Strip Tease (6 page)

Shad said no, he couldn’t quit work. Mordecai backed off. They could discuss it another time. “What kind of job do you have?” he asked.

“I’m in the entertainment business,” Shad said.

“Really?” Mordecai couldn’t imagine it. “Are you a… performer?” He was thinking: Circus.

Shad shook his head. “Security. I provide security.”

“May I ask where?”

“At a bottomless joint.”

Mordecai took a deep breath. He imagined jurors would do the same. He imagined how it would be in court, watching helplessly as the sympathy drained from their eyes. Mordecai felt very sorry for himself; it had been such a crummy day. First the Paul Guber debacle and now this. Why didn’t he ever snare the choice plaintiffs—the adorable little kids, the winsome young widows, the sad but plucky pensioners?

Not me, thought Mordecai. I get a bouncer from a tittie bar. Not a normal-looking bouncer either; some hairless pop-eyed “Star Trek” reject.

The man named Shad said, “The hell’s the matter? If your heart’s not in it, just say so.” He probed the yogurt with the spoon. “I want you to see this.”

“Not necessary,” the lawyer protested. “I believe you.”

Mordecai kicked with both feet, rolling the chair back from the conference table. He got up just as Shad struck paydirt.

“Ha!”

“My God,” said Mordecai.

“Did I tell you? Is that a fucking roach or what?”

The prehistoric pest filled the spoon. Shad raised it to the level of Mordecai’s eyes. The lawyer gaped in revulsion. Wings askew, the dead cockroach knelt in a creamy blue puddle. Its yogurt-flecked antennae drooped lifelessly.

Shad was very proud. “Well?”

“Put it back,” the lawyer rasped.

“Just think,” Shad said, “sittin’ down to breakfast and—”

“No!”

“Makes you want to gag, don’t it?”

“Yes,” Mordecai whispered. For balance he clutched the corner of the table. “Put it away now, please.”

Shad carefully dropped the insect into the yogurt and stirred gently. Soon the crispy corpse disappeared from view. “There,” he said. “Now, where’s that fridge?”

“I’ll get Beverly to show you.” The lawyer mopped his jowls with a handkerchief.

“Does this mean we got a deal?”

“It does,” said Mordecai.

Times were tough, and a roach was a roach.

Orly clapped his fat hands together. “See! Another reason you gotta work.” He didn’t want Erin to take the night off. “Famous comedian in the audience, you shouldn’t miss the chance.”

“Alan Greenspan,” Erin said pleasantly, “is an economist.”

“That’s the one.” Monique Sr. stuck by her claim. “Check him out yourself. Corona from the bottle, no lime.”

“Not to mention it’s Tuesday,” Orly carped. “Tuesday being oil wrestling. Only one of our busiest nights.”

“I don’t wrestle,” Erin reminded him. “Not in oil, not in custard, not in mud. No wrestling for me.”

Nude oil wrestling was a tradition at the Eager Beaver, but Erin declined to participate. In her view, professional dancers shouldn’t roll around in a wet tub with shirtless, semi-tumescent drunks. As a secondary issue, Erin didn’t like the looks of the oil. Orly was vague about the brand; one day he’d say it was Wesson, another day he’d swear it was Mazola. Erin had a hunch it was neither. Once a health inspector showed up for an on-site bacterial census. Amazingly, not a single living microbe was found in the wrestling vat. The mystery was explained later the same evening, when the health inspector returned with four of his civil-service buddies. They shared a front-row table and all the Amaretto they could drink, courtesy of Mr. Orly.

“Tuesday is a big night,” Orly was saying. “Bottom line is, we need all our best dancers.”

“Please, Mr. Orly. It’s personal.”

“Tell me.”

“I’m meeting my ex-husband,” Erin said, “to discuss future custody arrangements for our daughter.”

Here Urbana Sprawl interjected her opinion of Darrell Grant, describing him so vividly that Mr. Orly immediately offered to have him killed.

Erin said, “That’s not necessary.”

“Beat up? Crippled? You gives the word.” Orly pantomimed dialing a telephone. “That’s how easy it is when you know the right people.”

“Thanks, but I can handle it myself.” Erin played along with Mr. Orly’s Mafia routine as a matter of politeness. He looked about as Sicilian as David Letterman.

Urbana Sprawl urged Orly to give Erin the night off for the sake of her lost little daughter. Orly wasn’t the least bit moved. He said, “Promise me this is really a domestic-type deal. Promise you’re not sneaking down the street for an audition.”

“Oh right,” said Erin. “My lifelong dream is to work for those freaks.”

Mr. Orly was paranoid about losing his best strippers to the Flesh Farm, which recruited aggressively with signing bonuses. The owners recently introduced Friction Dancing Night to compete with Nude Oil Wrestling Night at the Eager Beaver. Friction dancing was not so much dancing as it was rubbing, vigorously, against the frontal surfaces of fully clothed customers. It was demonstrably more erotic than oil wrestling, and not nearly as messy. Orly was definitely feeling the pressure.

