Strip Tease (2 page)

Erin laughed. “Traumatized? You don’t even know what that means.”

“Grossed out is what it means. And look here—” Shad lifted the foil seal with the hemostat. “Perfect! Not even a rip. So the bastards can’t say someone broke into the grocery and messed with the carton.”

“Clever,” Erin said. She checked her hair in the mirror. Most of the dancers wore wigs, but Erin felt that a wig slowed her down, limited her moves. Losing a wig was one of the worst things to happen on stage. That, and getting your period.

“How’s my bottom?” she asked Shad. “Is my crack showing?”

“Naw, babe, you’re covered.”

“Thanks,” Erin said. “Catch you later.”

“Go on and laugh. I’m gonna be rich.”

“Nothing would surprise me.” She couldn’t help but envy Shad’s optimism.

“The way it goes,” he said, “them really big companies don’t go to trial on stuff like this, on account of the negative publicity. They just pay off the plaintiff is what the lawyer told me. Major bucks.”

Erin said, “The customer’s name is Killian. Table three. Let me know if he comes in.” Then she was gone. He could hear the heels clicking on stage, the applause, the gin-fueled hoots.

Shad peered into the container. The roach leg had resubmerged; the surface of the yogurt looked smooth and undisturbed. A masterful job of sabotage! Shad placed the foil seal in a Ziploc bag and closed it by sliding his thumb and forefinger along the seam: evidence. Gingerly he carried the yogurt container to the dancers’ refrigerator. He placed it on the second tray, between a six-pack of Diet Sprite and bowl of cottage cheese. Over the Delicate yogurt label he taped a hand-written warning:

“Do Not Eat or Else.”

He reread the note two or three times, decided it wasn’t stern enough. He wrote out another and taped it beneath the first: “Property of Shad.”

Then he went out to the lounge to see if any asses needed kicking. Sure enough, at table eight a pie-eyed Volvo salesman was trying to suck the toes off a cocktail waitress. Effortlessly Shad heaved him out the back door. He dug a Pepsi out of the cooler and took a stool at the bar.

At midnight, the skinny guy with the square glasses came in and staked out his usual chair at table three. Shad strolled over and sat down beside him.

On stage, Erin was grinding her heart out.

She’s wrong about one thing, Shad thought. I notice her eyes, every night I do. And they’re definitely green.

To which Dilbeck, mindful of Moldowsky’s influence and stature, responded: “I’m sorry, Malcolm.”

Pacing the congressman’s office, Moldowsky cast a cold scornful eye on every plaque, every commemorative paperweight, every pitiable tin memento of Dilbeck’s long and undistinguished political career.

“I see problems,” said Malcolm Moldowsky. He was a fixer’s fixer, although it was not the occupation listed on his income-tax forms.

There’s no problem, Dilbeck insisted, none at all. “We were gone before the police showed up.”

Moldowsky was a short man, distractingly short, but he made up for it by dressing like royalty and slathering himself with expensive cologne. It was easy to be so impressed by Moldy’s fabulous wardrobe and exotic aroma that one might overlook his words, which invariably were important.

“Are you listening?” he asked Dave Dilbeck.

“You said there’s a problem, I said I don’t see any problem.”

Moldowsky’s upper lip curled, exposing the small and pointy dentition of a lesser primate. He stepped closer to Dilbeck and said, “Do the name Gary Hart ring a bell? Fuckups 101—you need a refresher course?”

“That was different,” the congressman said.

“Indeed. Mr. Hart did not send anyone to the emergency room.”

Dilbeck felt the heat of Moldowsky pressing closer—smelled the sharp minty breath and inhaled the imported Italian musk, which was strong enough to gas termites. Dilbeck quickly stood up. He was more at ease speaking to the crown of the man’s head, instead of eye to eye. The congressman said, “It won’t happen again, that’s for sure.”

“Really?”

The acid in Moldowsky’s remark made the congressman nervous. “I’ve been doing some soul-searching.”

Moldowsky stepped back so Dilbeck could see his face. “David, the problem is not in your soul. It’s in your goddamn trousers.”

The congressman shook his head solemnly. “Weakness is spiritual, Malcolm. Only the manifestation is physical—”

“You are so full of shit—”

“Hey, I can conquer this,” Dilbeck said. “I can control these animal urges, you just watch.”

Moldowsky raised his hands impatiently. “You and your damn urges. It’s an election year, Davey. That’s number one. Only a card-carrying shithead would show his face at a nudie joint in an election year. Number two, your man pulls a gun, which happens to be a felony.”

“Malcolm, don’t blame Erb.”

“And number three,” Moldowsky went on, “during the commission of the act, you are recognized by a patron of this fine establishment. Which raises all sorts of possibilities, none of them good.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Dilbeck wedged his hands to signal time-out, like a football coach. “Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

Malcolm Moldowsky laughed harshly. “That’s my job, Congressman.” Once again he started to pace. “Why did you hit that man with the bottle? Don’t tell me—you got something going with the stripper, right? She’s carrying your love child, perhaps?”

