Strip Search

by Rex Burns

  “Mister, can I have your loose change? God, I’m hungry, mister. Mister?” A whining voice hung at his elbow and Wager turned to see the resident wino, his grimy hand upturned in a frayed and oversized coat sleeve. “Please, mister? Just your loose change?”

  Wager took it as a good sign that the panhandler didn’t smell cop; he dropped a couple quarters into the gray hand as a voice from inside the doorway called, “Hey—leave the gemmn alone!” The hunched figure shuffled away quickly, and Cal, frowning after the curved back, said, “Winos! I chase them off every ten minutes. Come on in, sir, and look around.”

  In the crowded room, pulsating cigarette smoke passed for air. Wager stood beside a line of vending machines to let his eyes adjust to the dull red light as he peered among the second and third rows of silhouettes for the clustered hair of Little Ray. Beside him, two tourists held drinks up to their lips and kept their eyes on the girl onstage. “Mobridge was never like this,” giggled one nervously; the other shook his head. “South Dakota—I’m never coming back!”

  “You want a drink, sir?” One of the girls he had interviewed—Clarissa?—hung in the gloom like ectoplasm and didn’t recognize him. He ordered a beer and let her lead him to one of the few empty tables well back from the dancing ramp. Onstage, flesh glinting in the hot red light, a girl Wager did not know lifted her slender leg high in a chorus kick and then spun sharply. Her body turned smoothly as her head snapped quickly around to face the muted spotlight in a crimson grin. It was the first dance of her set; she wore a sleeveless dress slit high up the side and tight enough to show her lively nipples.

  “Here you are, sir. That’ll be three dollars.”

  Wager handed her a five and waved away the change. “Is Little Ray around yet? He told me to meet him here.”

  There was only a slight pause. Then she folded the bill and said confidentially, “He’s over there—the corner table. My name’s Clarissa when you’re ready for a refill.” She smiled and posed. “I’m on in two more sets,” and was gone into the smoke.

  Wager, shielding his glass from the crowded shoulders, worked his way around the wall to Little Ray’s table. It was near the closed end of the dancing ramp but far enough back so the light didn’t fall too heavily on him. It was also conveniently near the girls’ locker room, and as Wager sidled close he saw a quick exchange between Little Ray and one of the waitresses—money for something that fit neatly into her curved palm.

  “Hello, Little Ray.” Wager crowded a chair up to the small table and sat.

  The bushy-headed figure leaned back nervously but tried to act calm. Wager would be nervous, too, if he was carrying that much junk. “You think you’re going to set me up, Mr. Narc?”

  “I’m not a narc,” he said truthfully. “But I am here on business.”

  They both watched while the dancer ended her first number. She unzipped the dress with her back to them and then spun with arms high and breasts taut and bouncing and plastic-smooth in the dull light. Wager stood and reached a bill into her sandal and she smiled widely just for him. Above, the disc jockey swung into the next number, a slower rhythm that gave her time to catch her breath and to play with the tight panties that looked pink in the glow.

  “A good dancer,” said Wager. “A real artist.”

  “Yeah. Right. Look, man, I don’t have any business with you. I don’t even know your name.”

  “Don’t get your blood pressure in an uproar.” Wager smiled. “You have business you don’t know about yet. It will entertain you and it won’t cost you a thing.”

  “What the hell’s that mean? Look—I got to go. I got places to be.”

  “Your customers’ll wait. It’s good business to make them wait for the candy man once in a while.”

  “Horseshit—you can’t—”

  “Enjoy.” He nodded toward the girl who pranced up the ramp to pause and dance with hips and shoulders in front of an arm that reached out a bill. “This one’s new, right?”

  Little Ray glanced at the girl sullenly. “Yeah.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Viva.”

  “Did she work anywhere else before she came here?”

  “You’re sounding like a cop.”

  “Just making conversation. We got a few minutes yet.”

  “For what? What’s this few minutes? I’m going, man!”

  “Hey, hey—I told you; it’s going to cost you nothing to watch. It’s a demonstration just for you. Free.”

  “Horseshit! I’m getting—”

  “Sit down.” Wager’s voice was low but sharp. “They just lit up the bar.”

  Little Ray’s eyes, pink and wide in the shadows, darted to the spot of gleam high above the cash register that blinked like a scarlet Christmas light. Wordless, three or four waitresses slipped quickly toward the back. The music rose to a throbbing roll as the dancer teased first one and then the other smooth hip from the tight grip of her underwear.

