Every November, when Milwaukee males head up north for a week of deer hunting, beer drinking, and poker playing, Milwaukee women head to the Potawatomi Casino for bingo, slot machines, and the Hunk-a-rama Dancers.
The casino was on the south side of the city, a sprawling building whose exterior resembled a sandstone cliff dwelling. It was surmounted by a sixty-foot-tall fiery torch, that was probably visible from orbiting space stations. Juju found a spot in the Disneyland-sized parking lot and we trooped inside, our high heels beating out a staccato rhythm on the blacktop. Look out, world—hot babes coming through!
Inside, flocks of women were heading for the cabaret lounge. So much estrogen was being pumped out it could have been bottled and used for hormone replacement therapy. We found our reserved table near the front of the room. Servers—all of them cute young guys—came around handing out champagne cocktails, their stir sticks emblazoned with the Hunk-a-rama bull’s head logo.
Feeling cranky and cantankerous, I slumped into my chair, sipped my cocktail, and cased out the place, searching for exits. There must have been two hundred women crowded into the room, mostly in their twenties and thirties, although there were a surprising number of twinkly eyed, white-haired ladies out looking for a bit of fun.
My coworkers had gone for broke on the glitter meter. Between us, we had enough sequins, rhinestones, and beads for a Las Vegas floor show. Heidi, who had a toddler at home and didn’t get out much, was excited simply at being able to stay up past eight o’clock. Carleen had three cameras slung around her neck so she could get some shots of hunks in the buff to pass around at her next book-club meeting.
“Excuse me, but would you ladies mind if I joined you?”
I turned. A tall blond woman had appeared at our table. She wore a leopard-print blouse, a tight black skirt, and chandelier earrings that dangled to her clavicles.
“Sure, no prob,” said Giselle, scooting over to make room.
The woman hijacked an extra chair from the next table, slid it into place between Samantha and me, and sat down daintily, patting her hair. A waiter hurried over and handed her a cocktail. Gazing around the table, the blonde caught everyone’s eye, held up her drink, and said in a baritone voice, “Cheers.”
Juju’s mouth fell open. “Oh my God—it’s Magenta!”
It was him! Why hadn’t I picked up on it?
“I catch your show at the Bling every Saturday night,” Juju gushed. “Hey, you guys—this is Magenta! The Magenta. He sings, he dances, he does Cher and Beyoncé and Madonna—he’s incredible!”
Magenta batted his faux lashes. “Oh, now you’re flattering me.”
“You’re a guy?” asked Heidi, who had probably read Goodnight Moon more times than was good for a functioning brain.
“Tonight I’m just one of the girls, sweetikins.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here?” I asked.
“Last minute decision, doll. I took a cab here, then stood out in the parking lot and waited for someone to scalp me a ticket.”
The lights dimmed and a buzz of anticipation went around the room. A soundtrack blasted “You Sexy Thing,” a bit dog-eared around the edges, but pumping out a beat calculated to bring out a woman’s inner bad girl. Spotlights played across the stage, red mist puffed from a fog machine, and then the Hunks ripped the curtains apart and strutted onstage.
My heart stood on its head and spun into a break dance. These guys smoked. There were ten of them, in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties, all colors, all races, a candy box of Y chromosomes guaranteed to please every taste, from boy next door to devil in disguise, all of it wrapped inside delts and pecs and abs and quads like the ones on comic-book superheroes.
They ripped off their shirts and the room erupted, women whistling, whooping, and whipping their undies onto the stage. The Hunks broke into a dance number, their body language clearly conveying the message “I can make you moan three octaves above your normal orgasm range.” They moved out into the crowd, stationing themselves around the room so that every patron was within four feet of pheromone-flinging hunkiness.
I forgot that I’d planned to escape. I forgot all my anxieties except for my concern that my drool might ruin my silk top. The hunks sang, told raunchy jokes, and performed erotic acrobatics that would have left most guys crippled for life. They dragged delighted members of the audience onstage to perform in bawdy skits. They rippled their muscles, flashed their teeth, and strutted their stuff.
