Film Strip (22 page)

“Hell, Lester, she's the only girl you've ever seen,” his friend crowed. The men clustered around the stage broke into laughs, and finally Lester did too. Another first-timer inducted into Sierra's fold.

I straightened and began giving my regulars some attention. Little Ricky kept trying to catch my eye, but I ignored him. He never tipped good, anyway. I found myself scanning the crowd, not for tippers the way I usually did, but for troublemakers, people who looked out of place, anyone who looked like they'd pull a gun and mow me down while I moved. It was dark and smoky, but I was doing good to see through the crowd to the front door. Rusty let another round of smoke billow out across the stage, a signal to remind me to wrap up the act. The music would end in another thirty seconds.

I pulled away the little breechcloth that hid my G-string and got ready to do my final stretch. I pulled my hair loose and let it fall to my shoulders. I turned around, bent over, and stretched my hands out to touch my ankles. Even hanging upside down, I could see the familiar shape of John Nailor as he walked across the room toward the edge of the stage. He was smiling, as if he remembered a similar view, only up closer.

I straightened, still facing away from my audience, pulled the G-string off, and waved it over my head just as the smoke reached up to cover me. The curtain swung shut and I walked off, the sound of war whoops and applause ringing in my ears.

I slipped into my robe and turned to find John waiting for me backstage, something he'd never done before.

“How did you—” I started.

“Bruno said he could tell from the way we were looking at each other that I should come back and say hello.”

“He did, huh?” I stepped up to him and sighed as his arms encircled my waist.

“He most definitely did.”

I should've known something was wrong. My alarm system was sounding, but I thought it was hormones and chemicals. The guy was too happy. I let him nuzzle my neck. I forgot about everything for a minute and let my body respond to his. Oh, this was going to be a long wonderful night; I could just feel it.

“How about I meet you back at your place later,” he said, his fingers moving deliciously across my back.

The alarm bells got louder. I pushed my head back and looked at him. “Aren't you in the middle of a murder investigation?” I asked.

“Not any more,” he said. He smiled like he had other things on his mind, like he didn't want this moment to fade.

“You arrested Marla, didn't you?” I asked, taking a step back.

The spell was broken. “Yes, honey,” he said, “we did.”

He hadn't listened to me. Marla looked like the killer, the evidence pointed her way, and he hadn't taken the trouble to take it any farther. Well, what did you really expect? He was a logic-driven man. He took the course that offered the least resistance.

He must've seen my thoughts mirrored in my eyes because he started talking immediately. “Sierra, I know you don't think she did it, but all the evidence points to her.”

“Then someone's setting her up.”

“No.”

“You're not listening to me. Marla couldn't be the killer. I know it looks bad, but you know Marla. She's a chicken at heart. She gave Ricky her gun.”

Nailor just stared at me, and in the back of his eyes I began to see frustration mixed with pity.

Dancers moved past us, rushing up the steps and out onto the stage. Rusty pushed past, a headphone and microphone glued to his head. To me it seemed that time slowed to a crawl, but the others were going right on about the business of running the club.

“I've got to get back to work,” I said. We were at a stand-off and he knew it.

“Fine.” His voice was tight and his shoulders stiff with tension.

I made myself turn away and walk off. It felt like I carried a forty-pound sack of concrete on my back. Why did things always have to turn out like this? Why wouldn't he listen to me?

Vincent waylaid me as I started into the dressing room.

“They've got Marla,” he said. His jaw was pumping overtime with anxiety. “I called Ernie. He's on his way. The arraignment's in the morning. Ernie says he might be able to get her out on bond, but I'm gonna have to put up the club.”

“Can you do that, I mean with the IRS fixing to come after your money?”

“There's no lien yet,” he said. “They can't take away what I don't got. Ernie's on top of it. All's you gotta do is worry about finding out who really did this. Maybe it's time you called in…” He looked over his shoulder, making sure he wasn't overheard. “You know,
him,
” he said.

