by Brian Keene
Tonya licked her index finger and then ran it down Yul’s neck, leaving a trail of saliva and glitter on his skin. She gyrated faster on his lap. Yul’s hands twitched. He licked his lips and closed his eyes.
“Remember,” she warned him, “no touching. Whitey’s watching.”
“O…okay.”
Darryl turned towards her. “Whitey? Who the fuck is Whitey?”
“The owner,” Jesse explained. “Dude in the back with the white hair. You don’t want to fuck with him. His real name is Zakhar Putin, but everybody calls him Whitey on account of his white hair.”
I continued staring at Sondra. “Putin? Like the Russian President?”
“Same name,” Tonya said, “but no relation. Although supposedly he is related to some famous Russian dead guy. Doesn’t need to be related to anyone, though. He’s hooked up. And Jesse is right. You definitely don’t want to know any more about him than that.”
I nodded. It made sense. All the bouncers at the Odessa spoke Russian, and a lot of the strippers had Russian accents, too (but not Tonya—judging by the sound, she was from Baltimore). ‘He’s hooked up’ Tonya had said. That meant Whitey was in the mob—as in the Russian Mob. I’d heard rumors they were moving into York. There had been a big thing about it in the newspaper recently. According to the police, they were trying to take over York’s organized crime. Our proximity to all of the East Coast’s major metropolitan areas made York desirable, same as it did for our employer. Like they say in real estate—location, location, location. Control York and you controlled a lot of flow. It had always been that way. Back in the day, the Greeks were in charge. They kept things pretty peaceful, and even helped squelch a race riot in the mid-Sixties. Then, in the Seventies, the Marano Family out of New Jersey seized power. But in the early Eighties, when the Italians started turning on each other or getting busted, their reign gave way to the drug gangs—offshoots of the Bloods and Crips and various Hispanic crews out of Philly and Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Things got violent. Bodies dropped. The Italians came back for a bit in the Nineties, long enough to chase the brothers out. The Marano Family took control of things again, but then old man Marano died and his top guy, Tony Genova, disappeared. After that, most of Marano’s crew went to prison or became informants for the Feds. York had been up for grabs since then. The drug gangs came back, squabbling with bikers and local drug dealers, but nobody had seized total control. Now the Russians were making a play.
I’d read that they were into everything. Money laundering, extortion, drug trafficking, weapon smuggling, auto theft, white slavery, prostitution, kidnapping, staging auto accidents for phony insurance claims, counterfeiting, credit card forgery, and of course, murder. I wondered how much of that was actually going on here, as opposed to larger cities. Many of the big bosses were ex-KGB officers who ended up out of work after the Cold War ended. They used ex-Spetsnaz members as their enforcers—Russian special forces. Some real scary, bad-ass motherfuckers. The paper said that they had even recruited an Olympic sharpshooter to carry out hits for them.
Not that any of those big fish were supposed to be around here, of course. This was the first time I’d actually encountered any Russians in York at all. First time I’d ever been close to anything like this—organized crime. Criminals in general, even. Sure, I had friends in York County Prison and one buddy up at Cresson doing three years for multiple drunken driving offenses. We worked alongside guys on parole or work release. I’d even been busted once on an outstanding warrant for failing to pay a traffic fine (I still say that fucking light was yellow). But actual mobsters? I’d never been around them until now, and it was sort of cool. I’d seen The Sopranos and The Godfather and Goodfellas. But this was real life. It was exciting. Forbidden.
Just like the woman dancing on stage.
Just like Sondra.
I wondered what it would be like to get a lap dance from her. Wondered what she smelled like. How she tasted. How her long hair would feel in my hands or spread out across my chest. Or brushing against my thighs…
The bouncers resumed their positions throughout the club. Whitey disappeared, presumably behind that closed door in the back. The music ended and Sondra left the stage. She was replaced by two more Russian girls named Jovanka and Monique. They danced together, touching each other all over. Darryl took a drink and watched. Meanwhile, Yul squirmed beneath Tonya, and Jesse called another girl over and got a lap dance, too. All around us, people talked and laughed and drank. Darryl looked away from the stage and started reciting an old Dave Chappelle routine about strippers, but I was barely listening to him.