After a half hour or so, there was an intermission. I thought it would be a good idea if a guy with a fire extinguisher went around hosing everybody down. There was just time for a quick trip to the powder room, then we hurried back to the table a few seconds before the Hunks stormed onstage for their second act.
They ripped off their pants this time, leaving their bodies exposed in microscopic Speedos that fit like wet paint and outlined their throbbing pythons of love. The noise level was so far off the scale that the only way to prevent your eardrums from being blown out was to scream yourself.
The emcee, a guy with a Fabio-like mane of golden hair and an Italian accent, finally managed to quiet the women enough to announce that it was time for the personal performances. This set the audience off into fresh shrieks of delight. Enough electricity was jumping around the room to power every light in the city for a year.
“Check the nombers on your bool stirrers, lay-deez,” purred the emcee, reaching into a bucket filled with numbered plastic disks. “Our first locky lady is nomber one hondred forty-four.”
Magenta gasped. “I’ve got it!” He jumped to his feet, fanning himself, squealing, “I’ve got it! It’s me! Oh my God, I’ve got the number!”
Our table erupted into cheers and applause as Magenta ran up to the stage. He stood there, fake boobs heaving, eyes rolling, hand flapping feverishly over his heart, playing shamelessly to the audience. He couldn’t help it—he was a natural-born, uncured ham. Give him an inch and he was going to steal this show right out from under the six-packs of the Hunk-a-rama performers.
Magenta’s Personal Hunk strode onto the opposite side of the stage and stood for a minute, allowing the audience to lick him with their eyes. He was tall, African American, and gorgeous. He was wearing a Stetson, a vest over bare glistening chest, and all the other leathery gear movie cowboys wear. He grinned lazily, revealing blinding white teeth. His hand lingered suggestively at belt-buckle level.
Gazing over at Magenta, he tipped his hat and drawled, “Howdy, ma’am.” Whipping off the rope looped around his shoulder, he twirled it calf-roping-style and lassoed Magenta, pinning his arms while pulling his victim toward him.
“Waal, let’s just see what I roped me here,” he said, spinning Magenta around like a top a couple of times. He loosened the rope and it dropped to the floor, then he stood behind Magenta and wrapped his arms around her. Her, but really him. Pronouns get tricky when you’re talking about Magenta.
“Catched me a tall one,” he commented, winking broadly, which made the audience laugh and made Magenta erupt into girlish giggles.
“You the new schoolmarm?” the Hunk asked. Flustered, Magenta shook his head no, while nodding yes at the same time.
“I’m Tex,” said the Hunk, “and I’m fixin’ to take you in hand…”
Whoops and whistles from the crowd.
“… and show you some of the sights.”
This brought a roar of approval from the audience. I hoped Magenta wasn’t planning a strip of his own at the end, because Tex might not appreciate the fact that his lady was not 100 percent female.
Tex circled Magenta, and to a raunch-rap version of “I’ve Got Spurs That Jingle, Jangle, Jingle,” slowly removed his gear.
Bye, bye, boots.
Vaya con dios, vest.
Ciao, chaps.
His pants were tear-aways, so there was none of that awkward hopping around on one leg while trying to ease them off past shoes. Whoever starts selling tear-away pants over
the Internet is going to rake in a fortune.
Tex tickled Magenta’s chin with his rawhide quirt. “Save a horse,” he growled. “Ride a cowboy.” That got a big laugh.
The hat came off last. Twirling it around his head, Tex lofted it into the audience, where a brief hair-pulling match broke out between two women who’d both latched on to it.
Left wearing only a pearly smile and a G-string the size of an eye patch, bowing, bathed in applause and wolf whistles, Tex leaned down and kissed Magenta’s cheek before gallantly escorting him offstage, never realizing exactly who he’d been romancing.
Back at the table, Magenta, looking overcome with happiness, blushed so furiously during the whole rest of the show we could have used him as a table lamp. There were more dances, more tantalizing strips, and then like any good act that knows enough to leave ’em wanting more, the show ended.
