Strip Tease (29 page)

Moldowsky wanted a full debriefing. “Put David on the line.”

“He’s on a roll, Malcolm. He’s into his Holocaust material.”

“I’ll wait.”

Six minutes and two ovations later, the congressman got on the phone.

Moldowsky said, “So tell me about your hot date.”

“A delight,” said Dilbeck, short of breath.

“No shakedowns? I want the truth. What about the photograph?”

“The subject never came up. She was a perfect lady.”

“And you were the perfect gentleman.”

“A monk, Malcolm. By the way, I’ll need the yacht again in a few days. Erin’s coming back to dance.”

“Why?”

“Because she enjoyed herself.” The congressman’s tone was defensive. “She’s very fond of me, Malcolm. Oh, and I’ll need more cash.”

“David, I want my people there.”

“That won’t be necessary—” A gaggle of crowlike voices drowned Dilbeck’s words. “Malcolm, I’ve got to sign some autographs. Talk to Erb, OK?”

Moldy fidgeted until Crandall’s voice came on the line: “Malcolm, you should see. They got him in a yarmulke!”

“Stick close for a few days.”

“No, I’m afraid not.” From now on, Crandall was steering clear of Dilbeck’s glandular adventures. “I’m going to Atlantic City.”

“Like hell,” Moldy said.

“Malcolm, let me explain something. I don’t work for you, I work for David. And David thinks it’s terrific if I take a few days off and fly to Atlantic City.”

“That’s because David’s got big plans.”

“Well,” said Erb Crandall, “I got front-row seats to see Cher.”

“Really? I hope your plane hits a fucking mountain.”

“Thanks, Malcolm. I’ll be sure to send a postcard.”

“Could you at least find out when he’s meeting the girl? Or is that too much to ask?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Crandall said. “Whatever happened last night, Davey’s a new man on the stump. He sparkles, Malcolm.”

“I suppose that’s good.” Sparkles?

“Kennedy-esque, according to the Hadassah ladies.”

“Very funny.”

“Gee,” Crandall chided, “we thought you’d be pleased.”

“The man is ill. You know it, I know it.”

“He carries her shoe in his briefcase.”

“And you’re off to the fucking casinos.”

“Malcolm?”

“What?”

“I’ll miss you.”

Erb Crandall reached the parking lot just as the congressman’s limousine pulled out. Crandall waved pleasantly. Pierre, the driver, tipped his cap in reply. David Lane Dilbeck remained invisible behind tinted windows. A nasty canker bloomed on Orly’s lower lip. Erin couldn’t look at him, even though they were deep in argument. She scanned the imitation red velvet walls while Orly told her no fucking way could she take Saturday night off.

“That’s twice this week!”

Erin said, “I can count.”

“The answer is no fucking way. I’m thinking maybe you got another gig.”

“I do,” she said. “Congressman Dilbeck.”

“Shit.” Orly had no choice but to back down. He didn’t want to piss off a congressman, and he definitely didn’t want more heat from that ballbuster Moldowsky.

“I’ll work a double on Monday,” Erin promised.

“Bet your ass.” Orly picked pensively at the cold sore. “I’m curious,” he said. “What’s he like?”

“Nothing special.”

“Big tipper?”

“Fair,” Erin said. She knew where Mr. Orly was headed.

“I didn’t sleep with him,” she said. “You can ask Shad.”

“I already did.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said you just danced.”

“Don’t act so surprised.”

Orly shrugged one chubby shoulder. “He’s a bigshot. Those guys usually want the full treatment.”

Erin’s arms began to itch. It happened whenever she sat too long in Orly’s office.

He said: “Lorelei’s got phlebitis. She’s flying home to Dallas.”

“I’m sorry,” Erin said.

“It was that fucking snake, squeezing on her legs.”

Bravely Erin sneaked a glance at Orly’s face. He looked downcast and subdued. Of course the canker didn’t help. She nearly felt sorry for him.

“How was the yacht?” he asked.

“Fine, except there’s no mirrors. I’m dancing blind.”

