Recap: Evie and Jackson went to visit the strip club that Abbey worked at. There they witness a silent auction between patrons to bid for a dance with a stripper named Tanqueray. Evie questions the bartender Tia, who tells her that Abbey was not popular with the other dancers but especially with Tanqueray. Evie asks Jackson to go back alone and get a private dance.

Relevant Chapters: 1, 8, 9

Relevant Clues: Cocaine from Abbey’s apartment

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            “Are you hungry?” I said the next day as I stood on the back porch of Taste Teas.

            He meowed but kept sniffing around the bags of trash that leaned against the steps.

            “Why don’t you go sniff around on Tadd or Yuna’s stoop sometime?” I said with an undisguised coo.

            The alley cat looked up at me with big sad eyes and meowed in such a pitiful way it made me want to give him a hug. Except, you know, he’s a mangy street cat and probably has fleas or worse.

            “Oh alright, I’ll see if I can find you some food. Don’t let it be said that Evie Harper never helped a creature in need.”

            “Evie, don’t feed that animal,” Jackson said as he came down the stairs. “He’ll never go away. And if Tadd finds out he’ll kick your ass.”

            “Who’s gonna tell him?” I looked at the cat. “You gonna tell him kitty? Do you have a name Mr. Kitty?”

            “Oh Lord, please don’t name it. He’s not yours.” Jackson knelt down and hauled the bags of trash over his shoulders two at a time. He walked them to the dumpster.

            When he came back I said, “So how’d it go the other night?”

            “I did exactly what you told me to. I went alone, got in on the auction, and got into the private rooms.”

            “Evie,” Pasha said from the doorway. “There’s an old Korean woman here to see you.”

            Mama Cho? “We’ll talk about this later,” I said to Jackson.

            Why was Mama Cho here? No doubt to chew me out about the case. When I walked back up front however, the old woman waiting for me beside the counter was not Mama Cho.

            “Mrs. Seo? Hey, what are you doing here?”

            “Is that anyway to greet your Auntie? Are you not happy to see me?”

            “Well of course Mrs—“

            “Auntie. Auntie Min-Hei. I’ve known you since you were a little girl.”

            Barely. Min-Hei Seo was a notorious busybody with narcissistic tendencies. Everyone knew that she never gave much thought to you unless she wanted something. Which begged the question of why this woman I’ve only spoken to casually a handful of times is knocking on my door?

            “Of course. I’m just surprised to see you.”

            “Yes, yes I was in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by. Today seemed like a good day to try some of your tea. You said you had some on the menu just for me, remember?”

            “Yeah, I remember—“

            “I was looking at your menu, but I can’t seem to find it,” she made a grand show of looking at the menu. “You would not have lied to your Auntie now would you?”

            Is she serious? Can she not separate honest intention from casual banter? Of course she could, the twinkle in her eyes told me she knew I was lying through my teeth and there was nothing she’d like more than catching me in that lie.

            I should’ve come clean then and there. I would’ve ended this charade, but for the self-satisfied look on her face. If I told her the truth—that I’d never had any intention of getting whatever tea she’s talking about—she’d never let me live it down.

            Lord knows she’d hold her moral superiority over my head for the rest of her life. And I fully expect that after I die she’ll pop up from the other side of the Pearly Gates and insist to Saint Peter that I don’t deserve to get into heaven because of a casual lie I told to a manipulative old woman.

            And I’ll be damned if I let her lord that over me for all eternity. And that’s when the crazy kicked in. I had this unbelievable need to prove her wrong, to wipe the smirk off her face.

            I almost broke my damn face trying to smile at her. “Of course. Have a seat—it’s in the back…I’ll just go get it.”

            “I’ll be right here,” she said as she sat at a table. “Don’t take too long.”

            After leaving Pasha in charge (seems I do that a lot these days), I snuck through the back door. I doubt I’d be able to find this tea she wanted at Wal-Mart so instead I walked next door to ask the neighborhood health nut.

            Niyama Nirvana was an odd place that smelled like cedar, lavender, and sweat. The sound of upbeat sitar music played from the speakers hidden behind the real gardenias that Yuna had insisted on to her business partner Sam.

            One of Yuna’s receptionists led me down the long corridor toward her office. In some of the rooms, women from college to middle aged stretched and toned muscles my own body probably didn’t realize existed.

            I’m not even sure what the hell they’re doing. In my day, some good ol’ jumping jacks and squats sufficed. These women look like they’re trying to tie themselves into knots, but whatever, to each his own.