Something came over me, or maybe it was just my mouth moving before I could slip my brain into gear. “Oh, I know that, Vincent. You think I'd try to catch a serial killer by myself? I called and he sent someone. In fact, he sent the next in line, the second biggest guy.”

Vincent seemed very impressed and reassured. He smiled, patted me on the back, and said, “Why didn't you tell me? I would've relaxed.”

“Yeah,” I said, “you can relax. The Lavotinis are in charge. Don't worry about a thing.”

Easy for me to say, I thought. Relax. Take a load off. Leave the driving to us. Vincent obviously bought it. He walked off whistling and I stood behind him worrying. Who would kill dancers and a mob guy? Why were they killing the dancers at this club? Who stood to profit from them being dead? Who wanted the club out of business? I wandered toward the back exit, thinking that fresh air might clear my head. My hand was on the bar, pushing the door open, when a light tremor shook the building.

I pushed against the door, opening it as a second smaller explosion echoed through the parking lot. My own words to Vincent echoed in my head:
You can relax. The Lavotinis are in charge. Don't worry about a thing.

Twenty-seven

I pushed the heavy door back and ran out onto the dock. The explosion had occurred somewhere near the front entrance to the Tiffany, that much was evident by the way people seemed to center in that direction and from a thin flicker of orange that cast a fiery glow against the far wall of the building.

The screaming had stopped almost as soon as I'd heard it, replaced now by the sounds of approaching firetrucks. A cruising police car pulled into the parking lot just as I rounded the corner and saw the source of the explosion. An unmarked police car, a brown Taurus sedan, was almost fully engulfed in flames, the shell quickly turning black as the flames ate their way from the front to the back of the car. The screaming started again, but this time it was me.

I ran until the heat singed my face and strong arms held me. “It's all right,” he said. “It didn't get me. I'm right here.”

I turned away from the car and buried my face in his chest. I felt his arms tighten. I wanted to run away then, to take him with me and go, forget about the murderer, forget about everything but keeping this man safe and staying safe myself.

His hold on me loosened as the emergency vehicles pulled into the lot. The firemen rushed to the car while Nailor moved toward his colleagues. I stood and watched him take charge.

Vincent Gambuzzo wasted no time getting to my side. “You know what this means?” he said excitedly. “She didn't do it. She couldn't have done it. You can't blow up a car from a jail cell!”

I looked at him, not getting for a moment what he was saying. “What makes you think this has anything to do with the murders? Vincent, that's John's car. He could've been killed.”

Vincent stopped, looked at my face, then out to the burned shell of the car. “Jesus, Sierra! I didn't know. I'm sorry.” He stepped up to me and moved to hug me, saw me pull my arms across my chest, and let his hands drop to his side. I couldn't have done anything else that would've hurt him as much as I did with that one gesture. The worst part was knowing that I'd hurt him and feeling powerless to undo my cold withdrawal. It wasn't him, it was me.

“Vincent, I'm…”

“Don't worry about it,” he said. “You gotta take care of your guy. This is getting too deep for us. I'll worry about Marla; you just stick here with this.” He turned and walked off, flapping his short arms and yelling, “Show's over, folks! There's a better one inside.”

Was there a connection here? Two porn stars, a mob guy, and almost Nailor. What was the deal? I watched the firemen douse the car one more time, even though the flames had vanished and there was nothing left to burn. John and a fire official in a white car spoke. I watched them talk and figured the other guy for an arson investigator. Other police officers in vehicles rolled through the parking lot, stopping, lowering their windows, and chatting with each other. A voice called out to Nailor.

“What, you too lazy to fill out the requisition form for another car?” This was followed by a chorus of male laughter.

I realized Nailor was really okay and where he belonged for now. I could leave him and know he was safe. The music cranked back up inside the Tiffany, calling me, reminding me that I had a job to do, two jobs, maybe three if you counted fence-mending with Vincent Gambuzzo.

Gordon held the door open as I walked inside, his eyebrows and goatee looking faintly scorched from the fire.

