The dancer on the pole looked too young. That’s why Hardesty zeroed in on him. Hardesty was looking for them young. The others were working the crowd. Leering back, throwing dirty words into the crowd in response to what was being called out to them and making suggestive motions with their bodies on the poles. But this one, the small, lithe guy, not more than five foot five, Hardesty estimated, with the blond Mohawk and the fluttering eyelashes, was dancing the pole to the slow music in a shyer, more introspective way. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have guys zeroing in on him like Hardesty was—but for different reasons, Hardesty told himself.

It’s just that he was an enigma.

What was he doing here at all, Hardesty wondered. He kept going back to the guy looking too young, too innocent—wholesome under an attempt to play the part—but sexy at the same time. Really, really sexy. His body was boyishly perfect. The Mohawk wasn’t extreme—he didn’t look punk. He was a dyed blond. The hair was auburn at the roots, but it looked like he’d let it go that way on purpose, like the hair was just frosted. He had hardware—a small ring in his eyebrow and one in his navel—and a tattoo of a gecko or some lizard or something disappearing down under the waistband of the gold G-string he was wearing. All you could see of the tattoo were a tail and some hind legs in green. He wasn’t heavily muscled, but there wasn’t any fat on him either. His stomach was flat and his hips thin, but his buttocks flared out into perfect bubbles.

The face was boyish too, almost pretty. His eyes were hazel or blue, Hardesty couldn’t really tell which in this light. But he didn’t care that much about the eyes—more that he looked young, too young, and that he was dancing within himself. Very sexy, but as if he was too innocent to be in here. Too vulnerable.

Patrons were coming close to the stage and stuffing fives and tens and even a few twenties in the waistbands of the G-strings of the other two dancers, and the dancers, in turn, were blowing kisses and making lurid movements to fit the mood. But none of that was happening with this one dancer. There was some sort of barrier around him that the boisterous men couldn’t penetrate. He had more than his share of admirers, but they were worshipping him from a distance, most of them sitting there, lost in watching him, no doubt spinning in their minds what they’d like to do with the small, lithe, vulnerable body. Occasionally they’d come up and put their bills on the surface of the stage below where he was dancing. So he was getting his share of the tips. They just weren’t touching him. It was like they were afraid he was too young to touch, not legal. They fully appreciated what he was doing, but they sensed a danger in treating him like the other two dancers.

This is what caught Hardesty’s attention more than anything else. He took out his wallet and extracted a fifty-dollar bill and laid it down on the table in front of him. He made sure the young dancer saw him do it, which he did, and then Hardesty pushed the bill a nudge, just a nudge, toward the dancer on the tabletop and gave the dancer a meaningful look.

Putting a ten in a dancer’s G-string waistband was showing one form of appreciation in a bar like this. Showing a fifty on top of the table told the dancer something entirely different. And all of the dancers here were on call for those fifties. Hardesty knew it was part of the contract.