            When I was led into Yuna’s office she was just hanging up the phone, “What can I do for you, Evie? Are you finally here to coordinate an exercise regime? With my help, you can get back into shape.”

            “No, I—what the hell is that supposed to mean? You know what, whatever. Do you know where I can find something called omija tea?”

            “The internet is your friend, dear.”

            “I don’t have time for a first class delivery from Asia. I need this in the next twenty minutes or less.”

            “Oh my. What exactly is happening?”

            I told her.

            She tisk-ed. “I recommend the truth. Honesty cleanses the soul.”

            “Maybe, but I’m not looking to be honest. I just want to get away with it!”

            “We need to have a talk about integrity, dear. And shouldn’t you know where to get it. Don’t you specialize in teas?”

            “Yeah, but not this one. I looked into it when we were opening, but it wasn’t cost effective. There’s just not that big of a market here.” I shrugged. “I thought you might know since you hold those tea tastings sometimes. By the way, not happy about the competition.”

            “Hold on, let me check my records.” She wheeled around to her file cabinet and flipped through a drawer. “Sarah keeps such good records—hard records. I never liked electronic filing. Last time we had a tea tasting she was the one who did the inventory. I’m really glad I’ve got someone like her around, you know? I’m so scatterbrained sometimes. But where one soul is weak the other is strong.”

            “It almost sounds like you have a crush on the girl. I’m going to tell Sam on you.”’

            She gave me one of her fanciful laughs, “Oh Evie, you are so very droll, dear—ah! Here we are. Last month on the twelfth she ordered some from Yi’s Market. Do you know the place?”

            “I happen to know the owner,” I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me before that if Mrs. Seo was buying the tea she’d get it from someone she knows.

            “How serendipitous. While I’ve got you here I wanted to ask how your date went with that attractive young officer.”

            “I really don’t have the time.” Mostly because I’m not sure how to feel about last night.

            “I only wanted to advise you to be as open and vocal about your needs as I’m sure he will be with you,” she said with a theatrical wave of her hand.

            “Okay, thanks. But it’s really soon—“

            “I mean just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you don’t have needs. Make sure you instruct him on how to please you.”

            “Wow. This conversation just got uncomfortable.”

            “That’s what I’m talking about, Evie. You should feel comfortable. Being able to express sexuality is an important part of being a well rounded spiritual being. Did I ever tell you we teach a Tantric sex class three times a month?”

            “Unfortunately yes.” You know two minutes ago my entire life revolved around sparing myself from a lecture on being a liar from an ornery old woman, now I just want to make it out of this office with my dignity still intact.

            “You might enjoy it. I’ve learned so much since we started it. For example, my Sammie and I—“

            “Let me stop you right there. Please, in sweet baby Jesus’ name, do not give me any details of yours and Sam’s love life.” I shook my head. “Just don’t.”

            “I’m only trying to help.”

            “You’ve been plenty helpful today,” I stood. ‘I’ve got to get going.”

            “Take my bike.”

            “And get exercise? Why?”

            “Because if you drive by the front window in your car she’ll see you.”

            “Look at you being all devious. What about all that stuff about honesty and being one with the universe and shit?”

            “This Mrs. Seo woman sounds like my Sam’s mother. She’s also…difficult. You have my sympathy. And my bike.” She took her keys out of a drawer and tossed them to me. “I suggest you peddle fast.”

          By the time I got to Yi’s Market I was huffing and puffing so bad he thought I was going into cardiac arrest or something.

            “Evie should I call an ambulance?” he said with that humored tone he has.

            “Ha…ha! I’m fine.” When I caught my breath I dragged myself over to where he was seated behind the well stocked check-out counter.

            “Didn’t I see you at the wedding?” he said.

            “Yeah. Han invited me.”

            “Weren’t you on a table last time I saw you?”

            “I’d thought all the old crusty people had gone home by then.”

            “It’s a habit of mine to watch young fools shame themselves.” Touché. “I loved your rendition of Endless Love, by the way. It was beautiful but off-key. Sing from the diaphragm next time!”

            Everybody’s a goddamn critic. “Mr. Yi do you happen to carry tea, uh…o-mi-ja?”

            He frowned. “Gah! That pronunciation! Your Korean is awful. You talk much too slow. And people say my accent is bad!”

            “Alright! Geez. You got it or not?” Some days it’s like I’m surrounded by crazy people.

