Amaretto Amber (Franki Amato Mysteries Book 3) (7 page)

"No need." He crossed his arms on his crucifix. "They was all named John."

I set myself up for that one. "Do you know what Amber did for a living after she left your, uh, employ?"

He pulled a gold toothpick from the pocket of his jacket and slipped it into his mouth. "She tol' me she was tired of workin' fo' the money, so she was goin' clean."

"That doesn't make sense," I protested, resting the pen on my cheek. "Did she say anything else?"

"Tha's all I know. Now if you don't mind," he began, gesturing toward a lone wino sitting with his back against a nearby trashcan, "I need ta tend to my parishioners."

"Well, thanks for your time," I said, practically choking on the words. As shady as this King character was, I had to keep the lines of communication open.

He bowed and pointed to the fedora. "Donations kindly accepted."

My lips curled. I reached into my wallet for a five and tossed the bill into the hat. "You'll get more when I get more,
capisci
?"

"I dig," he replied and then raised his cane and whacked the wino, who was making a play for the fedora funds.

So much for Christian charity
.

As I walked back to the office, I pondered King's comment about Amber "goin' clean." Of course, King was anything but trustworthy, but his story did line up with Carnie's recollection of Amber saying that she had wanted to quit the sex trade. So, if it was true that she hadn't worked for King or anyone else during the past year, then I needed to figure out how she could have come by money honestly without earning it. And the only way I could think of was that someone was giving it to her.

But who? And why?

*   *   *

"Come and get it, Miss Franki," Glenda yelled as she threw open the dressing room door. "Miss Eve brought us a bucket of her buttermilk fried chicken."

My ears pricked up at the mention of the decadent Southern dish, and I rushed into the dimly lit white room. Long, black countertops and mirrors with vanity lighting lined the walls, and strippers in various stages of undress stood around a table attacking the meat like sharks at a feeding frenzy. As I gazed at the gory scene, the fourteen ounces of cow in my belly started kicking. "Thanks," I said, clutching my gut. "But I just ate. Twice."

"Well, while you were at the bank, I took the liberty of calling the girls who worked with Amber." She handed me a cardboard pantyhose insert with some writing on it. "I couldn't get ahold of one of them, but I started this list for the other two. It's got their contact information, alibis, and measurements."

Although I was impressed with Glenda's initiative, I was confused about that last item. "Why'd you give me their measurements?"

"To help you size them up!" she cried and then slapped her knee as she doubled over with laughter.

I stood there stone-faced until she got out her guffaws. When she finally recovered, I asked, "So, is Eugene back from the police station?"

"Not yet," she replied, wiping a tear from her eye. "But the two girls I called came in early for their shifts to talk to you."

I glanced at the list. Interviewee number one, Bit-O-Honey, was in the hospital on the night of the murder, and interviewee number two, Saddle, was working at a club in Las Vegas. "Do all the dancers use stage names?"

"If they don't, they should." Glenda flipped her hair. "We need to protect our identities, and the bottom line is that we can make more money with a name that appeals to clients. Personally," she began, putting a hand over her heart, "I went for alliteration and romance with 'Lorraine Lamour.' But young girls today go for things like candy, liquor, and exotic locations."

"Then how do you explain 'Saddle?'" As soon as I asked the question, the answer came to me. "Never mind. I got it," I said, raising my hand in a stopping motion. "It refers to riding—but not horses."

Glenda put a hand on her hip. "It refers to the saddles she makes for a ranch supply store. Honestly, Miss Franki, you need to get your mind out of the gutter."

Yeah, because no one has inappropriate thoughts in a strip club
. "That reminds me, what was Amber's stage name?"

She grimaced. "According to the girls, she never used one. They said she didn't care if anyone knew who she was."

I wondered whether Amber's openness had anything to do with the fact that she had no family.

Glenda turned to a chubby brunette who was sitting at the counter and gnawing on a thigh in nothing but a thong. "Bit-O-Honey, come talk to Miss Franki about Amber while I go get Saddle."

