Solitary Dancer (11 page)

“Just because your guy's with you on the Cape doesn't mean he didn't have it done,” McGuire said. “Somebody else does it for him, he's got an alibi with you.”

Scrignoli looked out his window, staring absently down the alley leading to the back of the Flamingo. “Can't see it, Joe. First, the broad's only touching him for ten grand. That's pocket change to him. He'd paid her some already, then she came looking for ten grand more, said she'd wait a month, she wasn't greedy, just wanted to know it was coming. He'd a paid it, trust me. Second, I had a noose on his nuts when it came to money. Poor bugger couldn't buy a book of matches without me knowing about it. That's how I found out about her in the first place. So how's he gonna lay off whatever it takes to pay some street hood to do her without leaving a trail?”

McGuire shrugged. “Wasn't professional either,” he said. “Whoever did her took his time, beating her up like that. Not like a professional hit. Somebody enjoyed doing Heather.”

“Got a point there,” Scrignoli said. “You got a point. So whattaya think I should do?”

McGuire had had enough. Whoever was in his room should be finished by now. “Don't know why you're asking me.” He wrenched the door open.

Scrignoli seemed surprised by McGuire's sudden departure. “Just wanted your advice, Joe. That's all. What, I should go to Fat Eddie on this, ask him to be cool?”

McGuire stepped from the car. “Tim Fox,” he said. He felt a steel rod where his neck used to be, a white-hot steel rod extending out of his skull. “Tell Timmy, he's handling the case. Timmy'll know what to do. Thanks for dinner.”

He turned, stumbled once before pushing open the door of the club, and entered the darkness and the noise, not even glancing at the naked woman writhing in the glare of the lights.

His mother named him Byron because a lover had once given her a poem written by somebody with that name, a lord or count or something, and because the gift of the poem was the lone romantic memory in her life, she had preserved it, or tried to, in the name of her only child.

But a boy growing up in South Boston soon learns Byron is not a name to command respect on the street. By the time Byron was fifteen years of age he stood almost six feet tall and boasted a record of two convictions for theft and one for assault. He also carried a new name, Dewey. You don't fuck with a Dewey, especially Dewey Robinson who contradicted normal physiological development by, at age thirty-five, managing to accumulate equal quantities of fat and muscle on his six foot three inch body, ballooning out to more than three hundred pounds.

Dewey loved his job, managing the floor at the Flamingo. He loved the girls, especially those who were good to him in the back room, the ones who would perform any little act he wanted if he sweet-talked them and laid a little coke on them. He loved intimidating customers, assholes who couldn't keep their hands off the girls like they were supposed to until Dewey showed up, casting a shadow over them with his presence before leaning down to whisper in their ear, “How'd you like your nuts shoved up your nose, cowboy?” Which tended to slow them down a little, decide that copping a feel probably wasn't worth being taken outside and dropped like a sack of potatoes on a fire hydrant. Dewey had done that to a couple of them. When word got around, people knew he meant business, and it added to the whole intimidating package. Like shaving his head did, and wearing sleeveless vests so he could flash the tattoos on his biceps.

Dewey especially liked grabbing the microphone and announcing the girls' names over the P.A. system as they climbed the stairs to the stage, imitating those big-time radio jocks who screamed about drag races in between beer commercials and Rolling Stones records. Some day Dewey'd go to one of those radio stations, get a job as a nighttime DJ. Make some of that big bread, get his picture in those ads on billboards and on the side of the MBTA buses, maybe with a hip line like, “Dewey Does It For You Every Night,” something like that. Christ, he'd have women crawling all over him, begging him for it.

Sienna was starting her third tune, down to nothing but skin now, rolling on her red velvet blanket, Risa waiting to go on, then Billie, then Dakota, then MaryLou when she got back. Risa was new, nice build, lots of thick dark hair . . .

“Dewey?”

He turned to see Dakota standing there, biting her bottom lip. What, she needs something to snort in the back, Dewey thought. It'll cost her. “What's up?” he asked.

“I gotta talk to you.”

“So talk.”

