MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  Obviously Casey’s in trouble, and though I’m not sure what I can do, I don’t think it’s just chance that I found out about it. I’m not saying it’s fate — or that I even believe in such things. Life’s too random to be fated, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence either. Whatever it is, now that I know, I’ll do everything I can to help her — and not because I expect it to diminish the guilt I feel. I know nothing can do that. I’ll help Casey because I must.

  Not ready to go into the club yet — not going in at all if she’s not working, I stay on 98, deciding to drive around and wait for her to arrive.

  I like to drive — especially at night.

  Earlier in the evening, with the sun a coral-colored glow on the brow of gathering clouds, I had left the tiny town where I live and driven west toward the ebbing light of the diminishing day.

  My new car, and part of the reason I like to drive so much, is a retro, deep water blue Dodge Challenger

  Victim of both a bad economy and an industry that was already gasping for breath back when things were good, I’m a former reporter — unemployed, untethered, unsure of my next step. So I wander around, mostly at night, in the car I bought a week before I lost my job.

  Lost.

  Alone.

  Searching.

  The Panhandle of Florida is dotted with a smattering of small towns. Racing down rural roads is a way of life.

  I live in a town of a few thousand people, half an hour from Panama City, called Wewathitchka — Wewa to locals — where for four generations the McKnights, my family, owned and operated the weekly newspaper and produced tupelo honey (the self-employed in small towns rarely do just one thing). Breaking my dad’s heart, I had taken a job with a corporate-owned wire service, working special assignments all over the Panhandle — from state government in Tallahassee to tourism in Panama City Beach and crime everywhere in between — until declining ad revenues at the dailys and the rise of free online news meant there wasn’t a market for what I did.

  At the moment, my sole source of income is two classes I teach at the college — one writing, one philosophy — and it isn’t enough to cover my car payment.

  I’ve thought about trying to revive my family’s weekly, which Dad had been forced to close a year or so ago because of bad health and my absence, but even if I could make it work — which is doubtful — it’d be short lived. The days of newspapers, at least in their current form, are numbered. Soon, they will go the way of payphones and typewriters and literary magazines — there’ll probably always be a few, but the age of their dominance has come to an end.

  I ride around for a while, mostly through St. Andrews, past the Shrimp Boat, Tan Fanny’s, Uncle Earnie’s, then park and walk around the marina and Oaks by the Bay. The fresh air and the walk do me good, giving me some much needed perspective, even peace, and by the time I arrive back at The Dollhouse and see Regan’s car, I’m in a better place.

  As I park near her car and kill the engine, my phone vibrates in my pocket.

  —Hello.

  —This Mr. McKnight?

  The female voice is professional, but tired and not happy to be making the call.

  —Yeah?

  —You called about Miss Thunder Beach.

  —Yes. I’m looking for Casey. She’s —

  —Sir, we can’t give out any information about our contestants, but —

  —But I’m... family.

  —Then you’ll know how to contact her.

  —We lost touch, I say, realizing how ridiculous it sounds. I’m not a fan or a stalker. I’m her... I was her —

  —Sorry I can’t help you.

  —Could you give her my number? You could do that, couldn’t you? I think she may be in trouble.

  —If you really believe that you should report it to the police. Otherwise, I don’t know what else to tell you. All the contestants will be appearing at various events this weekend, but we have very good security, so if you’re coming to harass her in any way, you’ll be removed — maybe even go to jail.

  Energy.

  Excitement.

  Music vibrates the double entry doors.

  Beyond the line of taxis, the front lot is reserved for bikes this week. There are fewer than I expect.

  As usual, The Dollhouse is cold — management’s way of keeping things fresh, frisky, and perky, and if it causes the dancers to huddle together in faux-lesbian fantasies when not performing or hustling, well, that’s just an added bonus.

  Smoke and mirrors.

  The dim, mirrored room is loud and crowded, dance and disco lights piercing the smoke like airport lights through fog.

  I show my ID and pay my cover, the bouncer looking from my flashlight-lit license up at me in recognition.

  —You’re here almost as much as me, he says.

  I laugh, though the crack bothers me — as it had the first several times he used it on me.

  Truth is, I only come about twice a month, but one week, during one of my more desperate times of missing Regan, I had come three times. The first two nights she was off, thus the repeat visits.

  —Coming up next, we’ve got Raven on the main stage, the DJ announces over the dance remix of a recent hit, and Mystic in the play pen. Raven on the main and Mystic in the pen.

  Just in time, I think.

  Regan’s stage name is Raven, owing to the hair, and I’ve arrived just in time to see her dance and tip her for her trouble. Most dancers only come over to customers who tip them while they’re on stage, and though she’d come to see me anyway, it’s good to follow protocol since we’re trying to keep our relationship as secretive as what goes on in the VIP.

  I find an empty table in the back corner, not far from the main stage, and scan the room.

  The crowd is a good mix of male and female, young and old, bikers and regulars. Of course there are more men than women, but not by as much as most people would think.

