The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

  Sweaty rubbed his face with his palms and watched me. He liked me a whole lot more than he let on. At least I hoped he did. Finally he said, “You do things ass-backwards. First you kill the guy, then you bust into his house. Ought to be the other way around. Listen, I don’t want to know any more. You’re a hot potato and I got no business fucking with you. You can leave the—I don’t give a shit what it is. Anybody finds it here, I ain’t never seen it before.”

  “You’re a prince, Sweaty.” I checked my watch: eight-thirty. Outside Sweaty’s ground-floor office, dusk was turning to dark and lights were winking on. “And don’t worry,” I said. “Nothing comes back to you. You got my word on that, and you know me well enough to know I mean it. I’ll be in touch. Tonight I think I’ll take in a strip show, I need to blow off a little steam.”

  12

  I’d never been a titty-bar fan, and I’d never liked bars located far out in the country. I normally did my drinking in places where the girls weren’t paid to be there, and where if there wasn’t any action it was a short walk in any direction to the next watering hole. Baby Doll’s was a titty-bar way out in the country, on Highway 157 in Grand Prairie, and it was a couple of miles down the road from the nearest civilization. Two strikes against the joint, as far as I was concerned.

  Lorraine Daley had her name in lights, on a computerized marquee that ran the length of the white stucco building, and which alternated its flashing lights to spell out, “CONNIE SWARM,” and then, “HOT TO TROT,” a few seconds apart. The parking lot would hold about a hundred cars, and was three quarters full of Chryslers, Caddys, Chevys, and big super-cab pickups with gun racks across the back windows. It seemed there were a lot of folks who didn’t care what I thought about titty-bars out in the country.

  I let the ‘Vette idle through the dusty gravel parking lot while I made up my mind where to park. The choice wasn’t an easy one. If I stopped close to the highway, the car would be visible to passersby, and I didn’t have any way of knowing if there was a warrant for me or if the highway patrol would be carrying a hot sheet on the ‘Vette. But if I parked in close to the building, I was likely to be hemmed in if I had to leave in a hurry. Finally I chose the quick exit and stopped at the end of the nearest row of cars to the highway. I parked with the ‘Vette’s nose pointed away from the building, and didn’t hesitate for a second about picking up the Smith & Wesson, checking to be sure it was loaded, and jamming it into my back pocket. So what if it was a felony to carry a firearm into a bar? The way the charges were piling up, what difference did one more make? The more the merrier. I got out and made my way toward the club entrance. The glow from the neon created a hazy film and blotted out the stars overhead.

  A timid-looking, middle-aged balding guy came out of the front door and passed me going in the opposite direction. He shot me a hurried glance, did a double-take, and quickened his pace as he went to his car. I hadn’t realized that I was glaring at the guy, but I had been. Probably some poor schnook on his way home to mama and hoping she didn’t find out where he’d been, but to hell with it. From now on I was giving everybody the once-over.

  I’d been so busy watching the scared little guy that I hadn’t heard the gravel crunching underneath the tires of the vehicle that now blocked my path. It took a couple of seconds for it to dawn on me that the vehicle was a Jeep convertible with the top down, then a couple of more seconds for me to snap that it was Breaux’s jeep. Sitting behind the wheel was Bodie himself. He was watching me from underneath the yellow bill of his cap, and he was scratching his chin.

  We locked gazes. Bodie didn’t smile.

  I took a short, jogging step forward. “Bodie, I—”

  He popped his clutch; the Jeep’s rear tires spun on gravel. Small rocks banged painfully against my chest. The Jeep fishtailed out of the parking lot, straightened itself out, and disappeared over a hill. I stared after it, almost went back to the ‘Vette to give chase, then shrugged my shoulders, and went inside. I wasn’t that surprised to see Breaux: Baby Doll’s was one of his regular hangouts. Nor could I worry over what he thought of me, since at the moment I had other things on my mind.

  There was a two-dollar cover charge (another thing that bugged me about titty-bars) collected by a tall, rangy youngster with permed hair down to his shoulders and just enough peach fuzz on his upper lip to make the beginnings of a mustache. I thumbed through my dwindling bankroll—I hadn’t dug into the ten thousand in the ‘Vette’s glove box as yet—located two singles, and gave them to him. He laid the money lengthwise in a change drawer, closed the drawer, and proceeded to ignore me.

