“Want to meet her?” Chloe asked.
This struck Ben as an odd question, being that he worked for the club and it was usually him asking that question—kind of a standard pick-up line, come to think of it. “Sure.”
“Good. We can all have dinner at my place Saturday night. Good?”
“Uh…good!”
Any fantasies he may have harbored about sex with two girls—one of them a famous comic!—or watching two girls have sex with each other, were squelched by Heather as they closed up.
“Neither of those women even wants to see you naked. I, on the other hand…”
“You realize that, since you’re the club manager, I could potentially sue you for sexual harassment.” He winked at her.
“Oh, please do. Court would at least break the predictable cycle that has become my life. Seriously. Honey? Use a condom.”
* * *
Before Chloe had the door open she apologized. “Vonnie couldn’t make it.”
“I’m not surprised. Saturday is top dollar for a comic.”
“I didn’t think you’d make it either. Mister Bartender.”
“Speaking of which.” He shoved a bottle of wine at her.
“That’s from Canada,” he said. “Eastern Canada.”
“I didn’t tell you what I was making.”
“So?”
“So how did you know what wine to get?” He grinned. “I’m a bartender.”
Chloe had a nice apartment in a marginal neighborhood, on the seedier side of Hollywood. Maybe the vaulted ceilings and hardwood floors made up for not being able to leave the house after dark without putting on some hardcore attitude.
She sat him at the dining room table, wrought iron with an inset grey marble top. Ben ran a hand along it. “This is gorgeous.”
“Thrift store, can you believe it?”
In place of a table cloth which would have covered the beauty of the marble, she’d draped three cobalt blue runners. A metal watering can spilling over with blue and white irises rested on the farthest of these and placemats set beside cloth napkins graced the other end. Tasteful.
And the food! Duck prepared in Grand Marnier sauce, with wild rice and perfectly steamed asparagus. Crème brulee for dessert. Chloe owned a cook’s blow torch. Ben thought he could marry this girl. She had taste, a sense of humor and cooked like a fiend!
“Why are you such a good cook?”
“Why?”
“You have to admit it’s a bit unusual for somebody, what, twenty-five?”
“Is this an elaborate ruse to determine my age?”
“Yes.”
“I’m twenty-nine.”
Ben finished his wine. “You don’t look a day over thirty. Seriously, not many people in their twenties cook this well unless it’s their profession.”
“I’m not a chef.”
“I figured. So?”
“I watch Food TV a lot.”
Ben sensed there was more. For the first time in their short relationship, Chloe seemed hesitant. He hedged the bet: “For a reason?”
“Do you really want to know?” She attempted a laugh. “In the past five years my life became a bad Lifetime movie. Oh wait, that’s a redundancy.”
He snickered. “But yeah, I’d really like to know.”
“My dad died when the World Trade Center came down. All the channels were showing it all the time. I couldn’t get away from it, but I couldn’t stand the silence when the TV was off. Music wasn’t enough, I wanted voices, you know? People.”
Ben searched her for signs of farce, was he being punked? He didn’t think so. Her speech was rushed. Plus the way she’d referred to it, not the media-catchy “Nine-Eleven”.
“What about the Weather Channel?” he asked.
Chloe shook her head. “It affected the weather. All that smoke and debris? So I started to watch all these different people cook. It got to be interesting They each have their own little pet thing. And cooking, it’s a form of creation, I guess.” She shrugged. “I found it therapeutic. Don’t laugh.”
He looked at her, sparkling eyes and wide smile. Earnest.
“How about your mom?”
“My real mom died…when I was born. My step-mom died a year after my dad.”
“That’s rough. How’d she, I mean—”
“Let’s say…of a broken heart.”
“That’s poetic.” He instantly regretted his sarcasm, sensed that he’d missed a cue to drop the subject.
“Poeticism seems to disturb people less than telling them that she hung herself from the exposed pipes in the basement.”
“I, ah…I’m sorry.”
