Wildcard (Mothership Rangers 1)

Wildcard (Mothership Rangers 1)
Angela Knight
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2024 Angela Knight

Rowan

I eyed the long, low stucco building as I got out of the car.

Pink neon depicted the outline of a writhing nude woman with a tail and cat ears wrapped around a purple neon stripper pole. More neon read “Pole Katz Gentleman’s Club,” in red.

You sure this is the right address? I asked my computer implant.

Qubit’s silky female voice replied, Her nanos ping from this location, and have been doing so for five hours a night for thirty-eight days. There’s a 93.8 percent chance she’s working here.

Why? She sure doesn’t need the money. I frowned at the neon stripper. Has to be hunting.

Odds are running at 87.6, Qubit agreed.

Indra Fox was going to be about as happy to see me as a serial killer finding cops at the door. And for the same reason.

I headed for the purple awning over the club’s entrance. Even without enhanced senses, I’d have been able to hear the music -- Beyonce purring about getting frisky in a limo.

Qubit displayed results from sensor scans and web searches along the periphery of my visual field, flashing the club’s layout and the number of people inside -- one hundred and fifty-three patrons and staff. Of those, one hundred and fifty-two were Nats -- natural humans. There was only one who wasn’t. Indra Fox.

Double doors led into a narrow, black-walled foyer vibrating with music just short of deafening. To my left stood a cashier’s window where a bored-looking woman in a bare-midriff Pole Katz T manned a Square station. A sign over the window informed me of the twenty-dollar cover charge.

“Hi, there,” the cashier purred, giving me an approving once-over.

Pulling out my wallet, I peeled off a twenty and handed it over.

“Thanks,” she said. “Enjoy.”

“I’m sure I will.” I turned to find a narrow-eyed bouncer glowering by the curtained entry to the main room. He wore black chinos and a black T that said SECURITY in all caps. He looked the part, too -- six-foot-three, 232.8 pounds, per Qubit’s sensors -- with skin the color of teak, a shaved head, and full-sleeve tats on massive arms. Judging from his expression, he didn’t like the looks of me. Probably because big as he was, I was bigger. I suspected he was also trying to figure out if I was a cop. Or worse, if I’d get drunk and disorderly, and if he could handle me if I did.

Dude, you wouldn’t have a prayer.

“Don’t touch the girls,” he warned. “Be a gentleman.”

“I’m never anything but.”

He looked dubious, but I gave him a twenty-dollar tip, and he relaxed as if reassured. Which might be a bit premature, depending on what happened with Fox.

I stepped past him through the curtained doorway into an eye-searing storm of thumping music and colored light. The club’s dark walls were covered with neon silhouettes of women in erotic poses, and the floor was scuffed dark wood. A curving translucent bar glowed to the right, edged in yet more neon.

You need to buy a drink first, Qubit told me. There’s an etiquette to patronizing these places, and you don’t want to draw attention.

Yeah, I’d hate to be conspicuous. I was six and a half feet tall. Conspicuous was pretty much baked into the cake. Snorting, I headed to the bar to collect an overpriced Scotch, then turned to work my way through the crowd as Qubit scanned for our target.

The focus of the room was an oval stage with a pair of sturdy chrome poles, a set of four steps at one end. A ring of plump chairs in red velvet surrounded it, occupied by rapt patrons. Additional groupings of chairs and tables clustered around that, mostly men, with a few couples scattered here and there.

A blonde Nat girl worked one of the poles to the cheers and hoots of the customers. I headed for the chairs around the stage.

If you sit there, you’ll be expected to tip every dancer, Qubit warned as I dropped into the sole unoccupied seat.

Money not being a problem -- one of the perks of working for Mama -- I shrugged. Fine. If Fox is dancing, I want to make eye contact. According to her file, the only one of us Indra had ever met was Diana Newman. I wanted to see how she’d react to me.

The blonde dancer bounced upward, grabbed the pole hand over hand and swung her way around it, arching her leanly muscled body into a seductive curve. She was down to a G-string and pasties, so she must be most of the way through her act.

I would have been interested, but I could smell her. Not that she smelled bad -- fresh sweat, some kind of floral shampoo and citrus body wash, a hint of mint from her mouthwash. But underneath that, she smelled Nat. So no, not my type, though she had the kind of lean grace you get from swinging around a pole for hours a day.

Frowning, I watched her spin and grind. Why hadn’t Mama ordered Indra Fox and Diana Newman picked up when their parents were murdered? Or if not then, once it became clear they were stalking the killers?

Instead, Mama had let the two run. Now Newman was offline too, and Fox was still killing assholes.

The blonde finished her routine. Absently, I held up a ten. The Nat sauntered over and knelt so I could tuck it into her G-string. Giving me a dazzling smile, she winked. “Want a lap dance?”

I smiled and shook my head. Looking disappointed, she stood and headed for the next bill. The guy who waved it looked a lot more enthusiastic.

This whole fucking thing is weird. Fox has capped four men in the past year. Why not pick her up before now? Mama doesn’t approve of merking people, even actual mercs.

It was a rhetorical question, but Qubit answered anyway. She didn’t share her reasoning.

There’s a shock.

Not that I was shedding any tears for Fox’s victims. According to the police files Qubit had hacked, they’d been members of Satan’s Horsemen, a mercenary gang suspected in a slew of illegal shit -- drug trafficking, prostitution, gun running, murder for hire. No wonder the cops didn’t care they’d ended up room temperature. Though judging by the crime scene pics, Fox’s temper was almost as nasty as mine.

The local po-po also suspected Pole Katz was run by the Horsemen, though a couple of raids had turned up jack in the way of evidence. All they’d managed to do was charge two girls with allowing a little too much groping during lap dances.

Any of the gang present?