            “As a matter of fact I do.” He came from around the counter. “I’ll show you.”

            I followed him down aisle seven, mostly condiments I didn’t recognize, utensils I wouldn’t know how to use, and the peculiar Cuban cuisine section that was about as out of place as you’d imagine.

            He took me to the produce section, stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables—some I recognized and some I didn’t, and stopped in front of a row of bright red berries. “Here we are.” he said as he picked up a bunch of the berries.

            “That’s it? All this fuss over some little red grapes?”

            “Only place to get them in the city,” he said as we walked up aisle three. “Here take the watermelon juice too. For sweetener.”

            “Is this part of the recipe or are you just trying to get more money out of me?”

            “What?” he looked over at me indignantly. “I’d never do that. I’m an honest business man.”

            And I’m a monkey’s uncle. “Of course you are.” While I was at it I went ahead and picked up a can of tuna.

            “I heard about Ha Le. Such a shame. He was always such a good kid, if not thick-headed. You never know with some people.”

            “He’s still a good kid,” I insisted.

            “Sure he is. And you’re a great singer.” I couldn’t help laughing as I watched him ring up my items all the while blathering about somebody or other whose name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place the face. “That’s everything. Okay, sixty-five thirty-seven.”

            “Are you out of your—“ I was dangerously close to asking if he was out of his fucking mind but the irreversible respect for my elders that momma pounded into me kept the cap on that. “—Sixty-five thirty-seven for some little red grapes! Did you have them flown in from South Korea—first class!”

            “Nope. Nebraska. It’s too hot to grow here in Florida. I have an old friend who lives in Nebraska and he grows them on his farm. It was always his favorite.”

            “And that’s why it’s so expensive? Because you have to have it shipped in? Not because this is the only place to buy it in town?”

            “Absolutely not. I already told you, I’m an honest business man.”

            “Right.” As it turns out preserving my immortal soul is expensive. But my pride won over my good sense so I forked over my hard earned cash and high tailed it back to Taste Teas.

            “Sorry,” I said as I walked back to the front where Mrs. Seo sat tapping her foot. “It was really far back on the shelf…in the refrigerator.” I tried to hide the shallow breaths I was taking.

            When I held up the berries in triumph, Mrs. Seo’s face was stoic for once. Checkmate. “I was beginning to think I would never have my tea.”

            “Of course not. Here at Taste Teas we always make good on our promises.” The smile I gave her was surely arrogant and borderline flip but she couldn’t say anything about that. I won this round. “Pasha, make the tea for me please. I need to speak with Jackson.”

            While she got busy with that I opened the can of tuna and motioned for Jackson to follow me to the back alley. He wordlessly nodded and followed behind me.

            “Okay so what happened?” I asked as he sat down on the stoop.

            “So, I get up in there, sit down at a table like you told me and tried to win a dance with Tanqueray.”

            “But you didn’t?”

            “No, it turns out she’s too expensive and she cost way more than you gave me anyway.”

            “Oh.” I’d given him two hundred dollars.

            “So instead I went ahead and got a cheaper girl so I could check out the private rooms. She was only fifty.”

            “So where’s the rest of the money?” I sat the can of tuna down near the bottom step.

            “I’m getting there I just have to properly set up my anadote.”

            “Anecdote.”

            He gave me the stank-eye. “Thank you, miss college educated. Anyway I got this girl named Hooptie—“

            “Jackson, that was not her name!”

            “It was some car name like Lexus or Mercedes or Miata or some shit. But trust, I seen under that hood. Babygirl was not a Mercedes. Kinda chunky, kinda old and not so pretty you know? But hey, fifty dollars you get what you pay for amiright?”

               “Focus, man!”

            “So anyway I won her and she takes me back into the private rooms. After a bouncer patted me down and shit.”

               “What was it like?”

            “Same as any I’ve ever seen—well smaller. Even though the rooms say private they usually are big enough to fit a group. You know like a party. But these were actually only small enough for a couple couches and some tables. And it had this tacky wallpaper—“

               “What color?”

            “The fuck? Who cares? The point is I remember thinking it was ugly. And for me to notice that with a…mildly attractive woman in front of me tells you how ugly it was.”

            “Is this relevant?” I asked as I watched that old alley cat peek from behind the dumpster and stroll over the tuna can. For some reason feeding him made me happier than one-upping Mrs. Seo.

            “If you let me finish the damn story! So she asks me what I like and I’m like ‘whatchu got’, and she offers to suck my dick for twenty-five.”

