Free Royal Flush by Stephanie Caffrey Page B

move on. "We'll be back, don't worry."
    Carlos and I took an oh-so-casual peek into the booth closest to where Charles had been hanging out. Sure enough, Jojia was sitting at the table, surrounded by a half-dozen others. She was wearing a cute black dress and had her hair up in some kind of narrow arrangement. In front of her lay a bottle of water and a little baggie that looked as if it had pills in it.
    We breezed by the booth and turned around a corner to talk in private.
    "What the hell was that?" Carlos asked. "Your little brother? Come on."
    I shrugged. "The bigger question is, were those pills in there?"
    "I saw them," he said. "I'm guessing your friend Charles is standing guard out there in case the cocktail waitress swings by at the wrong time."
    "What do you think they are?"
    "Probably ecstasy, or something like it. Club drugs, you know."
    I frowned. "No, I don't know. This isn't my scene, remember?"
    He made a point of looking me up and down. "No kidding."
    I brushed Carlos off. Making fun of my outfit was too easy, and I wasn't about to get upset about it. I thought for a minute, not sure I wanted to get involved with Jojia if she was using drugs. I had been planning on having a casual chat with her, but now it looked as if she was up to no good. And she even had a lookout working for her.
    "Maybe that's why she's so popular," I wondered aloud. "If she's supplying half the county with free club drugs, it's no wonder that she has five thousand friends."
    "Why do you care that she's popular?" Carlos asked.
    "I guess I shouldn't care. It's just something that's been bugging me. Makes me think back to high school."
    "And this has something to do with the case you're working?"
    Carlos had a point. "Not exactly ," I said. "But I couldn't find much more about Kent, and so this girl is the next best thing. I figure he's working the same angle on her, and possibly others too."
    "She seems to be working an angle of her own," Carlos said.
    I peeked around the corner to look back at Jojia's booth. The lookout had gone, so the coast was clear.
    "Let's go back that way and do a slow walk-by. Don't be obvious, though," I said.
    He sighed. "Got it, boss."
    The two of us turned back toward the VIP booth and slowly sauntered by, pretending to be enjoying each other's company. When we passed the booth I peeked inside.
    "Empty," Carlos said, stating the obvious.
    "Look over there." I was pointing at the steps leading down into the dance pit, where a gaggle of glitterati was making its way down to the floor. They were all following Charles. Jojia, the queen bee, was in the center.
    "You want to dance with her?" I asked.
    Carlos shrugged. "She's pretty."
    "That's not really the point," I said.
    "Then why don't you dance with her?" he asked.
    "Because I feel ridiculous, especially next to her ." Compared to Jojia's tiny frame, I looked like a school bus, with extra-large headlights.
    "What do you want to know?" he asked.
    "I don't know yet. But see if you can figure out the drug situation. That would be a good start."
    "Got it. I'm going to need some drinks, though. I'm a terrible dancer," he said. It was a bold admission from someone as cocky as Carlos was.
    "Just try to keep the tab under two hundred bucks, will you?" I was only half-joking.
    He smiled and headed downstairs to enter the fray. The DJ had just whipped up the crowd into a frenzy, and the strobe effect of all the multi-colored lights was in full force, apparently trying to induce seizures in as many dancers as possible. I watched Carlos go find himself a drink, which he chugged, and then I took the steps downstairs one by one, slowly absorbing the bacchanal scene in front of me. Just when I thought the music had gotten as loud as it could, the bass started thumping even more urgently, and then a shower of confetti exploded from up above, covering us all with the tiny little pieces of paper. If this kind of excess happened on a Thursday night, I wondered what it was like on