Strip Tease Page 33

  Sweet Jesus, thought Moldowsky. I’ve got to find David before that goddamn Cuban does.

  He dialed the congressman’s private line. It rang twice before the machine picked up. Moldy left a curt message but gave no instructions, as it would only confuse David Dilbeck. Next Moldy tried to locate Erb Crandall in Atlantic City, but none of the big hotels showed him on the register. Either Erb was staying in a dive, or lying about his destination.

  Moldowsky felt a cold, crushing weight on his heart. He hung up the telephone and groped for his car keys.

  When was Dilbeck meeting the stripper? Was tonight the night?

  28

  Erin stopped at the club with a present for Monique Sr. It was a sheer silk blouse from Neiman’s.

  “Sorry about the other night,” Erin said. “Darrell is Darrell. It’s a hopeless situation.”

  Monique Sr. liked the blouse. She buttoned it over a Day-Glo dance bra. “Oh, Erin, it’s beautiful.”

  “That’s not for work. That’s for somebody special.”

  “Special? I wish.” She twirled in front of the mirror, first one way, then another. “Guess who’s ringside at the pit? Garrick Utley.”

  Erin said, “You can’t wrestle. Not with your hand cut up.”

  “I’m wearing pink evening gloves till it’s healed. Mr. Orly says I look like Mamie Van Doren.” Monique Sr. told Erin about Urbana Sprawl’s dispiriting encounter with the Ling brothers.

  Erin said, “Pitiful. I always heard they were gropers.”

  There was more unsettling gossip from the dressing room. Once more, Orly surreptitiously had lowered the thermostat to sixty-eight degrees, to promote nipple erections on stage. Also, the multi-wigged Sabrina had been offered three thousand dollars to make a porn film on South Beach.

  “She’s gonna do it,” Monique Sr. said.

  “Where is she?”

  “The cage.” Monique Sr. took off the blouse and put it on a hanger. “You’re too dressed,” she said to Erin. “I’ll go out and tell her you’re here.”

  Sabrina was her usual sweet-tempered self. She felt a kinship with Erin because both of them had smallish breasts and felonious ex-husbands.

  Erin said, “Tell me about this so-called movie.”

  “They said I’ve got to screw two guys in a hot tub and that’s all.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  Sabrina seemed puzzled by the question. “They’re paying me,” she said.

  “You need money, I’ll give it to you.”

  The dancer’s eyes widened in amusement. “Three grand? Come on.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Erin, you don’t understand. I can’t take any more of this wrestling shit. The pasta is just as gross as the creamed corn.”

  “But once you do porn—”

  “Hey, you don’t know what it’s like up there. Drunks trying to cram cold niblets up your crack—Jesus, you ought to try it some time.” It was one of the few times Erin had seen Sabrina angry.

  “I’ll talk to Orly. We’ll put a stop to it.”

  “Look, the movie can’t be worse than wrestling.”

  “You ever seen one?” Sabrina admitted that she hadn’t.

  “Well, I have,” Erin said. “When I worked at the FBI, they seized a truckload of tapes at the airport. The agents had a private screening one night in the basement.”

  Sabrina’s curiosity was earnest. “What’s it like? Are they really so bad?”

  “You know what a cum shot is?”

  Sabrina said she did not. Erin explained.

  “Yukky.” Sabrina reddened. “The director didn’t tell me.”

  “I’ll bet he didn’t.”

  “Let me think about this.”

  “Take your time,” Erin said.

  Sabrina freshened her lipstick and returned to the lounge. Urbana Sprawl came to the dressing room and showed Erin her broken fingernails. She said, “Men are the scum of the earth.”

  “As a general rule,” Erin agreed.

  “I think you like that Cuban cop.”

  “He’s solidly married.”

  “Another heartbreaker.”

  “His wife’s taking care of my daughter,” Erin said. “She’s terrific, too.”

  “And here you sit on a Saturday night.”

  “Oh, I’ve got big plans,” Erin said. “Tonight I dance for the congressman.”

  “Mercy,” said Urbana. “Just answer me why.”

  Erin yawned and stretched her arms over her head. “Because it’s my civic duty.”

  Rita patiently cleansed her brother’s wound.

  “I can’t do much with this fracture,” she declared.

