Dead Winter

by William G. Tapply

  “I said I had news for you,” said Zerk.

  “Okay. Let’s have it.”

  “Andy Pavelich got shot to death Saturday night.”

  I took a deep breath. “Oh, Jesus, Zerk.”

  “Yeah. Young kid. Little babies at home.”

  “Who? Not—?”

  “No, not Marc. Marc’s covered on this one. They’re holding the girl’s husband.”

  “Big Al,” I said. “Mean-tempered son of a bitch. Figures. Did he beat her up?”

  “Nope. Shot her in the chest and the throat.”

  “They got the goods on Al, huh?”

  “He called the cops himself, is how I hear it. They showed up, he was stomping around the house, drunker’n a hootie owl. That’s all I hear.”

  I was silent for a minute. Then I said, “Oh, my God, Zerk.”

  “What, boss?”

  “If Al killed Andy…”

  “What?”

  “If he killed her, it could be—see, I talked with her. With Andy. At the restaurant, where she works. About the night Maggie got killed. And Al came by and saw me talking to her. And he jumped me in the parking lot. Marc dragged him off me. He threatened me. And—and he threatened Andy. See what I mean?”

  “You think this guy murdered his wife because he saw you talking to her?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe after he saw us talking he got her to admit she had been fooling around with Marc Winter. Either way, it’s my fault, Zerk.”

  “Now, listen, you dumb shit,” he said. “Listen good. Either way, it’s Al’s fault, not yours. Hear me? Al, or whoever killed the lady, it’s their fault, not yours. And don’t give me any of your for whom the bell tolls horseshit, either.”

  “You’re right,” I sighed.

  “Course I’m right.”

  “It doesn’t change how I feel.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  “Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “They got the goods on Al, then?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t inquire. All I know is that Marc’s alibi is down the tubes. Not to be insensitively objective about the whole thing.”

  “Assuming she was telling the truth.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “and not lying for him.”

  “Or involved herself.”

  “Or that.”

  “The way I see it,” I said after a minute, “is we have three murders. Maggie, Greenberg, and now Andy Pavelich. And we’ve got three different murder weapons. Blunt instrument, serrated kitchen knife, gun. Three different motives, probably. And it looks like three different murderers.”

  “One of which might be my client,” he said.

  “Yeah. Unless we’re missing something.”

  “We are missing something,” said Zerk.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “The hole in your scenario.”

  “What hole?”

  “Hey. Don’t get touchy. The problem with all this is Maggie. One way or the other, she’s at the center of all this. And nobody seems to know much about her. Not even her husband. Okay, so she got knocked up when she was a kid, and this Lanie Horton is her daughter, and Greenberg tracked her down, and maybe one of them killed the other one. But maybe—”

  “Maybe none of those things is true,” I finished. “Is that it?”

  “I’d just like it better if I knew more about her.” Zerk paused. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “Don’t sulk.”

  “I wasn’t sulking. I was thinking.”

  “Oh-oh,” said Zerk.

  13

  THE PARKING LOT AT the Night Owl was packed on that midsummer Monday evening—predominantly pickup trucks and four-wheel-drive wagons bearing almost as many license plates from Maine and New Hampshire as from Massachusetts, but a respectable smattering of Ford wagons, Toyotas, and here and there a Mercedes and a Porsche.

  Strippers do have a democratic appeal.

  Inside, smoky haze hung thick from the low ceiling. A rectangular stage jutted into the middle of the big brightly lit room. On three sides of the stage, randomly placed tables and chairs crowded close. Those nearest the stage were jammed with people. All men. Above the stage, a glass ball rotated slowly, breaking the lights into a million multicolored pieces and swirling them around the room. A low wrought-iron railing ran around the three sides of the stage—a symbolic separation of the audience from the performers. The loud insistent beat of rock music buzzed and whined through an overstimulated amplification system, distorting the words that were being sung beyond any possible comprehension, had anybody cared, which did not seem likely.

