SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (55 page)

This killer wouldn't be caught anytime soon, even he could tell the police that—if they didn't know it already. This was one smart person. One thing Son hated worse than anything was coming along behind a stupid killer and trying to imitate his crimes. It took real intelligence to do it, but it was time-consuming, too. And not nearly as much fun.

He drove home whistling an old Doris Day tune, “Que Sera Sera.” Whatever will be, will be.

Twenty-One

Shadow sat alone at a table in the Blue Boa sipping a Coke. Her set had ended and she wasn't yet ready to leave for the long drive home. Besides, she needed a little more money to make the night profitable and worth the long drive in from Seabrook.

The way most of the girls made money was table dancing, dancing one dance on a customer's table, or sitting at a table between sets of dances just talking to the customer, letting him buy drinks. He was supposed to pay for a dancer's time whether she table danced or whether he simply sat at the table with her, making conversation.

Sometimes a man peeled off bills as the girl talked with him, handing them over every five minutes or so. The girl accepted the money, stuffing it in her bra without missing a beat. Often, “talking” at the table with a customer escalated into the man touching the girl while they talked. And during a table dance, though the man wasn't supposed to, he often touched the girl, leaning in close as she danced, smothering his face in her crotch or touching her breasts when she leaned over him.

For these reasons, Shadow never table danced. She did, however, agree to sit at a table and talk with customers as long as they paid for her time and as long as they did not touch her. When men tried touching, she always stood from the table, and said, “I'm not what you're looking for. I'll call another girl for you.” She rather liked talking to the customers; how else could she decide if a man deserved to continue living or not?

She had a mission. Without that mission, she thought she might disappear, vanish, her personality desert her.

None of the girls ever gave out true information about themselves. They gave false names, false addresses, or parts of town where they lived. The truth wasn't what the man was buying, and if he thought he was, he didn't have brains. The whole situation was a fraud, a manipulation, an illusion. Just a game played between men and women, one not that much removed from the games they played in office settings, at singles' bars, or apartment parties.

Regular customers learned which girls allowed flesh pressing and which didn't. In the Blue Boa, Shadow was the only dancer who kept herself so pristine. Most of the girls needed the extra money and didn't mind a little grabbing now and then.

Just as at the former club, at the Blue Boa Shadow was known among the dancers as the “Ice Queen.” At the strip clubs up and down the street, the girls were beginning to hear about her. She wasn't really into the game, they said. She made nearly the same amount as the other girls, but she did it without allowing her person to be manhandled. It did not make her popular, but Shadow let it be known she didn't give a rat's ass about popularity.

“Familiarity breeds contempt,” she told the girls. “Why don't we just keep it businesslike, what do you say? I'm not interested in finding a girlfriend. I'm here to make a living, okay?”

As she drank her Coke that night, she saw a man angling across the room toward her. She sat up straighter and self-consciously adjusted the lace jacket she wore over the black French-cut bra. The jacket hid very little, but it made her feel less naked all the same.

The man looked respectable enough. He wasn't dressed expensively, but his clothes were pressed and clean. He wore Wrangler jeans and a plain vanilla-white shirt. He was a little overweight, but he had a nice, clean shaven face. And he did not look drunk.

“Hello,” she said, smiling as he hesitated next to her table. “Would you like to sit down?”

“Yes, thank you.” He sat across from her. Some of them tried to sit next to her and she didn't like that. Usually she left. “I'm sorry,” he looked around at the other tables. ”I’m new to the club scene. Do I . . . uh . . . pay you to sit with me?”

“That would be nice,” she said. “Whatever you think you can afford. And we just talk, nothing else, okay? Save the hanky-panky for the other girls. What's your name?”

“My name's Frank. And listen, I wouldn't think of . . . you know . . .” He let the sentence go unfinished. She thought he might have blushed and she felt a kindling in her heart for him. He wasn't much older than she, but he seemed younger and certainly less experienced. He was the first man she'd met in the clubs who didn't put her on guard and make her want to ask him the list of questions she now had memorized. Though she probably would. If he came back to sit with her more than this one time. A man should never push his luck with her.

