Icarus. (37 page)

"There's no fuckin' women in here," Dom said.

As strange as Jack found it, too, he couldn't help it, the laughter just burst out of him. He couldn't imagine what Kid had been doing in this place, there was something vaguely disturbing about it, and he was not all that comfortable, he had to admit, but in his entire life he had never seen an expression on anyone's face like the one on Dom's right now. Jack hadn't been expecting this, that's for sure. He was probably just as shocked as Dom, he just didn't show it, but here they were, so they might as well finish what they came to do. He tried to explain to Dom, to say the words "We're in a gay bar," but the music came up and it was too loud, there was no way to hear or to talk. And then, over a loudspeaker system, a DJ's voice boomed out:

"Ladies and gentlemen… and there are a few gentlemen here, aren't there?…"

The crowd whooped and hollered loudly in response.

"… the Golden Saddle is proud to present, direct from Texas… where everything is soooo biiiigggg…"

The crowd screamed its delight now.

"… the lovely, the sensuous, the provocative… Kim!!!!"

The lights went down in the room and the spotlight came up on the stage protruding from the bar. By now, Jack wasn't too surprised – he should have expected it, he realized that – but still just a little stunned at his surroundings. There was no denying it. The sexy stripper dressed in full cowboy regalia – boots, chaps, vest, and gun belt with two pistols – was the person they were looking for. This was Kim.

And Kim was not a woman.

– "-"-"THE ACT LASTED about ten minutes. Kim pranced and kicked and ultimately stripped down to the gun belt to the pounding of loud rock and roll. Every so often, Jack would glance over at Dom, just to make sure the old man wasn't having a heart attack. When Kim was finished dancing, Jack stood up, stepped into the crowd to find their waiter, whispered something in his ear, and then a few minutes after that, Kim was sitting at their table, the Western outfit back in place.

Jack did his best to explain what they were doing there, what they were looking for. Kim seemed to accept their explanation without needing to know many more details. They learned that Kid and Kim were, in fact, in the same MBA graduate program and that Kim also did some personal training. He said he was less weight-oriented than Kid, that he specialized more in stretching and yoga. At some point, he glanced at Dom, then said to Jack, "Your friend looks like he's in kind of a state of shock." Kim's thick Brooklyn accent was a bit jarring, it didn't exactly go with the cowboy outfit, but Jack figured that his outfit – and his home state – probably changed every night, depending on the club manager's whim.

"Well," Jack told him, "Kid never told us that he did this."

"He hadn't done it for a while. And never all that often. Just when he really needed money. It ain't a bad little living. A hunnert a night plus tips and the tips add up. Especially with Kid. That boy had a body to die for and he could shake his ass." He smiled sweetly at Dom.

"I'm trying to find some of Kid's clients," Jack said now. "The people he used to train."

"Can't help you there. We don't share names in this business. Too cutthroat. You wouldn't believe how many so-called friends of mine try to steal my customers." His lips took on a quick pout. "Not to mention other things."

"How about some of the women he went out with? There was one he called the Entertainer. She's a dancer-" Jack stopped suddenly. "Wait a second – was that you?"

"Don't I wish," Kim said. "But that's a big no, no, no. Kid was as straight as they come. This was just a job for him. Lotta straight guys, the bodybuilders, do it 'cause it's safe – it's a lotta lookin' but no touching. But you know what? I think I know who youse mean. This Entertainer. Kid used to leave here and go to another club" – he looked at Dom again – "one your friend will appreciate a little bit more. It's called Lace. Over on the East Side. Kid used to hang out there a lot. I got the feeling he went through a lot of dancers, but there was one girl in particular he used to talk about. She sounded amazing. He almost had me interested."

"Did he tell you anything specific about her? Anything you remember that'll help me find her?"

Kim made a clicking noise with his tongue, trying to remember something. "Oh, God… what did he tell me about her? Something weird. She was from someplace totally outrageous… Ohio! That's what it was. Can you imagine coming from Ohio? Anyway, I don't know her name but she's a dancer there. At Lace. And maybe she won't be so hard to find 'cause Kid always said she was to die for. Oh. Sorry. Maybe that's a bad choice of words."

