Sheer Gall (16 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Of all the sundry things I thought might be in progress in the topless showgirls' dressing room at Cherries on a Saturday afternoon, a baby shower was not one of them. But sure enough, I arrived to a chorus of oohs and aahs as an obviously pregnant Natasha Vladimitskov (a/k/a the Russian Minx) removed the gift wrap, opened the box, and held up an adorable one-piece outfit for a newborn.

“Senk you, Mawta,” Natasha said with a warm smile.

“Aw, honey, y'all are welcome,” Martha answered in a Southern drawl.

Natasha was seated on the floor with her back against the wall. A dozen non-topless women were seated in a semicircle on the floor facing her. There was a small pile of gifts in front of her, a larger pile of used wrapping paper to the side. Jo-Jo Black was next to her with a notepad and a pen. She looked at the newborn outfit and jotted something down.

“Who was that from?” Jo-Jo asked, apparently keeping the list for Natasha's thank-you notes.

Natasha pointed. “Mawta.”

Jo-Jo poked her tongue out as she wrote down the name.

I smiled and shook my head. Benny would never believe this. An hour inside the dressing room at Cherries ranked high on his fantasy Top Ten, right up there with his two perennial favorites: a vigorous game of topless water volleyball at the Playboy Mansion and a weekend on a choke chain as the love slave of rock singer Joan Jett.

Well, this particular dressing-room scene had to be as far from Benny's fantasyland as one could imagine. The Cherries showgirls were wearing jeans or sweatpants, baggy shirts or oversized sweatshirts. There wasn't a bare patch of skin below the neck in sight anywhere. There were no high heels. Most had on sneakers. Their hair was pulled back, and I saw little sign of makeup and even less of lipstick. Instead of sultry strippers, these women looked like factory girls on a coffee break or attendees at an Ace Hardware seminar on furniture refinishing. Jo-Jo Black fit right in. With her faded Bud Light sweatshirt, her hair pulled back beneath a green scarf, and a cigarette dangling from her lips, she could have passed for the cashier at a gas-station minimart.

The whole scene was such a contrast to my garage nightmare that it seemed surreal. Of course, part of the altered reality could have been due to my lack of sleep. I'd been up ever since Ozzie first woke me in the middle of the night, and the adrenaline buzz had long since worn off. The University City police were there until close to six in the morning. Then I had to go with St. Louis police to my office to let them inspect it for signs of entry, especially forced entry. They found none at my office, and the University City police found none at my home or my garage.

Although we could narrow the intruder's window of opportunity to sometime between 10:50 p.m. (when I returned in my car from coffee with Benny) and 2:53 a.m. (when Ozzie woke me up), and probably very close to the latter, I couldn't help the police narrow the other crucial time, namely, when my driver's license had been stolen from the wallet in my purse. It could have been that night, but it could have been a week ago, or even a month. I simply could not remember the last time I had looked at it. Nevertheless, the handwritten warning had been delivered by someone who wanted to impress me with the ease with which he could invade my personal space and wreak havoc.

I was impressed.

And rattled.

Enough to place an order for a home security system, which the company promised to install sometime during the coming week.

Meanwhile, with a weekend ahead of me and a full tank of gas in the insurance company's loaner car, I wanted to wrap up some of the loose ends and then dump the whole mess into Jonathan Wolf's lap. Which is why I was standing in the back of the topless showgirls' dressing room at Cherries at two o'clock on this blustery Saturday afternoon.

I watched Natasha open the rest of her gifts. As she did, a few of the women drifted away from the circle to start applying their stage makeup. I asked one of them, a
zaftig
redhead with breasts the size and shape of honey-dews, about the guest of honor. She told me that Natasha and her husband, Aleksey, had emigrated to America two years ago. Natasha had been a schoolteacher in Moscow, and her husband a chemical engineer. Now he worked on the minivan line at the Chrysler plant in Fenton. This would be their first child.

