Cut and Run Read Online Free PDF

and heard him talking to her that way, he’d backhand Paul across the room. But she said, ‘Sure, Paul,
     sure,’ and kept her gaze to the floor. She closed the suite door after her.
    The two dancers, the tall one they called Red Robin and a stunning black girl named Tasha, chatted in the hall, wearing their
     stupid theme costumes. Frank wouldn’t let the girls simply strip, no, they had to be characters. Red Robin had a leather bikini
     with cowboy fringe, a holsterwith little fake pearl-handled revolvers, and a white Stetson. Tasha wore a bra covered with CDs, and a miniature flat fake
     computer screen mounted in front of her crotch. A computer mouse’s cord wound around her throat like a necklace, the mouse
     resting atop mountainous breasts. Eve wondered how much the gear weighed. She’d heard Paul was hot for this one.
    ‘Y’all can go in now,’ Eve said.
    Red Robin did, already swaying her hips to the downstairs music, but Tasha stopped. ‘Hi, Eve, how are you doing?’ Tasha spoke
     with the clean enunciation of an actress. No street about her.
    ‘Fine, honey,’ Eve said with a thin smile.
    ‘I wanted to talk to you … you know a lot about money, right?’
    ‘Depends.’
    ‘Well, Paul said you knew how to hide cash. So you don’t have to pay taxes on it.’
    ‘Paul’s mistaken.’ Eve jerked her head toward the door. ‘And he’s waiting for you.’
    ‘Sure, Eve. No offense meant.’ Tasha went inside, shutting the door behind her.
    Eve stood alone in the thin light of the hall. Paul deciding deals involving millions –
millions
– and shutting her out. Now an uppity big-titted dancer wanting tips on taxes because Paul mouthed off about cleaning money,
     a topic his father never would have discussed with a girlfriend.
    A little pulse of nausea seeped into her guts. She hadn’t wanted to come to Houston, God no, swearing never to set foot in
     Texas again, but Tommy had insisted she and Frank come to Houston with him when the other mob bosses forced him out of Detroit.
     Connecting a minor celebrity like Frank to the Topaz had been sheer genius for generating interest and crowds and giving it
     a morerespectable sheen. Then the stroke took out Tommy and now Paul was risking everything they’d built.
    Eve walked down the flight of red-carpeted stairs. Club Topaz was in full swing, a cramped city of men. In the dim light a
     trio of women danced on three different runways, all three of them stunningly beautiful. Throngs of men, and even a few women,
     were in the crowd. It was big business for a Wednesday night. In one corner a group of young Astros whooped and hollered.
     In another corner a Houston Rocket and a couple of visiting Dallas Mavericks enjoyed synchronized lap dances by a pair of
     Swedish twins. Near the main stage, ogling a pole-dancing double-D brunette, was a local actor who’d hit it big in a movie
     last year and scored an Oscar nomination. And of course, around them, a locust swarm of everyday guys, drawn by knowing that
     athletes and actors and the famous would be on display as much as the supple thighs and perfected breasts.
    Did you all not get enough tit as kids? Eve wondered as she moved through the crowd, looking for Frank. Apparently the tour
     had slowed to enjoy the attractions. She found Frank, Kiko, and José at a front table, a chesty Latina dancing for Kiko, with
     a plumage of folded twenties on her thonged ass.
    Eve leaned down and said into Frank’s ear, ‘Paul says give them to Bucks. And I’m ready to go home. Excuse yourself from the
     table in ten minutes and I’ll be in your office.’ Frank nodded.
    She worked her way back through the crowd and went upstairs, to Frank’s spacious office. It was more for meeting and greeting
     than for reviewing liquor inventory or interviewing staff or talent. Plush chairs, a mahogany table, the inevitable photos
     of Frank Polo glad-handing every notable who passed through the club doors.
    She sat behind his desk,