Dead Cat Bounce (26 page)

S
toney paid his money at the door, signed his name on the form the doorman handed him, half listened to the man's spiel about his signature verifying that he'd joined a private club. The sweet smell of stale beer and sweat that washed out through the doorway compromised his attention. “I'm sorry,” he said to the guy. “What did you say?”

“Doesn't matter,” the guy told him. “Just a new wrinkle in the cabaret law. All it means is that the girls can take it all off now, because this ain't a public joint. You got to be a member to get in.”

“How about that,” Stoney said. “Since when?”

“Couple days,” the guy said. “Another week, tops, and they'll close the loophole.”

“And then your lawyers will have to find another one.”

The guy shrugged. “That's business. Change or die.”

Inside, it was the same old thing, flat black everywhere, spots on the half-moon stage, muted lighting everywhere else, bar with mirrors and a wall of bottles behind it against one wall. The dim room was about half full, the crowd ranging from hard hats in jeans and work boots to coiffed and manicured suits. A couple of half-naked girls worked the room, you want to buy me a champagne cocktail, honey? Lap dances in the
VIP room in the back, baby, and you know you want me…. Stoney made his slow way across the room and found a spot at the far end of the stage. A sound system with blown speakers blared fuzzy disco music, obliterating all other sounds.

Stoney watched the waitress, she was short, stocky, strawberry-blond hair, midtwenties. She wore white terrycloth shorts and a flimsy halter top. She had a black leather fanny pack fastened loosely around her waist, and she carried a tray in one hand. The fanny pack tried to work its way down over her hips as she walked, taking her shorts south with it, and every now and then she would stop and tug them back up into place. Just part of the show, Stoney thought. She came over, stood by his elbow, and waited. “One Diet Coke,” he said. He had to shout to be heard, she had to lean in to hear him. “Just one, okay?” He handed her a fifty. “Keep the change.”

She looked at him and nodded. She understood. Bring me the drink and then leave me alone.

On the far side of the stage the dancer up on the stage was baiting one of the patrons. He was a young guy, sat at a table with three other guys, they all looked like construction workers. He and the dancer carried on a shouted conversation that Stoney could not hear. The dancer was a butch-looking female, brush cut dark red hair, Oriental tattoos on one arm, very muscular. She was down to a string bikini bottom and the ever-present garter, and she gyrated slowly to the music, she never stopped moving as she continued her exchange with the young man. It looked like she was challenging him, she sneered at him, held out one hand, curled her fingers as she undulated slowly, come on, come on…One of the club's bouncers hovered uncertainly in the background. Finally the young man stood up, red-faced, to shouts and cheers from his
friends and the surrounding crowd. The bouncer took a step closer, but the crowd pushed back away from the kid, giving him room. He dropped to the floor, assumed the push-up position, then raised one hand and put it behind his back. When he was sure of his balance, he looked up, watched as the butch stripper did the same.

Stoney had to smile. One-handed push-up contest. The kid nodded at the redhead, dipped to the floor, pushed himself back up. Everyone in the place shouted “One!” No way the kid wins, Stoney thought, he's probably in decent shape, but he's a little heavy, and the redhead was ripped. “Two!” The count went on until it got to seven. People were standing around the kid now, Stoney could no longer see him, but apparently he faltered. His friends howled and jeered at him, and the redhead began cranking out repetitions in quick succession. She quit when she got to twenty, a ragged cheer went up, and the men went back to their tables. About half of them paused to pay their respects, and the stripper nodded to each one as she accepted the money they proffered. The kid was last, he acknowledged defeat to a smattering of applause, counted out the bills he had wagered. She squatted in front of him, held the garter out from her thigh, snapped it shut on his money, and blew him a kiss. The push-up contest had been as close to real as the two of them would ever get, he knew it and she knew it. That understanding robbed the whole transaction of whatever sexual tension might have otherwise been present, because everybody knew you were never going to score inside the Jupiter Club. It was funny, really, everyone came to watch naked women dance, but when you got right down to it, the place was all about masturbation and the lies men tell themselves.