  I leaned over the counter toward him. “Listen,” I said, “I need to speak to Connie Swarm.”

  He eyed me as though he’d rather take a nap than answer. “You and every other hard-dick,” he said. He gestured toward the club’s interior, where men sat at tables alone and in pairs and threesomes. Amid the hovering smoke, an occasional quick point of light from a cigarette glowed. “Look,” he said, “when the girls are on break they have drinks with the customers. Tell the waitress. If you buy Connie a drink, maybe she’ll sit a spell. A spell here and a spell there.” This boy needed some etiquette lessons.

  I glanced toward the stage, where a lanky brunette was doing a bored, hippy shuffle to the sounds of “Money Honey” pouring from the jukebox. She was wearing nothing but a G-string. I said to the doorman, “Well, it looks to me like Connie’s having a break now, that’s not her. She having a break?”

  He blinked at me. “I don’t know. Is she?” He sat down, picked up a paperback novel, and began to read by the single shaded lamp on the counter.

  I resisted the urge to reach over and pull his hair.

  I tried another question. “Say, you know a guy comes in here named Bodie Breaux?”

  He glanced up, dog-eared a corner of his book, closed it and set it aside, then stood. He had a couple of inches on me, or maybe the hair piled up on his head just made it appear that way. He beckoned with his index finger. I leaned closer. He said into my ear, “Look, man, I’m going to tell you one time. There ain’t no Information sign on this here counter. Now, you want to talk to Connie Swarm, ask the waitress. You want to see Bodie Breaux, you put an ad in the paper. You want your two bucks back you can take a walk, I don’t give a shit. You understand?”

  My hand balled into a fist and had risen to waist level before I gained control of myself. I let my breath out slowly. Whatever he was dishing out, I was going to have to take. I simply couldn’t afford trouble. I said from between clenched jaws, “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.” Then I went into the club, chalking the doorman up as another thing I didn’t like about titty-bars. I found an unoccupied table close to the bar and about three yards from the stage and sat down.

  The brunette was still doing her shuffle, her feet now on a level with my eyes. A spot bathed her in soft blue light as her hips gyrated and her small breasts quivered. I stifled a yawn. I’ve got nothing against watching young ladies take their clothes off; in private I’ve even been known to like it on occasion. It was just that the atmosphere of the Baby Doll’s of the world wasn’t my cup of tea. Anonymous men with nothing in common, watching a girl undress; a girl who couldn’t care less whether the men were there or not so long as her paycheck came on time. Maybe somebody’s scene, but not for me.

  A waitress approached. She was young, maybe even too young to be working in Baby Doll’s. She had a cute button nose and would have been pretty even in daylight. She wore a thigh-length mini and spike heels. She shifted a cud of gum to one side of her mouth and said, “Kin ah hepya?”

  I’d already made up my mind to drink, just about the time the kid at the door had made his first unfunny remark. I told the waitress I wanted Cutty neat, water back. She nodded, took a couple of jiggly steps in the direction of the bar, then came back to me. She leaned over so that I could look down her blouse. She had a lot of cleavage. She said, “Ah kin joinya if you buy me one.”

  I shook
my head. Politely, I hoped. “No thanks, but you can do me a favor. Tell Connie Swarm that Bodie’s friend is here to see her. There’s a tip in it for you.”

  Her lips bunched into a pout. “Connie’s the star, mister. Everbody wants to sit with her. Ah kin give you more ‘tention.”

  I mulled that one over, wondering how I could possibly have more tension than I already had, then got it. Oh, attention. I shook my head once more. “Listen, if I was looking for company you’d be it, but I got some business with Connie. Maybe later, huh? For now, just talk to Connie, okay?” I dropped a five-dollar bill on her tip tray, and it didn’t make me wince near as much as the two bucks at the door had.

  She tucked the five into her waistband, making sure the money was out of my reach before saying, “If you wait a minute, you can tell her yourself. Connie’s up, soon as Sherry’s finished.” She gestured toward the brunette on stage, and appeared ready to run if I tried to make a grab for the five bucks.