Chloe glared at him only for a moment, then shrugged. “I warned you. So what about you? Any Afterschool Specials you want to share?”
Ben rubbed his chin “We’ll do me next time.”
“I won’t do you next time. I’m a third date girl.”
* * *
Ben drove home happy, not even minding his broken radio. Brand new car and the radio—satellite—stopped working after two weeks. The dealer said it wasn’t their responsibility, here’s a voucher, go to a stereo place. The stereo places looked sideways at the car because it was a hybrid and they don’t work on hybrids ‘cuz it’s an electric car, comprende? They could be electro-cuted.
But he wasn’t thinking about any of that, he was humming and daydreaming about Tuesday, their scheduled second date. What foresight on his part to have accepted those passes to Alrik’s art show opening! He never believed he’d actually use them but stuff like that can come in handy. Handy! Handy with the ladies…. Of course, he figured it’d be the third date before there’d be any hands involved. He already knew just where to take her. As such a good cook, she’d be tough to impress, but in searching for hard-to-find wines he’d recently stumbled across this Romanian place and who was parked in his driveway?
A silver Escalade sat, motor running, across his driveway, blocking his entry. Adrenaline brought Ben its rush of anger and irrationality. Then he noticed that one of the taillights was out and sighed: Heather.
For show, he screeched to a halt inches from her bumper and flung open the door. He had not been completely truthful with Chloe. Yes, he and Heather had hooked up only once, but neither of them had been drunk, and it was the beginning of an arrangement whereby if both of them were free and physically needy they could use each other to fill that need. Technically, he was not yet with anybody. Chloe’s chastity was cute, though; he found it charming, and he’d decided before he got out of his car to send Heather home.
But as he stepped from his hybrid, the Escalade darted away with a tight squeak of tires. Ben cursed after the SUV, bitter with the realization that he’d just been blue-balled twice in one night.
CHAPTER 7
“So how was your wild night, loverboy?”
“You should know.”
Heather raised her eyebrows at him. “How’s that?”
“I appreciate our arrangement, but I’m dating. And color me crazy but stalkers make me nervous.”
“What on God’s green earth are you on about?”
Ben peered at his manager. She had a hand on her tilted hip and a vaguely-offended sort of frown creased her brow.
“Don’t you drive a silver Escalade with a burned out taillight?”
“Silver Explorer, psycho. Cadillac makes Escalade. And I fixed my busted taillight two weeks ago. You told me where to go.”
That’s right, he had. So who the hell’d been parked outside his house? Like they were casing the place. Not that Ben owned much worth stealing, but he liked the things he did have. His couch was comfortable, his stereo kicked ass, and the bedroom furniture had been his grandmother’s, which in his opinion more than made up for the dresser
’s mismatched hardware and circular stains. He’d considered refinishing the piece but—the wallet! Shit, he’d forgotten all about it.
What if the Escalade guy was Eddie the Wallet Owner? Ben took a deep breath. Tomorrow the banks would be open, he’d return it. He counted his drawer, liquor, and receipts, brought the numbers back to Heather’s office along with an apology. She shrugged in a way that told him she was still irritated, but gave him her usual “Break a leg at Ta-Twat.”
Ben hated Club Tattoo but loved working there. Two stories of open space outfitted in pale wood, sheer drapes, and chrome faux-industrial piping, the antithesis of Busta’s. So, too with the clientele. Tattoo patrons ranged from over-privileged children-of-famous-people to Persian princes and their bombshell American dates. The club had a stage show on the lower level—impersonators, magic, sometimes vaudevillian stuff. Upstairs, people danced. No average citizens and no white light ever graced the carpets, dance floors, or bathrooms of the infamous Club Tattoo.
Tattoo bouncers carried sidearms. More than one of their waiters was rumored to have used his kitchen torches for things beyond the showy at-the-table caramelization of desserts, and two of the waitresses were known for having gone on to become Hollywood Madams. For Ben, all this meant two things: He got to put on a show, and he got tipped superbly.