When the baby shower ended, Natasha gathered up her gifts and gave everyone a tearful hug good-bye. As she left and the other women headed toward their makeup tables, I approached Jo-Jo.

“Where can we talk?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I told you before it'd be a waste of time. There isn't like really a whole lot to talk about. I just don't know much.”

“Give me five minutes,” I said.

She looked around and gave me a weary sigh. “Okay, five minutes.” She gestured toward a red door marked EXIT. “Out back, I guess.”

We stepped outside into a fenced-off portion of the blacktop. There were several cars and pickup trucks parked inside the fence, and a uniformed security guard was posted at the gate. Attached to the fence were sheets of tarpaulin that screened the enclosed area from view. A brisk wind snapped the canvas.

I put my hands in my coat pockets. “What is this area?”

She looked around distractedly. “It's for the girls. It's where we park. You know, so we don't like get hassled or stuff on the way in. Look, I gotta start getting ready soon. I'm on at like three. What do you want?”

“Tell me what you know about Sally Wade and Junior.”

She looked away and crossed her arms over her chest. “Nothing.”

“Come on, Jo-Jo.”

“He found clients for her, I guess.”

“Is that all?”

She glanced over at me and then stared at the fence. “I think he like sometimes served subpoenas, you know, things like that.”

“What do you mean, ‘things like that'?”

She shook her head, tapping her foot. “Things. Like, stuff. I don't know exactly. Junior, he don't, like, tell me much about his work.”

“What
did
he tell you about his work?”

“Just what I said.”

“Why did he dislike Sally?”

She scowled. “Jesus, lady, how am I supposed to know?”

“What did he tell you?”

“He thought she was like screwing him out of money.”

“How much money?”

She shrugged.

“Hundreds?” I asked. “Thousands?”

She rolled her eyes. “What
ever
.”

“Which?”

She shook her head and waved her hands. “Like I'm supposed to know?”

“How well did you know Sally?”

She looked at me warily. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Jo-Jo. Level with me.”

She paused, uncertain, and then shook her head. “I knew what she looked like, and that's all you're getting out of me.”

“What else did you know about her?”

She shook her head. “No way. That's all I'm saying. I know about you lawyers and I'm just not gonna talk no more.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

Whatever she knew, she was obviously determined not to tell me anything. I wouldn't get any further information from her today except by indirection. There was one subject on which she ought to be a fairly reliable source of information. I decided to give it a shot, even if it meant a little trickery.

“Do you think Sally was having an affair with Junior?” I asked.

She burst into laughter. “Are you crazy?” She shook her head in disbelief. “No way, lady. He couldn't stand that bitch.”

“Are you sure?”

She gave me an incredulous stare. “Yes,” she said, nodding her head emphatically, “I'm like totally sure.”

I frowned. “Well, okay,” I said reluctantly, letting my voice trail off.

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Oh, it's probably nothing.”

“Just tell me.”

I looked at her carefully, as if considering whether to tell her. “Well, they found a red condom at the scene of the murder. I just wondered whether Junior used red condoms.”

She laughed. “No way. He won't touch a condom. He hates them.”

“He told you that?”

She blushed and then giggled. “He says it's like doing it in a sock. He only rides bareback. That's what he calls it.”

I gave her a concerned look. “But aren't you afraid of getting pregnant?”

She shook her head. “He had one of them operations.”

“You mean a vasectomy?”

“Yep.” Her smile faded, and she crossed her arms. “Look, you gotta go, okay?”

I took one of my cards out of my purse. “Here,” I said, holding it out to her.

She kept her arms crossed and made no move to take the card.

“Put it on your dressing table, Jo-Jo, or hide it in your mattress. That way, if you ever should feel like telling me more, you'll have my number. Take it.”

She glanced down at the card. “Whatever,” she said, snatching the card and crossing her arms again. “But I'm not calling. No way.” She spun toward the door and marched inside.

