This takes place after Wanda In Danger.
Julie had been given a week to track down Esmeralda Mateo's missing daughter or the drug pushing Senora Mateo would kill his wife and young daughter.
The last people in Senora Mateo's operation who had seen the eighteen year old Isabella Mateo were her "brothers" two twenty year old thugs who posed as high school students and kept watch over Isabella. The small Catholic school looked the other way for a reasonable donation as long Lalo and Chico didn't cause any problems by being there. As a result the two ate a healthy amount of shit from smart ass suburban high school kids that outside of school they might have killed over. Bella had resented their presence and relished turning the student body against them.
Now that Bella had gone missing the two had their days free which meant. All you can eat strip club buffet for lunch every day. Julie knew which club they would be at.
Julie entered the fog of strip club funk and scanned the smokey room. He spotted his old high school nemesis, Dillon, across the room keeping an eye on the buffet. Julie's partner Duane was a strip club buffet junkie too, Julie couldn't imagine eating anything in this place.
Dillon spotted Julie but made no move to confront him. Which was just the way Julie wanted it. Dillon tried to make it look like he wasn't watching Julie but Julie could tell he was. He saw the nervous look on Dillon's face when he started towards the corner where the Brazilian crew had set up for the afternoon. Benny The Blade sat in a corner booth. Chico and Lalo flanked him on either side, each with a stripper on his lap. Julie sat in a chair across from Benny.
"I saw you looking. You act like that chocolate bitch us your one and only but you love white titties as much as we do." Benny said groping the breasts of both strippers with either hand.
"Unless you got a gun in my face, don't call her a bitch again. Even with a gun, I wouldn't say it again." Julie said coldly.
"Fuck you and that bitch. How's the clap clearing up? Does that penicillin just knock it out?" Benny asked.
"You would know better than me." Julie quipped back.
"You boys see this bitch here, Last time I saw him he was getting raped by Tia Easy." Benny said referring to Esmerelda Mateo.
"Speaking of getting raped, how was the rest of your prison stay?" Julie responded the tension continued to grow.
"Did you come for the floor show? Or do you have some other business here?" Benny asked annoyed.
"I came to ask these guys some questions." Julie said pointing at Lalo and Chico with his thumbs.
"They're kinda busy right now. Can't you see they got their hands full?" Benny said as Lalo and Chico felt up their strippers.
"Aren't you supposed to use the back rooms for that?" Julie asked.
Benny's hand disappeared into his lap under the table. His hand reemerged
with a handful of hair attached to the head of the stripper who had been going down on him the whole time.
Julie couldn't hide his shock as he saw the stripper wince in pain from having her curly brown hair pulled roughly. Benny laughed at Julie's discomfort at seeing a woman manhandled.
"We take what we want. We don't care about champagne rooms. I'll fuck a bitch onstage if I want." Benny said shoving the Burnette's head back under the table.
Julie was tempted to come across the table. He had been raised better than that. His father may have been a little crude but he never would have been rough like that with a woman.
"I need to know who Bella was dating at school." Julie asked the bodyguards, pushing his anger aside
"Why would that help you. There's no way some high school twerp took her under these guys' noses." Benny said.
"I'm not sure they were watching her as closely as her mother would like to believe." Julie responded
"Don't come in here making trouble for our trusted employees" Benny answered.
"I'm doing what your aunt wanted. Don't you care about your cousin?" Julie said.
"Caring makes you weak. Look at you, doing scut work for a woman that raped you. Because your wife makes you weak." Benny sneered.
It was the second time Benny had referred to his sexual encounter with Senora Mateo and her two prostitutes as rape Julie didn't like it. He was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he was forced to have sex against his wishes. It seemed reductive to think of himself as a victim but in actuality he was. Being called a victim by Benny was starting to piss him off.
"I love my family enough to do what I need to do to protect them. If you don't answer my questions without any more backtalk it's going to get real nasty in here. Open your smart ass mouth one more time and see if I'm playing." Julie said as his green eyes went cold.
