Strip Search (24 page)

“I can’t just go down the street asking—”

“A man with white hair. Like an albino. He comes to this place. You find out who he is and I’ll find out if he’s the one.” The pistol nudged Little Ray’s chin up. “If I don’t see you tomorrow night, I’ll get suspicious. You understand?”

“Yes!”

Wager clicked on the safety and stuck the pistol in his belt under the long fringe of the Mexican vest. Little Ray rubbed beneath his chin with the back of his hand and stared at Wager as if seeing him for the first time.

“I figure—and my associates figure—we still got a deal going. If you want to be rich and happy, don’t screw it up.”

“I won’t! A deal’s a deal, man, right!”

“Then you show me that all this is just an unfortunate misunderstanding. You tell me tomorrow who that man is.”

Little Ray swallowed and nodded, his spray of stiff hair wagging. Wager left him alone in the flat glare from the lights high up the brick wall. When Wager paused to look back, he saw Little Ray gazing with unblinking and empty eyes into the dark. The man rubbed again at the spot beneath his chin, and his shoulders rose and fell as if he had been holding his breath for a long time. Then he turned and walked stiffly back into the Cinnamon Club, his hand holding the scarred doorframe for a moment’s support before he disappeared.

“No more fun and games, Willy. I want him.”

“I never seen the man, Wager. I don’t know him.”

“You know about him. I want him.”

“How come you so het up about this dude?”

“He tried to off me.”

From his side of the Cadillac’s wide front seat, Willy’s eyes glinted in the mottled light of the street lamp high up in the trees. “He took a shot at you?”

“Yes. I want him.”

“Haw—that makes it kind of personal, don’t it? I thought us taxpayers gave you enough coin to pay for that kind of stuff.” When Wager did not answer, Willy said, “You don’t see no humor in the situation?” Then, “No, I guess you don’t.” Sighing, the big man asked, “What’s he worth to you?”

“No money this time, Willy.”

“Say, what?”

“He took a shot at me. I don’t put a price on that.”

“But, Wager, I’m a businessman!”

“This isn’t business.”

Willy tipped his panama hat back and dabbed at his broad forehead with a folded handkerchief that wafted a faint scent. “What I hear you say is that Doc was worth a few bucks. But you, my man, are priceless!”

Wager guessed that was about the size of it.

“Um. I thought Black Pride was something. But, man, you got a bad case of Spick Fever.” He tucked the handkerchief in his vest pocket. “Maybe someday it’ll turn out to be terminal.”

“You have something on him, Willy. I want to know what it is.”

Once more the bulging figure sighed, then he wagged his head. “Well, it ain’t much. But it does hurt to give it away free, you know?” Wager didn’t reply. Willy grunted something inarticulate. “Here’s all I got: he’s new around town and he’s up to some hustle. But nobody knows much of what he’s into. Whatever his act is, it’s got something to do with the strip—he shows up here and there in the clubs.”

“What clubs?”

“Well, you know one: the Cinnamon Club.”

“What about Foxy Dick’s?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. My sources tell me he spends most of his time in that low-life skin joint out east, the Turkish Delights.” Willy’s eyes glinted his way again. “I reckon you don’t care if that’s outside your jurisdiction.”

“That’s right. I don’t care. What’s he do in these places?”

“If I knew, I could tell you. Whatever it is, he keeps it mighty quiet.”

Wager gazed through the tinted glass of the car’s windshield at the dim residential street lined with parked cars. On the far corner, a freon streetlamp cast a pink glow that leached the color from buildings and shrubs and showed an elderly couple holding each other up as they stepped slowly across the intersection. Both the man and the woman had white hair. Funny how many white-haired people he was suddenly noticing. “Who’s he do business with?”

“Hard to say.”

“You tell me he does business. That means he talks to somebody. Who?”

“What I hear, Wager, is that he don’t talk to much of nobody. He shows up and orders a drink, sits there by hisself, and pretty soon he leaves.”

“And he never talks to anyone? Come on!”

“Once, maybe twice, I hear he talks to this juice man name of Clinton. You know him?”

“The one we popped for killing Goddard?”

“And couldn’t hang nothing on. That’s the one.”

Wager tried to see some meaning in that, but the only thing it gave him was another unconnected item and a sour taste in his mouth. “What’s Clinton up to now?”

