Chapter 9Maria weighed heavily on Sean’s mind as he drove back to the motel. He would have never guessed her to be a stripper. He had been hired to watch over girls like her a couple of times at a casino up in Lakeland—a thriving gambling town about seven miles north of Winston. He hadn’t liked taking those kinds of jobs but couldn’t afford to turn them down in the post 9/11 economy. As unfortunate of a statement on society as it was, booze and table dancers were recession-proof commodities.
The profession was a heart-breaking one: young, usually not-so-bright women—often with drug problems rarely discouraged by their employers—grinding against creepy men’s stiff crotches for fives and tens if the girls were lucky. Half of the money didn’t even go to them; it ended up in the boss’s pocket