Instead, I was still thinking about Sondra, and wondering how she’d gotten that black eye.
five
The Odessa closed at eight that morning, and we reluctantly got up and filed out with the rest of the crowd. The lights came on, flooding the place with dazzling brilliance. Many customers blinked like they’d just woke up, or shielded their eyes. Cigarette smoke swirled around the fluorescent bulbs. A sullen old man appeared on stage with a bucket and a mop and started swabbing it down. Apparently, in accordance with state law, they’d open again at one, just in time for the after-lunch crowd.
I nodded at Otar the bouncer as we left. He didn’t return the gesture. I didn’t expect him to. I was just some blue collar asshole who’d come to gawk at naked women. Just another face in the crowd. He didn’t know me. But still, it felt like I should show him some respect. The dude was possibly a Russian mobster. If that was true, then I wanted to stay on his good side, because there was no doubt I’d be back. And soon, too.
I had to see Sondra again.
The sun was out and the storm had ended. We piled into the Cherokee. Once again, Darryl rode shotgun while Jesse and Yul got in the back. I turned on the iPod. Motorhead’s ‘Orgasmatron’ played softly. It felt wrong, somehow, playing Motorhead at such a low volume, but the bass inside the club had left me with the beginnings of a headache, and I wasn’t in the mood to crank it up. Besides, Lemmy is still God no matter how fucking loud you listen to him.
None of us spoke. I pulled out of the lot and back onto the road. Darryl stared out the window and smoked. In the backseat, Jesse closed his eyes and got comfortable. Yul chewed his fingernails and looked worried. Glitter sparkled on his cheek, leftover from his lap dance. He spat a nail onto the floor.
“Hey,” I said, glaring at him in the rearview mirror. “Spit that shit out the window, man. Don’t fuck up my ride.”
“Sorry.”
Jesse opened his eyes and sat up, wondering what was going on. Darryl glanced in the backseat and then turned around again, shaking his head. Motorhead gave way to Circle of Fear. I drummed along on the steering wheel with ‘Child of a Dead Winter’.
“That’s some nasty shit,” Darryl said.
I stopped drumming. “What is?”
“Yul chewing his fingernails.” He turned around again. “Don’t you know you can get diseases that way, man?”
Jesse chuckled. “He can get ’em from that lap dance, too.”
“Shut up!” Yul punched Jesse in the arm and then scowled at us. “You can’t catch anything from a fucking lap dance. And besides, I had my pants on. There was no contact.”
“Crabs,” Darryl said. “You can get those. Little fuckers crawl right into your underwear. Don’t matter if you kept your clothes on.”
“She was shaved. There wasn’t anywhere for crabs to hide.”
“Sure there was. She had ass hair.”
Jesse and I laughed.
“For real,” Darryl said, grinning. “Bitch had hair sticking out from between her ass cheeks. You could braid that shit, it was so long.”
“No she didn’t,” Yul mumbled. “You fuckers are just pissed because she liked me better than you.”
Jesse’s laughter turned to howls. “What the fuck have you been smoking, Yul? Tonya didn’t like you. She liked your money. That’s all. They’re strippers, dude. Working girls. She likes you
as long as you got green. And when your wallet runs dry, then she fucks off and likes somebody else. Don’t make it into something more.”
“Well, she seemed nice.”
Darryl lit a cigarette. “Of course she did. That’s her job. Be nice to the customers. And she’s nice to every motherfucker in there, long as they got money and don’t touch her. You want something more than that, you want love and sharing and shit, then you gotta wait until you get home to Kim.”
“And if you want to keep Kim around,” Jesse said, “then clean that glitter off your face and clothes.”
Yul flinched. “Oh, man. I forgot all about that! What if she sees it?”
“Relax,” Darryl said. “She’ll be at work by now, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So just wash your face and do a load of laundry. She’ll never know a damn thing.”
