by Ed Gorman
Thus began the last of my journey. Going online and scanning through all the entertainment ads and strip club listings in the city. At any other time the names would have been fun to just sit and ponder. Mona Mountains. Candy Crevice. Bambi Big. But this was work, and about halfway through the listings I considered the real possibility that one Dani Fame might well have moved on to other cities and other pols, possibly even at Greaves’s suggestion. A million-dollar score, even for him, had to be a very stressful hit. If she was in the city, there was always the possibility that she’d somehow be identified as his associate. Even worse, he had to know that there was also the possibility that she might start blackmailing him. The name Dani Fame didn’t inspire confidence where virtue was concerned. If you’ll pardon me being judgmental.
Then I got lucky. I not only found where she was appearing; I found her website. Only one nudie shot, breasts only. But a good number of suggestive poses—anal, oral, doggy style, missionary position, and a couple that would require the skills of a gymnast and superhero to respond to effectively. The surprise was that she had, if you scrubbed away all the bad makeup, a very pretty down-home face. And the lively blue eyes reflected a real humor, as if she knew that this was pretty hokey. I suspected she was intelligent and maybe even fun to be with out of bed as well as in.
I took a break, did push-ups and sit-ups to clear my mind for another round at the computer. I ordered a burger and fries for lunch as my reward for being such a computer whiz and then went back to work.
Detective Sayers’s idea that one of the staff had drugged Warren’s drink was worth following up on. I’d had the same idea, of course, and so had Kate. But as I worked through page after page, I didn’t see any name or code or symbols that resembled any staff member. I spent a lot of time matching names with codes. But it led nowhere.
And then it was there. On a page by itself. At first I didn’t understand its significance. I hadn’t known him. His name wasn’t familiar to me. I’d probably heard it only two or three times in my life.
PHIL WYLIE
I was just about to try the next page when the name’s importance became clear.
Of course. The man who’d worked all those years for Warren. The man who’d been truly beloved by what seemed to be the entire staff. The man who’d committed suicide a few days ago.
PHIL WYLIE
The rest of the page was absolutely blank. No code. No indication of what their business had been. No hint of any time frame.
PHIL WYLIE
From the little I knew about the man, he’d been something of a highbrow. Opera. Theater. Galleries. And a lover of beautiful, wealthy women, any number of whom had gotten quite silly about him. The “silly” thing being nothing but envy on my part. He’d probably been the guy I’d always wanted to be. I still thought the Three Stooges were funny, and the last beautiful wealthy woman I’d known had been the wife of a rich client of mine. She always said that I scared her.
PHIL WYLIE
Suddenly he wasn’t just a name. He was a mystery. He’d killed himself. And now his name was appearing in R. D. Greaves’s computer.
It was amusing to imagine these two doing business—the handsome, sleek Wylie and the coarse, shaggy Greaves.
I spent the next half hour reading all the local news stories about his suicide. Not a hint of foul play was suggested in any one of them. An unidentified woman, said to be “a good friend,” told a reporter that she’d noted a certain despondency in him lately. “And he was almost never depressed. He was a pure pleasure to be with.”
The stories confirmed my faded memories of his background. Moneyed family, Harvard Law, condo here, home in Aspen, political junkie who’d worked for Senator Nichols at one time. Twice married, twice divorced, a perennial on the local “Most Eligible Bachelors” list.
PHIL WYLIE
The Greaves connection just didn’t make any sense. None at all.
And yet there his name was.
I poured myself a bourbon and drank it slowly, trying to think through all the angles the name presented. But by now I was too fatigued to puzzle them through. I even had to consider the possibility that the name meant nothing. That for some reason Greaves had decided to contact him but that the contact hadn’t gotten him anything. The page was, after all, blank except for the name.
And then came the Edgar Allan Poe Hour and I nursed my familiar dusk depression for a time. Light a dirty city gray now in my windows. Roar of rush hour. Stream of limos disgorging people glittery or important enough to check into the hotel here. Voices of new guests in the hall. There would be fine food and finer sex for those lucky enough to indulge. Those insensitive swine. Did they think I wanted to be up here all alone? The only trouble with self-pity as a substitute for aerobics is that it doesn’t do much for the waistline.
CHAPTER 20
Dani Fame’s place of employment was the type of strip club where account executives took some of their best clients for a night out. Suits and ties everywhere, and the flashing of American Express Gold. Lap dances were discreetly limited to a large room off the main floor engulfing the runway. And even the strip music was reserved in its way, sexy but more artful in the way it enhanced the performances of the ladies.
And Dani Fame wasn’t the only one of the ladies with a sweet face. In Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers, a character says that all he cares about is bodies: “I gave up fucking faces when I was fifteen.” In college I thought that was a pretty nifty line. Maybe it’s the glut of surgically altered features—whatever it is, I have a great appreciation for faces as well as for asses. Not great beauties necessarily. Just the nice, friendly girl-woman faces they were born with. And whoever chose these girls did, too. Their faces had youth, humor, intelligence. Like Dani Fame, they were in on the gag, too.