  The girl on the stage was mouthing them, however. It was startling to walk from a soft, starry summer night into a room where a beautiful young girl clad only in a thin gold ankle bracelet gyrated mindlessly, her eyes closed, her face blank, with maybe a hundred men gathered close to the stage, staring up at her.

  An L-shaped bar stood to the right of the stage. Two girls in jeans and T-shirts sat side by side at one end, ignoring the performance. Otherwise, all the patrons of the Night Owl were clustered near the stage. I went over to the bar and perched on a stool. I assumed this was the same bar where a black-haired stripper named Maggie had scared away two bikers with a hatpin, so impressing Marc Winter that he married her.

  I cocked an elbow on the bar and half-pivoted my body so that I could watch the show. The song ended. The girl on stage flashed a quick insincere smile, made a short bow, and ducked behind the curtain. A moment later another tune, using the term loosely, exploded from the speakers. The girl came back. She began to parade slowly in front of the guys who were leaning their forearms on the wrought-iron railing. Every few feet she stopped, spread her legs wide, and bent her body backwards until her long blond hair touched the floor behind her. She certainly was limber. The boys in the front rows got an eyeful and showed their appreciation by whistling and clapping. The audience response was similar to the one Larry Bird got whenever he canned a three-pointer from the corner.

  “Beer?”

  I turned. The bartender was large and black-bearded and squinty-eyed. He sported a short ponytail in back. He wore a black T-shirt. On it an owl winked lasciviously.

  “What’ve you got in bottles?”

  “Bud.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s what’s cold. Want one?”

  “Sure.”

  He plunked it in front of me a moment later. No glass, not that I would have used one anyway. “Two fifty.”

  I fished out a five and gave it to him. He put the change on the bar in front of me. I left it there. I rotated to watch the dancer. She was doing a new trick. She turned her back to a pod of guys in shirtsleeves and loosened neckties who might’ve driven over from one of the high-tech outfits in southern New Hampshire. Stiff-legged, she shuffled backwards toward them until her heels touched the railing. Then she bent forward at the waist so that she could look at the computer guys upside-down through her legs. I saw her reach between her legs toward the railing, pause to say something to one of her admirers, wiggle her ass a couple times, then stand up. She repeated this odd dance several times before the song ran out.

  I turned to the bartender, who had his chin propped in his hands, his elbows on the bar near me. “What’s she doing?”

  “Selling them a peek.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “They put dollar bills on top of the railing. She’s retrieving them. Gives them a good look at her snatch.” He shrugged. “You ask me, you seen one you seen ’em all.”

  “You worked here long?”

  “Couple months is all. Not that much work for a thirty-five-year-old guy who keeps changing his mind about what he’s going to write his doctoral thesis about. So I’ve been bouncing from one job to another. This one here pays pretty well, considering about all I have to do is open beer bottles and put them on the waitresses’ trays.”

  “What’s your area?”

  “’Scu
se me?”

  “Your thesis. What is your academic specialty?”

  “The transcendentalists.” He laughed. “Emerson would’ve loved a place like this. Imagine Thoreau coming into the Night Owl.”

  The music throbbed to a stop, the stripper waved at her fans, and a harsh woman’s voice rasped over the speakers. “Dusty Knight, ladies and gentlemen. Ain’t she a beautiful girl? What a dancer! What a great body! Let’s give Dusty Knight a big round of applause.”

  The boys by the stage responded enthusiastically.

  “Don’t forget,” continued the woman’s three-pack-a-day amplified voice, “Tuesday is amateur night at the Night Owl. So you fellas bring your gals on down here so you can show ’em off. Who knows? Maybe one of ’em’ll be a star, get herself a job here at the Night Owl. And Thursday is ladies night at the Night Owl. Tell your girlfriends and wives and tell your grandmothers. We’ve got a batch of hunky men on our Night Owl stage every Thursday. Straight from Playgirl. Out of the class of all you horny little wienies. Heh-heh-heh.”

  “Who’s the one with the voice?” I asked the bartender.

  “That’s Ray.”

  “Ray? She is a woman, isn’t she?”

  He laughed, a crude imitation of Ray’s wickedly suggestive heh-heh-heh. “She’s a woman, all right. She’s no lady, but she’s a woman. Owns this joint. Raybelle’s my boss.”

