Icarus. (38 page)

"You want a pick-me-up dance?" she asked. "Better than vitamins."

"You're not from Ohio by any chance, are you?" he asked wearily.

"Newark," she told him.

Jack rolled his eyes upward, not that he was expecting any divine intervention in this place, and then threw his hands up, a defeated gesture.

"Good night," he apologized to the dancer. "I'm outta here."

As he started to brush past her, she stuck her hip out, annoyed. "Hey! I thought you wanted a girl from Ohio. Aren't you the one who's been asking everybody?"

"You said Newark," Jack said.

"Yeah," the Entertainer said back. "Newark, Ohio."

– "-"-"HER NAME WAS Leslee, she told him. That was her real name. She wasn't going to bullshit a friend of Kid's. Leslee Cesar. Her club name was Gwyneth. They liked to have the girls use actressy names and she was a big fan of Gwyneth Paltrow's, thought she was really and truly classy. She was an actress, too, she said. Well, she hadn't been working much lately. It was so hard. And dancing here was so easy. She made so much money, on a good night fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand, sometimes it didn't seem worth it, the whole acting thing…

He told her he was interested in talking to her about Kid's death and he saw her eyes narrow just a bit, then return to normal. She was happy to talk to him, she said. But she couldn't just stop work. She could sit with him, but he'd have to pay her. Otherwise the management would get on her case. She might have to sit on his lap every so often; it made her look like she was working harder to take his money.

They went to a table and the waitress came over. "Just bring me a mineral water," she said. And to Jack: "They rip you off totally if you buy liquor for the girls."

Jack said he'd also have mineral water and the waitress went scurrying away.

He didn't have to prod Leslee. She was anxious to talk, both about Kid and herself. He settled back into his chair, his eyes half closed, and she pulled her chair close to him so he could hear her easily over the music. Occasionally she would shift positions, swing her legs over his, wrapping herself around him as if they were longtime lovers sitting on a couch watching television. Once, in the middle of the conversation, with no prompting, she slid out of her dress, danced a few circles around him, her breasts brushing the top of his head, and then she sat back down. But she didn't put her dress back on for another ten minutes or so, content to sit there topless while she chattered. Periodically he would pass money over to her and she would smile, which made her whole face look off center, as if the two sides didn't quite match up, and he realized the pull this young girl had, knew she fit on Kid's team not because she was the best-looking dancer in the club or the flashiest – she looked disinterested almost, as if she didn't need to be there doing any of this – but Jack was willing to bet that she made more money than anyone else when she was working. She had the look. And the feel. It was the same sensation he'd had sitting in the backseat of the limo with the Mortician. This dancer was a different breed as well. A breed Jack didn't yet understand but found himself being inextricably drawn to.

"A lot of the dancers'll tell you a similar story," she was saying. "My ex-boyfriend got me into it. He used to go to a lot of lap-dancing places, this was in Philadelphia, and I used to get jealous 'cause I'd ask him why he'd go and he'd say 'cause all the girls were better-looking than I was. Deep down, I always thought I was ugly. Really and truly. And he used to tell me I was, so that didn't help any. Anyway, one night we're out at a club and it turns out to be amateur night. Anyone – any woman – who wants to can get up and take her clothes off and dance. He kept daring me, so I did it. I really did it to show him, I guess, that I could be as sexy as those girls he used to give money to, to dance for him. I mean, he had me for free so I never understood why he'd want to pay just for a dance. Anyway, I did pretty well. The crowd went wild, to tell you the truth. And I won the contest. Two hundred and fifty dollars. So a few days later, I went into the club he was always hanging out in and I auditioned. They gave me the job immediately, right on the spot." She turned to him now, studying him again. "You know," she said, "you don't look like a cop."

He was surprised; he hadn't realized that's what she'd thought, since she was being so open with him. "I'm not," he said. "I'm just a friend. I run a restaurant. Or used to."

Now she really scrutinized him. And that lopsided smile appeared. This time there was something behind it, though. He wasn't sure what. But there was a certain awareness there this time. And maybe even some kind of a plan. "Oh, wow," she said. "You're the Butcher."

