As if his time working the club wasn’t bad enough, now that he was one of the crew, all the gals at the club wanted to pal around during the daytime hours too. Time he could have been working the case or sleeping. But with their stories his only good leads on the remaining names on his missing persons list, the detective played along. When Clarabelle, the bombshell that did the club’s magic act, let slip her name was once “Eustace”, the detective mentally crossed off another name on his list. And didn’t blame the gal one bit for popping the pills just to get the name change.
That night for his shift, the investigator squeezed himself into the uniform once again only to find the boss lady herself waiting outside the changing room. He’d been avoiding her for long enough. Either he starts working with her on a stage act or the only place to work is the booths upstairs. The detective seemed like a good gal so the boss didn’t want her working with the crooks up there. Given that he’d put away goons from over half the shady customers up there, he was inclined to agree that the farther away he stayed from them, the safer. The boss gave his hefty rack a prod and said that a dame of his... talents was wasted as a waitress.
The case was never closer to being finalized but also never closer to crashing in on itself. He had most of the missing persons identified, but the remaining names had already left the club and hightailed it out of their posh town with no intention of ever coming back. For the gals still around, not a one of them seemed willing to go back, even if the detective tried to drag them to their former homes himself. Not that he’d want to. They seemed like good kids and were a heck of a lot happier now than with his stuffy clients. But the case was the case and if he didn’t deliver names, locations, and dames, it wasn’t getting closed and he wasn’t getting paid. The detective poured himself another shot and slammed the bottle down. Working the club got him info, but everybody expected that they were only working there to get more pills and change further. Staying on their good side was also the only way he could keep himself from being found out by the pills’ suppliers, who were his only hope of getting back to normal. Cheese off his gal pals and they rat him out to the boat operation. Best case scenario is they cut him off and he loses the protection of the club and its paychecks. Worst case scenario... Anything from dumped in the river to dumped in the river with the contents of a whole jar of pills in his stomach.
He ran a hand through his now thick mane of hair and grunted. All those woes and he still couldn’t carry a tune. After a few more paydays at the club, he doubted anybody would actually be listening to his crooning when he minced out on stage...