Purely as a matter of research, I sat slowly sipping a scotch and soda and watching the ladies for a half hour before I asked the waitress if Dani Fame would be performing tonight. “Gee, I’m not sure, I guess.”
An obvious and awkward lie. I wondered what prompted it. This was between numbers. When the music hit she just shrugged her shoulders, tapped her ear as if she had been struck deaf by one of the dark gods, and walked away.
I finished my drink and walked back to the front door, where a Latin gentleman the size of a giant in a children’s story was paid to decide who got in and who didn’t—and who deserved punishment from his massive hands.
He didn’t like me. Maybe he didn’t like anybody. But for sure he didn’t like me. I’d gotten no more than two words out when the bouncer said, “Not up for any bullshit tonight, man. You got a problem? Then that’s your problem, not mine.” He then pushed the door open for me, his expectation being that I would walk on out of there.
I decided to short-circuit the drama we were playing out, the drama that would likely end with him picking me up and hurling me out into the darkness.
“See this?”
“Yeah.”
“One hundred dollars.”
“I’m so stupid I don’t know what I’m seeing?”
“I need to talk to Dani Fame.”
“You and about a thousand other guys. She don’t do lap dances and she don’t go home with nobody afterwards.”
“I just want to talk to her.”
“And how would you do that, man?”
“That’s where you and this hundred-dollar bill come in.”
“Not enough, dude.”
Oh, for those glorious days of film noir in the forties and fifties when a fiver would get you the secret to immortal life. Now a hundred dollars wouldn’t buy you anything except the sneer of a bouncer.
“So what’s the going rate?”
“Two hundred.”
“And I get to talk to her?”
“And that’s all you get to do. And you get ten minutes.”
“I’d have to talk pretty fast.”
“Make it three hundred and you get fifteen minutes.”
He was
running a business here.
“She happen to get any of this?”
“Half.”
“She see a lot of men this way, does she?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
If you were drunk enough and had cash enough in your wallet, this might be something to impress the client. Going backstage and talking to the stripper. Playing the man of the world. Oh, yeah, I know how to handle these situations. You’d likely have to keep the client on a short chain, otherwise he’d be trying to grope her. But after all the drinks and a lap dance or three, this would be an impressive evening capper for the right kind of client.
“You take the three hundred in pennies?”
“I don’t know why you assholes think that’s funny.”
“You’ve heard it before?”
A sneering smile. “Ten times a month.”
So much for my original and creative wit. I consulted my sacred wallet. I was down to four hundred-dollar bills. I pincered out two of them and lay them on the backside of the original hundred I’d shown him. “How’s this?”
No magician ever made a stage prop disappear any faster. My three bills were long gone. He slipped his hand in the pocket of his extremely tight black jeans and dug out a cell phone. While he was punching in numbers, his biceps bulged in the narrow confines of his golden button-down shirt.
His near-twin appeared a few minutes later. They would have been twins except this guy was Caucasian. “Watch the door for me, Mickey. And make sure this dude don’t wander back.”
“Got ya. I owe ya anyway.”
“I won’t be long.”
The bouncer and my three hundred dollars disappeared.
“He’s a nice guy, ain’t he?”
“Him? The bouncer?”
“Miguel is his name.”
“You’re talking about the bouncer?”
“Yeah. Miguel. What I just said, man. He’s a nice guy. Why, you don’t think so?”
“Well, I guess there are different ways of being nice.” Maybe in Miguel’s homeland, threats of violence are part of being nice. The same for shaking down rube customers when they ask to see one of the dancers. Nice.
Every once in a while, in the darkness redeemed only by the stage lights and the small bar on the far east wall, laughter would get so loud in the lap dance room it would drown out the music. Those had to be the right kind of lap dances.
Miguel came back. “Ten minutes.”
“Hey, man, we agreed on three hundred for fifteen minutes.”
“She’s real busy tonight.”
“I want a hundred back.”
“You’re gonna have to take it off me. And you try to put a hand on her, man, she calls me on my cell and I come back and break all your ribs.”
“Your friend here was just telling me what a nice guy you are.”
“He’s young, man. He’s never seen me in action. He won’t be saying that after I get done with you, you step out of line tonight. And he can take you back there.” He turned to the younger bouncer. “You take him back there, you hear?”
“Sure, Miguel.”
“Get him out of my sight.”
No doubt about it. There really are different kinds of nice. I just wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up on Miguel’s brand of it. There could be a whole new line of Valentine’s Day cards. You bitch, you step out on me again I’ll cut your fuckin’ throat! Oh, yeah, and Happy Valentine’s Day! (Be sure and make it a Miguel Masterpiece Greeting Card.)
The flashing runway lights. The conversations with the girls, the whistles and catcalls, all fell away after we closed the door behind us at the back of the place. Soundproofed. A long hallway with several doors on each side. Despite the claim that the girls weren’t for sale, I wondered what was behind those doors. Could be a nice little hotel-style room. Not that I gave a damn. Or that I really gave a damn about most of the things that made me sanctimonious. I’d worn the label so long it was easiest to play to it.
Mickey knocked on a door at the far end of the hall. “Come in.” Mickey pulled the door open for me then closed it after me.