Benny recognized the look in Julie's face and didn't say another word. Julie turned to Lalo on Benny's left.
"I don't care if you were supposed to keep Bella from dating or what. I know she was seeing someone. I bet they saw her after you did. You can tell me now no problem or you can ask Benny what happened the last time I lost my temper with one of the Chaves brothers. Don't look to the bouncer for help I stomped him out last time too." Julie said loud enough for Dillon the bouncer to hear.
"His name is Jason Patrick. He..." Lalo said before Julie cut him off.
"Thanks, I got it from here." Julie said.
Julie rose from his chair. Benny avoided eye contact fearing Julie might still lose his cool. Julie's eyes grazed over the hulking bouncer who stared at the floor and hoped Julie wouldn't say anything to him.
Julie walked to the bar and didn't ask before going behind the counter in search of a phone.
"Raphie, it's Julie. I need info. Jason Patrick at St. Elgin Catholic School. I need his schedule. I'll call you back when I get to the school." Julie said into the phone and hung up.
At the school, Julie waited outside the Patrick kid's classroom. When the bell rang the boy walked out of class with a group of his friends. Julie was surprised by how tall the kid was. He was big enough that Julie was sure he was on the basketball team.
"I need to talk to you for a second." Julie said to him.
"No thanks, I don't need any gardening ese." The boy said cracking up his friends.
Julie grabbed the boy by his shirt and threw him into the wall. Another one of his friends who had seen too many movies got between Julie and the Patrick kid. For his troubles, Julie shoved him into a row of lockers. The fight evaporated from the kid when he got a taste of the power Julie possessed.
"We're going to step into the boys' room for a little chat. If we get interrupted for some reason, I am gonna come find you." Julie said to the boy he shoved into the lockers.
Julie didn't like kids like Jason Patrick when he was in school and had even less like for them now that he had graduated. Julie shoved him through the bathroom door. The kid caught his balance o the row of sinks.
"This is going to take as long as takes for me to find out what I want to know." Julie said menacingly.
The Patrick kid looked like reality had set in. Julie took it as a sign that he needed to tone down the thug play.
"I hear you dated Bella Mateo." Julie said.
"I guess." Patrick said.
"Cute girl." Julie remarked hoping to ease the kid's fear.
"Yeah." Came the cautious reply.
"Can you tell me when you saw her last?" Julie asked.
"Saturday night." He replied.
That was after Lalo and Chico. Julie's eyes lit up with the information.
"Where did you go with her?" Julie pressed.
"We went to the Main Street drag and watched the kids cruise. We parked at the burger dog place." Patrick said.
"Did you drive her home?" Julie asked.
"No, she went off with some biker guys." Patrick said.
"Bikers?" Julie repeated quizzically
"Yeah, the ones with the playing cards on the back. of their jackets." Patrick said a little angry.
"Playing cards?" Julie again repeated even though he recognized the patch and the gang it belonged to.
"Yeah, two aces and two eights. I think it's a Nazi reference. The aces refer to Adolph and the eighty-eight means pro Hitler somehow." Patrick said.
Julie was impressed that the kid put that together. It wasn't right. Pair of Aces and pair of eights was supposed to be the hand Wild Bill Hickock was holding when he was killed. It was called the dead man's hand. The name Dead Man's Hand was used by a fairly notorious biker gang.
"You just let her go off with some biker?" Julie asked.
"She had been messing with him for a while. I wasn't that attached to the girl. Aside from that ass, she didn't have a lot going for her. It was kind of a been there done that kind of thing." Patrick said.
Julie had enough to go on and thanked the boy for the information. He left the restroom and found no school officials waiting for him. His threat had worked.
Julie crossed the street to his car. He had to drive around a bit to find a payphone to call his cousin.
"I need you to meet me at the office. Start pulling anything you can about the Deadman's Hand motorcycle gang please." Julie requested.