Strip Tease Page 25

  Erin remained baffled by the success of the nude wrestling exhibitions, which had become a red-hot fad in upscale strip joints. There was nothing erotic about grappling with a topless woman in a vat of cold vegetables, although the sodden realization came too late for most customers. By the time the bell rang, few were able to climb from the ring without assistance. The young bankers appeared especially whipped after their sessions with Urbana Sprawl.

  Working table to table, Erin paid little attention to the comic slaughter in the wrestling pit. She was thinking about politics, which suddenly had touched her life in a dramatic way. Erin couldn’t remember the last time she’d stood in a voting booth. Campaigns bored her. Every politician wore the same horseshit smile and gave the same horseshit speech. Erin was amazed that anyone would believe a word. She recalled being stricken by severe intestinal cramps while trying to watch the Bush-Dukakis debates.

  Agent Cleary, bless his buttoned-down heart, used to scold her for being so cynical. On election day he’d lecture the office staff, telling them that democracy is futile without “an informed and participatory electorate.” He’d say that people get exactly the kind of government they deserve, and those who won’t vote have no grounds to complain. He was right, Erin thought. This is what I get for not paying attention. Thieves like David Lane Dilbeck couldn’t get elected dogcatcher without the gross apathy of the masses.

  And this is my punishment, Erin thought. I’ve got to date the asshole.

  Al García had laid out the situation in his maddeningy laconic way. Erin, who was seldom shocked at the depth of human sordidness, found herself stunned by what she heard: Jerry Killian had been murdered over sugar. The lovestruck little nerd was killed because he’d threatened the career of a crooked congressman. According to García, the congressman’s principal contribution to the governing of the republic was to direct jillions of dollars in aid to the sugar cartels. Poor Mr. Peepers jeopardized that arrangement, so he was swatted as dead as a fly.

  García said he wanted to catch the killers before they came looking for Erin. She said that was an excellent idea, and agreed to help in any way possible. Self-preservation was the main motivation; guilt was another. Erin couldn’t forget that it was her sexy dancing that had fatally infatuated Jerry Killian.

  Men were so helpless, she thought, so easily charmed. Monique Jr. was right: they’d do anything for it. Anything.

  That’s what Erin’s mother didn’t understand about yuppie strip clubs: it wasn’t the women who were being used and degraded, it was the men. Her mother thought these places were meat markets, and indeed they were, the meat being the customers. Experienced dancers always kept one eye on the front door, scouting for the next mark. If you knew your stuff, you could work a guy all night and get every last dollar out of his wallet. You didn’t have to blow him or screw him or even act like you might. A girlish smile, a sisterly hug, a few minutes of private conversation—Urbana Sprawl said it was the easiest money in the world, if you could get past being naked.

  Because men were so easily charmed. That was a fact.

  But Erin was apprehensive about the congressman. He wouldn’t be shy and polite like Killian and the other regulars. No, Dilbeck would be pushy and crude and probably kinky. Al García warned her to be prepared.

  “You think he’s the one who took my razor?”

  “Ask him,” García had said.

  Fear wasn’t the worst part for Erin; the worst part was sending Angela away. It was the sensible move, because certainly Angie couldn’t stay in the new apartment—couldn’t stay anywhere near her mother—until the danger was over. Erin felt terrible about it. She didn’t like being alone again. She dreaded the silent afternoons, the dinners for one. Angie was safe, and at least Darrell Grant wouldn’t find her. But still …

  “Hey, babes.”

  A hand clamped on Erin’s leg. She snapped back to reality—Urbana rolling in the creamed corn, Aerosmith blaring on the speakers, her own bra and G-string in a lacey mound between the Michelob bottles at her feet. Three young bankers sat at the table, trying to appear cool and unimpressed. The drunkest of them kept snapping Erin’s garter, where the cash tips were folded. She asked him to stop but he didn’t. She brushed his hand off her leg and spun a circle on the table, making evasion part of the dance; when she stopped spinning, the banker’s hand returned, crawling like a mantis up her thigh. Erin looked across the room for Shad, but couldn’t see him.

  “That’s enough,” she told the banker.