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Cool it, Little Ray. If I was a narc, I’d have to make a buy from you to get evidence. You know that.” Wager leaned forward against the noise of the music and the shouts and applause of the room. “Listen, you remember those five points I told you about?”

  “I remember.”

  “Good. You’re about to see two of them: an exclusive franchise and the best protection money can buy.” He jabbed his chin toward the door where Moffett and Nolan, their ties and sport coats looking like uniforms, moved purposefully through the tables with the bouncer a hulking worry behind them. “You know those guys?”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “Keep your cool. They’re not after you.”

  In silence, Little Ray and Wager watched the two shadowy Vice detectives hover at a table across the crowded room. Then, a moment later, a third figure stood in the dim light and the three formed a little parade, Nolan in front, Moffett at the back, Curtis Evans between them, his familiar plumed baseball hat a beacon in the haze. They reached the brighter light of the entry and changed formation, a detective on each side of Evans as they went out briskly. The small red bulb stopped flashing.

  Little Ray stared at Wager. “How’d you know they were coming for him?”

  Wager smiled.

  “How’d you know, man!”

  “I told my associates you wanted a demonstration.”

  Little Ray hovered between doubt and belief, a note of awe in his voice. “You telling me your people bought those narcs?”

  “I don’t know. That’s something I don’t ask about. My associates deliver—that’s all I know.” He leaned across the table and dropped his voice so that it was blurred under the quick pulse of the dancer’s final number. “Sugar’s been picked up, too. They’re going to be eating county food for the whole weekend.” He tapped the table with a finger to underline his words. “That means their routes are yours for the next three days. A little demonstration of the exclusive franchise that my associates offer.”

  The man leaned back and gazed at Wager.

  “I told you, Little Ray: exclusive franchise, and protection. Now you got a chance to pick up on their customers. If you can get enough stuff to service them.”

  “I can get it. My contacts are good, man. I can get however much I need.”

  “That’s cool,” said Wager, relieved. He didn’t have any idea what he would do if his bluff had been called on supply. “Now let’s find a quiet place to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “You wanted a demonstration. We gave it to you. Now you’re going to pick up a fistful of change, compliments of my associates. But they would feel hurt if you took all that without even talking to me. Very hurt.”

  “You want to watch me sell something, is that it?”

  “No. I told you—and I’m getting damned tired of telling you—I’m not a narc. What I want is a picture of your market. If this thing goes the way I think it can, we’re talking megabucks.”

  “You just want to know a
bout my setup?”

  Wager nodded. “And how we can make it a lot bigger and better. Let’s get some fresh air.”

  They drifted through the milling elbows and eyes of the strip; Wager pulled his hat brim low over his face while Little Ray gave guarded nods and murmurs to the occasional quick greeting that passed. He steered the man into the recessed doorway of a low office building where the shadows concealed their faces and the display windows let them survey the flow of people. “How many dealers do you have working for you?”

  “Four, sometimes five. Kids, you know? Three of them are real good. The best one’s a girl—thirteen, fourteen. But smart, and nobody but her customers has spotted her.” He added with a slight grin, “Fucks like a bunny, too.”

  “You’re going to be moving a lot of stuff. You’re going to need an army, not a bunch of kids. What about the dancers? Do the girls ever push for you?”

  “Not for me. I think Sugar works a couple, but I don’t like to use them. Listen, kids are better than those broads. They got boyfriends, and most of them have habits, too. You get a street merchant trying to support her old man and her habit, you’re asking for trouble. Kids have loyalty—I’m a big brother, like.”

  “What happened to those two dancers who got shot a month or so back? Did they cross a dealer?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t know either one of them very much.”

  “You never sold anything to—what’s her name, Shelly?”

  “No. She might take a toot every now and then. I’d line one out for her as a tip, you know? But that’s it. The other one—Angela—she didn’t even toot.” He pulled away slightly. “Why all the questions about them?”

  “They were murdered. Murders bring cops. I want to know you didn’t have anything to do with them.”

  “I didn’t! I really don’t think they were dealing for anybody.” He thought back. “I heard it was a sex killing; you know—somebody raped them and shot them.”

  Wager nodded and shifted to the hopes and dreams of a mid-level dealer who was beginning to scent the truly big time. “Tell me how you might expand your operation.”

