Strip Tease (7 page)

“I got an idea,” Darrell said. He told Shad to lie on his belly or else get a bucket to catch Erin’s blood. Shad nodded and got down on the ground. Darrell Grant released Erin and immediately pounced on the bouncer, digging his knees into the other man’s enormous shoulder blades. Laughing, Darrell managed to cinch Shad’s thick wrists with a pair of flexible plastic handcuffs.

“Knock it off,” Erin said, still shaky.

With both hands Darrell Grant poised the dagger at the crest of Shad’s bare skull; the smooth flesh dimpled under the pressure of the blade.

Again Erin told him to stop, and again her ex-husband cackled. He rolled the knife handle back and forth in his palms, so that the point twirled against Shad’s skin. Erin saw the first drop of blood, blackish in the dim light.

“That hurt?” Darrell Grant asked.

“Nope,” Shad replied, truthfully. He felt little in the way of physical pain. The doctors didn’t seem to know why.

Erin said, “Since when do you carry a knife?”

“Since when do you hang out with ugly bald-headed Amazons?” Darrell Grant got up and whipped the dagger like a sword through the air. He was batty on speed. “I suppose it’s just a coincidence that you’re here in this very parking lot tonight? En garde!” He slashed a Z in the air. “What, you think I’m blind? I saw your car from three blocks away, Erin. Jesus, you’d make a great spy. Maybe next time you can set off fireworks.”

She said, “You’re such an asshole.”

Darrell Grant grinned crookedly. “Is that how they speak at the St. Virus Society? That was you on the phone, right? Talking about all those brand-new wheelchairs.”

“You’ve lost your mind.”

“Then explain this!” Accusingly, he pointed the dagger at the Fairlane. “And this!” He poked Shad with the toe of a tan cowboy boot. “You fucking set me up!”

Erin said: “Darrell, I’m keeping a list: assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment, burglary, possession of narcotics—”

“Shut up,” he snapped. “What’m I supposed to believe, that you and Igor stopped here to make out? I know you’re lonely, Erin, but this is ridiculous. I seen handsomer iguanas.”

She thought of the gun in the car, gauged the steps back to the driver’s side. Then she pushed the idea from her mind. Shooting Darrell would mean she’d never see Angie again. The judge would make sure of it.

“Junior?” It was Shad, speaking from the side of his mouth. He had no choice, being face-down on the asphalt. “Junior, listen up. The lady and I work together. She was giving me a lift home when this piece a shit excuse for a Ford overheated. We pulled in to let the radiator cool, and that’s it. That’s the whole story.”

Darrell Grant dropped to his haunches and tweaked Shad’s nose. “Well, I’ll be damned. It talks.”

Wonder drugs, thought Erin. “What’s with your hair?” she asked. Darrell flared at her caustic tone. For a man whose profession was stealing from invalids, he was surprisingly vain about his appearance.

He said, “I lightened it a touch. So?”

“And the stubble,” Erin said. “Come here, let’s see.”

“No way.” He stood up, sullenly.

“Is this your Don Johnson period?”

“Shut up, Erin.”

She was trying to take his mind off Shad and further mischief with the knife. “I’ll bet you got yourself a white linen Armani to go with the hair.”

Darrell Grant said, “Fuck you.” When he put the dagger in his belt, Erin felt slightly better about the situation. She hoped he was down-gearing for a simple argument.

Then he stood on Shad’s head with the heels of his cowboy boots.

“Get off!” Erin cried.

“Make me.”

“Darrell, stop!”

Shad made no sounds. Erin wasn’t sure if he was still conscious.

“I like it up here,” Darrell Grant chirped. He balanced on Shad’s skull as if it were a cypress stump.

“Don’t,” Erin pleaded.

“What’s it worth to you? How about a twenty?”

Erin looked at Shad’s face under the boots. His eyes were closed but his jaw was set.

“Twenty bucks,” Darrell Grant repeated. “Hurry, hurry.”

He had tossed Erin’s purse under the car. She had to crawl for it. Darrell Grant leered as he watched her down on all fours. “I like that,” he said. “Brings back memories.”

Mechanically Erin fumbled in the purse for her cash. She found a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to her ex-husband. He sniffed it as if it were cognac. “Amazing,” he said. “All you gotta do is flash your twat and men throw money. Isn’t it a great country, Erin? Aren’t you proud to be an American?”

At that moment, the only person she hated more than Darrell Grant was herself, for marrying him. “Get off the man,” she said coldly. Darrell hopped from Shad’s head.

“Where’s Angie?”