  The next thing she felt was his tongue. He was licking vertically from ankle to knee, long, sloppy Popsicle licks.

  Erin snatched the man’s hair and lifted his head. “You behave,” she said sharply.

  But he wouldn’t.

  That morning, a small item had appeared on of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, under the headline BAR TO PROBE MISSING LAWYER. The four-paragraph story said the Florida Bar was investigating whether a lawyer named Mordecai had looted his client trust account and fled the country. The article said the man had not been seen for several days, and was believed to have flown to the Bahamas with an unnamed female companion.

  Sgt. Al García clipped the story and put it with his homicide paperwork in his briefcase. Then he drove to a street corner in Liberty City, where two crack dealers had done the planet a tremendous favor by killing each other in a pre-dawn shootout. Witnesses were as scarce as mourners, but García took out his notebook and went to work.

  Another man who clipped the Sun Sentinel item was Erb Crandall, sitting in the lobby of the Sunshine Fidelity Savings Bank on Galt Ocean Mile. Crandall was about to commit a minor crime for major stakes. He was about to forge a false name on a vault-room ledger, and use a stolen key to open a stranger’s safe-deposit box. Crandall was searching for a Kodak color slide that Malcolm Moldowsky urgently sought to possess. The slide was the original photograph of Congressman David Lane Dilbeck assaulting Paul Guber with a champagne bottle on the stage of the Eager Beaver lounge. Erb Crandall’s plan to obtain the incriminating picture began smoothly in the vault room. He signed a well-practiced version of Mordecai’s name to the ledger, and handed the key to the clerk. The clerk pulled the steel box from the wall and unlocked it. He led Erb Crandall to a windowless cubicle and left him alone.

  When Crandall opened the lid, he found no Kodak slide. Mordecai’s box had been cleaned out. In the bottom, face up, lay only a business card:

  SGT. ALBERTO GARCíA

  METROPOLITAN DADE COUNTY POLICE

  HOMICIDE DIVISION (305) 471-1900

  Erb Crandall’s fingers were shaking as he carried the safe-deposit box to the clerk’s desk. It was all he could do not to run from the bank.

  That evening, over dinner, Sgt. Al García took out the news clipping and read it again. He was impressed that anyone would go to the trouble of framing a lawyer who most likely was dead. The trust account ruse was very nifty.

  Andy asked: “Al, did you catch ’em yet? The guys who killed that man in the river?”

  “Not yet,” García said. The boy talked about the floater all the time; it was the highlight of the family vacation.

  “Any suspects?”

  “No, Andy. It’s a tough one.”

  Donna said: “That’s enough, both of you. Remember our rule.”

  The rule was: no talk of dead bodies at supper. Al’s work was to be discussed only after the dishes were cleared.

  “Sorry, Mom,” Andy said.

  Lynne, the little girl, asked if they could go to Sea World next summer. She wanted to see some turtles and sharks. Andy said he’d rather go back to Montana and hunt for clues.

  Donna chased the children from the table and brought her husband a pot of coffee. He said, “Look what I’ve gotten you all into.”

  “It’s all right. She seems like a nice person.”

  “Of course she’s a nice person. Next question: how come she’s working at a nudie bar? Right?”

  Donna shrugged. “It’s no grea
t mystery. Have a slice of pie.”

  García was intrigued. “Could you do that—take off your clothes in front of all those drunken strangers?”

  “If I had to,” Donna said. “For the kids.”

  “Jesus, there’s only about a million other jobs. The girl’s not stupid. She can type seventy words a minute.”

  “You said she owes her lawyer.”

  “Yeah,” García said. “Who doesn’t?”

  “So maybe she wants a nest egg. Where’s the crime in that?”

  “You’re right, sweetheart.”

  “I like her.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “But it’s the job that’s got her into so much damn trouble.”

  “No, honey, it’s the men.” Donna cut a piece of apple pie and put it on a plate. “So what does she took like, Al?”

  “You saw her.” He teased with a long pause. “Oh, you mean with her clothes off? Tell you the truth, I didn’t notice.”

  Donna smiled. “You are a pitiful liar. Eat your dessert.”