Orly said, “I’ll need Shad here at the club. For the noodle wrestling—last night some guy nearly cacked.”

“I’ll be fine by myself,” Erin said. “Look, I know it’s still early but why don’t I get started on my sets?”

Orly said great, but no slow stuff. “Not to beat a dead horse, but I’m serious. You can’t strip to fucking Jackson Browne.”

“Congressman Dilbeck would disagree.” Erin stood up and pushed the chair away. “Here’s the part he liked best.”

Singing now: ” ‘Down on the boulevard, they take it hard.’ ” Dancing in baggy jeans and sneakers. A kick-boxing move—punch, punch, right leg out, then spin.” ‘They look at life with such disregard.’” Punch, kick, kick and split.

When she finished, Orly whistled and said, “Damn.”

“I told you.”

“That’s Jackson Browne?”

“The table dancers,” said Erin, “don’t know what they’re missing.”

Urbana Sprawl said that there was a guy jerking his weenie in a green Pontiac. Shad went to the doorway and scanned the cars in the lot. The green Pontiac was parked far away, near the road; Shad could make out a silhouette behind the wheel. He went behind the bar to fetch his tire iron, but then Orly called him over to break up a fight between two men at the Foosball table. Men in suspenders! Orly bellowed. By the time Shad got out to the Pontiac, it was empty. He decided to prowl around.

Darrell Grant already had broken into the club through the fire door. He was sitting in the dressing room when Monique Sr. arrived to freshen her makeup. She gave him a radiant smile and said, “Are you Kiefer Sutherland?”

“That’s me.” Darrell was cooked on codeine and Halcions and some unidentified lemon-yellow capsules that he’d purchased from a newspaper vendor on Dixie Highway. Darrell’s eyelids hung half-mast and his tongue stuck to his teeth. He said, “I’m looking for Missus Erin Grant. She works here in a nude capacity.”

Monique Sr. told him to put the knife away. Darrell Grant was unaware that he was holding it.

“You lost some weight,” Monique Sr. said, “since your last movie. My name is Monique.” When she held out her hand, Darrell flicked it with the blade. The dancer cried out and pulled away. A stripe of blood appeared on her fingers.

“Hush up,” Darrell said. He grabbed her arm and yanked her into his lap. Monique Sr. told him to stop and balled her fist, to stanch the bleeding.

Darrell Grant rubbed the stubble of his beard on the nape of the dancer’s neck. He bounced her on his knees and said, “Here’s a news flash, sweetie. I ain’t Keith O’Sutherland.”

“I kind of figured.”

He cut the strap of her bra top, which dropped to the carpet. In the mirror, Monique Sr. studied the man’s slack leer and fogged eyes. She felt him getting hard beneath her.

“Let me go,” she said. “I’ll find Erin.”

“What’s the hurry.” He’d spotted the wad of bills in her black garter. “How much you got there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred.”

“Excellent.” He slid the flat side of the knife down Monique Sr.’s leg, under the elastic of the garter. He twisted his wrist and the garter broke. The cash fell in a clump. It landed in one of her bra cups.

Darrell Grant said, “Pick it up.”

As she bent over, he said, “Those are some tits you got.”

“Please let me go.”

He propped the steak knife behind his right ear, like a pencil. Then he reached around Monique Sr. and slapped a hand on each breast. “I would estimate,” he said, “these are about three times bigger than my ex-wife’s.”

Monique Sr. said, “Shit. Now I know who you are.” She threw an elbow that caught Darrell Grant flush in the right temple. No pain registered in the lifeless blue eyes. He locked both arms around the dancer’s rib cage and squeezed. He gave a grunt that started low in the throat, then rose to a musical hum.

Monique Sr., who’d taken eight years of piano, recognized the note as a high C-sharp. She was equally startled by the man’s strength, and watched herself go pale in the mirror. The walls pulsed as the man’s eerie humming filled her head. Within moments she passed out.

When she regained consciousness, Monique Sr. heard Darrell Grant say: “Wake up, Little Dorothy.” She felt the man’s kneecaps bouncing her bottom and realized that he still held her on his lap. She opened her eyes and saw, in the mirror, that he’d cut off her G-string.