"You think she'd be working tonight?"

"Friday? All the good ones work on the weekends, honey. She'll be there."

"Thanks," Jack said. "I really appreciate it." He pulled some money out of his pocket and tried to hand it to Kim.

"No, no," the stripper said. "You're friends of Kid. No money, please." He smiled. "Use it to buy the old guy some oxygen."

Before Dom could say anything, Kim stood and slithered away.

"Now can we go?" Dom asked, draining his second beer. It was the first thing he'd said in forty-five minutes.

"Yeah," Jack told him. "Now we can go."

"You know," Dom said as they were almost out the door. "I gotta admit that guy had a pretty fuckin' good ass. And that's the last thing I'm ever gonna say about it."

– "-"-"LACE WAS JUST a block north of the Golden Saddle, on Twenty-fourth Street, but it was all the way across town, between Park and Broadway. They took a cab.

There was a bouncer wearing an ill-fitting tuxedo outside the door, talking to a doorman who wore a similar tuxedo that had a slightly better fit. The front of the club was a bit more subdued than the Saddle. No neon. And the customers stepping inside as Jack and Dom's cab pulled up were wearing suits and ties. The cover charge this time was twenty dollars apiece, which Jack paid. Then they stepped through a curtain, into a kaleidoscope of flashing lights and bare flesh – and into a fantasy world that Jack did not have any idea existed.

They were in an enormous, elegant nightclub. There were four small stages in different corners of the room and chairs were set up around each of the stages. Chairs were also set up on either side of one long runway that crossed the length of the room. Poles came down from the ceiling every ten feet or so, reaching the runway floor. There were booths built into some of the walls and more chairs and small round tables in the center of the floor. Music was blaring, popular rock songs that all seemed slightly out of date – a Madonna hit that had come and gone, then something from the Stones' disco era. On each of the four stages, a different woman, nude except for a G-string, danced and gyrated and shook. The men who had seats on the edge of the stage would reach up and slip bills into the G-strings. In exchange for that, they would get a very large pair of tits or an incredibly firm ass waved very close to their faces.

At most of the tables and booths, women were table dancing. Their clothes would slip off and they would dance around their chosen transfixed customer. The men would sit very still and stiff; the women would straddle them in their chairs, run their hands slowly through their hair, thrust their perfect body parts close and then closer. Their lips would pout and their legs and hips would twitch back and forth. Sometimes, when the dance was over, they would sit on a customer's lap, their arms wrapped around his neck, their breasts poking against his shirt or jacket. Every so often, a man's hand would start to reach or caress and a muscle-bound, tuxedo-clad bouncer would instantly appear.

"Christ," Dom said. "There's enough silicone in this place to raise the Titanic. You're never gonna find her."

"I'm sure as hell going to try. You game?"

"What the hell, why not? I ain't done nothin' like this in years."

"Dom," Jack said. "You ain't done nothin' like this ever."

"Hey," Dom snapped. "Try to leave me with some dignity, will ya?"

They wandered around a bit, through the maze of stages and tables. There was a room marked "Private Club." Jack asked about it and a waitress said that it cost a hundred dollars to go in there. They served champagne and there was more privacy. There was also another room that they stepped into. This room had tables and chairs but no stages. More romantic music was playing in here, and here you were allowed to slow-dance. As Jack looked, there were five couples on the dance floor. Each man was clothed, each woman naked except for a G-string and high-heeled shoes.

They walked out into the main room and Jack looked around. There were at least fifty, maybe seventy-five dancers and three or four times that many customers. Most of the audience were businessmen, many in their thirties and forties. Some were older. There was a decent percentage who were younger, in their late twenties. Quite a few of the men were Japanese. Some blacks but not many. There weren't many women customers but there were a few. All were with dates. Jack saw two who looked extremely uncomfortable and three who were enjoying themselves immensely. One woman not far from where they were standing had two dancers spinning tantalizingly over and around her while her husband or boyfriend watched. The woman was ecstatic; she couldn't take her eyes off the dancers' bodies and because she was a woman, more touching was allowed. Jack saw one of the dancer's breasts brush against the woman's lips and, briefly, he saw the woman's tongue pop out of her mouth.

