Read Online The Gray Zone by Daphna Edwards Ziman - Free Book Online Page B

aroused by just thinking about the woman in the red satin dress.
    * * *
    The man guarding the back door of the club either recognized Jake or wasn’t getting paid enough, because he nodded the celebrity attorney through with barely a blink as he pocketed his twenty-dollar bill. Jake strode down a backstage hallway, invigorated, suddenly wide-awake with purpose. He found the door he was looking for and threw it open.
    “Excuse me, ladies.” Half a dozen dancers looked up, bored. Their dressing room was cramped and stuffy, thick with the smell of cigarettes, perfume, and sweat.
    “I’m looking for the girl who does the Marilyn act.”
    “Join the club,” droned a tall Asian dancer in a green evening gown. “She left us in the shitter tonight, without a headlining act.” She dragged a tube of red lipstick across her mouth and then pushed past Jake. “Excuse me, I’m on.” Jake stepped back courteously, and the woman winked as she passed him.
    “Kelly didn’t show up today,” rasped another voice. Jake looked appreciatively at a petite, pale redhead in a black silk kimono. She dangled a cigarette between her fingers and sat back in her chair, her feet up on the makeup counter. “Some of her stuff is still here.” The redhead poked her cigarette toward a pile of costumes in the corner, abandoning any sense of concern for privacy or confidentiality.
    “Do you mind?” asked Jake, gesturing to the pile. “She might have left me a clue or a note,” he added, taking a calculated risk with this falsehood. Perhaps he would be told that Kelly had somebody and it wasn’t him—information that could be helpful.
    The redhead shrugged. “I don’t care.”
    Jake dug through the dresses, five or six of them, in red and black. Underneath were some high-heeled shoes and gloves. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he knew this wasn’t it.
    “She leave anything else?”
    “Nope. Took her makeup kit.”
    “You could look in here.” Another dancer, who appeared to be seventeen at the very most, materialized at Jake’s elbow. She smiled at him, and Jake noticed the faintest scar running from between her nostrils to her upper lip. At the end of the room was a closet door. The girl opened it and Jake jolted, then laughed. The closet had four shelves, and on every shelf stood three Styrofoam heads, each wearing a wig. There were red, black, blonde, and brunette wigs, along with three platinum blonde ones. His hunch was completely crazy. Like he’d thought before, how many Marilyn wigs were there in Las Vegas? In less than twenty-four hours, he’d seen at least five.
    Jake smiled at the young dancer. “Your big bad boss around?”
    “I just saw him at the bar.”
    “Thanks,” said Jake, then whispered, “Get out of this place as soon as you can.”
    The girl looked at him, surprised. “You mean tonight?” she called after him, confused.
    Jake entered the club through a door at the end of the hall and headed for the bar. He could see the owner at a dark table in the back, sitting by a showgirl who looked like Britney Spears. His hand was on her back, and his thumb was worming its way under her halter top.
    Shrake was known to be a liar and a cheat, a balding cherub of a man with the unforgiving eyes of a hyena. Their meeting the night before had been less than friendly, as Jake recalled it now. While Brooks had been engrossed in “Marilyn Monroe’s” act, Shrake had scurried up to him with a briefcase. He’d opened it on his lap. It was filled with money, of course. Jake had been annoyed.
    “You trying to ask me for a favor?” he’d said, jerking his chin at the briefcase.
    Shrake had pulled back, feigning injury. Pulling his chubby face into a serious expression, he’d simpered, “I got a pal up on murder one.”
    “A hit?”
    “I’d say, uh, self-defense.”
    Jake sighed. “What does the DA say?”
    “Seems they found fifty G’s on my friend.”
    “You want me to go to all the trouble of