“Same as ever—sharking money at five percent a day and telling everybody that nobody can touch him. Which it looks like he is right.”

Wager started to open the door, but Fat Willy held up a hand to halt him. A diamond on the man’s little finger splintered light into a tiny rainbow. “Wager, you got all this for no money, but that don’t mean it’s free. Come a time I need something that money cannot buy, my man, I’ll be collecting.”

Wager closed the heavy door. If that time ever came, he’d worry about it then.

He had been right: at night the wicker-basket doorway to the Turkish Delights gave the place an entry that promised something special for your money. Wager pushed open the gilded door and heard a shriek of laughter, quickly drowned in brassy chords amplified enough to tremble the walls. Through the hazy glow of blue neon hidden somewhere in the ceiling, he could make out a room whose furniture was crowded down to the far end. There, gyrating in and out of a cone of light, a nude girl on a platform jerked her elbows to the loud thud of a jukebox while men shouted “Do it” and someone held up a book of flaming matches at the side of the stage. At this end of the room, the floor was cleared for dancing, and along the right wall, like dark cribs, was a line of shadowy booths. The bar was against the other wall; a scattered row of figures leaned on it, feet on a brass rail, faces catching the chill glow from the stage. A female voice came close out of the shadows, “Hi, you want to sit near the stage or in a booth? You can buy me some champagne in the booth.” Wet teeth glinted in the blue gleam.

Another chorus of “Do it” came from the crowd at the side of the platform, and the dancer laughed at the burning matchbook and its column of smoke spinning with her in the hazy cone of light. “Do it!”

Wager ignored the pull of the girl’s hand and headed for the bar. “I just want a beer right now.”

Her smile turned down instead of up. “Spending big tonight?”

“Maybe later. What’s your name?”

“Lolita.”

“Maybe later, Lolita.”

“Sure, Big Spender.”

Her dim shape went back to join three or four girls perched on the barstools clustered near the door. Wager groped through the blue shadows toward the bartender, a slope-shouldered silhouette against the paleness of the bar mirror. The shout of voices rose, “Yeah—right—yeah!”

The nude girl planted her feet near the edge of the platform and leaned back from the waist, legs spread, as a man held the burning matchbook closer to her groin. “Do it!” She motioned the fire closer and a moment later clenched her abdomen to blow out the flame as a cheer drowned out the music and bills were thrust toward her from applauding hands.

“Pussy farts.” The man standing beside Wager smiled. He had a pudgy face and a smudge of thin goatee at the very end of his chin. “You don’t see that just anywhere—it’s a real talent. As good as anything on TV.”

“Right,” said Wager. “A class act.” He ordered a Killian’s from the bartender, whose glance said he did not recognize Wager. He handed the man a five and raised his eyebrows at the one-dollar bill coming back.

“Cover charge,” said the unsmiling bartender. “For the floor show.”

Wager tapped the single toward the slope-shouldered man. “Keep it all.”

The bartender smiled one dollar’s worth of thanks.

“Has Whitey been in yet?” Wager asked him.

“Who?”

“The guy with white hair. Comes in sometimes with Clinton.”

The bartender’s eyes blinked once and he said, “I don’t know them.”

“It’s worth something.” Wager reached beneath his woven vest and showed a roll of twenties.

“It’s not worth anything if I don’t know them,” said the bartender. He moved toward the waitresses’ station.

Wager tucked the bills away and drank his beer. At his shoulder, he felt the interest of the pudgy man. Finally he leaned through the noise of the jukebox to ask Wager, “You come here a lot?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I thought I hadn’t seen you before. I come here a lot.”

“It’s a real fine place,” said Wager.

“Yeah. And the girls are really nice, too. That one you were talking to—Lolita—she really is good. She can do a hot-and-cold real good.”

“A what?”

“A hot-and-cold. Over in a booth. First she makes her mouth real cold with an ice cube, and then she makes it real hot with a cup of coffee. Back and forth like that. It’s really a talent. You ought to buy her some champagne and see.” He looked past Wager to where the women sat looking bored on their cluster of barstools. “I wish I had enough to go to a booth with her. She really is nice.”

Wager peered through the blue light at the man, looking for the irony in his expression that he didn’t hear in his voice. But it wasn’t there. The small, close-set eyes gazed down the bar with rounded admiration and then blinked and looked at Wager.