What Heather had told Chloe was true, the fire breathing and broken bottles. He also worked some basic magic: A cup-and-ball trick he did with shot glasses and maraschino cherries, a dollar-in-the-lemon trick. This week he planned to debut a disappearing dollar bit: “Drink Your Money Away,” he’d named it. He poured a shot with the money in the glass, still visible when served. Once the patron consumed it, the cash disappeared. Ben made out on money tricks because Tattoo customers seldom carried anything smaller than fifties, and they usually let him keep the bill.
The ninth dollar-drinker shook his shot glass, stared into the bottom, rubbed his finger around the inside.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” a girl asked.
A girl with black hair and ice blue eyes.
“Chloe!”
“I’ve been sitting here for nearly ten minutes. What’s wrong, you don’t recognize me out of uniform?”
The Ninth Guy barked, “Hey! Where’s my Hamilton?”
Ben pulled a ten dollar bill out of the guy’s ear, handed it to him. The guy snatched it and waltzed away.
Ben frowned after him. Chloe reached around him for a handful of maraschino cherries. “Cheap SOB, huh?”
“Naw, I lost concentration at the end there It’s all about timing.” He noticed the cherries, aimed his frown at her.
“Is that your way of saying scram? Get outta here kid, you bother me?”
He blinked at her. “No. Don’t eat those, I have to account for them.” He snagged one from her. “You’re probably right, cheap SOB. So, come here often?”
“Hey Benjy Boy!” A leggy platinum blonde poured herself into a stool at the bar’s far end. Blue veins bulged through the loose skin of her hands, but her face could still sell lip gloss to teeny-boppers.
Ben waved a finger at Chloe, “Just a minute”, moved to the blonde. “What’s your poison, Geena?”
“What, no kiss? Give Mamma a kissy-wissy, baby.” She yanked him to her by his shirt, took his face in both her hands, and planted a sloppy kiss on his mouth. Amazingly, she left no trace of lipstick. “I hear you’re making dollar bills disappear tonight.”
“I hear you’re making other things disappear.”
Geena giggled. “Show me yours. Sorry, but you can’t afford mine.”
Ben poured her a shot, the money disappeared, he pulled it out of her blonde mane. She let him keep the bill, and hers was a fifty. He served the small crowd that Geena inevitably left in her wake. Eventually everybody had something in his hand, and Ben returned to Chloe.
“You here alone?”
“Vonnie dragged me.”
“She doesn’t have a gig tonight?”
Chloe nodded. “Late show. At Purple Dot.”
Ben wondered if Chloe got paid to act as her friend’s mascot, but before he’d figured a tactful way to phrase this question, Lionel burst through the swinging doors behind the bar. “Heads up! Ice! Ice, ice, baby!” He dumped a plastic busboy’s tray-load of ice into the bar trough, muscles bulging around his white undershirt. “You short anything else?”
“I could use more Blue Curacao,” Ben said. “And don’t eat those!” He smacked Lionel’s hand, which was full of bright red cherries.
“Uh-oh,” Lionel sang.
“What?” Ben followed the bar back’s gaze. “Oh.”
“Porno mafia at three o’clock.”
“Why does Alex let them through the door?”
“And the fetish crew, no less.”
Two women and three men reached the top of the stairs, spread out like a survey crew, like they owned the joint. Or planned to rob it. They’d have been awfully conspicuous, though. Two of the three men had slick black ponytails and black leather trench coats. The third guy’s dirty-blonde hair fell into his eyes. He also wore leather, a motorcycle jacket over a Hawaiian shirt, and had an eyebrow ring and a goatee.
Then there were the women. One like Elvira, but with breasts the size of watermelons. On her arm, a small, skinny girl in a plush fur leopard top and matching boy-panties. She had boots to her knees, Halloween cat-ears over her black Betty Page cut, and wore a mesh duster that trailed on the floor. Her chest held mere cantaloupes.