  “Don’t even try.”

  “What’s the goo on your shirt?”

  “Mozzarella,” Darrell Grant said. “Don’t ask.”

  Rita created a splint for his broken left arm. She used an Ace bandage, hurricane tape and Alberto Alonso’s nine-iron. The blade of the golf club stuck out the same end as Darrell Grant’s fingers.

  “All set,” Rita told him, biting off the last piece of tape. “Now get a move on before Alberto comes home.”

  Darrell’s skin was the color of oatmeal, and his breathing was rapid. “I could use some morphine,” he said.

  “We don’t have no morphine. How’s about Nuprin?”

  “Lord Christ.”

  “They say it’s better than Tylenols.”

  “Rita, I swear to God—”

  “All right, how’s about this? I got some special pills for Lupa. The vet gave me a bottle for when she had the puppies.”

  Darrell Grant looked hopeful. “Dog morphine?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She found the bottle and tried to decipher the name of the drug. Neither she nor her brother had heard of it.

  “It says two capsules every six hours.”

  “That’s if you’re a fucking poodle,” Darrell said. “Gimme four and a cold Busch.”

  Afterward he vomited for twenty-five minutes. Rita kept daubing his chin and telling him to hurry—Alberto was on the way home from the nuclear plant. Darrell said he was in no shape to travel. Rita assisted him down the front steps and showed him where to hide, in the crawl space under the mobile home.

  “Where’d you park the Pontiac?” she asked. “In case Mrs. Gomez puts her glasses on.”

  “Down behind the Circle K.” Darrell Grant shimmied beneath the doublewide. He dragged the splinted arm like a chunk of lumber; the blade of the nine-iron made a groove in the dirt.

  Rita said, “I’ll bring a blanket.”

  “What about the damn wolves?”

  “Don’t you worry. They den on the lee side, strictly.”

  “Rita, I can’t stay down here!”

  A car rolled into the driveway. Rita put her fingers to her lips, then she was gone.

  Darrell Grant heard Alberto Alonso’s voice, the crunch of gravel under his work boots, the screen door slamming….

  Trapped! Darrell thought. He turned his head slowly, left then right, to assess conditions in the bunker. He wondered about the chances of Rita’s trailer falling off the foundation and crushing him like a bug. Unlikely, he decided; the thing was practically brand-new, replacing the one that Rita and Alberto had lost to the hurricane. Darrell Grant pressed his good arm against the aluminum—it seemed as sturdy as a mobile home could be. Yet he felt edgy in his underground refuge. The air was as cool as a tomb and smelled sharply of rodents. Still, it was better than spending another night in a dumpster behind the Pizza Hut.

  The pain in his mangled arm was piercing and unremittant; chills wracked his other limbs. His whole life, Rita always told him how smart and handsome and fortunate he was. “You can do anything you want in this world,” she’d say. “You got the looks and the vocabulary.” In retrospect, Darrell Grant realized that marrying Erin had been the high point, the main window of opportunity. If ever he was going to turn things around, she was his big chance. Hell, he’d struggl
ed to please her, too. He’d tried the conventional life: sobriety, monogamy, a day job, the whole ball of wax. It simply wasn’t meant to be. He was chronically ill-suited for the responsibilities that come with lawful behavior. Erin didn’t even try to understand. When the marriage broke up, Rita was disappointed. Darrell explained: “I need a girl that’s more of a short-range thinker. Like myself.”

  Now, in the short range, Darrell Grant focused on a pair of problems: stopping the flaming agony in his arm, and snatching Angie away from his ex-wife.

  After supper, Rita came out and peeked under the trailer. She was ready for an outing with the wolf-dogs—catcher’s mask, logger’s mitts, the frayed housedress. Darrell noticed that she’d added plastic shin guards to the uniform.

  “I brought some fried chicken,” Rita said. “Extra crispy.”

  She placed a cold drumstick in his mouth. Darrell tore off a huge bite and spit the bone. He said, “Is it Mrs. Gomez that’s got the cancer?”

  “No, her husband. He passed in August.”

  “I bet she’s still got his pills.”

  “Darrell, no!”

  “In the bathroom cabinet, I’ll bet.” He lifted his head. “Rita, I’m damn near crazy from the pain. Please?”