I stood in a conventional dressing room. Three metal racks of various costumes, two plump overstuffed chairs, dozens of color photos on the walls of girls who’d appeared here. Some of them were likely dead now from drugs or beatings from boyfriends, husbands, or pimps. The dressing table was so long and wide you could play Ping-Pong on it. The folding chair, however, was slotted into a cut-out section close to the enormous round mirror where two spotlights from above gave the ladies maximum light. The rest of the table was cluttered with makeup bottles in dozens of sizes and colors.
Dani Fame wore a dark blue silk robe. She sat on the edge of one of the overstuffed chairs, a long white cigarette burning in the fingers of her right hand. She was innocent of makeup and looked as I had suspected she would, young and pretty in a simple but fetching way.
“Just so there’s no misunderstanding, Mickey said you get ten minutes. I’m starting the clock right now.”
“I saw a movie you made.”
She knew what I was talking about. She didn’t respond dramatically. But the mouth tightened with displeasure and the blue eyes showed unmistakable fear. “I’ve never made a movie.”
“Oh, not the kind you see in a theater. Or even late at night on cable. But this was definitely a movie. Produced and directed by a Mr. R. D. Greaves.”
She picked up an ashtray from the arm of her chair and obliterated her cigarette in it.
“You shouldn’t smoke.”
“I shouldn’t do a lot of things.”
“You shouldn’t smoke and you shouldn’t hang around R. D. Greaves.”
“Maybe I should get Miguel back here. Tell him you grabbed me and tried to get me to do you.”
“I’m carrying a Glock. If Miguel forced the issue, I’d shoot him and you’d be responsible because you told him a lie.”
Now came the drama. She sprang up from the chair and clapped her hands together and said, “Fuck. He wanted me to do a bunch of them for him. With different men, you know. But that was the only one I did. And I felt real sleazy doing it. Prancing around here is different. When you come right down to it all it is is nudity. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But ruining somebody’s life …” She walked to the opposite chair. Sat on the arm. “How’d you find me?”
“Your name was in Greaves’s computer.”
Shaking her head. Looking up at me. “I suppose you’re a cop.”
“Uh-uh. I work for the man you were in bed with.”
“The senator?”
“Yeah.”
“As soon as it was over I started feeling sorry for him. I mean, he cheated on his wife with me, but a lot of men cheat. But they don’t get blackmailed for doing it.”
I sneezed. The powders, perfumes, and various kinds of makeup were shredding my sinuses. She got up and got me a few tissues from a box on the makeup table. When she turned around, her robe fell open. She was naked underneath. My kind of naked. Sweet little breasts and a modest crop of rust-colored pubic hair. “I guess it’s working here. I’m not as modest as I should be.”
“I appreciated the peek. I take it you don’t have to have implants to work here.”
“The two stars do. But the boss thinks it’s a good gimmick to have the rest of us natural. I guess there’re some guys who prefer us that way.”
“Probably more than people realize.”
But she was fully covered again as she sat down on the edge of the chair. “You ever really regret something you did?”
I smiled. “You mean when you’re lying in bed at night alone and all the terrible things you did in your life come roaring back on you?”
She laughed. “Why don’t we ever think of the good things in the middle of the night?”
“Maybe because we have consciences. A lot of people don’t seem to these days.” I hadn’t been here five minutes and I’d just said something sanctimonious. “Of course I could be full of
beans.”
“You haven’t asked me how I got hooked up with somebody like Greaves.”
“You want me to?”
“Sure,” she said. “I’ve got my excuse all ready.”
“I’ll bet I can guess. Money.”
“I guess it wasn’t that hard to figure out, huh? My husband. He’s a junkie. There’s a place in Canada that’s supposed to be real good. But it’s expensive.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“My first husband was a drunk and this one’s a junkie. The problem is when I fall in love I can’t break away. As much as I love him, sometimes I wish I could.”
The important question: “Did you have any idea who Greaves was working for?”
“You mean who was paying him?”
“Right.”
“No. He got a call on his cell right before I went into the senator’s hotel room. It seemed to irritate him, whoever it was. He said he didn’t need any advice and that he’d been doing this for years and that the suggestion was stupid.”
“But no name at all.”
“No. I’m sorry.”
Knuckled knock: “Couple minutes and you’re up, Dani.”
“Thank you.” She said, “I need to put on my makeup. I hate makeup. But anyway you’ll have to excuse me.”
“Thanks for everything, Dani. Would you mind writing down your home phone in case I have any more questions?”
“You’re not going to the cops?”
“Right now I don’t see any reason to.”
“Oh, thank you. And don’t ask for Dani when you call. My real name’s Sharon Bagley. How’d that look on a marquee?”
If I ever write a book in my late years it’ll naturally be about my time in politics. And the title will be Always Bribe the Doorman. I’ve never met one yet who wouldn’t divulge the most dangerous of secrets if the money was up to his standards. Same with many cops, most corporate employees, at least half of all local pols, and—In other words, a good number of people will help you if the bribe is big enough. Shocking, isn’t it?