Dilbeck said, “I don’t even know her name.”

“But still you felt this uncontrollable impulse to defend her honor, such as it is. I understand, David. I understand perfectly.”

“It’s a sickness, that’s all. I should never be around naked women.”

All the fight had gone out of the congressman. Moldowsky circled the desk and approached him. In a softer voice: “You don’t need this shit right now. You got the campaign. You got the sugar vote coming up. You got a committee to run.” Moldowsky tried to chuck the congressman on the shoulder but wasn’t quite tall enough. He wound up patting him on the elbow. “I’ll take care of this,” he said.

“Thanks, Mmm—Malcolm.” Dilbeck almost slipped and called him Moldy, which is what everyone called Moldowsky behind his back. Fanatically hygienic, Moldowsky hated the nickname.

“One more request,” he said. “Keep David Jr. in your pants until November. As a personal favor to me.”

Dilbeck’s cheeks flushed.

“Because,” Moldowsky went on, “I’d hate to think how your constituents would look upon such behavior—all those senior citizens in those condos, those conservative Cubans down on Eighth Street, those idealistic young yupsters on the beach. What would they think if Congressman Davey got busted with a bunch of go-go dancers. How’d you suppose that would play?”

“Poorly,” admitted the congressman. He needed a drink.

“You still an elder in the church?”

“A deacon,” Dilbeck said.

“Is that a fact?” Malcolm Moldowsky wore a savage grin. “You get the urge to chase pussy, call me. I’ll set something up.” He dropped his voice. “It’s an election year, deacon, you gotta be careful. If it’s a party you need, we’ll bring it to you. That sound like a deal?”

“Deal,” the congressman said. When Moldy had gone, he cranked open a window and gulped for fresh air. Every few years, the Congress of the United States of America voted generous price supports for a handful of agricultural millionaires in the great state of Florida. The crop that made them millionaires was sugar, the price of which was grossly inflated and guaranteed by the U.S. government. This brazen act of plunder accomplished two things: it kept American growers very wealthy, and it undercut the struggling economies of poor Caribbean nations, which couldn’t sell their own bounties of cane to the United States at even half the bogus rate.

For political reasons, the government’s payout to the sugar industry was patriotically promoted as aid to the struggling family farmer. True, some of the big sugar companies were family-owned, but the family members themselves seldom touched the soil. The closest most of them got to the actual crop were the cubes that they dropped in their coffee at the Bankers’ Club. The scions of sugar growers wouldn’t be caught dead in a broiling cane field, where the muck crawled with snakes and insects. Instead the brutal harvest was left to Jamaican and Dominican migrant workers, who were paid shameful wages to swing machetes all day in the sweltering sun.

It had been this way for an eternity, and men like Malcolm Moldowsky lost no sleep over it. His task, one of many, was making sure that Big Sugar’s price supports passed Congress with no snags. To make that happen, Moldowsky needed senators and representatives who were sympathetic to the growers. Fortunately, sympathy was still easy to buy in Washington; all it took was campaign contributions.

So Moldowsky could always round up the votes. That was no problem. But the votes didn’t do any good unless the sugar bill made it out of committee, and this year the committee of the House was in bitter turmoil over-issues having nothing to do with agriculture. No fewer than three formerly pliant congressmen had been stricken with mysterious attacks of conscience, and announced they would vote against the sugar price supports. Ostensibly they were protesting the plight of the migrants and the disastrous pollution of the Everglades, into which the growers regularly dumped billions of gallons of waste water.

Malcolm Moldowsky knew the dissenting congressmen couldn’t care less about the wretched cane workers, nor would they mind if the Everglades caught fire and burned to cinders. In truth, the opposition to the sugar bill was retaliation against the chairman of the committee, one David Dilbeck, who had cast the deciding vote that killed a hefty twenty-two-percent pay raise for himself and his distinguished colleagues in the House.

Dilbeck had committed this unforgivable sin by pure accident; he had been drunk, and had simply pushed the wrong lever when the matter of the pay raise was called to the floor. In his pickled condition, it was miraculous that Dilbeck had found the way back to his own desk, let alone connected with the vote machine. The following noon, the bleary congressman turned on the television to see George Will praising him for his courage. Dilbeck had no idea why; he remembered nothing of the night before. When staff members explained what he’d done, he crawled to a wastebasket and spit up.

Rather than admit the truth—that full credit for the deed belonged to the distillers of Barbancourt rum—David Dilbeck went on “Nightline” and said he was proud of voting the way he did, said it was no time for Congress to go picking the public’s pocket. Privately, Dilbeck was furious at himself; he’d needed the extra dough worse than anybody.