“I got enough to buy you a beer, though,” he said hesitantly. “Can I buy you a beer?” He held out a hand that was equally hesitant. “I’m Douglas MacArthur Woodcock. No relation to Douglas MacArthur,” he explained earnestly. “My dad just liked the name, my mama told me.”

Wager shook the soft hand. “Call me Gabe.”

“That’s a nice name. I don’t think I ever met anybody with that name. Pat”—he held up a finger to the bartender—”a couple draws for me and my friend Gabe, here.”

A new dancer came onstage and stood laughing and talking with the men at her feet as she waited for someone to put money in the jukebox. She wore a flaring dress with a lot of buttons down the front, and her laughter cut like glass through the deeper male voices. Behind him, Wager heard another female voice rise in self-righteousness, “I told her, ‘Honey, he only wants to see two things in your mouth, and one of them’s a cigarette.’ But she wouldn’t listen!”

The bartender set the cold glasses down, his eyes flicking from Wager to the pudgy-faced man. He took the money without a nod.

“Cheers,” said Douglas MacArthur Woodcock.

Wager sipped. “So you spend a lot of time here?”

“Sure. There’s always something going on. And the floor shows are real neat—the performers are real talented. Better than anything on TV,” he said again. And there was still no note of irony, just earnest conviction, like a tour guide afraid Wager might miss the real beauty of the scene. “Since Mama died, I don’t have noplace else I want to be. I don’t have no family, you see. My dad was killed before I was born,” he smiled. “In Korea. He was a soldier, and that’s how I got my name.”

Wager wondered if he was supposed to say “That’s nice.” “Have you seen a white-haired man come in? Not gray—white. Like an albino.”

“Sure. He comes here maybe two or three times a week.”

Someone started the jukebox and a nasal voice loudly moaned about waking up in a cold bed with a hot pillow in his arms. The girl on stage stepped and wriggled awkwardly to the dragging beat and undid two or three buttons. Wager had to lean forward to hear. “Do you know him?”

“No. I thought you did—I heard you ask Pat about ‘Whitey.’“

“That’s just what I call him,” said Wager. “I want to find him—I owe him something.”

“Gee, I wish I could help. But I just see him, you know?”

“Does he come in regularly? Does he have any special days he comes in?”

The man thought a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m here all the time, so it’s hard to tell what day it is. He just comes in, that’s all.”

“Did you ever see him with anybody?”

“No. … It’s so hard to remember. I think he goes on back. They have a back room where it’s not so loud. But you can’t see the shows from there.”

“Where’s this room?”

“On the other side of the stage. But it’s for private parties. I’ve been back a couple times to help clean up, but it’s mostly for private parties.”

The music ended and the girl on the platform played with the line of buttons, undoing every other one and swinging her hips to some imaginary beat. Someone put another fifty cents in the jukebox to bring a tune with a faster rhythm, and the girl smiled and caught the beat and began working the rest of the buttons as she twirled. The recorded voice sang, “She always pours her beer down the middle because she likes the head.”

“You people want another round?” Pat the bartender stood behind Wager and peered at him through the dimness.

Wager nodded and watched the girl undo the last button and shrug out of the dress with her arms upraised, bra and panties glowing pale blue when she pirouetted out of the smoky spotlight to kick her clothes somewhere.

“That’s Maggie,” Woodcock said. “She’s got nice fingers.”

“What?”

“In the booth—she uses her fingers, you know? And she’s real good. I like it when there’s two or three of us there. She’ll take two or three of us over and it’s real friendly and mellow.” Douglas MacArthur Woodcock glanced at Wager and smiled. “It don’t cost so much that way, either, and it’s lots better than doing it by yourself.”

Wager drained his beer. “Here—” He laid ten dollars on the bar. “Have another one.” He added, “If you can find out the name of the white-haired man, I’ll give you enough to buy a bottle of champagne for any girl here.”

The close-set eyes rounded. “A whole bottle? By myself? Gee!”

As he left, Wager saw the bartender’s face in the dim light of the mirror. It followed him until Wager reached the door, then the slope-shouldered man moved toward Woodcock and began collecting the dirty glasses. Through the loud wailing of guitars, a woman’s voice called after him, “So long, Big Spender!”