigarettes, extracted one, lit it, and headed back in.

He couldn’t get close enough to the cars to get plates, but he didn’t need them. Not for Vick’s purposes. Leave that to the law when they got involved. If he was right, Heather would know who they were. They were bad news and they guaranteed that Vick would be able to find someone in the law enforcement community who would be very happy to pay attention to Bob and his friends. With Heather as an inside source one of the biggest hurdles was lying down on the track. She wouldn’t be able to help with knowledge of the crimes, themselves, but she’d still be very valuable to investigators. She could be taught how to plant a bug, for example, and no technician would have to break in when the club was closed to do that.

For two more hours Greg stayed in the club. He moved to a table where he could tip the dancers and ignored the rest of the room. He didn’t need to know when the Mexican gangsters left. He saw three tattoos, one on a stripper, and two more on waitresses, who were wearing almost nothing as they worked. He managed to get pictures he thought would show the tattoos. When he left he went to his motel and stayed in his room the rest of the night. He downloaded the digital images from the button camera and found that he did, indeed, get a good shot of a tattoo and a waitress’s tiny G-string, just below it. Her abdomen was also in the shot but nothing else. He used an encrypted email program to update Vick, including the picture.

Vick wanted more pictures, but said he’d send a surveillance team to get those. Greg met with Heather one more time before he left.

“I’m all done, here,” he said. “I think you’re going to get what you want. I’ll warn you now, though, it may take a while. Sometimes these investigations take years.”

“I don’t want to live this way for years,” she groaned.

“I didn’t say it will take years. But just don’t expect the club to get raided next week, okay?”

“Okay,” she sighed. “Thank you for helping me.”

“You’re welcome, but the money I hope you get will be a lot more help. It takes money to relocate and the shit storm that will whirl around that club may make you want to relocate.”

“Whatever,” she said. “I just want to be free of Bob Alveezo.”

“I am sorry I didn’t get to see you dance,” said Greg, with a grin. “You have some really beautiful friends.”

“I have been known to do very nice things for friends who help me,” she said.

“I’ll try to help you as much as I can,” he said. “Is there any chance you could get a list of the tattooed women?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “I can’t just ask for one, but I can make a list myself that will cover at least a third of them.”

For Heather, nothing happened, except she used the encrypted email account Greg had put on her computer to send Vick a list of all the women she knew had the tattoo. She knew there were more, but she only listed the ones she was positive of. She had no idea that Vick shared the intel Greg had gathered with the state attorney general, who was a friend and compatriot of his from his days as a prosecutor. That man talked to some folks on the federal side of things and a plan was made to use state troopers to look at the crimes the state might want to prosecute, and the Feds prepared to see what they could discover.

Even casual surveillance soon established that Bob’s “friends” were more tempting to go after than Bob was, at least from the federal standpoint. To get his cooperation they’d need to burn him hard enough he’d fold and give up all his criminal partners. Tax evasion and racketeering would be the easiest crimes to document on him. It looked like he had extorted at least fifty, based on the tattoos, and that was only what Heather could put on her list. It was possible all of them would be happy to testify if they knew it would put him in prison for years. They might also get a piece of what Vick intended to sue Bob for. All it would take was five or six, and documentation of all the tattoos they could find. The investigation would uncover shell companies that were used to launder Bob’s illicit earnings. He also ran hundreds of thousands of dollars through the club.

Heather was asked to meet with four other men. One was the Trooper detective in charge of the state investigations. One was an IRS agent and two were FBI agents. They wanted her to use the encrypted email account as a means of future communication because nobody wanted Heather to be seen with someone and have Bob ask her who it was. When asked who might be willing to become a source, she planted the idea that Tony was the most likely, in terms of people who really knew things in detail. “You’d have to approach him carefully,” she said. “And I’d recommend you don’t do that until you already have enough to prosecute. If you offered him immunity, he could fill in all the blanks in all the investigations.”

“Why do you think he’d cooperate?”

“Because he wants to get out of all of it.”

“And you know this because...?”

“Because he told me so in bed,” she said.