She gestured to the waitress. “I'm drinking Cokes,” she said to him. “It'll cost you the same as a mixed drink, but I don't drink the hard stuff. I never saw the point in lying to a customer.”

“I don't mind the money.” He drew out his wallet. “I'll have a Coors Light,” he told the waitress. “Another Coke for the lady.”

He withdrew a twenty and handed it to Shadow, then when the drinks came, he paid for those rather than running a tab.

“How long have you been dancing?” he asked.

“Almost a year now.”

“I haven't seen you before. You look . . .”

“Like I don't belong here?” She laughed. “I'm sorry, I hear that line so often it just makes me laugh every time now. The thing is, I do belong here. If I didn't, I'd be in an office somewhere typing insurance forms.”

He looked down shyly at his hands clasped around the bottle of beer. “I'm sorry. I said I was new at this.”

“You might want to put your wallet on the table. Or at least have some money stacked to the side. The going rate for ‘talk’ is about a dollar a minute.” She wondered if that would scare him away and realized that for the first time since doing this job, she hoped that it wouldn't. It wasn't that she was attracted to him physically. He was a bland-looking sort of man and not at all interesting in a sexual way, but he seemed so fresh, so . . . vulnerable. She hadn't realized she was that tired of the old hands with their lines of bullshit.

He dutifully withdrew his wallet again and took some money out—a few twenties, she saw—and lay it in the middle of the table. “That should cover an hour or more.”

She smiled. “Looks about right to me.” She took the money and put it into the left cup of her bra. He didn't watch as she did this. God, he was a shy one. The men usually leered when the girls did that.

As they talked, he had to keep leaning in toward her to hear what she said as the music volume was turned up for one of the dancers on stage. She saw he never looked at the girl. He seemed to drink in her words instead. He had three Coors, they discussed the Astros and why they never won the championship; the Oilers and why they never won the Super Bowl; the cost of air conditioning in the summer in Houston; other clubs in Montrose; how some dancers were good enough to be onstage in Vegas if they wanted; and just any subject that seemed to fall between them.

She found out he liked to read Travis McGee novels and she had him explain to her what they were. He liked sports, of course, rooted for the local teams. He liked music, all kinds of music, and even listened to the lyrics. When the DJ played a song by Queen, he knew all the words, and offered the opinion that the lyrics were more poetic than one would expect from a rock group.

When the hour was over, he put out his hand for her to shake. “It's been real nice talking with you,” he said. “You wouldn't mind if I came back and did it again sometime?”

She said she wouldn't mind at all, and told him he was a gentleman. Then she watched him leave and sighed after him. If only that kind of man would come into the clubs more often, she wouldn't mind her work so much. She had begun to think the only sort of men left in the world were those on the make, or whose agendas were so deceptive and cruel she had to take them home and administer the drink of poison whiskey. It was a real surprise that a nice man had found his way into a club such as this and was willing to pay to talk with a dancer.

Of course, she didn't really know him. For all she knew he was another pervert who was just better than others at wearing a mask. But for some reason she thought not. He couldn't be that accomplished an actor, she didn't think. How many people were? Then again, who would ever guess the truth behind her mask?

She smiled, thinking how his name, Frank, seemed to fit his demeanor. And how “Shadow” fit her own.

She was just about ready to head for home when she saw the cop. He came through the door, his gaze fastened on her, and before she could move to leave, he was sitting across from her in the same chair Frank had just vacated.

“I want to apologize for waiting out back that night for you,” he said. “It was a stupid move. I had no right to do that.”

She had tensed, seeing him. Now she tried to relax. Maybe she could get some things straight with this guy. “It costs to sit at my table,” she said.

He dug in his shirt pocket and put a fifty-dollar bill on the table. She waved over the waitress, then tucked the fifty away.

“Irish coffee,” he said.

“Why don't you tell me what you're up to hanging out in the clubs?” She decided she'd needle him.

He leaned back in the chair, looking her over. “It's sort of a hobby of mine, a stress reliever, if you like. I enjoy watching the girls dance.”

“Ever try the ballet?”

