Strip Tease (10 page)

Garcia said, “Goddammit to hell.”

The boy shouted, “Who is he, Al?”

“Go tell your mother to call the police.”

The boy ran off. The dead man’s face stared up googly-eyed from the hissing river.

“You’re a prick,” Al Garcia said to the corpse. “You’re a prick for spoiling my vacation.”

He looked again at the dead man’s license and cursed acidly. The sonofabitch was from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Why? Garcia wondered. Why won’t they let me be?

“Those real?” he asked.

“Please,” said the doctor, recoiling. “No touching.”

It was Shad’s first visit to a shrink—Mordecai’s man. His name was Vibbs, Palm Beach sharpie and plaintiffs best friend. A laminated diploma from Yale University hung on one wall. Shad was more interested in a jar of hard candy on the doctor’s desk. He filled his cheeks and began to chew.

“Tell me about the roach,” Dr. Vibbs said.

“Big fucker.” The words crackled out of Shad’s mouth.

“Did it upset you?”

Shad’s laugh exposed a wet maw of peppermints and butterscotch. “Upset? Hell, I’m traumatized. Write that down.”

Dr. Vibbs was rattled by Shad’s hairless, hulking presence. Most of Mordecai’s referrals had nothing wrong with them; this one was different. When the hairless man bent to pick up a candy wrapper, the psychiatrist noticed a “G” carved into his scalp. He assumed that Shad had done it to himself.

Vibbs probed with caution. “I need to ask some personal questions—it’s standard for these evaluations.”

“Evaluate away,” said Shad. “I told you I was fucking traumatized. What more do you want?”

“Are you having bad dreams?”

“Nope.”

“Not even about the roach? Try to remember.”

“Ah,” Shad said. He was catching on. “Now that you mention it, I been havin’ fearsome nightmares.”

“That’s understandable,” said the psychiatrist, scribbling up a storm. “Tell me about them.”

“I get chased down Sunrise Boulevard by a giant cockroach with yogurt dripping from its eyeball sockets.”

“I see,” the psychiatrist said. He scarcely glanced up from his notes. Shad took this as a signal to try harder.

“Yeah, so this monster roach is chasin’ me back and forth, drooling and growling like a thousand tigers. The fucker’s as big as a tanker truck. Plus it’s got a dead baby in its teeth.”

“I see.”

“And when it gets real close… it turns into my mom!”

“Good,” said Dr. Vibbs, without emotion. “So tell me more about your mother.”

“Eh?”

“Please. I’m interested in your relationship with your mother.”

“You are?” An odd light flickered in Shad’s eyes. He dragged Dr. Vibbs out of the chair and put him face down on the floor. Then he took a handsome pair of wood-handled scissors and sliced the psychiatrist’s clothing from neck to buttocks. On the desk Shad found a rotating tray of rubber stamps. He selected a red one that said NO INSURANCE, and stamped it all over Dr. Vibbs’s naked torso. It was quite some time before Shad ran out of ink. Meanwhile, sad puppy noises rose from the doctor’s throat.

“What a phony,” Shad complained. He tossed the stamp on the desk and grabbed a handful of hard candies, for the road.

“You’re disturbed!” Vibbs cried.

“I ain’t disturbed. The word is fucking traumatized. You should’ve wrote it down.”

“Go away,” said Vibbs.

Shad stood over him. “Not until you spell it.”

“What?”

“Come on, wigpicker. Trau-ma-tized. I’ll even spot you the goddamn T.”

In a shaky but defiant voice, the psychiatrist spelled the word perfectly.

“Proud of you,” Shad said, stepping across him. “And forget that business about my mom. I don’t know what got into me.”