"I'm the Butcher," he admitted.

"And you don't think Kid killed himself."

He shook his head.

"Well, I think you're right," she said. "People like Kid don't kill themselves." And there it was, the grin again. "People like me kill them."

– "-"-"SHE COULD TAKE off at three, she said. And she thought he should come back to her apartment so they could really talk. Jack almost said no, he was tired, another time, but he realized that his adrenaline had kicked in. He wasn't tired, not now. He wanted to keep going. He wanted to find out more about Kid. And, he realized, about her. He also wanted to go back to her apartment.

She told him she'd hop a cab right out front but he had to take a separate one. Management didn't like the girls going home with customers, she explained. And she couldn't make it so obvious, even though this was pretty innocent, "because nothing looks innocent to these assholes." So she gave him her address and told him to leave a few minutes before she did. "Wait outside my building and I'll be there right after you," she said.

In the cab ride back, he realized he was fascinated by her. He wanted to know how she'd become what she was. He remembered Kid's words. She could surprise you with her intelligence, he'd said, and Jack could see that was true. She was hiding her smarts to a certain degree. He felt that even her speech was slightly dumbed down. He wondered why. Maybe because that's what her customers wanted. He also remembered that Kid had defined her as a Slash. So what did she really want to be? Where did she really want to go? And what was she capable of doing to get there?

Jack wound up waiting fifteen minutes for her to arrive. He didn't mind. The night air was warm and he sat on the concrete stoop in front of her apartment. It was a charming brownstone in the East Thirties. A true brownstone, not just a town house. He peered through the glass window in the building's front door. He could see that the first-floor hallway was covered in a thick, wine-colored carpet. It looked like the carpet ran up the stairs. On the hallway wall was a print. He couldn't quite make out what it was but it looked like it was in an expensive frame. It was an expensive neighborhood, he realized.

A cab pulled up and Leslee emerged. She gave a little wave, almost as if she hadn't really expected him to be there. She was wearing jeans and a tank-top shirt now. And white sneakers. At first he thought, She doesn't look like a lap dancer now. She looks like a normal young girl coming from a late date. But as she got closer he realized that wasn't true. Even now there was something about her. There was a bursting sensuality that jeans and sneakers couldn't remotely disguise.

"Sorry it took me so long," she said. "A few guys I'd danced for wanted my phone number. Well, they wanted Gwyneth's phone number. It's a lot easier to talk to them than to just brush them off. This way they don't get angry."

"Do you give them your number?"

"Oh, sure. Well," she smiled. "I give them Gwyneth's number. It's the number of the movie theater on Second and Thirty-fourth."

On the short climb up, she explained that it was an owner-occupied building. The owner lived on the first floor, that's why the whole building was so well kept. Leslee's apartment was on the third floor. It was the third floor. And it was a beautiful place. The scale was small and intimate and there was nothing remotely flashy about it. The floors were dark and wide-planked. Where she needed carpeting, she'd found subdued Oriental rugs. There was not a lot of furniture but where he was expecting chrome and sleek, modern things, she had delicate antiques. Small wooden chairs with hand-stitched seats, two matching gray sofas facing each other in the living room. The living room walls were lined with bookshelves and the shelves were filled with books. There were two or three tiger-maple end tables, and small lamps, which gave off just enough light, sat on them.

"Look around," she said. "I've got to take a shower. I'll be right out."

She was already yanking off her shirt as she headed into the bathroom – he got a glimpse of her bare back and a side view of her breasts – then she was gone and the door was closed behind her. In seconds he heard the shower running and he even thought he heard a momentary sigh of satisfaction.

