Suddenly, what she was saying cut through my melancholy.

I straightened in my chair.

“And?” I prompted.

“And part of my job is takin’ down the preliminaries of a possible case and reporting those to him. If he’s going to decline, usually he does it without a meet. That means he doesn’t decline, I do.”

I nodded.

She kept talking.

“He never says no without givin’ them a referral. Most of the shit goes to Dick Anderson. Occasionally he’ll want something referred to Sylvie Bissenette. There’s a player in town called Hawk who has specialties that aren’t Lee’s specialties and he’ll punt shit to him, too. This is rare. Most of his refusals go to Anderson.”

“Okay,” I again said cautiously.

“And now, some of them will go to you,” she finished.

Oh my God.

This was righteous!

“Shirleen—” I started, and she lifted a hand.

I swallowed annoyance at getting The Hand and shut up.

“Darius has talked to me and he says you’re good. He also says he’s gonna keep workin’ with you. Brody says the same. Lee has not come down on this and I’m waitin’ to see if he will. But regardless, my nephew doesn’t talk shit to me. He says it straight. So if he says you’re good, and I’ve seen the way you are, girl, I know you got somethin’, then I’m good with punting refusals to you. But Lee trades on his reputation, and the reason he refers to Anderson, Bissenette and Hawk is that he trusts them to take care of the business he refuses. Referrals reflect on him. You f**k up, that reflects on your brother. Not only ‘cause you got the same name, but you got the business because of his referral. But his referral is one given by me. You make me regret that once, that will be the only time I regret shit.”

“Shit happens, Shirleen,” I told her. “But whatever shit happens, I’ll bust my ass to be sure you won’t regret this. And I sure as hell won’t do anything that will reflect poorly on Lee.”

She nodded. “I hear you. I believe you. Now, take into account that he’s not gonna know I’m doin’ this until he finds out I’m doin’ this. And he knows pretty much everything, so I figure it’ll take him about a day to find that shit out. I’ll handle him. In other words, I’m throwin’ myself in that lion’s den. For you. Don’t make me regret that shit either.”

There were two people who could “handle” Lee. Indy. And Shirleen. Mom couldn’t even do it and had given up trying years ago.

Though Indy’s batting average was better with that.

Still, what Shirleen was saying was that she intended to go to the mat for me.

“Thank you, chickie,” I murmured on a smile.

She smiled back, reached out a hand, took mine and gave me a quick squeeze.

Then she let me go and announced, “I need a refill. Java, Ally?”

I nodded to her and watched her get up, grab her mug and give me rolled eyes before she took the mug Smithie had lifted her way in silent demand for more coffee.

She headed to the pot.

Daisy was at the grill of her massive, restaurant-quality stove flipping pancakes.

Smithie spoke to me. “Shirleen can give you business. I already got some.”

I looked at him and the chill that was left on my insides after ending things with Ren started warming.

“No shit?” I asked.

“None at all. I got a situation at the club,” he told me. “And I ain’t payin’ Lee’s prices ‘cause that shit is highway robbery. And anyway, he don’t got no bitches on staff and he took this job, Lord knows what he’d find me. I gotta have a girl backstage, which means onstage, so she’s gotta be right.” He tipped his head to me. “You’re right.”

Oh f**k.

This didn’t sound promising.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m gonna hire you to find out,” Smithie answered.

“Okay, what’s happening?” I amended my question.

“What’s happenin’ is, bitches are quiet. My bitches are never quiet. None of ‘em. Waitresses. Dancers. Even the one female bartender I got bends my ear so much it’s a wonder it ain’t torn clean off. They got boyfriend problems. They got car problems. They got childcare issues. They’re on the rag. They didn’t get their rag—”

I rolled a hand at him and said, “I get it. Move it on, Smithie.”

“Right. Now?’ He shook his head. “None ‘a that shit. Not one thing,” he stated.

“You got an idea why?” I asked as Shirleen slid mugs in front of Smithie and me.

“Got a bouncer. Hired him, good guy, checked out. I think he snowed me ‘cause my girls… they’re scared of him.”

The skin at the back of my neck prickled.

“Usually,” he went on, “that kinda shit happens, it’s because he’s creepin’ and I just fire the ass**le. But he wasn’t creepin’, not that I could see.”

I nodded.

Smithie kept talking. “But I fired him anyway. When I did, he told me he was filing a wrongful termination suit. I have no idea what that shit is. I just know I don’t want that kind of bullshit hassle. So I kept him on, kept my eye on him and set Lenny on him. Lenny’s close to graduating from DU so he’s got other shit on, but it don’t matter. Neither of us is findin’ anything. We need a girl in there to keep her eye on shit and either give me a valid reason to can his ass or give me reason to beat his ass until he’s close to not breathing. I prefer number two. But I could live with the number one, long’s it happens fast.”

“So you need me to waitress,” I tried.

And failed.

“I need you to dance.”

Oh shit.

“Uh, Smithie—”

He cut me off. “The waitresses don’t often go backstage. Whatever’s happening is happening back there. Bouncers will go back, provide presence, protection or so they can walk the girls to their cars. I usually ask another one to do that shit, but he comes up on rotation ‘cause I gotta be careful not to single him out and give him shit that he can give me shit about.”

“I don’t dance,” I told him.

“Daisy’ll teach you.”

She would. She’d taught Lottie, Jet’s sister, Smithie’s headliner, and the premier stripper in the western half of the United States (not kidding).