  The brunette was doing some bumps and grinds in front of a black guy. He was standing beside a table directly across from me and was practically drooling on the stage. He was stuffing dollar bills into her G-string, and I was bright enough to figure out that she was Sherry. I thanked the waitress and said that I’d wait. She brought my drink—the whiskey in a stubby rock glass and the water back in a tall tumbler—then went over and joined two men seated a couple of tables away. I hoped that they communicated with her better than I had.

  The brunette on stage ended her act with a little wiggle and a squeal that sounded sort of relieved. She hurried around the perimeter of the stage, picking up a wispy bra, a pair of mesh hose with black garters still attached, and a flowered sheath dress. She clasped the wad of clothing to her bosom, bounced down the steps, and started across the floor. The black guy came after her, grabbed her arm, and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and hustled on her way, then went behind the bar and through a doorway. Judging from the number of half-dressed females coming and going from that direction, that was where the dressing room was located. The black guy went back to his table and sank slowly into his seat. Onstage, the footlights changed from blue to red.

  Suddenly the overture from 2001—A Space Odyssey boomed over the speakers, and I halfway expected Elvis himself to charge into the arena. A tenor voice superimposed itself over the music, and it was with a pretty stiff jolt that I realized that the voice belonged to the smart-aleck kid at the door. He was now hunched over a microphone on the counter, and his broadcast voice wasn’t bad at all. Amid drumrolls and trumpets he said, “And now what you’ve been waiting for. Baby Doll’s proudly presents . . . back home from her triumphant tour . . . Conneee . . . Swarm!” Just as I wondered what tour Connie could’ve been on since I’d seen her at the lake house, the music quickened its pace and Connie herself came around the end of the bar and paraded onstage.

  Paraded was a pretty good word for it: shoulders back, boobs out, tight fanny wiggling from side to side. She stopped and bowed low at the table where my waitress sat with the two guys. The waitress leaned over and whispered something in Connie’s ear. Connie nodded and moved on, blowing kisses in all directions. There was applause, first only a smattering, then loud and boisterous clapping accompanied by cheers and whistles by the time Connie reached the foot of the steps. She showed a quick hip thrust to an enraptured pimply-faced boy seated alone, and I thought he was going to fall out of his chair. Then Connie hop-skipped up the stairs to center stage. Jesus, I was clapping myself. I hated to admit it, but Miss Connie, Swarm was electric as hell.

  She was wearing a filmy summer dress in blended shades of pink and gold. The dress had a pleated skirt that swirled around her thighs, and her blond hair was in waist-length pigtails with the front of her hair wanton and carefully tousled. The footlights accentuated her tan; she wore a bright pink lip gloss. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement and she wasn’t faking it. I’d thought that Connie had sounded pretty dumb the other night, and she hadn’t been faking that, either, but here in her element the girl was something else. A hush fell over the audience as she stood at attention, arms at her sides, her head bowed. Jumpy music sounded, “One Mint Julep,” an old, old oldie. She moved her hips from side to side, slowly at first, then picking up the tempo, wanton, jerky movements that didn’t look jerky at all. I swigged a mouthful of scotch and chased it with water.

  Connie’s act brought the house down. She didn’t just strip; she yanked her clothes off in a frenzy, and as she cast them aside there was a lusty challenge on her lips and in her eyes. It had to be an illusion, of course, but the temperature actually seemed to rise a few degrees as she moved around up there. Naked but for a sequined G-string, upturned breasts proud, she writhed. She strutted. She did a bouncy stroll. She was pure poison, I didn’t have any doubts about that, but she was poison packaged in a way that caused men to stand in line for a taste of it. And for a few minutes there I couldn’t blame a single one of them.

  She finished her performance the same way she’d started it, with a flourish that had every man in the club—including me by then—straining like leashed Dobermans catching the scent of a bitch in heat. The finale was a blistering, writhing, show-it-all strut done to “Love Is Strange,” a fifties Mickey and Sylvia number reincarnated on the sound track from Dirty Dancing. Her dancing was dirty, all right, dirty and seamy and earthy and enough to warrant a call to the fire department. She finished standing on one bare tanned leg, her other leg straight out in front and bent at the knee like a show pony’s; her arms at her sides, her breasts thrusting proudly forward, her eyes shut tightly, her lips parted longingly. She held the pose for a full thirty seconds after the song had ended, and during that time a pin dropping would have sounded like a heavy footfall.