  “How do I get to talk to her?”

  “Unzip your fly. She’ll find you.”

  “No, really.”

  Raybelle’s voice was introducing the next performer, a “sweet southern siren” named Sally Flame, who turned out to be a redhead. She pranced onto the stage wearing a skintight sequined gown and stiletto heels. She made one mincing trip up the stage, one back, and then flicked a few snaps and the gown peeled off, revealing a black lace bra and G-string and a great deal of Sally Flame. She marched around the stage in this getup for a while, her movements completely uncoordinated with the music, offering no pretense at dancing. She chatted and exchanged wisecracks with her audience.

  “What do you want to talk to Raybelle about?” said the bartender.

  “Someone who used to work here.”

  “I’ll see if I can get her for you. Want another Bud?”

  “Sure.”

  He plunked a bottle in front of me and disappeared. A minute later he returned with his arm around a tall, broad-shouldered woman I would have instantly assumed had been a guy before the operation, or at least a transvestite. She wore snug orange pants that stopped halfway down her muscular calves, spiky heels, and a V-necked T-shirt under which rose a monumental bosom. She had pitch black butch-cut hair and a craggy pale face thick with mascara, pancake, and fire-engine red lipstick.

  The bartender ducked behind his bar. Raybelle took the stool beside me. “You lookin’ for me, honey?” she wheezed.

  “I hope you can help me, miss.”

  “Miss,” she repeated. “Heh-heh-heh. You’re okay, honey. You wanna buy me a beer?”

  “Sure.” I turned to the bartender. He smiled and produced a Bud for Raybelle.

  She lifted it and drained half of it. Then she pounded it down onto the bar and wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist. “Ahh,” she sighed. “Only one thing better’n a good cold Bud.” She dropped her hand onto the inside of my thigh. “So what’s up?” she said. Then she laughed again, that evil heh-heh-heh.

  I squirmed under her grip. “I’d like some information on a girl who used to work here.”

  “Lotsa girls used to work here, honey.” She patted my leg and removed her hand. “Most of ’em don’t stay long. What’s her name?”

  “Maggie. I don’t know what her last name was.”

  “You got the hots for this broad?”

  “No, that’s not it. She married a friend of mine. She was killed recently. Murdered. I’d like to track down her parents.”

  Raybelle accepted this information without reaction. I might as well have told her that Maggie had invested in IBM stocks.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m the family lawyer,” I said. “Some legal things to clear up.”

  She narrowed her black-rimmed eyes. “Like who killed her, huh?”

  I shrugged. “That’s police business, not mine.”

  She frowned. “Maggie,” she mumbled. “Can’t say I recall a broad named Maggie.”

  “Tall, black-haired, brown eyes. Quit about a year ago when she got married.”

  “Any scars, tattoos, or identifying marks?” She grinned. “Heh-heh-heh.”

  “I never saw her dance.”

  “You gotta help me more than that, honey. No chick danced here under the name of Maggie. Hell, I wouldn’t let her. Maggie just don’t hack it for a name. Whaddya think of Dusty Knight?”

  “She was very good,” I said.

  “I mean the name, dummy.”

  “Good name for a stripper.”

  She nodded. “I gave her that name. Broad’s real name is McGillicuddy. Imagine this: And now on the Night Owl stage, straight in from the Riviera in Las Vegas, ladies and gentlemen, a great dancer, a fantastic body, let’s have a big hand for the beautiful, the sexy, the stacked—Gloria McGillicuddy.” Her voice had become her announcing voice, lower, cruder, more suggestive. She cocked her head at me. “Heh-heh-heh.”

  “My ex-wife’s name is Gloria,” I said.

  “Your wife probably ain’t a stripper.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “I don’t see how I’m gonna help you.”

  “My friend, who she married, his name is Marc Winter.”

  Raybelle gazed past me toward the stage. She shrugged. I sensed I was losing her attention.

  “He noticed her when she pulled a hatpin on a couple clowns who were bothering her here one night.”