He began exploring the apartment. Her books were books. No Danielle Steel or John Gray for this dancer. She had a lot of Freud and Jung and various writers' studies and analyses of both. He was amazed at what she had on her shelves and he wondered if she'd read it all. There were several rows filled with English novels: Swift and Defoe and Jane Austen and the Brontes. She had all of D. H. Lawrence and John Fowles, two copies of The Magus. There were a lot of contemporary novels Jack had never heard of and a lot of female writers he had heard of but had never read: Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Eudora Welty, Kaye Gibbons. There was a well-worn paperback of Cold Mountain. Balancing those were a lot of thrillers, some by women, Patricia Cornwell and Sara Paretsky, but mostly by men: Parker and Connelly and Bloch. She seemed to be fairly compulsive. If she read someone, she read all of someone.

He peeked into her bedroom. It was totally different from the rest of the apartment. While the entryway and living room were impeccably decorated, fairly sparse and subdued, her room looked as if it belonged to a little girl. It was all fluff and lace and there were stuffed animals everywhere. The colors were bright – yellows and pinks – and didn't go at all with the colors in the other rooms. On her unmade bed he noticed that there was a rumpled pair of pajamas, lying there as if she'd kicked them off when she awoke and left them where they fell. They did not look like the sleep-wear of a hardened lap dancer. They looked like they were last worn by a twelve-year-old.

The second bedroom, quite small, space for just a twin bed and a desk and chair, was more like the rest of the apartment. Conservative. Adult. He noticed that there were stacks of books in this room, too.

The water was still running – she'd been in there for a long time now, close to fifteen minutes. He went into the kitchen, where there wasn't much to see. Her refrigerator had a few bottles of white wine, a jar of peanut butter, half a roasted chicken that she'd bought already cooked, and not much else. It did not look like she spent much time in the kitchen.

It was another five minutes before the shower stopped. And it was five minutes after that before she emerged. One long white towel was wrapped around her body, long enough to go from her chest to just above her knees. Another, smaller towel was wrapped, turban style, around the top of her head.

"I'm sorry I took so long," she said. "I just have to get that place off of me as soon as I get home. I'm compulsive about it and I'm sure there are fairly obvious psychological reasons for it, but I don't really care. I stay in there and just scald myself until the hot water starts to go. Sometimes if I take a bath, I can stay in there two or three hours. Now, I'll be with you in a minute. Really and truly a minute."

This time she was as good as her word. When she came out of her bedroom, she was wearing a black lightweight skirt and a black T-shirt. No shoes or socks. Her hair was brushed but still wet. He thought she looked exquisite. Very young and very fresh and very, very desirable.

"I know what you're thinking," she said as they sat in the living room sipping the white wine she'd brought out. And for a moment he felt guilty. But then she finished: "My apartment surprised you."

"A little."

"Well, most of the girls at the club really are what you think they are. Most of them are fairly shallow and not all that bright. They all tell you that they don't do drugs and that they don't sleep with the customers for money. But most of them do. Or if they don't yet, they will."

"But not you."

"For most of them, this is it. This is their career. They'll make a bunch of money and hopefully they'll meet a guy and then they'll quit. Or else they'll keep doing this until they're way too old. For me this is a means to an end."

"What's the end?"

"Money. Other than that I'm not so sure. I thought actress for a while. But I'm starting to think I don't have what it takes. But that's all right. I'm in school now. Hofstra. Psych major. I graduate in one year."

"So you're twenty-one?"

"Twenty."

"How old were you when you started dancing?"

"Sixteen. But I looked eighteen and they didn't check. Now I'm twenty and I look sixteen and everybody checks."

"Doesn't it worry you?" he asked, surprised that he wanted to talk about her personal life. "That you might start doing what the other girls do?"

"Sure," she said. "I'd be dumb not to worry about it. I can feel it happening, too. It's weird, but what can you do? I try to keep some perspective but it's hard."

"I can imagine."

"Can you?"

"No," he said. "Maybe not."

"You mind if I make myself a sandwich? I'm starving." She jumped up, disappeared back into the kitchen, and returned a minute later with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a small plate. "You want one?" she asked. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude."

"No. Go ahead."

He watched her eat and he could see his list, the list he'd made about Kid, in a vision right in front of his eyes. The Entertainer, it said. Eats with her mouth open. And there she was, chewing away, that lopsided mouth open just a crack too much while she ate.