He laughed. Maybe she was in a mellow mood or maybe talking with Frank had eased her feelings toward men, but she caught herself smiling in return, pleased she had caused that reaction. She was so serious most of the time that humor seemed hardly to play a part in her life. She couldn't remember making anyone laugh except Charlene.

“I don't care for the tights,” he said. “Or the music.” She nodded. The waitress brought the coffee and left. “What do you want with me?”

“Nothing really . . .”

“You want something. You keep following me around and coming to my sets. What's the deal?” Best to get the shit into the fan right away, let it fly.

He took a swallow of the coffee. “If I answer that I'll just be saying what a dozen men have probably already told you.”

“Like what? I'd like to hear your explanation.”

He looked into her eyes and she saw the truth residing there, waiting for it to issue from his lips. If he lied to her, she'd recognize it. “No, really,” she prompted. “I'd like to know what it is with you.”

“You're beautiful.” His voice had changed, dropping into a lower register, and his eyes remained steady on her face. “You mesmerize me. I don't talk with the girls, ask around. Until now I only came in to watch. With you, it was different from the first time I saw you. I wanted . . . to get to know you a little.”

When she opened her eyes wider to indicate he might be entering the territory of the lie now, he said, “I mean it. I don't expect . . . well . . . hey, I'm just wasting time, it's nothing to get alarmed about. I'm not going to stalk you or anything. I'm not one of those fucking freaks you get in these places. That's why I'm apologizing for waiting out by your car that night.”

“Then you aren't interested in arresting me.” Maybe she could tease, rather than needle him. He didn't seem a bad sort, but his adulation made her uncomfortable. Who needed a cop fan? Jesus.

“Not tonight,” he said, surprising her.

“But I guess you want to know what a nice girl like me blah-blah-blah?”

“Actually,” he said. “I don't need that question answered. I pretty much know all the reasons women dance in the clubs.”

“We're exhibitionists.”

“If you say so.” He looked at her solemnly over the rim of the coffee cup as he drank. “Is that why you never get friendly with the customers? The whole dance thing is to show off, get attention?”

“I didn't know you were a psychiatrist too.” She tried to change the direction of the conversation. “So if you're not Vice, what kind of cop are you?”

“Homicide.”

She remembered now one of the girls telling her that. “Solve any good murder cases lately?”

“One or two.”

“Any I might have heard about on the news?” This was easy money. Get them talking about themselves and their jobs. Easy way to make the time pass. She figured she owed him another thirty minutes or so. If she felt like it. And he didn't threaten her.

“You know about the gay banker who was killed down here a few months ago? Found in an alley with his head bashed in?”

She faintly recalled the word on the street about it. Montrose was a haven for the gay population. The killing had caused the gay caucus leader to demand the police do something and do something now. “I heard of it,” she said.

“I picked up the kids who did it.”

“I thought people were considered innocent until trial by jury.”

“That's the way the law states it. I know these kids did it, though. I have an eyewitness saw it go down. They're guilty all right.”

“Kids? Like teenagers?”

“Privileged little pricks out for a joyride.”

Shadow sipped at her Coke. She heard the steel enter his voice and it gave her pause. This cop wasn't as easy to talk to as she thought he might be. Nevertheless, it gave her a secret little thrill to know she was talking to a homicide detective about murder without him knowing she had committed more crimes than his joyriding little pricks. Of course there was a world of difference between what she and the teens had done. They killed an innocent man for nothing. She killed for better reasons—not that the cop would agree with her on that score. “Will they go to jail?”

“For a while. Unless mommy and daddy bring in F. Lee Bailey or old Racehorse Haynes to get them off. Which wouldn't surprise me in the goddamn least.”

“Ever read about a guy called Travis McGee?” she asked. “I think he was a kind of detective.”

“The novel series? John D. MacDonald? Yeah, I've read them. Travis wasn't a cop, though. He was a ‘salvage consultant.’ People came to him to get something back that belonged to them. One time a guy came to him to get back his lost reputation. They made it into a movie, but it didn't work. Travis doesn't translate well to film. Have you read them?”