  Raybelle turned and frowned at me. “A hatpin?”

  I nodded.

  “Shit, I remember her. With the hatpin. Sure. Cool one, she was. Hell of a bod. Hang on, I’ll think of it.” She stared up at the ceiling and shut her eyes. Then she snapped her fingers. “Mona. That’s who. Mona with the hatpin. Mona Mist. Mona was good. I was sorry she quit. She didn’t tell me why. Married, huh? Well, that’s what happens to ’em. They either get married or they get disgusted or they turn into junkies or drunks. You like Mona Mist?”

  “The name, you mean?”

  “Well, yeah. The name.”

  “Your name?”

  “You betcha.”

  “A good one.”

  “So whaddya wanna know about Mona?”

  “Her real name. Where she’s from. Anything you can tell me.”

  She shrugged. “The girls come and go. Mona was good, though. Not much in the tit department. Great ass, legs that wouldn’t quit. She could dance, all right. Real popular, Mona. Thing is, I don’t get involved in the girls’ personal lives. Live and let live, I say. And Mona, she didn’t have that much to say. Kept to herself, pretty much. Came in, danced, left.”

  “Anybody here now who might remember her?”

  Over her shoulder she said to the bartender, “Mike, you remember Mona?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve only been here a few months, Raybelle.”

  She shrugged. “None of the girls been here a year. Big turnover in dancers.”

  “You must have records or something.”

  “Buy me another Bud. Lemme think.”

  I nodded to Mike the bartender. He obliged. I lit a cigarette and offered one to Raybelle. She waved it away. “Doctor made me quit. I got whatchamacallit—polyps—in my throat. Can’t drink hard stuff, either. So I stick to the foamies and suck my thumb.” She grinned lecherously. “Providin’ I can’t find somethin’ better to suck on. Look. This is important, huh?”

  “Yes. Very.”

  She swigged on her beer. “Okay. Hang tight, honey.” She squeezed my knee for an instant, then waddled away.

  Sally Flame by now had doffed her bra and G-string and had begun the dollar-bil
l trick, a minor variation of the theme of her predecessor. As I watched her, I was tempted to agree with Mike’s assessment—you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.

  Raybelle returned a moment later. She put an old-fashioned ledger book onto the bar and patted it. “I got it all here. Fellas I know tell me I gotta get me a computer. Like hell I do. What I need’s in here. Okay. So I look up Mona Mist.”

  She opened the ledger, wet her thumb on her tongue, and began flipping pages. “Here we go. Mona Mist. Name she gave me was Maggie Burrows. That might not be her real one. I don’t press the girls too close. They have to give me their Social Security numbers to keep me square with the IRS. That’s all I care about.”

  She swung the ledger around so I could see it. Maggie had worked at the Night Owl from November to the end of June, a little over a year ago. Her salary began at $125 a week. By the time she quit she was making $350. “You gave her several raises,” I said to Raybelle.

  She shrugged. “She was good. I put her on more nights. Private enterprise, right? Don’t forget, the broads make more than just salaries here.”

  “You mean the dollar bills on the railings.”

  “Heh-heh-heh,” she cackled. “Yeah, that too.”

  “You mean—”

  “They meet men. None of my business.” She shrugged.

  I took out my little notebook and copied the name Maggie Burrows and her Social Security number from Raybelle’s ledger. “This should help me,” I said.

  Raybelle flopped it shut, tucked it under her arm, and turned to leave. Then she put her hand on my arm and her face close to mine. Surprisingly, she wore a delicate lavender scent that reminded me of a cheerleader I knew in high school. “Come back some time, Mr. Lawyer. Maybe we can do some business.”

  “I would’ve imagined you already had a lawyer, Raybelle.”

  “Oh,” she leered, “I’ve got loads of lawyers. But a hard man is good to find.”

  She twirled off her barstool girlishly and strutted away, giving her big bottom in her skintight orange pants a couple of exaggerated bumps.

  It took me a moment to realize what she had said.

  I finished my beer and watched the end of Sally Flame’s performance. Then, oddly depressed, I left the Night Owl.