She choked down a chunk of chicken. "Yes, ma'am."

As Glenda left the room, I sat in the chair next to Bit-O-Honey and wished that she would put on a robe. "What was Amber like to work with?"

She stared at me, wide-eyed. "Um, she was a super dancer."

I gave her a reassuring smile. "No, I was talking about her personality."

"Oh." She wrinkled her mouth to one side and glanced up and down like a student wracking her brain for the right answer. "Um, she was super creative?"

I pursed my lips. This was going to be harder than I'd thought.

The door swung open, and Glenda returned with a long, lean black-haired beauty wearing a tan suede bikini and chaps complete with a whip. Judging from the cowgirl costume, this was Saddle.

"Was Amber superstitious at all?" I continued.

"She didn't have time for that nonsense," Saddle replied as she sat down and kicked her high-heeled cowboy boots onto the counter, revealing a crescent-shaped tattoo on her calf. "She was fearless."

"That's right," Bit-O-Honey agreed, shaking a chicken leg, among other things, for emphasis. "For her 'crazy as a polecat' routine, she wore a sexy straight jacket while she worked the pole."

"Wow," I said, trying to visualize that scene. "She must've had powerful legs."

"And labia too," Bit-O-Honey added with a round-eyed nod. "Even though she did put Mighty Grip powder on them."

I froze as an unusual image came to mind that I was sure couldn't be right. "Is that like extra-strength baby powder or something?"

Saddle shook her silky locks. "It helps you stick to the pole."

I knew I shouldn't insist, but I couldn't help myself. "Then why did she put it…down there?"

"She had to collect the clients' dollar bills somehow, sugar," Glenda intoned as she brushed her bottom with bronzer. "After all, her hands
were
strapped to her body."

My jaw fell open, and it took a long time to get it to close. "Uh, speaking of routines, did Amber ever use Lili St. Cyr's bathtub during a performance?"

"No one would dare because that tub is sacred to us strippers," Bit-O-Honey huffed, pressing a hand to her bare breast.

At this point I was willing to forgo the robe and take a pair of pasties. "Did she have any issues with clients?"

"She didn't like The Fly," Saddle drawled, "but it wasn't like they had a falling out or anything."

I paused. "Did you say 'The Fly'?"

"He's one of our VIP Room regulars," Bit-O-Honey gushed. "And he brings in a jelly jar full of flies and pays us to kill 'em with a fly swatter." She swung at an imaginary fly with her chicken leg as a demonstration.

This time my jaw dropped so low that it almost touched my neck. "Whatever happened to paying a stripper to dance?"

"Clients want all kinds of things in the VIP Room," Glenda explained as she checked out her bronzed behind in the mirror. "Dancing isn't usually one of them."

I shifted in my seat. Before this investigation was over, I had a feeling that I was going to learn a lot of things that I'd never wanted to know about the stripping industry. "Okay, so what about the other dancers? Did Amber have any problems or fights with them?"

The girls exchanged a look.

Saddle's lips thinned. "She had a Hatfield-McCoy-type feud with Curaçao."

For some reason I thought of the woman I'd seen exiting the club the morning after my arrest. "She's not a platinum blonde, is she?"

Bit-O-Honey gasped. "How'd you know?"

"Just a lucky guess," I muttered. "But where is Curaçao now? Did she quit or something?"

"She still works here," Saddle replied. Then she glanced at Bit-O-Honey. "At least, we think she does."

"She's the girl I wasn't able to get ahold of," Glenda said, brushing some bronzer on her cheeks (the ones on her face). "And, from what I hear, no one's seen hide nor hair of her since her Saturday night shift."

I looked from Glenda to the girls. "What about Sunday when the police had all the dancers come in for questioning?"

Bit-O-Honey threw her hands in the air, along with her chicken leg. "She never showed."

My gut lurched, and it wasn't from that kicking cow. "Has anyone reported her missing to the police?"