To quell employee unrest at the Eager Beaver, it was Orly’s custom to pound on the desk and invoke the Mafia. He would brag of lifelong bonds with Angelo Bruno, Nicky Scarfo, Fat Tony Salerno and other famous gangsters whose names he’d clipped from crime magazines. He would talk of blood oaths, and the certain death awaiting those who violated them. Orly’s performance usually had the desired effect of stanching demands for pay raises, health benefits or the slightest improvement in work conditions at the club. In truth, he had no connections whatsoever to organized crime. The mob wasn’t interested in the Eager Beaver because strip joints got too much heat from police. Orly heard this first-hand from the only genuine Mafioso he’d ever met, a loan shark on trial for breaking the thumbs of a delinquent Chrysler salesman. Orly had gone to court as personal research, to learn how the mob actually operated. During a recess he approached the loan shark and struck up a friendly conversation. When Orly asked if the loan shark knew anyone in the market for a nude dance club, the man frowned and said no fucking way, there’s too much heat. Now video arcades, the mob guy said, that’s a whole other deal. A video arcade would be very attractive, investment-wise. Orly was disappointed, but out of politeness he hung around to hear the verdict. Not guilty, it turned out. The jurors (among them, several recent purchasers of Chrysler products) were visibly unmoved by the victim’s tale of woe. Orly noticed a few of them smiling as the salesman described his hands being placed in the doorjamb of a steel-blue New Yorker sedan. All that muscle over a six-hundred-dollar debt! Orly was impressed. He clung to his dream that someday the Mafia would make him a partner.

For now, though, the illusion would have to suffice. Orly faced a roomful of disgruntled dancers. As usual, Erin spoke for the group.

“Item Number One,” she began. “The air conditioning.”

Orly scowled. “So what about it?”

“It’s way too cold,” said Erin.

Urbana Sprawl spoke up. “Thermostat’s on sixty-eight degrees. That’s awful cool.”

Orly turned to Shad, who stood expressionless in a corner. “You chilly?”

“No,” said Shad, “but I don’t feel much in the way of hot and cold.”

“Well,” Orly said, “I’m quite comfy at sixty-eight.”

Because you’re a reptile, Erin thought. She said, “You’re wearing a cardigan, Mr. Orly. We, on the other hand, are freezing our bare butts.”

Orly rubbed his palms together. “The cold makes you look sexier. Makes those nipples good and hard. Customers go for that, am I right?”

The room got tense. Erin said to Orly, “Congratulations. You’ve hit a new low.”

“Watch it,” he warned. “You just watch how you talk.”

Monique Jr., normally timid, said: “I don’t believe it—that’s why you made it so cold? So we’d get hard?”

“Nipples,” Orly declared, “are a mighty important part of this enterprise.”

In the corner, Shad muffled a laugh.

Erin said, “Turn up the thermostat, or we don’t dance.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Orly.

Erin picked up a ballpoint pen and wrote on the blotter:

72 DEGREES OR NO DANCING!

Orly said, “I’ll pretend I didn’t see that.” He was waiting for Erin to back down. So were the other dancers. Orly adopted a menacing tone: “Insubordination can be dangerous, young lady. Remember what happened to poor Gonzalo.”

Poor Gonzalo was the Eager Beaver’s previous owner, whose bullet-riddled corpse had been dumped on the interstate—punishment, Orly claimed, for filching from the coin boxes on the Foosball machines.

“Bottom line is, Fat Tony likes things to run smooth,” Orly said.

Erin suspected that Fat Tony and the Mafia had nothing to do with Gonzalo’s death. More likely, it was a dispute between Gonzalo and one of his many PCP suppliers.

“Tell you what,” said Erin. “Why don’t you ask Fat Tony to stop by the club tonight?”

Orly was dumbstruck. He rocked precariously in his roost.

“I want him to strip down,” Erin said. “See if he doesn’t freeze his saggy old Mafia tits.”

The other dancers murmured in amazement. What had gotten into this girl?

“Well?” Erin said. “Give the man a call.”

Orly looked whipped. “You’re on very thin ice,” he said weakly.

Erin smiled. “I bet it’s warm and cozy down at the Flesh Farm.”

“Oh Christ,” said Orly. “Don’t even think about it.”

She turned to the other dancers. “Show of hands?” One by one, the women joined up.

“No!” cried Orly. “You stay away from those fucking Lings!”

“Then turn up the damn thermostat,” said Urbana Sprawl, freshly emboldened. “Fat Tony don’t want his dancers out sick with a chest cold.”

The two Moniques began to giggle. Shad turned toward the imitation red velvet wall, to hide his grin. He knew there was no Fat Tony and no mob connection. The principal investors in the Eager Beaver were a group of relatively harmless orthopedic surgeons from Lowell, Massachusetts.

A reluctant Orly said he’d raise the temperature in the main lounge to seventy degrees. Erin held out for seventy-one.

“All right,” Orly agreed, “but I want to see some rock-hard cherries. I mean it!”

Erin proceeded with Item Two on the agenda. “We’ve been kicking around some ideas for a new name.”

