by Frank Zafiro
I ignored their attention and most turned back to the spectacle on stage as I walked toward the bar. Out of habit, I moved to the end of the counter. Bartenders guard the turf behind the bar fiercely, but George didn’t react when I slid around the corner and stood behind it and looked out over the room. The patrons seemed to have forgotten me, except for the guy with a ponytail and three days of beard in the corner. He pulled down his John Deere hat and slumped in chair, rolling up his shoulders and turning his face away from me.
Odds were, that guy had an arrest warrant.
Two stools down, a dancer sat sipping a glass of water through a small red straw. She was slender, with her black hair cut in a short bob. A deep scar ran from beneath her left eye and arced across her lips to her chin. She looked me over, and then noticed me staring at her. She flashed a weak smile and looked back down at her glass.
George finished serving a guy at the other end of the bar and took the long walk down to my end. His large frame reminded me of a Middle Ages innkeeper. His face was more worn and haggard than I remembered, but it had been a while.
“Officer, how’s it going?”
“You remember me, George?”
He cocked an eyebrow at the sound of his name. Rubbing the gray stubble on his cheek, he looked me up and down for a few moments. The song playing ended and there was a few seconds of blessed quiet. Hardly any of the patrons spoke.
“You look familiar…” he said.
“I worked patrol about twelve years ago. Used to do a walkthrough here about once a week.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I think I remember now.”
He didn’t, but that was fine. The guy had seen a lot of faces in the last twelve years.
“Back then, that little redhead was dancing here. Marsha or something?”
He smiled. I saw that one of his front teeth was broken off and the tip was blackened. “Miss Marsha Mason,” he said. “I gave her that name after my favorite movie star. Yeah, she worked here for a long time.”
Joan Jett’s Do You Wanna Touch Me began blasting out of the speaker system.
I thumbed toward the stage without looking at it. “Who’s that one?”
“Oh, that’s Patti. She’s been here eleven, twelve years now.”
“Obviously a Joan Jett fan.”
He nodded but said nothing.
“Look, George, I’m investigating a case. I need to talk to you about this girl.” I showed him Serena Gonzalez’s California driver’s license photo.
No one in the bar was looking directly at us, but I knew everyone was watching out of the corner of an eye.
George knew it, too. He looked at the picture too long before handing it back to me.
“You want some coffee, officer?”
“No, thanks. Do you know this girl?”
“Is she in some kind of trouble?” he asked.
I motioned for him to lean in close. He looked at me reluctantly for a second then leaned in a few inches. I watched his eyes while I spoke.
“George, this girl was murdered.”
His eyes flared with surprise and he leaned back suddenly. “You’re serious?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Jesus,” he said, shaking his head. He ran his hands through his hair and when he looked back up at me, his eyes were watery. “Are you serious?” he asked me again.
“Yes. I’m trying to find her killer. I need your help.”
“Yeah, yeah. You bet. Whatever you need.”
“So you knew this girl?”
“Sure. She works here. I mean, she did.”
“What’s her name?”
George gave me a confused look. “You don’t know her name?”
“What name did she give you?”
“Serena. Hernandez or something like that.”
“Gonzalez?”
“Yeah, that was it. Her stage name was Rena.” He wiped his moist eyes and blew his nose into a light blue handkerchief. “I can’t believe she’s really gone. What happened?”
“I can’t go into that with you, George. It’s an ongoing investigation.”
“Oh.”
The small dancer from two stools down moved down to the stool directly across from me. “Are you all right, George? What’s wrong?”
George looked at me for permission. I nodded and watched her.
“Rena’s dead,” he told her.
Surprise registered on her face, followed quickly by tears. George handed her his handkerchief.
I turned my eyes to the stage to let them both get composed. A group of three men in their early twenties were hooting and hollering at Patti. One grabbed the hat off another’s head and tossed it onto the stage. Patti sauntered over to it and scooped it up. With surprising grace, she made a slow turn, putting her back to the group. Looking over her shoulder, she slowly bent over and placed the hat squarely on her ass. The men went wild and she worked them by dipping her knees and gyrating, keeping the hat balanced on her backside.
When I looked back at the small dancer, she had covered her face with her hands. George had his hand on her elbow and was patting it.
“It seems like you all were pretty close to her.”
“Gina here was, more than anyone. Rena was just a nice girl, that’s all. One that made you wish…” he trailed off.
“Wish what?”
“She was a nice looking girl, officer. She could bring in a good crowd. But she was so nice, I almost wished she never got mixed up in this line of work, you know?”
I wondered what Gina thought of his comment, but she didn’t react.
George was looking at me, so I answered him. “She was nice?”
“Yeah.”
Gina looked up from her hands, her face streaked with tears. “She was very sweet. She was…” Gina stopped and covered her face again. Her shoulders shuddered as she cried silently. George patted her elbow again.
“How long did she work here?” I asked.
George took a deep breath. “Oh, jeez. About a month. Six weeks, maybe?”
“Do you have her employee information in the office?”