“Safe and sound,” said Darrell Grant. “If you’re a good mummy, I’ll let her call on Christmas Day.”

“We’re going back to court.” Erin’s voice trembled. “You’ve already violated the judge’s order.”

“Back to court!” Darrell Grant’s hooting filled the night. “Back to court! I love it.”

“What’s happened to you, Darrell?” She really wanted to know. He was worse than she’d ever seen him.

He yanked the knife from his belt and bent over Shad. For a moment Erin feared that he would slit Shad’s throat. She had an image of herself hanging on Darrell’s back, digging her fingernails into his eye sockets.

“Don’t do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

Using the dagger as a pen, Darrell playfully etched the letter G into the crown of Shad’s naked scalp. Blood trickled down his head and puddled in the folds of muscle at the base of his neck. Erin felt woozy and chilled. Shad remained silent, although his eyes had opened.

“There.” Darrell Grant stood back and admired his work.

Erin said, “What does that prove?”

“We’re not going back to court.”

“You’re wrong, Darrell.”

“I won, sweetheart. All the marbles, remember?”

“What’d you do with my shoes?”

Again came the hooting laughter. “Wake up, little Dorothy,” he said. “You’re not in Kansas anymore!”

Darrell Grant circled Erin’s car, puncturing each tire with a thrust of the knife. Then he kicked each of the soda cans and sauntered off across the parking lot. As he disappeared in the darkness, Erin could hear him singing, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

At her feet, Shad rolled over and blinked up at the stars.

“Nice guy,” he said. “Too bad it didn’t work out for you two.”

Her record store didn’t stock the band’s first album, so she bought one of the newer releases. Kevin, the club’s disc jockey, was pleased with the hard guitar and fast bass beat. Her regular customers didn’t seem to mind the change of pace.

The one she called Mr. Peepers was not in the audience. Erin feared that Shad had scared him away from the Eager Beaver forever. Either that, or he’d given up the hustle.

So much for love.

Against her better judgment, Jerry Killian had become a reed of hope for Erin in her battle for Angela. Dealing with Darrell Grant was impossible, but maybe Killian could get to the judge. Maybe political pressure was the way to go. Erin needed to know more about Killian’s connection, the congressman.

His name, for starters.

She danced out of the spotlights long enough to shield her eyes and scout the back rows. The judge was in his customary booth near the Foosball machines. Monique Sr. was on the tabletop, bouncing up a storm. The judge watched droopy-eyed and inert. Erin figured his hands were busy under the table.

After the set, Mr. Orly came to the dressing room and announced that he approved of the new music. “Faster the better,” he said.

Urbana Sprawl said ZZ Top was hazardous to her health. “My tits are killing me.”

“Hey,” Orly said, “we put up with your rap crap. Ice Puke or whatever.”

“Ice Cube!”

“Bottom line is, you can tolerate eight minutes of hard rock.”

“Instant stretch marks,” Urbana complained.

Erin said, “I’ll find some slower cuts.”

“Don’t!” Orly protested. “Fast is good. Everybody sweats, everybody drinks.”

“And everybody tips,” said Monique Sr., waving a fifty. The other dancers whistled.

“Case closed,” said Orly, and he was gone.

When the shift was over, Erin scrubbed off her makeup and dressed quickly. Urbana asked what was the hurry.

“I’ve got an errand.”

“Three in the morning?”

“Meeting somebody.”

“Tell me it’s not Darrell.” Urbana and the other dancers knew about the harrowing incident at Erin’s car. They’d seen the dagger cuts on Shad’s bald head.

“Don’t worry,” Erin said. “It’s only Jerry Killian.” She zipped her jeans and stepped into a pair of sandals.

“Mr. Peepers?” Monique Jr. said. “Why?”

“To talk.”

“Bad idea,” said Monique Sr.

“Not many good ones at three in the morning.” Erin checked herself in the mirror. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“Be patient,” Urbana Sprawl advised. “He’ll be back. Especially you keep playing his songs.”

“I can’t wait,” Erin said.

“How you gonna find him?”

“He’s found.”

Urbana Sprawl smiled. “The phone book!”

“Nope,” said Erin. “Unlisted, unpublished.”

“Then how’d you find him?”

“Research,” Erin explained, enigmatically. Erin couldn’t tell them the truth. One phone call had sent Agent Cleary to the computer keyboard. He was glad to help, and asked few questions; he still felt bad about her dismissal.

Monique Jr. told Erin that it was crazy to call on Mr. Peepers in the middle of the night. “He could be a psycho slasher for all you know.”