“Forget it,” Orly sniffed. “I already said no.”

“Something classy.”

“You want classy? Teach these fucking bimbos how to dance. Then maybe we’ll talk about a classy name. For now, the Eager Beaver is perfect.”

“Candy Rockers,” Erin said. “Sexy but not crude. What do you think?”

“I think,” Orly said, “that I give these girls a video from only the hottest joint in Dallas, right? All they gotta do is pop it in the VCR and watch the motherfucking tape. I mean, a chimpanzee could pick up some a these steps—”

“It takes time,” said Erin.

“Like hell.” Orly pointed at Sabrina, who was absorbed in polishing her toenails. “You watch that tape?”

Sabrina bowed her head and said no.

“Case closed.” Orly slammed his hand on the arm of the chair. “Case closed. We’ll switch to a classy name when I see some classy dancing.”

Urbana Sprawl waved. “Mr. Orly, I looked at that video. I believe those Dallas girls were high on crank.”

“Oh, is that it?” Orly laid on the sarcasm.

“Candy Rockers,” Erin said again. “Think about it, OK?”

Someone knocked quietly on the door. Orly motioned to Shad, who went to the back of the office and positioned himself strategically at the doorway.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

A thick voice on the other side said: “Police.”

Shad looked to his boss for instructions.

“Shit,” Orly said. “What now?” His face turned the color of spackle.

Erin wasn’t sure what to make of Sgt. Al Garcia. She didn’t know if he was a good policeman or a lousy policeman, but she knew he’d never make it in the FBI. He was not an assiduous note taker.

However, other factors worked in his favor. Eleven whole minutes had passed and Al Garcia hadn’t yet propositioned her, or even asked if she was married. That set him apart from most cops who dropped by the Eager Beaver.

He sat across from Erin in a back booth. Orly, citing phony flu symptoms, had slithered out the front exit. Shad was at the bar, haggling with a wholesaler over two cases of Haitian rum. On stage, Urbana Sprawl danced to a dirty rap song.

Erin wore a lace teddy, a white G-string and high heels—not ideal attire for a police interview. Garcia smoked a cigar and paid no attention to the perfumed surroundings. He handed Erin a Xeroxed copy of a Florida driver’s license. When she saw the photograph of Jerry Killian, she knew she was looking at a dead man. Garcia had already told her.

“Exactly what happened?” Her mouth had gone dry and her eardrums buzzed faintly.

“Drowned,” the detective said. “Your picture is hanging in his apartment.”

“Mine and a dozen others.”

“I found a stack of cocktail napkins on the bedstand. Did you know about that? Eager Beaver cocktail napkins.”

With extreme firmness, Erin said: “I never saw his bedroom.”

“He wrote notes on these damn napkins. Notes to himself, notes to his kids, notes to you.” Garcia paused. “Is the smoke bothering you?”

“No,” said Erin, “it’s my all-time favorite aroma. That and gum turpentine.”

Without apologizing, the detective extinguished the cigar.

“Tell me what happened,” Erin said. It was still sinking in—Mr. Peepers was dead. This was too much. “I want to know everything,” she said.

“What happened is, your friend floated up deceased in the Clark Fork River and spoiled my trout fishing. You ever been there—the Clark Fork?” Garcia reached in his jacket and took out an envelope of family snapshots. He found one photo showing the river and the mountains, and he handed it to Erin. “Mineral County, Montana. Beautiful country, no?”

Erin agreed. In the foreground of the photograph was an attractive woman and two children. They looked perfectly normal, Al Garcia’s family.

“Not many homicides in Mineral County,” the detective was saying. “The coroner takes one look at Mr. Tourist, all dressed up in his L.L. Beans, and says Accidental Drowning. Being the hardass ill-mannered big-city Cuban that I am, I politely request to peek inside Mr. Tourist’s chest. The coroner, nice guy, says sure. Unzips ‘em right on the spot.”

Erin’s low-cal lunch did a slow somersault in her stomach. She asked Garcia what was found inside Jerry Killian.

“Not much.” Garcia held his dead cigar poised, like a paintbrush. “A little water in the lungs. That’s to be expected. But when a man drowns in a lake or a river, he also tends to suck up grass, bugs, sand—you’d be surprised. One night we got a floater off Key Biscayne, had a baby queen angelfish in his bronchioles!”