Ben turned to Chloe to tell her about how the last time this crew showed up, they’d had to close the floor for a night to clean up the mess. Luckily, the club appealed to a crowd made hot by scandal and murder, especially if the death involved being smothered between watermelon tits.
But Chloe had slid off her stool and was creeping toward the women’s bathroom, eyes fixed on the youngest of the men, the one with the short hair.
Lionel came swinging back through the doors again. “Boss says blow.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, apparently these clowns crashed the gates. Riley’s on his way up, says get everybody out, don’t come back till tomorrow.”
“Who’s gonna finish my shift?”
Lionel shrugged. “My guess is Tattoo’s second floor is closing for the evening.”
“My guess is Riley sets this shit up.”
Ben searched for Chloe but to no avail, decided she was holed up in the bathroom with her comedienne friend and he’d call her later. He considered hitting Fuzzy or one of the other dance clubs, but realized he was bored with that scene, was very much looking forward to Tuesday night with Chloe and the prospect of Tattoo being reduced from the slender-possibility-palace he currently pretended it wasn’t to just a job. So, for the first night in many months, Ben headed straight home after work.
As he pulled into his driveway his headlights swept over his little house, revealing the unmistakable form of a person standing in his front room. Forgetting the public service announcements which recommend that if you should come home to find a stranger in your house, you go to another house and phone the police, Ben burst from his still-running car and lunged through the door. A shadow slipped through his sliding kitchen door. Ben followed. In the backyard he saw someone hop at the eight-foot rock wall, struggle for a grip. He lurched after the intruder. But lack of exercise got the best of him. He stood panting and sweating in the dim light as the figure slipped lithely into the neighbor’s garden.
Ben put his car in the garage and headed back inside to assess the damage. The lock was busted, but nothing in the house appeared broken or missing. Perhaps he’d had the good fortune to arrive just in time? He checked the bedroom, where even the foisted mystery wallet still sat unmolested on his dresser.
But there’d been a sound as the intruder slipped over the wal
l, the unmistakable crunchy squeak of leather. Only certain types of people, Ben knew, wore a leather jacket in midsummer. The same kinds of people, come to think of it, who were likely to drive silver Cadillac SUV’s. This, on the same night as the Porno Mafia? This was bad.
Ben didn’t want to end up like the stupid amateurs trying to make it in the business. The hawks always collected a few failed actors who didn’t mind, maybe even liked the work. Maybe tried to get a little too big. Like any big-money business, competition killed. The Porn kings and queens regularly met up with people at Tattoo, usually men, who left the club with them and then disappeared for good. Occasionally they didn’t leave the club at all. Then the Tattoo staff got to clean up the mess.
Yeah, this was bad.
Ben slept in his clothes. At seven-thirty his alarm went off, but he needn’t have set it: He’d been awake since dawn, staring out the window and chewing his nails. He pulsed through Melrose traffic to the BankZilla on the corner of Fairfax, where he paced outside the metal-slat gate for the three minutes it took them to unlock the door to customers.
The aging, too-skinny clerk drew away from him slightly, as if he smelled. Her eyebrows, which she had shaved and painted back on so that she appeared perpetually surprised, made Ben slightly afraid of her and indeed of the bank, as if he had walked into an elaborate trap.
“This is…I found this. And I have reason to believe the man it belongs to needs it very much.” He explained about the address, slid the wallet under the shield of bullet-proof plastic.
False-nailed fingers snatched the wallet from the metal tray and tapped a keyboard furiously. Still gazing at her computer screen, Creepy Bank Lady shook her head. “Account’s closed. Has been for months. The last address we have is yours.”
“What can I do?” Ben’s vision tunneled. “Try the DMV. Next in line, please.”
“His license has my address.”
“Then four-one-one. Next!”
He stumbled punch-drunk out of the chilly bank and into the bright morning heat of an L.A. Monday. For a while he sat with his hybrid running, panting like a rabid dog. And sweating. The heat made him come to. He raised a hand to his new car’s air conditioner vent, discovered that it pumped out damp, tepid air.
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