And now his fellow politicians were striking back. They knew Dilbeck depended on Big Sugar for his campaign contributions, and they knew Big Sugar relied upon Dave Dilbeck for the price supports. So the House members decided to screw with him in a major way; they aimed to teach him a lesson.

Malcolm J. Moldowsky saw the ugliness unfolding. It would require all his subterranean talents to save the sugar bill, and he couldn’t do it if Dilbeck got caught in a sex scandal. After years of slithering through political gutters, Moldowsky was still amazed at how primevally stupid most politicians could be, on any given night. He hadn’t a shred of pity for Congressman Dilbeck, but he would help him anyway.

Millions upon millions of dollars were at stake. Moldy would do whatever had to be done, at whatever the cost.

The other dancers knew something was bothering Erin. It showed in her performance.

“Darrell again,” said Urbana Sprawl, by far the largest and most gorgeous of the dancers. Urbana was Erin’s best friend at the Eager Beaver lounge.

“No, it’s not Darrell,” Erin said. “Well, it is and it isn’t.”

Darrell Grant was Erin’s former husband. They were divorced after five rotten years of marriage and one wonderful child, a daughter. The court battle was protracted and very expensive, so Erin decided to try out as an exotic dancer, which paid better than clerical work. There was nothing exotic about the new job, but it wasn’t as sleazy as she had feared. The money just about covered her legal fees.

Then Darrell got cute. He filed a petition charging that Erin was an unfit mother, and invited the divorce judge to come see for himself what the future ex-Mrs. Grant did for a living. The judge sat through seven dance numbers and, being a born-again Christian, concluded that Erin’s impressionable young daughter was better off in the custody of her father. That Darrell Grant was a pillhead, a convict and a dealer in stolen wheelchairs didn’t bother the judge as much as the fact that Erin took her undies off in public. The judge gave her a stern lecture on decency and morality, and told her she could see the child every third weekend, and on Christmas Eve. Her lawyer was appealing the custody ruling, and Erin needed dancing money now more than ever. In the meantime, the divorce judge had become a regular at the Eager Beaver lounge, sitting in a dim booth near the Foosball machines. Erin never said a word to the man, but Shad always made a point of secretly pissing in the Jack Daniels he served him.

Urbana Sprawl said to Erin: “Come on, don’t make me beat it out of you.” They were taking off their makeup, sharing the chipped mirror in the dressing room.

A customer, Erin admitted. “Mr. Peepers, I call him. His real name is Killian.”

“Table three,” said another dancer, who was known as Monique Jr. There were two Moniques dancing at the club, and neither would change her name. “I know the guy,” Monique Jr. said. “Funny glasses, bad necktie, shitty tipper.”

Urbana Sprawl said to Erin: “He giving you a problem?”

“He’s missed a couple of nights is all.”

“Wow,” said Monique Jr. “Call the fucking FBI.”

“You don’t understand. It’s about my case.” Erin opened her purse and took out a cocktail napkin, which was folded into a tiny square. She handed it to Monique Jr. “He gave me this the other night. He wanted to talk, but Shad was sitting right there, so he wrote it down instead.”

Monique Jr. read the note silently. Then she passed it to Urbana Sprawl. Mr. Killian had printed carefully, in small block letters, with an obvious effort to be neat:

I can help get your daughter back. I ask nothing in return but a kind smile. Also, could you add ZZ Top to your routine? Any song from the first album would be fine. Thank you.

“Men will try anything,” Monique Jr. said, skeptically. “Anything for pussy.”

Erin thought it was worth listening to Killian’s pitch. “What if he’s for real?”

Urbana Sprawl folded the note and gave it back. “Erin, how does he know about Angela?”

“He knows everything.” It was her first experience with a customer who’d gone off the deep end. For three weeks straight Killian had been swooning at table three. “He says he loves me,” Erin said. “I haven’t encouraged him. I haven’t told him anything personal.”

“This happens,” Urbana said. “Nothing to do but stay cool.”

Erin said he seemed fairly harmless. “It can’t hurt to listen. I’m at the point where I’ll try anything.”

Monique Jr. said, “Tell you one thing. The little prick needs to learn how to tip.”

Shad poked his head in the doorway. “Staff meeting,” he announced, coughing. “Five minutes, in the office.”

“Beat it,” snapped Urbana Sprawl, who was largely nude. Shad truly didn’t notice. Eleven years of strip joints had made him numb to the sight of bare breasts. An occupational hazard, Shad figured. One more reason to get the hell out, before it was too late.

Erin said, “Tell Mr. Orly we’re on the way.”

Shad withdrew, shutting the door. To Erin, he resembled a snapping turtle—his vast knobby head was moist and hairless, and his nose beaked sharply to meet the thin severe line of his lips, forming a lethal-looking overbite. From what Erin could see, Shad also had no eyebrows and no eyelashes.