“Tell me the truth,” he said to Erin.

“I told you the truth. I’m meeting my ex-husband.” She picked up her purse to indicate the conversation was over. “If you don’t believe me, ask Shad. He’s coming along.”

“My Shad?” Orly’s eyebrows twitched with concern.

“As a favor to me,” Erin explained. “There could be trouble.”

“Then be damn careful.”

“I will.”

“Because good bouncers are hard to find,” Orly said. “Harder than dancers, believe it or not.”

Erin first met Darrell Grant at Broward General Hospital, where her mother was recuperating from an operation in which her navel had been cosmetically inverted. Erin’s mother had paid a plastic surgeon $1,500 to transform her “outie” belly-button to an “innie.” Erin was unaware that such a procedure was available, but her mother assured her that all the big-name fashion models had it done.

Erin was standing at her mother’s bed, admiring the surgeon’s work, when Darrell Grant appeared with fresh linens and a clean bedpan. He worked as an orderly at the hospital and, as Erin later learned, it was there he acquired his taste for narcotics and his aptitude for boosting wheelchairs. In appearance, though, Darrell seemed anything but a criminal. Erin was still naive enough to believe that all crooks had bad teeth, greasy hair and jailhouse tattoos. She assumed that cleancut, good-looking men possessed the same natural advantage as cleancut, good-looking women: the world treated you better, and consequently there was no reason for unwholesome behavior.

And Darrell Grant was uncommonly handsome, with a lean face and bright mischievous eyes. He took her to the hospital cafeteria and charmed her with a hastily fabricated story of his life. The centerpiece of the yarn was an authentic Bronze Star, which Darrell Grant kept in the breast pocket of his hospital garb. He told Erin he’d won it for killing a Cuban sniper during the invasion of Grenada. Erin chose not to question Darrell’s tale, knowing the Pentagon had given out about a hundred thousand medals in appreciation for making the tiny spice island safe once again for Holiday Inns. Much later in their relationship Erin would learn that Darrell had actually acquired the Bronze Star, along with two cases of Michelob, in the burglary of an American Legion post.

They dated for six months, to the horror of Erin’s mother. She had steered a long line of doctors, lawyers and accountants in her daughter’s direction, and Erin had found them all too serious and self-absorbed. Some of them were old enough to be her father. Darrell Grant was impulsive, full of tricks, and he made her laugh. At the time, that seemed important. Erin’s decision to marry him was sudden and cataclysmic, and it had the desired effect of freeing her from the clutches of her mother.

The sociopathic side of Darrell Grant didn’t surface for about eighteen months, until he abandoned all pretense of honest labor and devoted himself full-time to larceny. To explain the odd hours and fluctuating income, he told Erin he was selling medical equipment. Darrell’s boyish wit and warmth evaporated dramatically under the icy twin spells of amphetamines and methaqualone; he was either a dervish or a zombie, depending on the chemical cycle. Newly pregnant, Erin didn’t want to bail out of the marriage without giving Darrell Grant a chance to reform. The thought of divorce was almost as daunting as the thought of her mother’s shrill I-told-you-so.

When he learned that Erin was expecting a child, Darrell vowed to change his ways. He got off the pills, removed all stolen property from the garage and took a job selling rustproofing at a Chrysler dealership. He was a new man, for about a month. One Thursday, Erin returned home from work and found Darrell in the living room, chiseling the serial numbers off a pediatric wheelchair. Confronted, he broke into a rage and slapped Erin twice across the face. The amusement ended abruptly when Erin punched him in the larynx, pushed him to the floor and whacked him in the testicles with a mop handle. It was Darrell’s first glimpse of his wife’s temper, and it made an impression. From then on he never laid a finger on her; instead, he vented his feelings by destroying things that she valued—artworks, furniture, photo albums, her favorite clothes. By the time Angela was born, the marriage was irretrievably pulverized.

Erin didn’t torment herself with remorse. She’d gotten conned, and learned a lesson. Now it was time to concentrate on getting Angela back.

Waiting in the car with Shad, Erin outlined the latest plan.

“So it’s a trap,” he said.

“Exactly.”

“He won’t be bringing no wheelchairs for the poor.”

“No,” said Erin, “he’ll be looking to steal some.”

Shad spit something out the window. “And you were married to this asswipe?”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Don’t you hate it,” Shad said, “when love turns around and bites you like a damn rattlesnake? It happens, by God. Happens every day.”

Erin showed him the photographs of the mangled dolls in Angie’s bedroom. “Christ almighty,” he said.

“My daughter is the one I’m concerned about. That’s what this is all about.”

Shad said nothing for several minutes. Then he asked Erin if she was satisfied with her lawyer. “I’m not so sure about mine,” he added. “He needs some firing up.”