  The phone rang. Donna didn’t bother to get up. Only cops called at dinner time. García went in the kitchen to take it. He looked grim when he came back.

  “That was the Broward sheriff’s office,” he said.

  “They still don’t want the case?”

  “I knew they wouldn’t.” García sat down heavily. “Hell, I can’t even get that cowpoke coroner to say Killian’s death was a homicide. Meanwhile I got no weapons, no witnesses and no suspects.” He took a large bite of pie. “I don’t blame BSO for taking a pass.” Another huge bite. “Least they were decent about it. I mean, they didn’t laugh too hard.”

  Donna said, “Slow down. You’ll choke to death.”

  “It’s good pie.”

  “Not that good. Now tell me what else is wrong.”

  “I end up on a speaker phone with two brain-dead detectives. See, the girl’s ex was a C.I. for Broward robbery.” García didn’t need to translate police jargon for Donna. She’d learned plenty from her first husband, the dope dealer.

  “The ex is still an informant?”

  García, chewing mechanically: “Nope, they cut him loose after he got busted for grand theft up the coast.”

  Donna shook her head. “I don’t get it. If the ex got arrested, isn’t that good news for Erin?”

  “Oh, great news,” García said, wiping his mouth, “if they’d managed to keep the bastard in jail.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope, he escaped. From a county hospital! Stole a wheelchair and rolled out the fucking door!”

  Donna told her husband to keep his voice down. “We’ve got company,” she reminded him. “Where’s your cigar?”

  “Wait, there’s more.” García slashed the air with both hands. “The girl’s ex-husband—the kid’s father—he’s not only mean, he’s not only violent, he’s got a frigging drug problem. Isn’t that a hoot!”

  Andy dashed into the dining room and asked what Al was hollering about.

  “Work,” Donna said. “What else.”

  Andy clambered up on García’s lap. “Maybe you need another vacation.”

  Donna turned away, smothering a laugh. “So everybody’s a smartass,” García said, tickling the boy until he howled.

  Shad was at the bar in the main lounge. He was distracted by a management problem.

  Orly had connived to hire Lorelei, the fabulous python princess, away from the Ling brothers. Tonight was to be her first stage performance at the Tickled Pink, but she’d arrived in puffy-eyed hysterics. Orly could not decipher the problem, and delivered the distraught dancer to Shad, who was on break, reading a large-type edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. The book made Shad feel slightly better about living in South Florida.

  He was interrupted by Lorelei’s convulsive sobs. Her snake was missing, and she suspected the vengeful Lings of abduction. When Orly was informed, he ordered Shad to find another snake for his new star. Shad noted there were no all-night reptile stores in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Lorelei refused to dance without Bubba, which is what she called her nine-foot Burmese python.

  “She says they’re a team,” Shad reported. “She says the snake is trained.”

  Orly crumpled an empty can of Dr. Pepper and lobbed it grenade-style behind the bar. “First, there’s no such thing as a trained snake, OK? And Item B, did you see the fucking marquee? LORELEI in great big letters—I got customers drove all the way from Miami. Tell her she’s got ten minutes to get her boobs on stage.”

  Shad glanced toward the hallway, where the weeping python princess now huddled in grief. “She’ll need more than ten minutes,” he said. “She looks like hell.”

  Orly cursed and hacked and massaged his nostrils. “You don’t know anyone with a goddamn snake?”

  “Not a big snake,” Shad said. “I know some guys who breed diamondbacks.”

  “Sweet Christ Almighty.”

  “They’re not much good for dancing.”

  “OK,” said Orly. “Here’s what you do. Go see those fucking Lings. Find out how much they want for the girl’s python.”

  “Bubba is the name.”

  “Whatever. Offer five hundred.”

  Shad said the Lings likely would tell him to fuck off and die. “They hate your guts,” he told Orly.

  “No, this is business. Now hurry it up.”

  Shad put the book by Camus behind the bar, under the popcorn platters. Then he drove up to the Flesh Farm, where the Ling brothers kept him waiting an hour—a nervy move. Shad passed the time drinking Virgin Marys and surveying the dance talent in case Orly demanded a scouting report. Shad’s ominous bald presence quickly thinned the audience and further irritated the Lings. Shad finally got his meeting, but the brothers reacted to the python proposition more biliously than anticipated.