The houselights came up. I was startled to see it was nearly eleven o’clock. We started gathering up our coats and purses. “Thanks for kidnapping me, you guys,” I said, grinning like an idiot and hugging the other Hotties. “This was amazing.”
We joined the mob and moved out into the crowded lobby. “Want to split a cab?” Magenta asked me.
“Sure.”
I told Juju I was going with Magenta, then we headed to the front entrance for the taxi line. Magenta owned a car, but he hated the hassle of finding parking places and preferred being driven in taxicabs, claiming it made him feel like a movie star.
The cigar-smoking guy in line behind us must have lost big in the casino, because he was loudly griping on his cellphone about how the games were all rigged here. The last available cab pulled out just as Magenta and I arrived. We stood there waiting for the next one, shivering in our short skirts. Magenta wore a dreamy look on his face, probably reliving his moments on stage with Mr. Ride-a-Cowboy while I tried to recall exactly how long it had been since I’d seen Bonaparte Labeck without clothes.
Finally a taxi pulled up. Magenta and I stepped toward it, but the cigar smoker shoved ahead of us, yanked open the cab door and got in. “Sorry, ladies,” he said, smirking. “I’m in a hurry.”
Magenta thrust his purse at me to hold. Then he reached into the backseat of the cab, hauled the man out and hurled him backward so hard he bounced against the taxistand sign. “Ladies first, asshole,” Magenta snarled.
Magenta handed me into the cab, climbed in himself, and tucked his skirt under his thighs in the most ladylike way imaginable. He closed the door and shot the finger at the cigar guy as we pulled away.
“Don’t tell me,” the driver said, eyeing Magenta in the rearview mirror. “PMS?”
Chapter Twenty-seven
You need not pout, you need not cry.
Just wear a lacey top to catch his eye.
—Maguire’s Maxims
“Our first Christmas tree, darling,” said Labeck, wrapping an arm around my waist.
“Knock it off,” I hissed. “The tree guy is watching.”
Posing as a couple, we were pretending to examine the selection of trees in a lot on Oakland Avenue. Labeck was wearing a stylish selection from the local Salvation Army: stocking cap pulled low on his forehead, ripped black parka, and oversized jeans whose low-rise waist attractively displayed his waffle-weave long underwear. He was growing a beard, apparently in the belief that it would make him unrecognizable.
“It’s not working,” I said scathingly.
“What, my beard?” He rubbed his furry cheek. “Babes really go for these.”
“Right—beards and butt hair—huge turn-ons for women.”
I hauled a long wool scarf out of a shopping bag and thrust it at him. I’d bought it on my break today, figuring it would help Labeck conceal his face when he was out in public. He took one look at the scarf, then stuffed it back in the bag.
“Guys don’t wear scarves,” he said, with the same lack of logic I’d evidenced at age fifteen, when I’d insisted on wearing miniskirts on days when the windchill turned my kneecaps to Eskimo pies.
“You’ve got the most recognizable face in the city! You’re in the papers, on TV, and on the sides of buses.” I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that half the women in the city had Bonaparte Labeck’s face as their screen saver.
He shook his head and crossed his arms, pigheadedness personified.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Go ahead, get caught. See if I care.”
“You folks need help?” The lot owner hobbled in our direction, his scarred, nearly toothless face at odds with the jaunty Santa hat perched atop his bald head, an elf who’d gotten kicked out of the toy workshop after that last prank involving the brandy-flavored candy canes.
“What do you think, honey?” Labeck turned to me, eyes sparkling with malicious mischief, slipping both arms around my waist and trapping me against him Dirty Dancing–style. “We’re newlyweds,” Labeck told the tree guy. “Picking out our first tree.”
“Yeah, real sweet,” the tree guy rasped. Then he leaned over and hawked a loogie at the base of a Scotch pine.
I wished Labeck would stop with the happy married couple bit. If we wanted to be authentic, we’d be squabbling over trees. My cousin Jenny had once gotten so enraged at her husband on a Christmas tree lot that she’d jabbed a pinecone up his nose.
“How about that one, darling?” Labeck asked, pointing to a Fraser fir.
“It costs eighty-five dollars, sweetheart,” I gritted out.