“Oh, I believe he’s harmless.”

“That’s what they said about Ted Bundy.”

“Thank you,” said Erin, gathering her purse and dancing clothes, “for the peace of mind.”

Without much effort, Urbana Sprawl blocked the door. “Give him till the weekend,” she said.

Erin felt a wave of fatigue. She was losing the energy to argue. Her friends were right: it was craziness.

“Patience,” Urbana said.

“Until the weekend,” Erin promised. “If you can stand the new music that long.”

Monique Jr. said the ZZ Top was dynamite. She said she’d never dance to rap again. She wanted a white top hat and tails as a costume for “Sharp-Dressed Man.”

Frowning, Urbana hoisted a titanic breast in each hand. “Try jumping around with these suckers and you be in traction. So screw your ZZ and gimme that slow Cube.”

Erin was sympathetic. She couldn’t imagine going through life with a bosom so large. None of the dancers doubted the rumor that Urbana had once smothered a man on a convertible sofa. It was completely plausible.

“See you tomorrow,” Erin told her friends.

“You headed home?” Monique Sr. asked. “Be honest.”

“Home,” Erin said.

Shad followed in his own car, just to make sure.

Moldowsky found the congressman in a state of massage. A redheaded woman in a gold tank suit straddled his back, chopping at his pale shoulder blades. The woman had very long fingernails for a masseuse.

“Say hi to Eve.” Dilbeck’s words thrummed comically with each chop.

“Hello, Eve,” Moldowsky said. “We need a moment of privacy. Do you mind?”

Eve said that was perfectly fine. She spoke with a light British accent.

“Go hop in the shower,” Dilbeck told her. “I’ll be there in a flash.”

When she was out of the room, Moldowsky said, “David, where is your wife?”

“Shopping, I think.”

“You think?”

“Yes, shopping. I told Pierre to drive slow.”

Moldowsky said, “You are a hopeless shithead.”

Dilbeck sat up and covered himself with the towel. “What’d I do now, Malcolm? Hell, you’re acting like my mother.”

They heard the faucets turn in the shower down the hall.

Moldowsky motioned with his chin. “Is she a hooker?”

“I don’t know yet,” said the congressman. “And even if she is, so what? She’s got no earthly idea who I am, Malcolm. She just moved here from London.”

“Beautiful. Hands across the water.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“The sugar bill, Davey. Your colleagues are playing it tough, and my clients are deeply concerned. They want to know if they’ve got their money on the wrong horse.”

“Relax. I’m entertaining young Christopher tonight.”

Relax? Moldowsky thought. The moron has a prostitute in the tub, an assault victim in the hospital and a blackmailer who’s ready to call the newspapers. “Did you speak with the judge?” he asked.

Dilbeck nodded. “Yes, we had lunch.”

“Well?”

“He was grateful for my interest in his career. He does, as you say, have his heart on the federal bench.” Dilbeck stood up and adjusted the towel. He looked longingly down the hall, toward the gentle sounds of the shower.

Moldowsky said, “And what about Grant versus Grant?”

“Oh, we talked it over.” Dilbeck began to move around the room, trying to get upwind of Moldy’s cologne. “The judge is deeply religious,” Dilbeck said, “or at least he pretends to be.”

“Born again, I suppose.”

“Several times. He feels strongly that he made the correct decision in the custody case. He seems to have a personal interest in the situation.”

“True enough,” Moldowsky said.

“He said the mother is a harlot. Is that right, Malcolm?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There’s lots I don’t tell you, David.”

“I’ve got a soft spot when it comes to harlots.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Moldowsky wasn’t giving Dilbeck anything. The less he knew, the better. “So what’s the punch line? What did the judge say?”

“He doesn’t need me, Malcolm. He plays golf with a fucking senator.”

Moldowsky cursed dispiritedly.

“—a senator on the Judiciary Committee. The next time there’s an opening in our district, the judge has got it locked. He doesn’t need us, is what I’m saying.”

“So he won’t fix the case,” Moldowsky said, “even as a favor.”

” ‘The woman is a tramp and a sinner. She is unfit to raise a child.’ Those are his words, Malcolm. Plus he quotes the Bible.”

“This is bad news.”

“Yes,” Dilbeck said. “It was not a productive lunch.”

Moldowsky ground his knuckles together in agitation. “Would he go for a bribe? Straight cash?”

“It’s against his principles,” David Dilbeck said. “But he’s amenable to a free blowjob.”

A pulse became visible in Moldowsky’s neck. “Let’s see if I understand: only if the lady goes down on the judge does she get custody of her child—”

“He says he’ll consider it. That’s all. ‘Brownie points’ is the way he put it.”