“I see,” said the agent.

“You can judge all you want,” she said. “My husband has knocked up a girl half his age and can’t divorce me because Bob would demand payment of all his debt immediately. I’m the one paying off that debt so Jerry has to stay tied to me. Trust me, though, as soon as Bob is arrested I’ll divorce my husband.”

“From what you’ve told us, if Bob found out this Tony person was cooperating we might have to put him in the witness protection program. Do you think he’d do that?”

“He has no family or ties to anywhere except the club,” she said. “I think if you told him he could become another person and never see anyone associated with the club again, he’d say yes.”

“What about Chuck?” asked an agent.

“Don’t even try, unless you have him on something that will put him in prison for life. I don’t have any real evidence to prove it, but I think Chuck does most of Bob’s dirty work, including murders. He’s very loyal and he’s very cruel. Even if he says he’ll cooperate I wouldn’t trust him.”

“Is there anybody else who’ll know the big picture?”

“Not really. A few of the bouncers have gone on errands for him, but nobody is as close to him as Chuck and Tony.”

“And how likely do you think it is that Tony will cooperate?”

“If he knows he won’t be going to prison, and can live with me, I think he’ll be highly motivated to help you as much as he can.”

“See if you can feel him out on this,” said one agent. “Don’t tell him what we’re doing. Just daydream and ask him what he’d do to make things like you said.”

“Okay. It may take some time. I’ll need to do that at the right time and place.”

“Of course,” said the agent.

She managed to get some time with Tony once or twice a month, or any time Bob was away from town overnight. It was one of those times, in fact, where Heather got the idea. It was a radical idea, but it would help Vick’s plans to represent as many of the tattooed women as would sign on with him when he sued Bob Alveezo and tried to take as much of Bob’s equity as possible. He knew the government(s) would try to seize assets, but he hoped he’d get a piece of the pie.

They were lying together after having made love. Heather could still feel her lover’s semen resting in her belly. They had barely finished when Robert began fussing, so Heather got up, got him out of the swing, and laid back down with the baby between them. When she offered him a nipple he latched on greedily and Heather sighed.

“I wish we could be like this all the time,” growled Tony.

“What if we could?” she asked.

“We can’t.”

“But what if we could? What if there was a way to break free of Bob and get the hell away from Hoisington and live together?”

“That’s a nice dream, but there’s no way it can happen,” he said. “If we ran Bob would find us. He’d kill me and tattoo you. He’d pimp you out until nobody wanted to look at you.”

“I’ve been thinking about asking him to tattoo me,” she said.

He blinked.

“Why?”

“Because it will make him trust me and maybe quit paying such close attention to me. I’m going to try to get information that the police can use to shut him down. That is probably in his office and he inspects me every day before he fucks me, to decide when I can start stripping again. I think that will be pretty soon.”

“It used to bother me when he made you let him fuck you. Now it pisses me off.”

“I know. I wish you could be my exclusive lover. I don’t care if I can never dance again. I want my womb filled and bulging with a baby I know is yours.”

“What you’re doing is dangerous,” said Tony. “If he finds out you’re a rat or mole he’ll make you disappear. I’ve seen it happen. A girl threatened to go to the law and stormed out. We never saw her again.”

“Tony, I love you,” she said. “I don’t want to live like this anymore. I’m willing to do dangerous things to make my dream come true.”

“If you do that, and he really does go to jail, it will mean they know a lot about me, too. If he goes down Chuck and I will, too. I’d get a lot of years for things I’ve done.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t want you to know that stuff,” he said.

“I understand that,” she said, “But I need to know what to plan for. Just tell me one thing that you think would send you to jail.”

“I’ve helped Chuck bury some bodies,” said Tony. “I’ve driven trucks with people in the back who didn’t speak English and came out of a shipping container. There. Does that make you happy?”

She got to her hands and knees. Robert had let the nipple fall out of his mouth as he got drowsy and was now asleep. She crawled over him and got on top of Tony. When she lay down her face was right over his.