  He returned to find the Tickled Pink in an uproar. Erin seemed to be in the thick of it. Paramedics were fitting a neck brace on a pale and dazed young man. The victim was encircled by a dozen equally wan companions with corn kernels stuck in their hair. From a distance it looked as if they’d been bombed by sparrows. The men shouted high-pitched questions at the paramedics, over the jackhammer music. As a protective measure, Urbana Sprawl had stationed her insurmountable breasts between Erin and Orly, who was red-faced and raving.

  “Damn,” said Shad, and waded into the chaos.

  Later, in the office, Orly blustered about liability and lawsuits and his liquor license.

  “You aren’t listening,” Erin said. “The man touched me.”

  Urbana Sprawl, showered and fully dressed, spoke out in support of her friend: “I saw the whole thing, Mr. Orly. He got what he deserved.”

  Orly snorted. “A sprained neck. Is that what he deserved? A trip to the hospital, for copping a feel!”

  “He touched me,” Erin said, “between my legs.”

  “Aw, he was drunk.”

  Erin turned to Urbana. “This is why I hate table dances.”

  Orly said, “You could’ve crippled the guy, kickin’ him in the head like that.”

  “And what’s she supposed to do?” Urbana said. “Give him a nice friendly finger fuck?”

  Orly flinched, turning his head. “Christ, that’s enough. No more a that talk.”

  “So it’s OK for Shad to beat a customer’s ass, but not us. Is that the deal?”

  “I said, that’s enough.”

  “Urbana’s right,” Erin said. “It’s not fair.”

  “Screw fair,” said Orly, puffing his cheeks. “Shad’s job is keeping the peace. Your job is to dance. That’s the bottom line.”

  Standing by the office door Shad reluctantly abandoned his silence. “I got sent up the street,” he said. “Otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.”

  Orly gave a corrosive laugh. “Wonderful. Now it’s all my fault. Well, fuck the whole bunch a you.”

  Urbana was livid. She leaned her double-wide bosom across his desk and shook a Day-Glo fingernail in his f
ace. “Nobody touches me ’less I wanna be touched, especially down there. I don’t care who it is or how shitfaced they are or how much money they got, I won’t stand for it. That little shit’s lucky to get out with a sprained neck, because if it was me, I’d rip his damn balls off with my bare hands, just like this—”

  Orly gaped as Urbana simulated her technique, snatching imaginary testicles off an imaginary oaf.

  “—and don’t think I can’t!”

  Then she was gone. Nobody moved for several moments.

  Orly said: “That girl gives big tits a bad name.”

  Erin stood up. “Well, I’m through for the night.”

  “Now wait a second—”

  “No. I’m going to visit my daughter.”

  After Erin left, Shad came to her defense. He told Orly that Erin had many good reasons to be jumpy—the custody case, the burglary of the apartment, and now a congressman in hot pursuit. “It’s a bad time for her right now. That’s how come she blew up tonight.”

  Orly wiped his neck with a soiled handkerchief. “You and me are the only ones in this joint that don’t get PMS, and sometimes I’m not too sure about you.”

  “It’s the music,” Shad said. “It makes my head hurt.”

  “Talk to Kevin.”

  “Kevin says talk to you.”

  Orly said, “I don’t know rap from reggae. You know my secret? I don’t even listen.” He twisted an invisible knob at his right earlobe. “Just turn it off. I don’t hear a damn thing.” He asked how it went with the Lings.

  “Lousy,” Shad said.

  “They don’t have the girl’s snake?”

  “Yeah, they got it. They just won’t ransom it.”

  Orly raised his palms. “Why the fuck not? Business is business.”

  “Mainly because they hate your guts.”

  “Because of me hiring Lorelei?”

  “Because of everything,” Shad replied.

  “So the answer is no. It took you two damn hours to get a simple N-O from those jerkoff Japs. Meanwhile I got a crazed stripper doing a Chuck Norris routine on my customers—”