George stopped patting Gina. “Well, not really. I mean, kind of.”
“What does that mean?”
He wiped his mouth. “These girls aren’t actually employees of the bar. They’re independent contractors, so all I have is her signature on the agreement.”
“Independent contractors? That sounds like someone who might build my deck or finish my basement.”
“It works best this way.”
“How’s it work?”
“They pay a set fee to the bar for however many hours they want to work. They get to keep all tips and fifty percent on the drinks the customers buy them.”
“Drinks? You mean the Cokes or 7-Ups that cost five bucks a piece?”
“Look, they’re paying for the company more than the drink. The drink is a timer. Buy the girl a drink and talk to her until the drink is gone.”
“Is there a hospitality room in the back?” I asked.
George shook his head. “No. Just the dancers on stage and a shared drink. Nothing else.”
When I worked patrol, there wasn’t a room in the back, either, but a number of the girls worked as call girls on the side. George always said that he’d fire a girl if he ever found out they were doing that, but I never heard of him finding out or firing anyone. Drugs were about the only reason he ever canned a dancer.
The song ended and I waited for another to start. True to form, Patti hit the Joan Jett trifecta as Bad Reputation squawked out of the speakers. The irony was lost on the patrons.
“Was Rena popular?” I asked.
“Very. If she wasn’t on stage, she was almost always occupied with a customer.”
“Any of those customers get too attached?”
George shrugged. “Who can say? She was a cut above the girls most of these guys ever get to talk to. So some of them may have gotten a little attached to her, yeah.”
�
��She ever see any of them outside the bar?”
“Not that she said.”
“She never did,” Gina said through her palms. She pulled her hands away from her face and wiped her tears with George’s handkerchief. “She never saw anyone from here outside of the bar. Not even the other dancers.”
“Why?”
Gina shrugged, but I knew the answer. Because she was a cut above, and everyone knew it.
“Any of these guys ever get weird about her?” I asked them both. “Follow her? Try to monopolize her time here?”
George shook his head. I looked to Gina.
She shook her head, too, but smiled through her tears. “She was popular, that’s for sure. She was always the first one to get asked for a drink. Almost always had good nights.”
“Yeah,” George said. “She was making money.”
“She always spoke with a really thick accent with the customers,” Gina said, still smiling. “You know, like Mexican or something? They ate it up. But she spoke perfect English with us. No accent at all.”
“Did she ever talk about her family?”
Gina answered, “She had a cousin she was close to. She talked about her sometimes.”
“What was her name?”
“Lucy. No, it was a little different than that. Something Spanish.”
“Lucinda?” I guessed.
“Nah, but it was something like that. Anyway, she was the only one I ever heard her talk about. I got the impression she wasn’t close with the rest of her family.”
I took out my notepad and jotted the name down and a few other facts. “Did she say where she was from?”
“Some town in California. She only just left there a couple of months ago.”
“Salinas?”
“Yeah, that was it,” Gina said. “You know a lot about her.”
“I don’t know enough yet. When did she last work here?”
George thought for a moment. “I think it was Saturday ni--”
Gina interrupted him. “No, it was Sunday. You were off. Pearl was tending bar.”
“How late?”
“She left early,” Gina said. “It was slow. It was around eight or nine when she left. I only stayed another hour myself.”
“Any customers bother her that night?”
“Unh-uh.”
“Anyone leave right after her?”
“I don’t think so. There were only two guys in here and neither one was spending any money. I was on stage when she left and they both stayed through my set. In fact, they were both still here when I left.”
The music stopped and there was a smattering of applause and some more enthusiastic hollering from Patti’s Hat Brigade. Patti blew them kisses and pranced off stage.
“Gina, you’re up,” George told her.
I expected her to argue, but she didn’t say a word. She wiped her eyes once more with the handkerchief and hopped down from the stool. Her body was slender and shapely. She gave me a sad smile, making the scar tissue on her face stretch slightly. “The show must go on, you know?”
I asked her first and last name and her date of birth. She answered quickly and I scrawled the information on my notepad. As soon as she finished with my questions, she trotted up to the stage door, passing Patti on the way out. A couple of patrons whooped at her as she entered the door to backstage.
Patti approached the bar, wiping sweat from her body with a towel. She wore a flimsy half-shirt over her breasts. Despite her lined face and her flab, she radiated confidence. She gave me a sure, seductive smile.
“I didn’t do it,” Patti said, leaning over the bar and holding her wrists out to me. “But if I did, would you handcuff me?”
“Patti,” George said sharply. He motioned to the end of the bar. “Go sit with Tim.”
Patti gave him a dirty look but obeyed. She swayed down the bar, casting a glance back over her shoulder at me.
Racing guitar music came through the speakers. I recognized the song immediately. Sweet Child O’ Mine. One of Guns ‘n Roses’ first big hits. I glanced up at the stage as Gina moved gracefully onto it. Her arms moved in rapid, arcing patterns as she stepped to the center of the stage. Her face bore a faraway look and she ignored the hoots and waving dollar bills from the small crowd.