She said, “You want a screw, get it over with.”

Darrell squirmed beneath her. “I’d like to, but I sorta lost momentum.”

“Then let me go. I was due in the cage ten minutes ago.”

“Just hold up,” he said. “Maybe if I squeeze them titties again.”

“Nope,” said Monique Sr. “You’re done for the night. I can feel it.”

“Shut up!”

“It’s not your fault, sweetheart. It’s the drugs.”

Darrell Grant fumbled one-handed at his fly. There was no point. “Look what you did,” he whined.

“Wasn’t me.”

He traced the point of the blade along her bikini lines. “How about a tattoo down there? Be the first on your block.”

Monique Sr. said, “Please don’t cut on me again.” A dancer with scars didn’t get much work—not at the good clubs, anyway.

When Darrell stung her with the knife, she promised to do whatever he wanted. “Thatta girlie,” he said.

The door opened and Erin came in. It took a few seconds to absorb the scene: Her ex-husband sitting in the makeup chair, Monique Sr. trembling on his lap, the glint of steel against her tanned belly.

Darrell Grant giggled. “This is perfect. Shut the damn door and pull up a seat.”

Erin could see he was wrecked. She regretted leaving the pistol at home.

He said, “I’m gonna give this lady the ride of her life, and you’re gonna watch.”

“Hot damn,” said Erin. She sat down and winked at Monique Sr., who was not reassured. She raised her hand to show Erin the blood.

Darrell Grant said, “We’re gonna give you a peep show.”

“Anytime you’re ready,” Erin said, crossing her legs.

Darrell’s tipsy smile disappeared and his lips pursed in childlike concentration. He commanded Monique Sr. to touch him. She said she was. He told her to grab him, then.

“I am,” she said.

“I don’t feel a damn thing.”

“That makes two of us,” Monique Sr. said.

Erin folded her arms. “I’m waiting, Mr. Sex Machine.”

Darrell Grant squinted and strained and bared his teeth.

Erin said, “Maybe you need a laxative.”

Monique Sr. caught herself laughing. Darrell’s muscles—legs, arms, neck—went limp in defeat. “Goddamn you,” he said to Erin.

“Fine. Now let Monique go, and we’ll discuss the problem like grown-ups.”

“Not until you take me to Angie.”

Erin said, “You better talk to the judge.” She couldn’t resist: the exact line he’d used on her so many, many times.

He touched the knife to Monique Sr.’s neck. Teardrops and runny mascara streaked the dancer’s cheeks. Erin knew it was important to keep her ex-husband confused and off guard. Any sign of weakness would embolden him.

She said, “Monique, I apologize. Darrell makes a shitty first impression.”

“He cut my goddamn hand!” the dancer cried, displaying the wound again. “It’s not funny, Erin. Give him what he wants.”

“I want my daughter,” Darrell Grant snarled.

“Well,” said Erin, “I don’t have her anymore.”

Darrell took the news poorly. He shoved Monique Sr. to the floor and lunged wildly at Erin. The swiftness of his fury caught her by surprise. She tried to raise her legs to push him away, but he was already on top. The chair collapsed, and they went down simultaneously. Darrell Grant dug his knees into Erin’s chest. He screamed and cursed until he was breathless. She lost track of how many times he called her a dirty rotten cunt.

She was worried about the knife: where was it? Darrell’s arms hung at his side. Pinned flat on the floor, Erin couldn’t see her ex-husband’s hands, couldn’t raise her head to try.

Darrell Grant, panting: “I want Angie back tonight.”

“You’re crushing me,” Erin said.

Monique Sr. must have gotten out, because the door was ajar and the dressing room flooded with dance music from the lounge: something brassy by Gloria Estefan. Not an ideal tune to die by, Erin thought.

“Who’s got her?” Darrell said.

Erin, wheezing: “I’ll take you there.”

His right arm came up with the rusty steak knife. He held it by the tip of the blade, between his thumb and forefinger.