I followed her in. Now the place was getting closer to Benny's fantasyland. A big blonde in a gold-spangled G-string and four-inch red pumps sashayed past me. She was adjusting a halter top around a pair of nominees for the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Special Effects. Nearby, a statuesque black woman with long muscular legs was standing sideways to the mirror, her hands on her knees, as she ground her hips in time to the music in her earphones and studied her reflection. She was wearing white stockings, a white garter belt, white string bikinis, white pumps, and white breast tassels.

There was a large mirror near the front door. As I moved toward the door, I observed Jo-Jo in the reflection. When she reached her dressing table she opened the drawer and dropped the card in. As she looked in her mirror, our eyes met in the double reflection. She immediately turned toward the woman seated next to her and started an overly animated conversation.

I paused at the door for a moment and then walked out.

***

“You're sure?”

Neville McBride frowned as he stared at the photograph of Jo-Jo Black. “I suppose there is always room for doubt, but I do not believe that this woman is Tammy.”

It was later that Saturday afternoon, and Neville McBride and I were at my kitchen table. I'd arranged this meeting in a phone call to Jonathan Wolf yesterday afternoon, before all the craziness with my garage.

Neville had been waiting for me when I returned from my trip across the Mississippi River to Cherries. He was on my front porch chatting with a uniformed security guard from St. Louis Shield Security. I was fifty minutes late for our appointment, and, as I soon learned, he'd gotten quite a bit accomplished in that time. Apparently, when he had arrived there had been a squad car and an unmarked car in my driveway. From the police he learned what had happened in my garage the night before. Like many powerful attorneys, he felt most comfortable in the role of mover and shaker. Well, he did some moving and shaking in those fifty minutes. First, he tried to reach Jonathan Wolf, but this was Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and Jonathan observed it strictly, which meant, among other things, that all the telephones in his house were disconnected. Unable to reach Jonathan, Neville next called the company that had installed his own security system, only to learn that I had already placed an order with them that morning. Annoyed that they had been unable or unwilling to install it that very day, he insisted that they do it on Sunday. He also requested an upgrade (at his expense) of the system I had ordered, and insisted that they post a security guard at the house until it was installed and fully operational.

I was genuinely touched by Neville's concern and efforts on my behalf. Touched enough to give him a hug and make him a fresh pot of coffee before getting down to the tough questions I felt I had a duty to ask him. I told him with a wink that he was certainly the most considerate accused murderer I had ever dealt with. He grunted a thanks.

Like many older corporate attorneys, Neville McBride apparently had only two sets of clothing: a closet of dull business suits, starched white shirts, and boring power ties for the office, and a collection of clown outfits for the golf course. He was wearing the latter today: a long-sleeved polo shirt that was the same Day-Glo orange as a highway hazard cone, a pair of multicolored slacks that bordered on psychedelic, and the mandatory white patent-leather shoes. I continue to marvel at the attire voluntarily worn on the golf course by the St. Louis ruling class, and find it difficult to believe that business deals are actually cut in those preposterous costumes. I mean, would you buy a used subsidiary from a man wearing pants with the same pattern as the Easter gift wrap on clearance last week at Kmart?

Neville shook his head and handed back Jo-Jo's publicity photo. “As I already explained to Jonathan, Tammy had red hair. This gal doesn't.”

“You're sure about the hair color? Was she a natural redhead?”

Neville blushed and shifted in his seat. “Jonathan asked me that as well. I don't know. She, uh, preferred the lights out.”

“And you never saw her in the shower? Or the bathroom?”

He coughed. “No. She wasn't that way. Some are, of course. But no, not her.”

“So she could have been a brunette?”

He shrugged awkwardly. “I suppose. Or a blonde—or bald, for Christ's sake.” He caught himself. “Excuse me. Hair color? No, I am afraid I do not know.”

I scribbled notes on my pad. “She knew your name?”

“Of course. Why wouldn't she?”

“According to the police report, you didn't always give women your real name.”

That made him sit back. “That was not the case with this woman,” he said, sounding miffed. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I was separated at the time. Sally had already filed the divorce papers. I saw no need to disguise my identity.”