Jesse grinned. “Unless you talk in your sleep, that is.”
Yul got quiet again. He stared out the window and didn’t respond while Jesse and Darryl continued to tease him. Just sat there taking it, looking guilty and despondent. I felt sorry for him.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” I said, trying to distract their attention from Yul for a little while, “that Sondra was something else. God damn…”
“Yeah,” Jesse agreed, “she about the finest piece of ass in that place. Built like a brick fucking shithouse.”
“But it’s more than that,” I said. “Did you notice how she works the crowd? How people react to her? Her mood was like…infectious. You could see it as she passed by each table. People’s spirits lifted. Their laughter got louder, their smiles bigger. Like she made their day better just by being there or something. Maybe they weren’t even aware of it. Maybe they didn’t notice. Maybe she didn’t either. But I did.”
They were silent for a moment, staring at me, expressionless. Then Jesse kicked the back of my seat and Darryl chuckled.
“Larry done turned into a poet and shit.”
“Fuck you, Darryl.”
Jesse kicked the seat again. “You got it bad, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “She’s incredible.”
“You gonna try to tap that?”
I shrugged.
“Better wrap your shit twice, if you do. No riding bareback with her.”
“Why?”
Jesse sighed. “I told you before, man. Sondra was a ho. Yeah, she’s nice and all, but that don’t change nothing. She worked in the massage parlor. And they ain’t just giving out hand jobs in there. They believe in a real happy ending—the full ‘sucky-fucky, me love you long time’. And some of those girls turn tricks in the club, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she was still doing it there, too. Anybody can get laid at the Odessa. Even Yul.”
“Hey,” Yul shouted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jesse ignored him. “All you gotta do, Larry, is find a girl that’s willing and then pay her for the ‘Forbidden Dance.’”
Darryl flicked ashes into the ashtray. “The Forbidden Dance?”
Jesse nodded. “Yep. Pay four hundred bucks and they take you in a back room and show you the secrets of the Forbidden Dance. It’s a code and shit. Means you want to get laid.”
“For real?” Darryl sounded intrigued.
“Most definitely.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “I can see tricks being turned at a massage parlor, but a strip club is a lot more high profile than that. If it was true, the cops would shut them down.”
“Ask Lou Myers.”
“Lou Myers is an ass-clown.”
“Yeah, but he knows his hoes, too. Dude spends like half his paycheck on them every week.”
I grunted. “It’s easy to understand why. Lou’s never met a Big Mac he didn’t eat. I’m surprised the fat fuck can get laid at all.”
“I heard that. But he does get laid. And he does it at the Odessa and the massage parlor. And the cops don’t do shit about it because they get laid, too—along with some money on the side. Think about it. Why you think a dude like Whitey Putin brings these chicks over from Russia? It ain’t just to dance. He gets them turning tricks. Doesn’t have to pay taxes or health insurance or give them paid holidays. It’s the perfect set-up. And if his stable runs dry, he can always order up some more girls.”
“So—Whitey’s a pimp?”
“Maybe, but I don’t know for sure. I only know that he’s connected and that you don’t want to fuck with him. According to Lou, he finds these girls in Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, and shit.”
“Georgia?” Yul frowned.
“Not our Georgia,” Jesse said. “Georgia overseas—in Europe. Dumb shit. Whitey’s people bring these girls into the States. Smuggle them through the port down in Baltimore. Feed them into the network from there. Send them off to other cities. They don’t have to worry about immigration papers or any of that. In return, the girls turn tricks in order to pay the Russians back. So they put them to work in strip clubs, massage parlors—places like that. Like the ones Whitey owns. He owns other joints, too. Restaurants. Bars. Whitey’s a big man here in York, but he’s small time in the grand scheme of things. Supposedly, he’s connected to a much larger group out of Brighton Beach up in New York.”
“So he’s not just a pimp,” I said. “Tonya was right. He’s Russian mob.”