“David, I’ll say this. You’re one terrific negotiator. They needed you at the fucking SALT talks.” Moldowsky began to pace and rant. “Who is this jizzbag judge? Bible quotes—from what, the Book of Dick?”

“Hey,” the congressman said, “we’re talking one lousy blowjob.”

Moldowsky cornered David Dilbeck and seized him by the arms. “Killian won’t go for it. The mother won’t go for it. Hell, Davey, I got no morals whatsoever and I wouldn’t go for it. It’s the worst goddamn thing I ever heard.”

The vapors from Moldy’s cologne made the congressman’s eyes water. “The judge won’t take cash, Malcolm. I tried.”

“That’s a disgrace.”

“Not even for his campaign,” Dilbeck said. “I offered to funnel it through a PAC but he said no. See, that’s the main reason he’s angling for a federal gig, so he won’t have to run for office anymore. He has a very shitty opinion of politicians.”

The plumbing emitted a metallic screech as the shower stopped. Dilbeck turned sharply at the noise. His expression was a familiar glaze of sexual distraction.

“You’re hopeless,” Moldowsky grumbled.

“What?” Dilbeck licked his lower lip.

“I said you’re hopeless. Go check on your friend. I’ll let myself out.”

“Thanks, Malcolm.”

“And stay out of trouble tonight.”

“Of course,” said the congressman. “Erb will be there.”

“Fine,” said Moldowsky. Erb Crandall was good, but he was only one man. On some nights Dilbeck needed double-teaming.

As Moldowsky stalked down the hall, the bathroom door flung open and he was enveloped in a cloud of sweet-smelling steam. Eve stood there, sleek and wet and flushed in the cheeks. If Moldowsky was the least bit dazzled, it didn’t show. He courteously stepped to the side and motioned for her to pass.

“You’ve got soap on your ears,” he said.

Less than two hours later, Congressman David Lane Dilbeck was a portrait of male contentment and relaxation. He smiled, he blew smoke rings, he tapped his shoes, he hummed to the music. A fresh rum-and-Coke appeared inches from his fingers, further improving his mood. Sitting to his right was Erb Crandall, who was huddled anxiously over an orange juice. Every so often he glanced toward the door in anticipation of a raid. Sitting to the congressman’s left, a man named Christopher Rojo folded a fifty-dollar bill into an airplane and sailed it toward the stage, where a woman danced cautiously with a nine-foot Burmese python. The reptile’s jaws were secured with Scotch tape, and someone had painted a bottlebrush mustache on its snout. Erb Crandall figured it was some kind of Hitler joke.

“This is so wonderful,” said Dilbeck. “Isn’t she something, Erb? How about that damn snake!”

“Yeah,” Crandall said, “what a life.”

The woman, whose stage name was Lorelei, had arranged the python in an intriguing way. The tail followed the crease of her bare buttocks downward through her legs, curling out to the crotch.

“That’s a well-trained animal,” the congressman observed.

Christopher Rojo was similarly impressed. He was making a new paper airplane with a one-hundred-dollar bill. Rojo was a wealthy young man with few ambitions and plenty of spare time. His family owned a large sugar-cane operation on the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee. Christopher had never been to the farm, but he’d seen photographs. The cane fields looked like a stinking hellhole; he was astounded at the fortune they produced. There was so much money that one couldn’t possibly spend it all. Heaven knows he was trying.

“Here, Davey,” he said. “Your turn.”

Dilbeck took the paper airplane and tossed it toward the python dancer. It landed between her feet. She gave the men a slow wink, and scissored elegantly into a split. Picking up the money, she pretended to show it to the snake. Dilbeck laughed and laughed. Lorelei sprung to her feet, waved once and disappeared offstage. The set was over.

Erb Crandall sagged with relief. Maybe they’d get through the evening without incident.

Rojo said to Dilbeck: “What’s your bet?”

The congressman sipped his rum thoughtfully. “Thirty-eight B,” he said. “Nature’s own.”

“And I,” said Rojo, waving more cash, “say she’s thirty-six inches of plastic fantastic.” He smoothed a fifty on the table. David Dilbeck did the same. They turned toward Crandall, who signaled himself out of the wager. They’d been at it all night, every time a new dancer came on stage. There were two parts to the bet: the size of the breasts, and whether or not they were surgically enhanced. Rojo was getting creamed, and Crandall wasn’t surprised. The congressman had an unfailing eye for the female form; it was his life’s passion, graft being a close second.