Glenda placed the bronzer brush on the counter. "Curaçao is known for her benders, Miss Franki. But I'm sure that Eugene told the police all about this today."

I leaned back in my chair. With Amber dead, Curaçao's disappearance could mean only one of two things. Either she didn't want to answer questions about her enemy's murder or she couldn't because she was dead too.

"Curaçao hasn't shown up for her shift, sugar," Glenda said, climbing onto the barstool beside me. "And she's still not answering her phone."

I took a sip of chicory coffee from Madame Moiselle's signature "mammary mug" as I digested the worrisome news. "Do we have an address for her?"

"That child is a free spirit," Glenda replied as though she were the epitome of conformity. "The last we heard, she was sleeping on some friend's couch. You'll have to ask Eugene if he knows who or where that is."

If he ever comes back
. Eugene had been at the police station the entire day, and I knew why. Because he'd found Amber's body and had keys to the club, he was a prime suspect in the eyes of the law. The question was, did he deserve to be?

"In the meantime," Glenda continued as she hopped from the barstool in platform penny loafers, "the peep show must go on. Is it all right if I cover for Curaçao? Or do you need me to do some more sleuthin'?"

"It's six o'clock. The work day's over," I said, raising the mammary to my mouth.

"You going home?" she asked, tying her white button-down shirt into a knot beneath her bosom.

"Nah." I swiveled on my stool and leaned my back on the bar. "Bradley left town today, and Veronica offered to look after Napoleon, so I think I'll stick around tonight and observe—you know, see if I notice anything out of the ordinary."
For a strip club, that is.

"Well, slap my ass and call me happy!" she exclaimed as she demonstrated the gesture. "I'm about to practice one of my acts for The Saints, Sinners, and Sluts Revue, so you'll finally get to see me dance."

I did my best to look enthusiastic, but seeing my sixty-something-year-old landlady strip was not on my bucket list—nor was slapping her ass. Besides, judging from her pigtail braids, micro-mini plaid skirt, and knee socks, I feared that she was about to reenact Britney Spears's "Baby One More Time" video. "You're a slut, right?"

"Yes indeedy, Miss Franki." She curtseyed, purposefully displaying boobs adorned with pasties shaped like crosses—the religious kind, not the Red Cross kind. "I'm a Catholic schoolgirl."

As she turned and strutted toward the stairs, I vowed vindication for present and former Catholic schoolgirls everywhere.

"Ride 'em, cowboy!" a female shouted.

Glancing toward the main stage, I saw Saddle galloping and cracking her whip as the song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" began to play. "I don't care what Glenda says," I muttered, "that woman's name has nothing to do with making saddles."

I spun around to the bar to get one of Eve's honey-garlic chicken wings, but instead I came face-to-face with a turkey. From my up-close-and-personal viewpoint, I put him in his early forties. Apart from a noteworthy mole growing from his right eyebrow, his most distinguishing feature was his complete lack of fashion sense, i.e., baby blue bell-bottoms and a purple and white, floral-print shirt unbuttoned to his navel. If he'd been wearing a denim newsboy cap, he would've looked like one of the Wild and Crazy Guys.

"Hello, luscious. Didn't I see you at Hooters?" he asked, his eyes glued to my honkers.

I wasn't surprised by the lame line or the lascivious linger, but I was struck by the way he seemed to swallow his
l
's. It sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure why. "Sorry to disappoint you," I began, blowing my honey-garlic breath in his face, "but I'm not looking to hook up. I'm here on business."

His eyes glinted like the gold medallion nestled in the fur rug on his chest. "You're in luck, lady, because I'm the manager," he announced, holding out his hand. "Eugene Michael."

Finally
. Opting to skip the handshake, I said, "I'm Franki Amato."

"Amato, eh?" He moved his unshaken hand to his chin and rubbed his unshaven beard. "We could use a fiery Italian onstage."

I flashed a smart-aleck smile. "I'm sure you could, but it's not going to be this fiery Italian." I pulled a business card from my bag and placed it on the bar counter in front of him. "I'm investigating Amber Brown's murder."