            “What!”

            “Oh yeah. So after I gave her the money—“

            “Jackson!” I was so loud the poor cat almost jumped out of his fur. “You didn’t?”

            “Evie, you have to understand… Hooptie had an ass that would not quit!”

            I rolled my eyes at that one. There’s twenty-five dollars I’m never going to see again.

            “So I handed her the money,” he continued. “and she walks over to the wallpaper and knocks. And I’m thinking ‘this bitch is crazy, why you gon’ knock on the wall like you trying to find the sweet spot’, but then a little door opened up.”

            “A little door?”

            “Yeah. Like when you go to the clinic to take a mandatory drug test and they make you piss in the cup? It’s just like that but instead of being silver it was the same color as the wallpaper. That’s how come I didn’t see the shit at first. There wasn’t even a handle.”

            “Why on Earth would there be a specimen pass-through in a strip club?”

            “Fuck if I know. She put the money in the door and closed it. Then, you know, we uh—“

            “I got it.”

            “So when we finished, she gets up—butt ass naked—“

            “I thought it was just a blowjob?”

            “Well I thought since I was there and I’d already paid—“

            “With my money.”

            “—That I might as well get some of that ass too!”

            My sigh was resigned but not surprised.

            He ignored me. “She goes over and knocks again. The money was gone.”

            “Probably someone on the other side of the door.”

            “Yeah but this time in its place was a couple lines of cocaine!”

            “…Jackson, you didn’t…”

            “No! Evie, I don’t do that anymore…but I thought about it. I thought about it real hard,” he paused, mind deep someplace in that dark corner of his memories where he remembers everything he lost to addiction. “She said, ‘the first hit’s on the house’, that’s when I left.”

            “I’m proud of you.”

            “I’m proud of me too.”

            Even though he hadn’t been able to get Tanqueray, he’d still given me a lot to think about. Why all the secrecy? That’s a stupid question. Obviously secrecy is a key part of illegal operations. It was just so rare to witness that kind of sophistication from a street gang.

            Jackson had the same thought. “Seems a little too complicated to me. Back with my old crew, hookers just stood on the corner.”

            “It’s because the strip club is a cover business for a brothel.”

            “Hmm?”

            “A bordello.” he shrugged at me. “Jackson, a whorehouse.”

            “That’s all you had to say. Speaking French and shit. I ain’t got time for you to be acting cute.”

            I’ve about met my quota of Jackson’s attitude for the day. “Everybody knows what a brothel is. But anyway you’re right, it is complicated.”

            “It’s kinda like those massage parlors that have the happy endings.”

            He was right. It was exactly like that. When the police came knocking (and they would) it’s easy enough to cover their trail when their cover business already deals in sexuality. But there was still more to learn there. Could Abbey have been killed by a former John? Or was it someone from the club? Tia had said that the other girls hadn’t liked her.

            Then again, maybe it wasn’t woman they were truly selling but drugs. But again that was a really sophisticated business model for any run-of-the-mill street gang to have. Sell your drugs with your sex. Double the pleasure, double the payment.

            As we were going back in through the door Pasha was standing there waiting for me. “Evie, there’s a guy here to see you.”

            “What’s the matter with you?”

            She blushed, her eyes darting back and forth. “It’s nothing just uh…he’s like really beautiful.”

            “…Oh. Yes, he is.”

            Inside Mrs. Seo was on the attack, “Ha Le, you have become such a handsome man. You remember my daughter Junie don’t you? She just broke up with her boyfriend. So sad! She could really use a friend.”

            “Sorry Mrs. Seo. I’m busy. Oh Evie!” Harley looked better than the last time I’d seen him. More rested and more like himself but still agitated.

            “Hey. What are you doing here?”

            “You know how I am. I can’t just sit around and wait for things to happen to me. I get restless.”

            “So you came for some tea? I can probably give you something to help with the restlessness.”

            He smiled at that. “No, but that was cute. I want to help with the case.”

            “Well, okay,” A day with Harley. I resisted the impulse to squeal with delight. Then I felt stupid for that. He was only here to make sure I was doing my job, after all. “I was thinking about visiting Abbey’s mother today.”

            “Alright cool. Count me in, Kid.” For the first time in days he gave me one of those world rocking smiles. I smiled back trying my hardest to ignore the fluttering that sprang to life in my heart.        

            It was nothing. Or at least that was what I kept telling myself.