I get an IPA just as a stripper comes onto the stage.
Manhuntby Karen Kamon comes on, and the lighting reminds me ofFlashdance,but that’s where any resemblance ends.
The woman on the pole moves easily like it’s muscle memory—slow, practiced arcs that shimmer under the low red lights. This isn’t classy dancing, it’s tits and ass and pussy.
Her sequined thong catches glints from the disco ball overhead, but it’s her eyes I notice—flat, glassy, disconnected.
The men hoot and slap the edge of the stage, waving bills like they’re holding power, not paper.
The dancer slides down the pole in an elegant spiral that feels more like surrender than seduction.
Ricky chuckles beside me, nudging my arm. I jerk away.
This place smells of desperation.
Of stale beer, sweat. Cheap perfume clings to everything.
There’s no joy in this room. Only hunger, transaction, and women learning how to disappear in plain sight.
Faith works here.
Georgia said she was cleaning, but I needed to check it out for myself. I don’t think I could stand it if she were working the pole or giving lap dances.
“Faith here?” I ask as casually as I can pretend.
Ricky scoffs. “If by ‘here’ you mean cleaning up puke, scrubbing urinals, and mopping the floor for minimum wage, then yeah — she’s a regular career woman.”
I bristle. “She in today?”
“Yeah, she’s in every day.”
I swallow.
“She don’t take days off,” Ricky continues.
I drink some more beer that I can’t taste.
He leans an elbow on the bar, so he’s in my face. “If she stole ten grand, you really think she’d be here? Cleaning toilets for me?Puh-lease. She’d be in Mexico with a drink in her hand and your money in her bra.”
I stare at him. “She was told not to leave town.”
Even I know that sounds stupid. If she did steal the money then what the fuck did she care that a small-town county sheriff told her to stay in town?
There wouldn’t be a manhunt for a crime so banal. She could leave. No one expects her to stay…ifshe has all that money.
I can still hear Lo.“We dusted the safe. No prints were hers.”
“Where is she?”
“Why the fuck do you want to know?”
I pick up her coat. She called it vintage. It’s second-hand, bought at the thrift store off of Main Street. By the look of it, it’s probably fifth-hand at this point.
If she stole in Seattle, wouldn’t she be doing something with that money instead of working at a diner for minimum wage?
Ifshe stole, Cain.
But Kyle said…