He pulled a comb from his back pocket and ran it through his slicked-back hair, and I wondered whether he felt as cool and collected as he was trying to make me believe.

"You must be Glenda's friend," he said, returning the greasy comb to his pocket. "What can I do for you?"

"Answer some questions about Amber," I shot back.

He looked down and gave a frustrated sigh. "I met her the day she came into the club and asked me for a job, and I haven't seen her since she quit." He raised his head, and this time he looked me in the eyes. "So, I had nothing to do with her death, all right?"

Eugene was clearly on the defensive. The way I saw it, either he was tired of being questioned, or he was hiding something. "Do you know why she quit after only two months?"

"Strippers like to move around, look for better money, and in this industry it's easy to do," he said as he walked behind the bar. "You show up to a club, and if you've got good moves and the cash to pay the house fee, you can dance."

It didn't seem right that the women had to pay to work, but then there were a lot of things about this business that didn't seem right. "Carlos told me that you closed the club after he and Iris were arrested. What time did you leave?"

"At around five thirty," he replied as he browsed the bottles on the bar. "Then I went home to bed, and I didn't get up until Carlos called at noon and told me that his and Iris's bail had been set." He picked out a bottle of vodka. "And since no one can vouch for me, I'm evidently a suspect."

I remembered the surveillance camera that I'd seen in the VIP Room. "What about the video from the security system? If you had nothing to do with Amber's death, that could potentially clear you."

"There is no video because we don't run the system after hours," he replied, placing a highball glass on the counter. "Can I offer you a drink?"

"No, thanks." I wondered whether he was telling the truth about the video. If he was, Amber could've known that the cameras wouldn't be running since she'd worked at the club. But had the killer known this too? "Did Amber have problems with any of the clients?"

He laughed revealing discolored teeth, and my tooth gave a pang of repulsion. "The girls have problems with a lot of the clients," he said, pouring himself two fingers of vodka. "If I told you about some of our VIP Room regulars, you'd take me up on that drink offer."

After Bit-O-Honey's story about The Fly, I was inclined to agree with him. "What can you tell me about Amber's feud with Curaçao?"

"They had a few cat fights over one of Curaçao's regulars, a guy named Shakey." He took a swig of his drink and wiped his mouth. "Curaçao claims that he was going to propose to her and that Amber got wind of it and deliberately stole him."

If Curaçao had lost a husband to Amber, then she could've hated her enough to kill her. But until she surfaced, I couldn't rule out the possibility that she'd met with foul play too, maybe even at the hands of this Shakey character. "Do you think it's possible that Curaçao killed Amber?"

He gripped his glass. "As nuts as that chick is? Definitely."

"What about Shakey?" I pressed. "Do you think he could've done it?"

Eugene shot the remainder of his vodka. "I don't know anything about the guy except that he's a Texas oil man who wears a Stetson. But sure. Why not?"

I pulled out my notepad and jotted down the description, although I didn't hold out much hope of finding Shakey given that he sounded like a few hundred thousand other men in Texas. "Do you have any idea where Curaçao is? Some of the girls told me that she hasn't been seen since her shift on Saturday night, and I'm afraid she could be in danger."

"Don't worry," he said, pouring another drink. "Like I told the police, she parties pretty hard—alcohol, drugs, you name it. Sometimes she takes off for days at a time without telling anyone. But she always comes back."

If Curaçao had a substance abuse problem, she could be somewhere getting high or in withdrawal or worse. "Do you happen to know the name of the friend she's staying with?"

He drained his glass. "Maybe."

I blinked, wondering whether he was expecting a bribe for the information. "It's either yes or no."

"No, it's Maybe," he said, placing the glass on the counter. "That's her name. She danced here once or twice a couple of months back."

Now I wished that I'd asked for some of that vodka, because this case was going to give me a nervous breakdown. "You seem to know a lot about Curaçao. Were you ever intimately involved with her? Or with Amber?"