“But the kids—little Johnny and little Susie—will love it.”
“We’re newlyweds,” I muttered. “How do we have kids?”
He grinned, his teeth white against his bristly chin. Kind of piratical, and actually sexy despite the facial fur. “We jumped the gun, hot stuff. Couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”
His own hand was sliding under my coat. “What’s this you’re wearing?”
It was the Aubade chemise I’d been wearing at work today. Midnight-blue pleated silk with alençon lace trim. When I’d received Labeck’s text message asking me to meet him at the tree lot, I’d hesitated to ask Juju for time off in the middle of a busy day, but she’d practically pushed me out the door.
“The customers can wait,” she said. “Mister Smokin’ Hot needs you now.”
I’d flung on jeans and coat over my lingerie and hurried off to meet Labeck. When I saw him, standing at the edge of the lot, hands jammed in pockets, looking around impatiently, I forgot the way we’d quarreled last time we’d been together. The surge of love, lust, and longing I experienced left me feeling dizzy.
Labeck turned and saw me. His dark eyes swept hungrily over me. He took two long strides, then his hands were around my waist, pulling me against him. He bent and brushed a kiss across my lips, his beard scratchy. “I’ve missed you,” he said in a low voice that sent a jolt from my chumbawumbas to my cho-cho. “Have you been all right?”
“Yes,” I breathed, wanting to say yes to a lot more than that. But this wasn’t the time for it and I forced myself to push him away. Time was short, someone might recognize Labeck any second, and I had a lot to tell him.
As we wandered around among the Christmas trees, I filled him in on everything that had happened in the past few days: about being interrogated by Trumbull, witnessing a man burglarizing Rhonda’s hard drive, and discovering the hard-drive burglar’s identity.
“Petrov,” Labeck said, frowning. “Name sounds familiar.”
“He was one of the doctors who operated on Tippi Lennox.”
“The college kid who disappeared a couple years ago?”
“Don’t you think it’s weird? Rhonda and Tippi were both patients at the same clinic. Frederick Cromwell told me Rhonda had a procedure done there.”
“So what? Thousands of people must go to that clinic.”
The tree seller was hovering around us again, so we moved out of his earshot toward the back of the lot, where a life-sized crèche scene was set up. It had glow-in-the-dark Mary and Joseph figures, a neon
baby Jesus, and sheep pulsing with colored lights. A blow-up turkey in a Pilgrim suit bobbed gently in the breeze, and a scarecrow left over from Halloween guarded the manger. The sacred and the profane, all mingled in a democratic diorama of tackiness.
“I want you to see something,” I told Labeck.
“My pleasure,” Labeck said, stealing a peek at my cleavage.
“Not that.” I sat down on one of the hay bales at the base of the crèche, rummaged through my purse, and fished out the iPad I’d borrowed from Heidi. Labeck lowered himself to the bale beside me. Trying to ignore the sexual frisson set up by his thigh pressing against mine, I scrolled to the video of the Tippi Lennox disappearance.
“This is the security tape from the drugstore where the girl was last seen,” I said, fast-forwarding to the part where the cab drew up outside the drugstore. Tippi got out, thrust bills at the driver, and walked toward the drugstore entrance, her tote bag slung over her shoulder. Her cap was pulled low over her face and her muffler covered her mouth, revealing only her eyes and cheekbones, but almost every person on the street was similarly bundled up. It looked to be ten below hell freezing over, the kind of day when it’s so cold the snow squeaks like cornstarch underfoot and your breath forms ice crystals in your nostril hairs.
“What do you notice?” I asked, scoodling my fingers across the screen to magnify the image.
“What am I supposed to notice?”
“Just look,” I said, exasperated. “Is that person a female?”
Labeck studied the screen, the playfulness gone now, replaced by a sharp-eyed intensity. He was quiet for a half a minute, rewinding and watching it several times. Finally he said, “No.”
“You’re saying that’s a guy? How do you get that?”
Labeck shrugged. “Women take shorter steps. They walk with their hips. Their center of gravity is lower. This person doesn’t walk like a woman.”
Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 18