The redhead stood up, turned her back, untied the bikini strings at her waist, and slowly pulled the scrap of fabric between her legs and tossed it aside. She mooned the kid she'd beaten once, then moved on. Show's almost over, Stoney thought, she's got nothing left to take off…. She worked her way across the width of the stage, milking her admirers for whatever she could get. Stoney half rose out of his chair when she got to him, slipped a twenty in with the rest, nodded his respect. He didn't know how many one-handed push-ups he could do, but she hadn't looked like she was slowing down when she hit twenty.

Someone slipped into the chair behind his, the redhead glanced at the guy but he wasn't forthcoming, so she stood up, waved to the crowd, and walked off as the music ended, pausing to gather up the discarded bits of her costume.

Stoney sat back down, half turned to look at the new guy. It was Prior, or Plotnik. He was wearing the same clothes he'd had on at Wartensky's, but now he had a silver pistol to match the jacket. “Eyes front,” he said, holding the jacket open just long enough for Stoney to see the gun he held in his right hand. “You just keep your eyes on the bitches.” Stoney shrugged, watched as the redhead waved good-bye one last time and went behind the curtain. Yeah, honey, he thought, you are beautiful in your own way, but I'm sorry it came to this. You look smart enough to have figured out a better gig….

He heard Prior's voice in his ear. “Who are they? Where are the shooters?”

“Don't use 'em.”

“Yeah, sure. All right. Whoever they are, I hope they like you, because if anybody moves on me, I'm taking you out first.”

“Relax,” Stoney told him. “My partners love me.”

“They'd better. It was me, right? It was me all along you were after. There's no hedge fund, no XRC takeover.”

“Sorry,” Stoney said.

“You fucked up, you should have taken me down at that place in the city. You had your chance, and you blew it. I should have seen it coming. I should have known, especially after I had to take care of those two, earlier,” he said. “You had people poking into my business. They yours?”

“Yeah,” Stoney said.

“You gotta take better care of your people than that,” Prior said. “You guys suck, you know that? Better men than you have tried…. But that Chinese kid, he was fucking good, man, he really got under my skin. Fucking little bastard…” He looked around. “Is she here?”

“Who?”

“You know who, that skinny little bitch that set me up. Brother, when I'm done with you, I am gonna fuck her raw…. You can believe that.”

Stoney sighed. “Yeah, she's here.” Onstage, someone stood behind the edge of the curtain. The music kicked in again. “She'll be out after this one, I think.”

“Shut up and watch,” Prior said. “Eyes front.”

The new stripper was called Tiffany. She looked much younger than the redhead, and she couldn't dance a lick. She looked lost, slightly dazed, fragile. Her blond hair shone bright over her pale skin. She was coltish on her high heels. She wore a frilly, lacy, feathery negligee, and she took her time with it, fumbling with the buttons as she wandered across the edge of the stage, staring out over the heads of the men watching. They were into the second song by the time she got the thing
off, dropped it to the side, and writhed awkwardly in a filmy bra and panties.

Stoney shifted slightly in his seat, just enough to get a feel for what Prior was doing. Thought so, he told himself. The guy was rapt, Tiffany looked exactly like Prior's kind of girl, beautiful, but too young to know anything. Still the guy had that pistol in his right hand, hidden under his jacket, and there was no way Stoney could make a move. Stoney caught a glimpse of Prior's bald driver leaning against the bar.

She lost the bra first, walked around topless for the space of another two more songs, then she stepped out of the panties. There was a G-string under those, and she gyrated around in it for a while before finally taking it off. She began accepting money at the edge of the stage, taking it from the men watching without looking at them, seemingly as disinterested as if she were selling newspapers. When she got to their end of the stage, she squatted down and looked directly at Prior. “Hi,” she said.

“Hey, sugar,” he said, his voice hoarse. He handed a C-note to Stoney. “Pass it up to her,” he said.