  “You already stole the poor woman’s car.”

  “But her husband’s croaked, right? So what’s the sense of letting good medicine go to waste. Tell me, Rita.”

  “I dunno what all to look for.”

  “Demerol, Dilaudids, codeine—shit, bring me everything with the old man’s name on it.”

  “But then you gotta go,” Rita persisted, “before the damn cops come by again.”

  “That’s a promise,” said Darrell Grant.

  There was something else he needed, but he couldn’t ask his sister because she’d never agree. Never in a month of Sundays.

  But that’s all right, Darrell thought, because I know where it is. I know exactly where Alberto keeps it—the same place as every other macho meathead in Miami.

  In the glove box of his car. Fully loaded.

  * * *

  Canceling the dinner engagement was easy. In fact, a less distracted Malcolm J. Moldowsky would have noticed the edge of relief in the governor’s voice. Stomach problems? he’d said. That’s too bad, Malcolm. Give me a ring when you’re feeling better. When he hung up, the governor had turned to an aide and said: “Let’s pray it’s a tumor.”

  As he drove toward the towers of Turnberry Isle, Moldowsky’s mind was preoccupied with thoughts contrived to stave off panic. The cop had nothing, really, but a Kodak slide and a motel bill.

  The phone call from Missoula could be explained. Moldy would claim he had houseguests that night. Lots of longdistance calls in and out. It wouldn’t be difficult to find someone who would say (for a price): Yes, come to think of it, so-and-so’s boyfriend’s foster uncle called from Montana. Drunk as a skunk, yakking his fool head off … what was his name again?

  The photograph from the tittie bar was something else. Clearly, that goddamn García knew the story behind it. Malcolm Moldowsky gripped the steering wheel ferociously, zigzagging through the traffic. A ghastly scene played over and over in his head …

  The congressman, wearing only cowboy boots and boxer shorts, downcast and bleary on the bow of the yacht.

  The Cuban cop, puffing maliciously on his cigar, circling like a starved panther, waving the Kodak slide, firing brutal questions faster than David Lane Dilbeck could possibly invent credible answers.

  Dilbeck—tremulous, wilting, caving in. Yes, Sergeant, that’s me in the picture. Me with the champagne bottle. Please understand, I’m not well. I need help controlling my animal urges. Ask the lady, go ahead. I never meant to harm a soul …

  Moldy drove faster. For consolation he clutched at the fact that Dilbeck had no knowledge of what had happened to the blackmailers, Killian and the lawyer. The congressman didn’t know what drastic steps had been taken to shield him from scandal. This prick García could interrogate him all day long and come up empty There were many crimes to which a badgered David Dilbeck might legitimately confess, but murder wasn’t one of them.

  Traffic came to a stop at the Golden Glades cloverleaf, where a truck hauling limerock had jackknifed on a ramp. Moldowsky cursed, snarled, raked his polished fingernails on the dashboard. He couldn’t understand García’s interest in a drowned fisherman and a murdered lawyer. The cases belonged in Broward County, not Dade. What did he want? What was he after? The way the crazy bastard had come at him, with no pretense of respect or civility. Taunting him, fucking with him—like it was personal.

  The cars inched along in maddening spurts. As therapy, Moldowsky jammed both fists on the horn. In the station wagon ahead of him, a frizzy-haired young woman flipped him the finger. The man on the passenger side held a MAC-10 out the window as a hint for Moldy to be patient and shut the fuck up.

  For diversion Moldowsky tried the radio, and found a call-in program where the guest happened to be Eloy Flickman, Dilbeck’s Republican opponent in the congressional race. Moldy was soothed by what he heard. Flickman now was advocating mandatory tubal ligations for all single mothers applying for food stamps. To another caller, Flickman submitted that Cuba’s nascent tourist industry was luring too many European visitors away from Miami, and that only a direct nuclear strike on Havana would remove the burgeoning economic threat. Moldy thought: Wonderful! The man’s a certifiable loon. Dilbeck’s a lock to win reelection, as long as nothing breaks loose in the headlines.

  The traffic jam slowly started to unclog. Malcolm Moldowsky switched to a classical music station, and tried to relax. Tonight’s mission was uncomplicated: remove the congressman from the Rojos’ yacht, and far away from all naked women.