"So what's your choice?" Dom asked.

"Let's try this room for a while," Jack told him. "And we'll see what happens."

What happened was that a hostess – sexy by normal standards, plain-looking compared with the women who were dancing or strolling and looking for someone to dance for – led them to a table, where they were immediately descended upon. Jack was barely seated before a dancer with close-cropped dark hair, almost in a crew cut, did her best to crawl inside his shirt. Before he knew what to say, she was on his lap, her dress was yanked over her head, and she was grinding herself into his thighs and against his chest. The music blared as she pursed her lips and winked and smiled and teased and ran her nail down his cheek. Jack understood the frozen positions he had seen around the room because he'd assumed the same pose. He didn't know how to sit, didn't know what to do with his hands, so he stayed as motionless as possible and tried to figure out exactly where to look. When the music stopped for a moment, the dance was over – it had lasted maybe three minutes – and the dancer placed her perfect leg up on Jack's chair in her best Sally Bowles impersonation, nudging her toes under his thigh. She lifted up the garter belt and said, "The minimum's twenty."

Jack slid a bill onto her thigh and the belt snapped tightly down on it.

"Would you like another dance? I'm just warming up," she purred.

Jack, feeling a little idiotic, said, "You're not from Ohio, are you?"

The dark-haired beauty smiled as the music started back up and said, "I can be if you want me to."

He shook his head, so she shrugged and sauntered off to a nearby table. Within moments, her dress was off and she was wriggling on someone else's lap.

Jack turned and saw a blonde with enormous breast implants sidling up to Dom.

"I never saw you in here," she said, eyeing the stub of his arm.

"Never been here," Dom said, mesmerized by her breasts, which were so stiff they didn't even move when she walked. "Where you from?" he asked her.

"Me?" the blonde said. "Nowhere." She waved her hand around the club. "I was born here. Right in this little room."

At midnight, after countless questions and even more twenty-dollar bills being passed around, Dom announced that he was leaving.

"I'm tired," he said. "I don't think nothin's gonna come of this, and my dick's had just about all the excitement it can take for the night. I'm gonna go home, sit in a hot bath, and wonder what kind of fuckin' world we're livin' in."

"I'm staying," Jack said.

"I didn't expect nothin' different, Jackie." Dom started to say something else, changed his mind, and walked out the front door.

Jack turned back in the direction of the runway stage. A young black woman had her legs wrapped around one of the poles and was lifting herself off the ground without using her hands. Two Japanese gentlemen sitting nearby applauded as if the curtain had just come down on Swan Lake. Jack raised his hand, signaling for the waitress. He needed another beer.

The rest of the night dragged on in much the same manner. By 1 a.m. the flesh had become boring. Women who'd once seemed perfect and exciting now seemed only identical to others standing right next to them. Jack had been in the private room, where, the hostess was right, there was champagne, but it was more like ginger ale and it cost a hundred dollars a bottle. There was more privacy in there and perhaps a bit more physical contact, but the women were the same, they just rotated in and out of the various rooms. He'd also been in the slow-dance room again but declined several offers to hit the dance floor. By 1:30, Jack figured he'd spoken to forty women. He had passed out a small fortune in twenty-dollar bills and had asked the same questions over and over again: Are you from Ohio? No. Do you know Kid Demeter? No. Do you know anyone who knows Kid Demeter?

No.

He was leaning up against the bar, nursing one final beer. The music was still pounding, the dancers were as mechanical and energetic as when he'd first walked in the door. And the place was nearly as crowded as it had been three hours earlier. But he'd had it. He put his half-filled glass of beer down on the bar, turned to head out. There was a dancer blocking his way.

"You look bushed," she said.

He nodded and smiled. She was lovely, this one, vaguely Latin-looking. In a flimsy gold-lame dress that barely came down to the tops of her thighs. The top of the dress was unbuttoned, revealing small but firm breasts – My God! he thought. Could they be real? A miracle in this place! – and her smile was a little bit crooked. It somehow seemed more genuine than most of the ones that had glistened at him all night long. She looked at him curiously, as if analyzing him, or just simply filing away his mental image for future use.