  The bar running along the left wall is full of patrons and dancers. In front of it, three guys surround the playpen — a small square stage with bars around it — waiting to tip the dancer.

  I’m on the front side of the main stage, next to the hidden DJ booth. To my left, twenty or so customers sit at a handful of small tables. Behind us, there’s a steady stream of people going to buy cigarettes, hit up the ATM machine, or into the bathroom to clean up from a dance or expel some cheap liquor. In front of us, a dancer named Diamond is finishing her set surrounded by two guys on each side of the stage.

  Within the L made by the playpen and the main stage, the larger part of the room holds some twenty tables — over half-full so far tonight. Beyond them a big bouncer with a clipboard stands at the entrance to the VIP rooms.

  A waitress in tight black shorts, faux tuxedo top, and tennis shoes comes over to my table.

  —What can I get you?

  —Corona and a vodka and cranberry.

  She smiles and nods, knowing that I’ve ordered for Raven.

  As she leaves, I glance to my right, and in the small area between the DJ booth and the dressing room, I think I glimpse Casey again. In the fraction of a moment — there, blink, black, gone — the image dissolving into the dark hallway like a final frame of film fading to black.

  The song ends or is faded — most are faded at the three-minute mark because some girl somewhere is always giving a lap dance — and Diamond squats down and gathers up her dollars, her large, natural boobs flopping around as she does.

  —Okay fellas, we’re setting those two lovely ladies lose and bringing up two more. If you want something more intimate, more private, the two ladies stepping down would love to take you back to VIP. Now, it’s Mystic in the playpen and Raven on the main.

  The music comes up and Raven, in a black teddy, climbs the stairs, hangs her small purse on the rail, wipes the pole with a cotton cloth towel, and begins her routine.

  She is tall and trim and tan, her fuck-me pumps adding several inches, lifting her ass, and showing the muscles i
n her legs. The tiny black outfit emphasizes her hair and the overall darkness that is her — her deep, dark eyes and the brows that arch above them.

  She is stunning, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

  I grab some bills from my pocket and approach the stage.

  Every dancer does a three song set — the first clothed, the second topless, the third with only a T-back or G-string. Almost nobody steps up to the tip rail before the girls bring their tits out, so I always make it a point to.

  I stand at the stage, money folded long ways in hand, gazing up at her.

  When she sees me, she smiles, and what appears to be genuine warmth brings her eyes to life as she drops to her knees in front of me.

  —He-ey, she says.

  —Hey.

  —I’m glad you came in.

  —You look amazing, I say. So beautiful.

  —Thank you, sweetheart.

  That stings a bit. She calls everyone sweetheart, and it sounds insincere in her mouth.

  Whipping her hair around, she brushes it across my head and chest, then placing her hands on her black bra, she slowly shakes her cleavage in my face.

  I know she has to, but I don’t care for the standard stripper moves — not from her, not after what we’ve shared, but regardless of all that’s gone before, tonight she’s a stripper and I’m a customer.

  When she finishes her customer routine, which includes sitting on the stage, open legs spread around me, arching her back, touching her breasts and rubbing her fingers across her crotch teasingly, she pulls back the string of her T-back and I slide the bills beneath it.

  —Thank you, I say, and make my way back to my seat.

  The waitress is waiting for me. She places the drinks on the table, I pay and tip her, and she’s gone.

  And I’m alone.

  I’m leading a mostly solitary life these days, and mostly I don’t mind it, but sitting alone in a strip club is sad — at least that’s how most people view it. Pathetic old men, scary, anti-social young men — that’s who sits alone at a strip club, and though I’m neither, doesn’t change the perception.

  I look like a regular being led around by his dick, but things are different with Regan — something every regular thinks about his girl. Like a shrink and her patients, the intimacy of sexual surrogacy that occurs between a stripper and her customer, causes the patient/customer to believe the relationship is somehow personal. And of course, it’s to a stripper’s benefit to make her clients believe that it is.

  Only a fool falls in love with a stripper.

  Every night strip clubs all over the world are full of fools.

  I recall a conversation I had with Carl, a reporter friend, shortly after all this started.

  —Remember what we were giving Greg shit about a few weeks ago? I ask.

  —No.

  —You don’t?

  —We give him shit all the time, he says. How’m I supposed to know what shit you’re talking about?

  —After we went to The Dollhouse.

  —That he drinks too much? Can’t hold his liquor? Throws all his money away at the first sign of titties?

  —No.

  —Then what? he asks. Shit. That’s a lot of shit. We should probably lighten up on ol’ Greg.

  —What was the dumbest thing he did that night? I ask.

  —Asked that fat stripper how much she weighed?

  Carl has red hair and a pale, pudgy, freckle-flecked face, which reddens as he laughs at Greg’s stupidity.

  —No.

  —Just tell me, he says.

  —Fell in love.

  —Oh. Well. That was dumb. But the dumbest thing he did was think that stripper — what was her name?

  —Skye.