Jesse held up his hands. “Yo, I’m just talking. That’s all. I ain’t saying shit. And neither should you guys. Seriously, you don’t want to mess with that. The less you know, the better off you are.”
I wondered if Whitey was actually tied into the mob, or if everything Jesse had said was total bullshit. Jesse had a bad habit of exaggerating the truth. Deep down inside, he’d always had some real self-esteem issues. Usually, his lies and half-truths were designed to make him seem more important. More exciting. Like this time. Wasn’t enough that he took us to a cool strip club. It had to be a strip club owned and operated by the Russian mob, and he had to know all the big secrets that the rest of us weren’t let in on.
But Tonya had hinted that Whitey was in the mob, too. Hooked up. Was she serious, or just feeding into Jesse’s bullshit? Playing along with the customer.
I wondered about the club’s name. The Odessa. That wasn’t Russian. It was German. It stood for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehorigen, or Organization of Former Members of the SS. I knew this from watching The History Channel. The Odessa was supposed to be a secret society dedicated to rescuing Nazi war criminals. So how did that tie in to the whole Russian mob thing?
On the stereo, Circle of Fear segued into some Deftones. Jesse had closed his eyes again and fallen asleep. Yul was back to biting his fingernails. Darryl lit another cigarette and nodded his head in time with the music.
Could Sondra really be a whore? It didn’t seem possible. Most hookers that I’d seen, usually on old reruns of Cops, looked used. Broken down, chewed up, skinny, scraggly addicts with an aura of stark desperation around them. They had scars, both emotional and physical, and both were visible to the observer. But Sondra didn’t have that air about her. She seemed…fresh.
Maybe I was naive, but I just couldn’t see it. Sondra seemed above all that. Just watching her dance—she’d seemed like an angel, not a devil.
Jesse woke up when we exited the highway and stopped at the red light. He rubbed his face and looked around.
“I need some coffee,” he muttered.
“True that.” Darryl flicked his butt out the window. “I could go for some Dennys. One of those Moons over My Hammy would be the shit right about now.”
I rolled into the GPS parking lot and dropped the guys off at their cars. Yul was in full panic mode now, wondering if Kim would somehow psychically figure out where he’d been. The backseat was covered with glitter. We fucked with him about it some more and then said our goodbyes. Yul went home looking anxious. Darryl and Jesse headed out for some breakfast. I drove home with a raging hard on, thinking about Sondra.
When I walked through my apartm
ent door, my cat, Webster, hissed at me. He was annoyed. His food dish was still half-full, but Webster has never been a half-full type of feline. He always saw the dish as half-empty and got really pissed if I didn’t keep it topped off at all times. This explained why he was so fat.
I’d had him for years. I used to work at the Harley Davidson plant through a temp agency (no option to hire on, which sucked, because I would have loved to get some of those union wages) and I found him there. He was just a kitten at the time. Figured either somebody had dumped him and left him to fend for himself, or a stray had a litter somewhere and he’d wandered away. One of my co-workers found him hiding beneath a stack of skids. Good thing, too. If we hadn’t found him, he’d have been killed soon as a forklift tried to pick the skids up.
His eyes were barely open, he was so small. His skin was paper-thin and his ribs stuck out. I took him home, got some special milk from the pet store, and nursed him with a doll baby bottle until he was old enough to eat real food. I’d had him ever since. Now he was big and fat and grumpy. Coal-black fur and green eyes, a belly that swayed when he walked, fond of sleeping and eating, still had his claws and knew how to use them—especially on the fucking furniture. My sofa and chair were torn to shit.
Webster hated everyone, especially Jesse. Growled and hissed at Jesse every time the guys came over. But he loved me and I loved him back. My apartment would have been a much lonelier place without him.
I bent over. Webster allowed me to pick him up. I scratched the top of his head and behind his ears. He purred a little, enjoying the attention and forgiving me for neglecting his food dish. After a few minutes, his tail started swishing, the signal that he didn’t want to be held anymore, so I put him down and fed him. Then I checked the answering machine. There were no messages. There never were. Just like my cell phone.