Erin said, “My lawyer’s all right. It’s the system that’s so frustrating.”

“Tell me about it.” Shad was glad to chat with Erin about these matters; he felt they were warriors on the same battlefield. “If there’s such a thing as true justice,” he said, “you’ll get your little girl, and I’ll get rich off my dead roach.”

“That would be nice,” Erin said quietly.

The car was in the farthest, darkest corner of a parking lot attached to a strip shopping mall in Oakland Park. The address Erin had given Darrell Grant belonged to a bankrupt video store, located at the other end of the plaza. A few movie posters remained in the window; from the car, Erin could make out the blown-up likeness of Arnold Schwarzenegger in sunglasses.

Shad said, “How do you know he’s coming tonight?”

“Because I told him they ship the wheelchairs every Wednesday morning. He’ll be looking to load up on inventory.”

“Any particular model?”

“He favors Everest-and-Jennings,” Erin said. “Rolls and Theradynes are good, too.”

Shad was intrigued. He’d assumed all wheelchairs were pretty much the same. “Rolls as in Royce?”

Erin said no, it was a different company. Shad asked why her ex-husband didn’t steal cars like everybody else.

“Because he couldn’t hotwire a goddamn toaster,” said Erin. “Cars are too complicated for Darrell Grant.”

Shad spit out the window again. He seemed to be aiming at a particular curbstone. “You want me to—do what exactly? When he gets here, I mean.”

Erin said, “Let’s play it by ear.”

“I could break something. Maybe start with a finger.” Shad wiggled one of his pinkies. “Depends how serious you are.”

“I just want to talk with the man.” Erin leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. She thought about the young bachelor beaten senseless on stage at the Eager Beaver—was he still in the hospital? She remembered the rabid expression on the face of his attacker, the wheezy primal grunts as he swung the champagne bottle.

Erin thought: Is it me? Do I bring that out in men?

Then here’s Orly, now Shad, offering to maim her ex-husband. A casual favor, like jumping the car battery or hooking up the stereo.

“The ulna is a good one,” Shad was saying. He tapped Erin’s forearm to show her the spot. “A crowbar right about there, we’ll have his attention.”

Erin sat up. “Can I ask you something? Do I seem the type of woman to be impressed by violence?”

He grunted noncommittally.

“I’m serious, Shad. Is that your opinion of me?”

He cocked his huge head and stared at her curiously. In the darkness he resembled a shaved bear. “It’s what I know best, that’s all—kicking ass. On account of my job.”

“Then it’s not me?”

“Ha! No, it ain’t you.”

“Because I am not impressed by that sort of thing.”

“Is that why there’s a gun under the seat?”

Erin couldn’t think of a sharp retort.

Shad grinned. “It’s all right, babe. You’re entitled.”

“I’ve never used it,” she told him.

“But you might.” Shad folded his arms. “All I’m saying is, violence can be helpful. Sometimes it’s the best way to make your point.”

“Not with Darrell.” Erin’s ex-husband would cherish an injury. What better proof that she was hanging out with a rotten crowd, and was unfit to care for Angela! Darrell, the conniving bastard, would milk a broken limb for all it was worth. He’d wear the cast until the plaster rotted off his arm.

“Your call,” Shad said.

“I just want to talk with the man.”

“Fine.”

But deep inside, Erin briefly savored a vision of Shad pounding Darrell Grant into dogmeat. She probably should’ve been ashamed by the feeling, but she wasn’t.

Especially when she thought of what he’d done to Angle’s dolls. At midnight Shad went looking for a Coke machine. Erin put on a Buffett tape and turned the volume low. She liked the Caribbean songs the best. Her imagination set sail, and before long she was dreaming of pearly beaches and secluded harbors. She was barefoot in the surf, wiggling her toes into the sand.

When she opened her eyes, her shoes were gone. Both doors on the old Fairlane had been opened. When she got out of the car, she stepped on something plastic, which cracked into sharp pieces. The Buffett cassette on the pavement.

Erin froze. “Shad?”

A hand grabbed her by the hair, twisting hard, jerked her head back so that all she saw was sky. She felt something sharp against her throat.

“You still snore like a pig.” It was Darrell Grant.

Erin shook uncontrollably. It was embarrassing to let him see her so afraid.

He said, “I can’t believe you tried to set me up. I can’t fucking believe it.”

“What?” Erin didn’t recognize the pitch of her own voice.

Darrell Grant slapped a hand across her mouth, told her to shut the hell up. They both heard the footsteps. “Your boyfriend,” Darrell whispered. “This’ll be choice.”

Shad came out of the shadows with a Diet Coke in one hand and an unopened can of Canada Dry in the other. He put both cans down as soon as he saw the long knife at Erin’s neck. Darrell Grant told him not to try anything stupid. Shad’s expression remained invisible in the darkness.