“You all right?” I asked.

He looked at me and smiled. “Never better, ma'am,” he answered.

“Well, that makes one of us.”

Tonya the Barbarian was out on the runway wearing some kind of animal costume. She was breaking in a new routine. She pounced around the stage growling and swiping at people, biting the money out of the customers' outstretched hands. She was actually attracting more attention now than the burned-out Taurus. I gave her the thumbs-up and moved on back to the dressing room. Another explosion had taken place there: Candy Barr had arrived and the Tiffany was once again in pandemonium.

Candy stood in the middle of the floor, looking around the room, a tentative expression on her face. She was stunningly beautiful with long black hair that reached to her waist, clear blue eyes, and a smattering of freckles. She had to be also almost seven feet tall.

She had a perfect figure, but oversized to fit her huge frame. She dwarfed me by a good foot and I like to think I'm the tallest girl working the Tiffany. If this girl could put on six-inch stilettos and actually walk in them, Rusty would have to consider moving the stage lights to accommodate her.

The other dancers were flat out staring at her, and the strippers barely hid smug grins that told all. She was a freak, an anomaly of female anatomy. What in the world were we going to do with her? And where would she dress and shower?

Sierra the House Mom took over. I figured there was no approach better than taking the bull by the horns, so to speak.

“Hi,” I said, stepping forward, “I'm Sierra Lavotini. Welcome to the Tiffany.”

Candy Barr looked down at me and her eyes brimmed with tears. I looked over at the strippers. “All right,” I said, “which one of you told her?”

Nobody said a word. In fact, it was pin-drop silent. Vincent chose that moment to barge in, but he stopped in the doorway, his eyes widening as he took in the enormity of our situation.

“Jesus! That's what Barry sent us?”

Candy Barr cried in earnest now and her nose began to run.

“She'll be just fine, Vincent,” I said. “She's just a little scared, that's all.” I pitched my voice to carry across the room, signaling with my eyebrows and facial expression that he should go along with me. I looked at the rest of the girls and jerked my head in Candy Barr's direction. The dancers took the cue and surrounded the sobbing newcomer.

Candy Barr raised her head, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, mascara running in a black river down the sides of her face. “It's not so much that,” she said between sobs. “I've just never been so far away from home, and then, to get here and find out Frosty and Venus were the ones that … that…” She dissolved into another torrent of tears.

“They were your friends?” I asked.

“The best,” she said. “I hadn't seen them in a couple of months because Mr. Sanduski made them travel, but we were close.”

“But you didn't know they'd been killed?” I asked.

Candy Barr's eyes widened. “No! Nobody said a word to me. I don't watch the news or read the paper or anything like that. It's just too confusing, and it always gets me upset. I guess Barry didn't tell me on account of I get emotional sometimes.”

Sometimes?

“I guess I'm all heart,” she said. “I mean, I think with my emotions and not with my head.” Candy Barr wasn't impressing me as a Rhodes scholar, so I nodded and let her go on. “But we actresses are like that. We have to live in the scene, be with the inner core. What good is a brain if you can't push it aside and use your gut instincts?”

I shook my head. Candy was the missing link that separated man from the lower animal kingdom.

“Candy,” I said, stepping up and putting my arm around her waist, “do you ever find it helps to dance out your feelings? You know, put them all into your act?”

“You can just call me C.B.,” she said. “And, yes, that's exactly how I see it.” She looked down at me and smiled just a little bit, but enough for me to know she was workable.

“Well, I was thinking,” I continued, squinting my eyes and focusing on a far corner of the room, “maybe taking your feelings out on the stage in the very place where your friends died would be like a tribute to them. A memorial.”

C.B. lifted her head, tossed back her long hair, and smiled. “Oh, that would be lovely,” she breathed. “A tribute. That's real nice.” She cocked her head sideways and looked at me, a shy smile beginning to cross her face. “You know, you favor this girl we all used to dance with in Atlanta. I mean, you really look just like her.” Candy's face clouded and tears began to brim again.