“Hey, wow, thanks,” she said, smiling. “Thanks a lot.” She stood back up then, stooped to grab her clothes, then paused to wave before wandering back behind the curtain.

Prior switched the gun to his left hand, stuck it into his jacket pocket, and jabbed Stoney in the back. “I'm not waiting any longer,” he said. “We're gonna go backstage, and that little whore better be back there. Get moving.”

Stoney got up, made his way slowly across the floor toward the bar. There was a corridor at the far end of the stage, it led back past a couple of restrooms to a gray door with a sign proclaiming
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Behind them, the music stopped and the bartender's voice boomed out of the PA system as he announced the next dancer. The waitress came up the corridor behind them, tugging her shorts up. “Hi, guys,” she said. “You gonna hit the VIP room?”

Prior nodded in the general direction of the bar. “Yeah,” he said. “I talked to the guy at the door, Mac. He said it would be okay.”

“Hey, whatever,” she said, and she reached past the two of them and jerked the door open, held it for them to precede her through. “Mac makes the rules, I just carry the drinks.” Prior jabbed Stoney again, and the two of them walked through the doorway. They both stopped when they saw Tiffany standing there. She had the pieces of her costume in one hand, and she was wrestling with one of her high heels with the other. “God,” she said. “I hate these freakin' shoes.” She looked at Prior. “Did you come back here for me?”

 

It was just about dark when they got there. Tuco parked the Beemer in an empty spot in the parking garage Tommy had told him about. The spot was marked
RESERVED
, and that was the sort of thing that would normally bother Tuco, but it was closing time and the building's occupants were all going home. He did wonder whose spot it was, though, and decided that he would move without protest if the rightful owners showed up. Why do you worry about this crap, he asked himself, but he knew that he was funny about certain things. He liked to know that he belonged, that nobody could come along and tell him he needed to get out.

The motel was, by then, just a dark shape against the flickering backdrop of the flood of headlights streaming by
on the George Washington Bridge. The darkness hid most of the motel's more distinctive features, but it seemed obvious to both of them what kind of place it was. “What a dump,” Marisa said.

“Yeah,” Tuco said. “Two stars in the
Fleabag Gazette
.”

She didn't laugh. “Tell me again why we're here.”

“Tommy said he was tailing Prior back from the city, and the guy stopped in here for a couple of minutes. Tommy said he went into that last room on the top, down by the end.”

“So what are we supposed to do, sit here and watch the motel-room door? What good will that do?”

“Listen, the first thing we are supposed to do is keep you out of trouble.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Save Marisa from herself.” They sat and watched in silence for a few minutes. A few more people from the office building came downstairs, got into their cars, and left. As far as Tuco could tell, none of them appeared to give the Beemer a second glance. “We don't know what Prior was doing here, or where he went when he left, am I right?” Marisa said.

“No, we don't. He probably headed for the Jupiter, looking for you, but we don't know that for sure. Maybe he stopped here to buy coke or something.”

She shook her head. “Drugs are not his thing, he's a kink. Did he have both of his guys with him?”

“Tommy said it was just Prior and his driver, the bald guy. We don't know where the other one is.” Tuco looked over at her. She looked like a dog that smelled a stray cat. She was leaning forward in her seat, peering out at the darkened building, a scowl on her face. “What?” he said. “What is it?”

She sat there on point for a minute before she answered
him. “You guys don't know what a shit Prior is,” she finally said. “If he stopped in here, he had a reason for it, he didn't come to look at the wallpaper. And we don't know what happened to Jack, either.”

“He went home. Isn't that what everyone decided?”

Marisa did not look convinced. “He would have told someone,” she said.

“You think so?”

“I think he would have said good-bye. And then there was that strange voice mail he left me.” She lapsed into silence. About five minutes later, a figure appeared at the balcony railing, down at the end, by the room they were watching. It was impossible to tell, in the dark and at that distance, who it was. Seconds later, a match flared.

“Cigarette,” Tuco said.

“Yeah,” Marisa said. “Something's up, Eddie. Is there a way to kill that dome light?”

“What? What are you talking about?”