  The dancer who had preceded Connie—Sherry, in case anyone in the place remembered her by now—had swept her clothes up in a flurry of modesty and had left the stage with the garments as a shield. Not so with Connie Swarm. She did bother to pick up her things, probably in compliance with a club rule against cluttering the stage, but there the similarity ended. Connie tossed her dress and lacy bra over one arm, suspended her high-heeled sandals from her fingers by the ankle straps, and pranced away as though she was at home alone and headed for the laundry room. One guy, a man in his fifties or sixties with a snow-white goatee, blew kisses at her with both hands as she passed by his table. She interrupted her walk long enough to kiss the guy on his bald head and pinch his cheek. He said something to her that I couldn’t hear over the claps and whistles. She hesitated, then with an elfin grin tossed him her bra. He put the cups on top of his head like rabbit ears and tilted the straps underneath his chin like a bonnet. Connie really seemed to get a kick out of that; she threw back her head and laughed, golden pigtails flying around her bare waist. Then she moved a few more steps toward the dressing room, did a sudden, bouncy column-left, and made a beeline for my table. She sat down across from me and tossed her clothes, minus bra, onto an empty chair. She crossed her shapely legs. She folded her arms. She smiled. Connie in the flesh.

  “So, darlin’,” she said, “nobody’s getting choked in this place, what you doing here? I thought you only showed up to chase tough guys away.”

  Well, I’d asked for her. I just wasn’t ready for Connie in the buff. I cleared my throat. “I need to talk to you. Would you like to, well, put some clothes on?” Men at nearby tables were gawking. I didn’t blame them.

  She cupped a dainty hand, covered her mouth, and giggled. The movement caused a tousled bang to rise, then fall softly back into place. “Why, the big, tough man is em-bar-rassed, folks. This is a strip show, darlin’. What do I need clothes for? I’m glad you came by, anyway, I got a bone to pick with you.” Visible behind her, the bartender was squirting something from a liquor gun into a glass. A couple of men quit staring at us, swiveled on their stools, and faced the bar.

  “A bone? What for?” I said.

  “You made my chubby cherub disappear,” s
he said. “Skeezix, what happened to him? I’m havin’ to stay in that great big house all alone, and it’s scare-ree.”

  She tossed her head. Her pigtails wiggled. She didn’t look scared at all.

  I was having trouble picturing Skeezix as a cherub, halo suspended over his head, playing a harp. “You haven’t heard from him at all?” I said. I’d intended to check up on Skeezix myself, but with everything else going on I hadn’t gotten around to it.

  “Not a lovin’ word. I want to ask Bodie if he knows, but I can’t get ahold of him. What’s goin’ on?” She blinked at me with the same vacant expression she’d worn the other night, and it dawned on me that the exit Breaux and I had made with Skeezix probably had looked to Connie as though we were all the best of pals.

  “Why can’t you get in touch with him?” I said. “I just saw Bodie a few minutes ago, outside in the parking lot.”

  “Here at Baby Doll’s? Well, he hadn’ been in to see me.” Connie paused as the pouty-lipped waitress approached and stood by expectantly. “Hey, no, Sandy, nothin’ for me,” Connie said. “This guy is a friend for real, he’s not buyin’ me anything.” She was talking pretty loud, and guys at nearby tables shot surprised looks in my direction. Probably they’d all been buying drinks for Connie and had thought that they were friends for real as well. The waitress went on her way, and Connie said, “That’s really funny that Bodie’d be right outside and not even come by to say hidy.”

  I thought that Breaux’s behavior was pretty strange as well, and a tiny nagging began at the back of my mind. If he hadn’t even gone inside the place, what in hell had Breaux been doing in the parking lot? Following me? Wouldn’t make sense. I drank some scotch.

  Connie said, “Rick. That’s your name, huh? Rick.”