He moved in close and looked me in the eyes. "Honey, I stay as far away from these chicks as I can get."

A shrill whistle pierced the air followed by a strident "Yippee-ki-yay, y'all!"

I almost jumped from my stool. I glared over my shoulder and saw Saddle exiting the stage as Carlos the bartender pushed a fake altar up a ramp. Glenda must have been preparing to make her ungodly entrance, and that was my cue to look the hell away.

"Tell me something," I said, turning back to Eugene. "What do you think Amber was doing in that bathtub?"

He leaned on the counter with his forearms. "Probably getting it on with some loser who killed her for kicks."

I pretended to look at my notes while I recovered from my revulsion. "Did the police mention anything about a necklace?"

"You mean the amber?" he asked, arching the brow with the mole.

Apparently, he'd been questioned about the pendant even though Veronica had advised Detective Sullivan to keep its existence from the public. "Yeah, I'm curious about whether you have any thoughts on why the killer would steal it."

He straightened and hiked up his pants. "My first thought was that one of the girls killed Amber for the pendant."

I narrowed my eyes. "Why would you think that?"

"Because stuff goes missing around here practically every day," he said, opening his arms wide. "If it isn't nailed down or locked up, the girls take it. And they love sparkly things."

"So," I began, crossing my arms, "all strippers are thieves, huh?"

"Not all of them," he replied, raising a finger. "Just some."

For a second, I figured that he was trying to deflect suspicion from himself. But then I remembered that I had seen one of the girls, probably Curaçao, leaving the club with a suitcase containing Lord only knew what. "You mean, like Curaçao?"

"Primarily her," he replied with a pointed look.

"Eugene," Glenda called as she flounced up to the bar in her stripper schoolgirl uniform. "That darn sound system stopped working again." She gave a haughty flip of her braids. "I just can't work in these conditions."

It had to be divine intervention.

"I'll take care of it," he said, taking one last, lustful look at my breasts before exiting the bar.

Eugene was a creep, but I wasn't convinced that he was a killer. Curaçao, however, was a different story. From the sound of things, she had a healthy hatred for Amber and a strong motive to kill her on top of some psychological issues. I needed to talk to her ASAP.

I just hoped that I still could.

*   *   *

The legs on the stripper-pole clock above the bar read ten p.m. I yawned and looked around Madame Moiselle's. After four straight hours of shaking, slapping, and sliding, I was spent. And I wasn't even doing the dancing. I was considering calling it a night because, as far as I could tell, everything was on the up and up at the club—thanks in part to the silicone.

My phone began to vibrate on the counter, and Ruth's name appeared on the display.

Eager for a break from the boobs and booties, I grabbed my phone and hurried through the hotbed of horny men toward the exit. But outside on Bourbon Street, it was almost as loud as the club. I tapped answer and covered my ear with my hand in an attempt to drown out the blaring jazz music and the din of the revelers. "Hey, Ruth," I shouted. "I'm glad you called."

"Where are you at?" she barked. "A damn rave?"

All right, maybe I wasn't so glad
. "Madame Moiselle's."

A moment of silence ensued, followed by a gagging sound.

"Ruth?" I prodded worried that she was choking on an ice cube or something. "Are you okay?"

She inhaled sharply. "I told you to lay low," she rasped, "so first you come to the bank and get sloppy drunk, then you head straight to a titty bar?"

I grimaced as I realized that she hadn't been gagging, but raging. "Relax, will ya?" I huffed. "I'm here investigating a case. And I didn't get 'sloppy drunk.'"

She harrumphed. "Then why does my desk smell like a saloon?"

Annoyed, I collapsed against the exterior wall of the club—until a woman standing next to me pulled up her "I'm getting married, B*tches" T-shirt to flash some guys on the balcony across the street. "That was no well whiskey," I began, bolting away from the bodacious bride, "that was Dom Pérignon champagne, and it inspired a perfume, FYI."

"Yeah, for cheap tarts," she quipped. "Now what in the hell were you thinkin' drinkin' bubbly at my desk?"