At the end of the first verse, she launched herself into the air and grabbed onto the pole just off center stage. Just as quickly, she wrapped her legs around the pole and then froze. Her body jutted out at ninety degrees and she held that position with the still strength of a gymnast. As the second verse began, she removed her bikini top and flung it off stage.
As she moved forcefully, full of grace and strength, around the pole, onto the stage, to her feet and back to the pole, her face never changed. If anything, she looked more sorrowful.
I turned away and asked George, “When was Rena scheduled for work again after Sunday?”
George squirmed. “Well, they’re not really scheduled. Like I told you, they’re independent –“
“Don’t bullshit me, George.” I kept my voice low. “I just want to know when she was scheduled to work again.”
George worked his tongue over his teeth behind tight lips. Then he said, “All right, well, there is sort of a loose sign-up sheet. Just to make sure there’s girls here.”
“So when was she signed up for?”
“Rena worked every night,” he told me.
“Every night?”
“Yeah. She only missed one or two days the whole time she was here.”
“Is that normal?”
George shrugged. “For some. If they’re making money, they work a lot. If they’re not making money, they work a lot so they can try to make money.”
“What’d you think when she didn’t show up for work Monday?”
“Nothing. I figured she took the day off.”
“You didn’t hear about the murdered girl we found over on Erie early Monday morning?”
George blanched. “Oh, shit. That was her?”
I nodded. “What about Tuesday? Or tonight? What’d you think when she didn’t show up?”
“To be honest, I was starting to think she’d quit.”
“Quit?”
He nodded. “Yeah. All of us knew she could be making more money if she went to work out at Showgirls. I just figured she decided to go there.”
“She ever talk about that?”
“No, but I lose girls to that place quite a bit. Once they figure things out.” He didn’t have to explain the rest. He meant once they figured out where the Tip Top girls were on the pecking order and where the bigger bucks could be had.
I gave George my card. “Call me if you or anyone else thinks of anything or hears anything that might help.”
“Okay.”
“I mean anything that might help.”
“Got it. I will.”
Wednesday, April 14th
East Sprague Bus Stop, Evening
VIRGIL
I’d been watching the action on East Sprague for a couple of hours when a maroon, unmarked patrol car pulled up in front of the Club Tip Top. I was sitting at a bus stop across from the bar, waiting for a ride that I would never catch.
A plain-clothes cop stepped out of the car and glanced up and down Sprague. He looked like a detective. An arrogant fucking detective with a sport coat that bulged under his left armpit. Shoulder rigs are designed for cross draws so the guy was right-handed.
He strutted around his car, shook his head at a clucker asking for a handout and yanked open the door to the bar. When the door closed, he disappeared from view. I pulled out a cigarette and lit up.
The human aquarium that is Sprague Avenue continued to thrive even without a functioning filter system. The sharks swam up and down the street, into doorways and alleys before popping out in other areas. The feeder fish meandered around, begging or soliciting, all with the same purpose in mind. I kept waiting for a Great White to show, but none of the Brotherhood popped out of their clubhouse
and no one went in.
A large bus with the words Sprague Avenue / Downtown scrolling by on a reader board above the driver’s head pulled up to the curb in front of me. The door hissed open in front of me.
“Getting on?” the big woman behind the wheel asked.
I shook my head.
The bus wheezed as it pulled away from the curb and lumbered down the road.
I tossed my cigarette to the sidewalk and ground it out with my shoe. A light wind blew across my neck and I flipped up the collar of my jacket. I shoved my hands into my pockets and leaned back against the bench.
Twenty minutes later, the detective left the bar, climbed back into his car and pulled away from the curb. I stood and started the walk back into downtown.
As I passed the La Playa motel, which sat next to the BSC clubhouse, I suddenly stopped and looked around. Across the street, the Palms Motel squatted unceremoniously.
I trotted across the street and walked into the Manager’s office of the Palms Motel. No one was in the room so I slapped the small metal bell on the counter.
A door opened to a back room and a haggard looking woman in her fifties ambled out. Her grey hair was a mess and she wore a pink night coat with a large feather fringe. The belt barely kept the coat closed over her belly.
“What can I do for you?” she rasped.
“I want to rent a room.”
She eyed me suspiciously.
“What?”
“It’s nothing.”
“What?” I repeated.
“You don’t look the type to get a room down here. You a cop or something?”
“No.”
“That’s good. I’ve had my fill of cops this week.”
“What do you mean?”
“A detective came in here and gave me the third degree about one of my tenants. She was found dead someplace else but he wanted to search her room. He was an asshole.”
“You ever meet a cop that wasn’t an asshole?”
She smiled at me. “Room’s thirty-nine bucks a night and I’ll need some ID.”
“How much is it without ID?”
“Seventy-five a night.”
I pulled out my money clip. “I want to pay for two weeks in advance.”
She pulled out a map of the small hotel. “How about a room here?” she asked and pointed at the map. The room sat directly behind the manager’s office on the first floor. The line of sight for the BSC clubhouse would be nonexistent.