  If the detective got there first, well … Maybe a bribe was in order. Maybe that’s all García wanted.

  Moldy hoped so; it would make life so much easier.

  When darkness fell, Darrell Grant snatched the gun from Alberto’s car and crawled back under the mobile home. Later Rita showed up with three prescription bottles belonging to the late Rogelio Gomez. Darrell Grant poured the pills into the palm of his good hand, and ate three of everything. An hour later, the whole world was a blur, but Darrell felt marvelous. The pain in his arm was gone, along with much of his short-term memory. Rita had to remind him where he’d hidden the stolen Pontiac.

  Once he located the turnpike, Darrell Grant drove northbound at a geriatric pace. His vision and reflexes were abominable. Rita’s splint proved sturdy but cumbersome: the nine-iron got in the way of Darrell’s driving. He had to hang it out the window of the car, as if permanently signaling for a left turn. Since it was Dade County, no one paid the slightest attention.

  The trip to Fort Lauderdale took ninety minutes. Darrell Grant spent most of it in the draft of a slow-moving Pentecostal church bus. Miraculously, he spotted the Commercial Boulevard exit in time to steer off. He stopped at a fast-food restaurant next door to the Tickled Pink, and parked obliviously in the drive-through lane. Rousted by a surly assistant manager, Darrell Grant found a new spot. This one offered a clear view of Orly’s strip joint; Erin’s shitheap Fairlane was parked near the front awning between a Porsche and a Cadillac.

  Like she was somebody special, Darrell thought.

  He broke out laughing. Everything seemed hilarious tonight; the sight of a dead opossum on the highway had made him giggle all the way from Okeechobee Road to Miramar. These were absolutely top-notch drugs. “God bless you, Señor Gomez!” he said, saluting the heavens with his nine-iron.

  Before long, a limousine appeared at Orly’s nightclub. Darrell Grant thought his eyes were playing tricks.

  The driver, a black man wearing a cap, got out of the limo and opened one of the doors. In the Pontiac, Darrell leaned forward and tried to squint the blur from his eyes. He was hoping to catch sight of a celebrity. Rock stars were known to hang out at nudie bars; Darrell had seen a video once on MTV.

  But it
was his ex-wife who walked out of the club toward the limo. She wore blue jeans, a baggy white T-shirt and sandals. She carried a shoulder bag and a shoebox. It looked like she was heading home early. She was alone, too. No trace of Angela.

  Darrell Grant was astounded when she got into the limousine.

  “The cunt,” he said, turning the key in the Pontiac. Who the fuck does she think she is? Who?

  Then he started to laugh again.

  When the limousine pulled out of the club, the Pontiac was close behind.

  29

  Shad went to Sears and purchased two jumbo outdoor garbage buckets with clip-on lids. Then he drove to a snake farm near the Tamiami Airport, west of Miami. The man who owned the snake farm called himself Jungle Juan. He told Shad that most of his reptile stock had been wiped out by the hurricane. His insurance company still hadn’t paid off.

  “They say I padded the claim,” complained Jungle Juan, “but I had papers on every damn snake. Certified papers!”

  “Like they do for dogs,” Shad said.

  “Exactamente.”

  “And they all got killed in the storm?”

  “Hard to say.” Jungle Juan thoughtfully fingered his diamond ear stud. “They was mostly just gone from sight. I’ll assume some escapes, I’ll assume some mortalities.”

  Shad tried to strike a hopeful note. He said, “Snakes are tough customers.”

  “Some are, some ain’t. One old diamondback, the wind picked him up and snapped him like a bullwhip. I seen this myself.”

  Shad said, “But the rats and mice made out okay.”

  “By and large, yessir. How many you need?”

  “A hundred ought to do it. Rats only.”

  Jungle Juan said, “Now, these ain’t white. These are semi-wild Norways.”

  “Perfect.”

  The cage was eight feet long and four feet high. It was fashioned of plywood and chicken wire. Inside was an undulating mass of vermin, two and three deep. Anticipating food, the rats swarmed noisily toward the cage door when Jungle Juan approached. Deftly he barehanded the squealing animals, and dropped them one by one into the jumbo garbage pails.