  —Yeah. Skye. He went full retard when he thought she had fallen in love with him. That’s what you meant? Why?

  —I went and did the same thing, I say, frowning sheepishly. But it’s different, I’m quick to add.

  —Always is. ’Cept it ain’t.

  —Look at me, I say. It is. She fell for me first. I wasn’t looking for anything, hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  —She fell for you first? Are you hearing yourself? They all make you think they’ve fallen for you. That’s what they do.

  —You don’t think I know that? Don’t think I had my guard up against the game? This is different. It is. I’m telling you.

  Carl shakes his head.

  —Yes you are, he says.

  —What?

  —Telling me. Over and over. You know how many time’s you’ve told me how different it is?

  —Okay, I say, tell me this. Why do they pretend to like customers?

  —For bank.

  —Exactly.

  —And?

  —We’ve been together three months.

  —Been together? Are you serious? I can’t believe you — Let me ask you this?

  —Okay.

  —She been to your mama’s house yet?

  —Not yet, I say, but she will. And she hasn’t asked me for anything.

  —What?

  —She’s not using me. She’s not. There’s no hustle.

  —Yet. The best hustles are the ones that seem like there’s no hustle.

  Maybe Carl is right. Maybe the hustle is coming, but I don’t think so.

  What I have with Regan is different. I’m different than most of The Dollhouse patrons, and she’s different than most of The Dollhouse dancers. At least this is what I keep telling myself — like the mindless mantra of the immature and insecure.

  And I really believe it — particularly when I’m with her.

  As I often do, I think back to how it began.

  It started with a kiss.

  I had come to The Dollhouse for a bachelor party. It was the second one in a month, and remembering her from the first, I was hoping to see her again.

  It was only my second time at The Dollhouse, and though I wasn’t close with the old college friends, I was having a blast.

  The best man paid for each of us to have a lap dance with the girl of our choice. We could have it at our seat or pony up the extra ten bucks to rent the VIP for half an hour. We could even get additional dances for twenty a pop if we were of a mind.

  I chose Raven and kicked in the extra Hamilton for the privacy.

  This was my third lap dance, so I knew how to act and what to expect. Though what you could do varied from club to club, I was always a submissive, hands-at-my-sides, perfect gentleman.

  And then she kissed me.

  —You’re so handsome, she says. So hot. I was attracted to you from the moment you first walked in.

  I recall how she came up to me the first time we saw each other in the club and how when I told her she was so beautiful, she told me I was handsome, how it had seemed so sincere, how she hadn’t told any of the other guys that, how there was a spark, a connection from the very beginning — or so it seemed — but I knew she was working. It was her job to be nice to everyone, to flirt, to be what the customers wanted her to be. But everything she did seemed so genuine. There was a light in her eyes, a goodness that emanated from her. We seemed to have something real, and I would’ve liked to talk to her more, but the groom-to-be wanted her attention, so I didn’t think anything else about it.

  —Put your hands on me, she says. I want you to touch me.

  Her eyes lock on mine as she dances on my body, and though I know all the best strippers make serious eye contact, this seems different. I am mesmerized.

  My body responds to hers — but not just my body, all of me.

  Her long, thick, black hair is like a beaded curtain around us, her perfectly shaped breasts pressing against me, our tongues darting in and out of each other’s mouths.

  It was so intense, so genuine, so unexpected — and all the more incredible for it.

  When our time was up, when she was dressed again, she had said, Please don’t tell your friend. I didn’t do that with him. I’ve never done that with anyone.r />
  I want to believe her and actually do, but decide to enjoy it for what it is — even if I’m not the only customer she’s done such things with.

  I left that night high on her, grateful for such a rare and unique experience, hoping to see her again someday, but not expecting to. Not really — even though we had exchanged numbers. Then, she called and we began to talk and text, and what started off with a kiss had grown into an obsession.

  We meet the next week over hot chocolate and talk about what happened. She is shy and embarrassed, but honest, and we bond.

  I leave the all-night omelet shop with no expectations, but she calls a little while later and asks to meet the following week when she returns to town.

  I’m delighted and look forward to it, and though she is held up and has to cancel, our relationship begins in earnest, in spite of how often she has to break our dates.

  She finishes up her three song set, collects her money, dresses, and makes her rounds to thank her tippers, rewarding each with a hug or quick kiss on the cheek.

  As I had hoped, she saves me for last, joining me at the small table.

  —This for me? she asks, nodding toward the drink.

  I frown.

  —Of course. Probably a little watery by now. They got it out faster than I thought they would.

  —Thanks.

  She stirs the vodka and cranberry around, then drops the stirrer on the table, lifts and drinks about a third of it.

  —I’m glad you came in. How are you?

  She says the same things over and over in here — at least at first — but so do I.

  —Good, I say, which I always do whether I am or not. How are you?

  —Little tired, but good. Happy to see you.

  —Really?

  She gives me a wide-eyed smirk.

  —Of course.

  I let it go.

  —How was Thunder Beach? I ask.