Dakota looked around. Snakes, the bartender, was pulling a couple of drafts and laughing with two bikers. The music was rolling behind Sienna and every guy in the place, maybe a couple dozen of them, was watching her. Some had their mouths open and a couple were nodding, liking what they saw. “You know McGuire?” Dakota asked.

“Haven't seen him.”

“Yeah, well, I just did. Out front. Sittin' in a car with a cop, guy who does undercover work.”

Dewey's head didn't move but his eyes swung over to look at Dakota, something happening to them when he did that, and Dakota's hands started playing with themselves, fingers soothing fingers.

“You sure?”

Dakota nodded. “Guy busted me and some friends a while back.” She shrugged. “They didn't nail me for nothin', you know? The two guys, they got three to five, I didn't have to testify or anything.”

Dewey's eyes swung back to the stage. He didn't speak, he just breathed in deeply, a long intake of air that made his chest expand like a balloon and made the lines of his neck stand out like rope.

“Everybody knows McGuire used to be a cop, long time ago,” Dakota said. “He never tried to hide it, never talked about it or nothing. Maybe this guy's just an old buddy givin' him a ride. Hell, no way he'd meet an undercover right out front, out in the open like that, right? I mean, Billie says there's no way, she was with me, she says McGuire's not like that.”

“Billie's got the hots for him, she'd say anything.” Dewey was frowning at his thumbnail.

“She knows him better'n me, that's all I'm sayin'.”

“Yeah.” Dewey was watching Sienna again. “That's right.”

Dakota stood there for maybe another minute, wondering if she had done the right thing and then she said the hell with it, picked up a stool and walked back to the two grease balls with the 49ers caps, ready to show it all, do it all, five bucks for five minutes.

It happens, it happens, it happens, MaryLou kept telling herself over and over, silently, behind the tape that covered her mouth. It happened before, twice before, and she lived, she survived it, she could survive this, and when she did Dewey or somebody would hunt this fucker down and oh God!

She had never seen the guy before, didn't even notice him sitting in the far corner until she had finished table dancing for a couple of college kids and was heading back to the bar and he waved her over. Harmless looking but they all are at first. Glasses, short haircut, skinny guy wearing a heavy tweed jacket over a Hawaiian shirt.

“You wanna go out?” he asked her.

“Cost you a hundred,” she said.

“Got it.”

“Ten more for the room.”

“Got it.”

“I have to be back here on time, half an hour, that's it.”

The guy nodded.

“Meet me out back, bottom of the fire escape,” she said.

She'd told Billie and one of the other girls, let 'em know she had a john, then left by the rear door where the john was standing in the shadows and led him up the outside stairs to McGuire's room, knowing McGuire was never there between six and midnight, that was the deal. The john with the glasses and the nerdy haircut was behind her, she could hear him breathing hard.

She pushed open the door and there was the cot and the small light at the back, and as she reached behind her to shrug out of her robe the john pushed her face down on the cot, and she felt a knife against her neck and the son of a bitch was breathing in her ear telling her he'd cut her right there and now,
Now!
,
if she made a noise, made a move, did anything except what he told her to do, and she thought, “Oh, Jesus, not again!”

He must have done it before because he had the tape already cut to size and across her mouth and more tape around her wrists, her hands behind her back. Then he rolled her over and sliced through her robe and bra and G-string with the knife blade, watching them fall from her body with no expression, not even pleasure, not drooling, not laughing, none of that stuff, and his silence was more frightening to her than laughter or lust.

When she was naked he studied her body like a gardener surveying a plot of land, spade in his hand. But instead of a spade, he reached inside the waistband of his trousers to withdraw a length of garden hose, maybe two feet long. An inch or two of butcher's string formed a loop at one end and she realized he had concealed it within his trousers, hanging it inside so you never saw it, and in spite of herself, her fear, her panic, she thought, “Are you glad to see me or is that just a garden hose in your pants?” and then he brought the hose down hard on her stomach and she began the long vomit of silent screams.

Django was sitting in the far corner of the Flamingo, his teeth gleaming in a wide smile, his small head moving to the music, watching the stage where Risa was prancing and showing it off, playing to the audience.

