The Formidable

30

"You're here late," Sasha said when Jase walked into the club. He rolled his shoulders and lit a cigarette. "I thought you quit?"

"It's been a long week," he replied. "Is that all of them?" He jerked his head toward the fifty shades of fake tan and cleavage stood in front of the stage. There were eight girls all of them copied and pasted versions of one another.

"Yeah, they've been here for about half an hour. You could smell them before they got in the building," Sasha replied. He chuckled. Now that she'd mentioned it, he noticed the club didn't smell of liquor and sweat as it usually did. Instead, there was a sweet aroma floating around. Too sweet.

"Best get this over and done with then." He went to approach the women when Sasha stopped him.

"There's a parcel for you," she said, reaching under the bar and pulling out a small brown jiffy bag. Jase frowned, taking it. "One of the girls brought it in, said a guy stopped her outside and asked her to give it to you." He looked over at them again, Madison's words rattling around in his head about taking a risk by hiring someone new. There was no way to tell whether any of the girls were smarter than they looked.

"Which one?" he asked.

"Red vest." He nodded, glancing at the girl in the red vest, and decided he would open it in his office later, away from prying eyes.

"Did she say what this guy looked like?" he asked. Sasha just shrugged, opening the dishwasher full of glasses from the night before. The bar top sweated with steam.

"Nope."

With a final grunt, he leaned over the bar and wet the half smoked cigarette on the tap, flicking it into the bin before begrudgingly making his way over to the women. He pointed to the girl in the red vest.

"You, come here." She smiled flirtatiously and stood up. Her bleach blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, exposing the rings from her extensions. Jase walked them out of earshot from the others. "What did the guy that handed you the parcel look like?" The girl rolled her shoulders.

"He was kind of old, I'd say fifties, maybe? A little round. There was nothing that stood out about him." As Jase had expected, she was no help. He pursed his lips.

"You're up first."

The red-vest girl toddled off backstage and returned moments later in nothing but an underwear set and stilettos.

Throughout the performances, Jase could feel the package pressing against his chest inside his suit jacket. Whatever was inside the parcel was small and solid. He suspected a phone. The girls danced and Carmen, the club's main dancer, stood with Jase and made comments on what they needed to improve and what they were good at. It took an hour in total.

"So, what do you think?" she asked when the last girl exited the stage. Jase shook his head.

"None of them." He lit another cigarette and Carmen, obedient and professional as ever, didn't question his decision, returning backstage to carry on the dance lessons with their current girls.

Jase went to his office, barely closing the door before he had torn the top off the envelope. Just as he thought, a phone fell out onto his desk. A standard Nokia with a pay as you go SIM. He turned it on and the small green screen lit up. Nothing was saved to it. No contacts or messages or call log. After studying the small brick, he took his own phone out and told Kieran to meet him at the house. He needed someone with a better eye for technology than himself to take a look.

*

Kieran shook his head, sitting back at the table and putting the tweezers down. The phone lay in front of him, its casing and innards removed.

"Not tracked, no bug. There's nothing on it to suggest it isn't clean. Who did you say gave it to you again?" he looked over at Jase who was staring at the phone, arms folded, frowning.

"I didn't. It was given to one of the girls that came in for an audition. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say whoever gave it to her didn't want to be caught on camera by coming inside." He leaned forward, inspecting the phone once more. As if he could see something that Kieran couldn't.

"And it was addressed to you?" Sam questioned, sitting beside Jase. Kieran put it back together and turned it on. Jase took the envelope out, it had his name. Full name, in black biro on the front. No address, nothing else.

"You reckon Caspar delivered it himself?" Kieran questioned. Jase shook his head.

"No. I think if Caspar delivered it he would have done so directly into my hand," he said. There was no point doing something yourself if it wasn't to make a point. Like when he'd gone to speak to Mitch the first time. To show face was to show you weren't afraid or intimidated.

"Someone for Caspar then?" Sam pressed on. Jase picked up Sam's cigarettes. The zippo lighter chinked as he flicked it shut and inhaled.

"Unless there's a third party," he said after a few moments silence. Sam and Kieran looked at him.

"Because of what Greg said?" Sam asked.

"We'll soon find out," Jase said. "If they've given us a phone, it's so they can reach us." They all stared at it, waiting. Nothing happened.

"Who did you hire today, anyway?" Kieran questioned, drawing the attention away from the mobile.

"None of them. I decided I didn't want any new faces around for a while. It's too much of a risk-taking in someone new when we don't know anything about Caspar and who might be working with him. Especially when one of them is delivering packages from God knows who." He left out the part where Madison had practically made this decision that morning. She hadn't explicitly said it but the implication was enough. It wasn't wise to welcome in new faces with so much on their plate already, knowing one bad judgement could prove fatal.

"They all seemed fine," Kieran said. Jase smirked, taking a drag on his cigarette and looking at Sam who chuckled.

"Would you assume I had killed people if you met me in a pub?" he asked.