“Tony, I love the man you are in here.” She rolled and poked his chest. “Have you ever done anything bad that wasn’t because Bob told you to?”

“No, but I still did it.”

“You had to,” she said. “Just like I have to lie there and let him fuck me. I don’t have a real choice and neither did you.”

“That still doesn’t help,” he said.

“I watched a movie last night. It had Robert De Niro in it. It was called The Family. It’s pretty old, but in it De Nero testified for the government and they put him in witness protection and he and his family went to France. He got immunity for testifying. What if you could do that? What if you could get immunity, and get away?”

“How could I do that?” said Tony. “He took me in when I’d probably have been dead within a year. He’s taken care of me ever since. It would be like sending my father to jail.”

“Yes, there are a lot of things he’s done for you to be thankful for. But you have been a captive almost as much as I am. How would you feel if Robert grew up and Bob wanted to groom him to take Chuck’s place because Chuck’s getting too old. Would you want that for your son?”

“No. Of course not. But I don’t have a son not one I can claim in public.”

“That doesn’t matter. I think he’s yours and Bob is going to raise him. If you went to Bob and said, ‘Don’t make him part of the crimes,’ what do you think he’d say?”

“He’d tell me to mind my fucking business.”

“Exactly. Bob grabs people. He takes them like they’re candy bars in a store. And then he keeps them and runs their lives. Yes, it looks like he takes care of them. He gives them money but they can’t quit and go somewhere else to work. That’s you, Baby. He says he’s taking care of you but all he’s doing is making sure you’re here to do his dirty work. He doesn’t love you. He has you in a gilded cage. He has both of us in a gilded cage and we can’t go be happy. I’m on the pill, now, but in about eight or nine months he’s going to want to fuck another baby in me. I don’t want that and I’m going to try to find a way to get him out of my life. The only way I can think of to do that is either poison him or get him arrested and sent to prison. I’m not going to stoop to his level and kill him, so it has to be the other way.”

“It’s too dangerous,” he groaned.

“Then help me,” she moaned. “With what you know we could make sure he never gets out of prison. Am I wrong?”

He was silent for so long she didn’t think he was going to answer.

“How do you do that to me?” he finally said.

She looked down into his eyes.

“What do I do?” she asked.

“You make me want to do stupid things.”

“So you’ll help me?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” he said.

“You leave that to me. I’ve been doing research and I think I know what kind of people would be interested in hearing what you and I can tell them about Bob Alveezo.”

“I don’t like this,” he growled.

“All I want is for you and me to be able to be like this whenever we want, and have two or three kids crawling all over us. That’s all I want.”

“I want that, too. I’m still not sure that can happen, though. They’re not going to give me immunity for everything.”

“They will if they want to know everything you know. I’ll tell them you won’t say a word unless you have total immunity. Have you actually ever killed anybody?”

“No, but I watched it happen,” he said. “I helped make the bodies go away.”

“And don’t you think they’ll want to know where all those bodies are?”

“Yes.”

“And if they could solve three or four homicide cases, don’t you think they’d be lenient?”

“It would be a couple of dozen cases,” he said.

“Even better,” she said. “Not that I think any killings like that are good, but if you can tell them where the bodies are and who killed them, that’s going to be worth a lot of immunity, and that doesn’t even touch all the other shit he does that you know about.”

“I have to think about this,” he said.

“Okay. You do that and I’ll ask Bob to tattoo me.”

“Why?” Tony asked, with anguish in his voice.

“Because that will be evidence I can show somebody to prove he thinks he owns me and can pimp me out if he wants to. I know that’s against the law. It’s probably against the law for him to make me work here at all.”

“If we can get free, that tattoo will always remind me of this.”

“I can have it lasered off,” she said. “You can choose something to take its place.”

“I don’t own you,” said the big man.

“If you choose it and I like it and want it on my body for you to see every day, it won’t be a sign that you own me. It will only be a sign that I want you to get excited and love me.”

“I can’t think of anything like that,” he groaned.

“You don’t have to right now. You can think about that after they’ve arrested him and he’s gone.”