McGuire ignored the woman on the stage and walked toward the small black man, steadying himself against tables as he moved. There would be money upstairs, enough for some pills to ease the pain, enough to play a few notes of Django's tune.

When Django saw McGuire approaching, the smile vanished and he turned back to Risa and her lovely long legs.

“I need some candy,” McGuire said, sitting heavily on the chair next to Django. “There's some money waiting . . .”

“Candy?” Django's smile returned but his eyes remained on the stage. “Rot your teeth, Jolt. Do like your mama tell you, eat up those veggies. Get your
greens
, all them vitamins.”

“You know what I mean,” McGuire growled. “Gimme a couple now and when . . .”

Django's head shook from side to side. “Out,” he said. He brought his thumbnail to his teeth and began probing the crevices.

“Hey, I've got it,” McGuire said. His voice was hoarse and his hands began to quiver from the pain. “Codeine, whatever you've got, just roll me a couple for now.”

As the first of Risa's three songs ended, she removed her halter top with a flourish, revealing heavy breasts, their skin the colour of buttermilk, and the men began applauding vigorously and a few appreciative whistles cut the smoky air.

Django clapped too, bringing his hands together in a slow rhythmic pattern, until McGuire leaned across the small table and seized the black man's arm, yanking him close. “Come on, damn it,” McGuire spat in Django's ear. “Give me a break here, just a couple until I get the money from the room.”

“Can't, Jolt.” Django pulled away and smoothed the leather sleeve of his coat. “Couldn't sell my mama a aspirin, way things are. Nothin' personal, understand. You a good customer, good guy, but . . .” Django glanced behind McGuire and sat back in his chair again, his arms folded across his chest. He returned his eyes to the stage where Risa's second tune had begun, whump-whump-whump, the tall black-haired woman striding back and forth across the stage, her hands supporting her breasts, thrusting the nipples forward so they bloomed like young roses.

McGuire reached for Django's arm again. “What do you mean, the way things are?” he said, and a large hand settled heavily on McGuire's back. He turned his head, winced at the stab of pain that raced across the base of his skull and locked eyes with Dewey.

“Don't want no problem here,” Dewey said calmly. He kept his hand on McGuire's back but he was looking across the room at Risa. “Just want everybody to have a good time, sit down, enjoy a drink, look at the pretty women, okay?”

“Aw, Jesus, Dewey,” McGuire said, then Dewey added, “'S'all we wanta happen here, so whyn't you go outside, tell your buddies from Berkeley Street for me, okay?”

Django's eyes grew wide and his head swivelled back and forth, from McGuire, to Dewey, to the front door where Grizzly and the Gypsy would be walking through any minute and finally down at the floor as though there might be a message for him there, telling him the Gypsy'd been right, he should never trust a cop, even an ex-cop.

“Berkeley?” McGuire said. “What's with Berkeley Street?” but Dewey just stood there watching Risa on the stage and Django slid off his chair, looking to put room between himself and McGuire, who sat for a while with his head in his hands before rising and walking out the front door, wondering what the hell he was going to do now.

He rolled her on her stomach. His jacket was off, she didn't know when he removed it, didn't even know how long she had been there, but she remembered coming out of a faint maybe. Like she was somebody watching it all in a movie, she saw that his jacket was off and his ugly red Hawaiian shirt was stained under the arms from the effort of raising the rubber hose and bringing it down again and again across her body while she writhed to escape the blows.

Now her face was buried in the folds of the cot and when he began working on the backs of her thighs she knew she would either throw up or pass out or maybe both and if she did she would choke to death on her own vomit. My God, how long had it been going on? How much more could she stand?

Another blow from the hose on her thighs and then another, and she knew, she
knew
he wouldn't stop until he killed her and the knowledge settled like a force within her. There had been times when she was coming down from a drug high and she owned and controlled nothing but her body, whatever she could do with it, those were times when MaryLou wished she were dead. She had said it aloud when she felt too much pain and too much sadness, when she had taken too much shit from her boyfriend or her father, and now she told herself that her wish was coming true, this is what happens when you get your wish.