  “I got to admit I’ve been thinking about that. Ever since that first meet, I’ve kind of been thinking about it. I thought, okay—so what if he’s for real? How would I handle it?”

  “That’s fine,” said Wager. “That’s just what my associates want to know.” He listened as Little Ray’s voice grew more animated in the description of teams of five dealers each, geographically spread along the miles of the Colfax strip. Each would be under the direction of a leader. He nodded as the man talked, but underneath the smile of interest, Wager felt the letdown of another dead end. Little Ray’s answers about Annette and Angela felt like the truth, and all Wager’s careful work was for nothing.

  “I’ll run it like sales teams, you see? The leader buys for his people and takes a percentage—the more they sell, the more he gets. I’ve even been thinking about bonuses, too—sales competitions and maybe a free trip to Hawaii for the winner, that kind of thing. And you can’t beat the security. None of them—none of the team leaders—knows any of the others. I make sure their territories don’t overlap, so they don’t run into each other or compete with each other. That way, if a narc gets onto one team, that’s all he gets.”

  “That’s good,” smiled Wager. “Distribution, control, and security.”

  “Yeah, right! I didn’t put it in those words, but that’s right. Just good sound business practices.”

  “What about supply? Where do you get your stuff now?”

  Little Ray’s hesitancy was a reflex. Wager explained, “My associates plan on organizing this thing all the way up. That includes supply. Your supplier may fit into the organization or he may be competition. When the time comes, we want to check him out.”

  “Well—okay, it’s a guy named Lazlo. He comes by once a week—Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. So we can stock up for the weekend.”

  “How do you arrange your meets?”

  Little Ray frowned.

  “Come on, come on—you’re with us or you’re not!”

  He decided. “He tells us where and what day the meet is. What time to be there. The same six or eight of us make the buys, and it all goes down in about ten minutes. We put in orders for next time, and he drives off. It’s always the same people and never the same time or place. We make damn sure nobody’s tailing us when we go to the meet. Very secure; he works out of his car.” A sly note came into his voice. “You want to know where the next one is?”

  Wager moved away from the bait. “No. But can your man re-supply you for this weekend? Is he big enough to have stock on hand when you need it?”

  “I got enough. I’m gonna make a killing this weekend.”

  “Fine. You don’t want to miss out on that new business.” Wager asked, “What kind of car’s this Lazlo drive?”

  “A dark blue van.”

  CHAPTER 9

  WAGER’S APARTMENT, HIGH above Downing Street, was dimly lit by the city glow that spilled through the balcony doors and bounced off the white ceiling. In the half-light, the alert bulb on his telephone answering machine made a tiny, hard gleam; Wager pressed the Rewind button as he wandered through the rooms, flipping on lights and stripping off his Mexican vest and the huaraches that always dug into the backs of his heels. Yawning widely, he pressed Play and heard the rushed quack of a voice speak from the machine: “Gabe, this is Doc. I’m on to something really hot. I’ll have more for you later—be sure and give me a call later.” The tape clicked and went into the carefully modulated tones of a telephone recording telling his recorder to hang up and try again. Several clicks and buzzes indicated calls and no messages, and then Doc’s voice in a more urgent plea: “Gabe, man, where are you? I need to talk to you, man!” Well into the tape came the last message from Doc, and then the hiss of unused time: “Gabe, this is Doc. I got a very important item of information for you but I can’t say anything now. It could be what you wanted. Give me a call later—it’s important.”

  Doc’s items of information were always very important to him, and only sometimes so to Wager. Still, it was part of the care and feeding of this particular CI that he pump up enthusiasm for everything the man dragged in, no matter how hard he was yawning and wanted only to shower away the clinging odor of cigarette smoke and drop heavily onto his hard mattress. It was almost one A.M., and chances were that Doc wasn’t home yet. Not on a Friday night. He wasn’t sure what Doc did with his time, or where; but in the past, the weekends were poor times to call him. Nonetheless, after grabbing a cool bottle of Killian’s from his otherwise empty refrigerator, Wager dialed Doc’s number and drank deeply while it rang. A breathless female voice answered quickly, “Hello?”

  “This is Gabe. Doc wanted me to call him.”

  The voice sounded disappointed. “He ain’t here now.” Then, as it had apparently been told to do, “Is there a message?”

  “Just tell him I called.”

  “Sure. What was the name?”

  Wager spelled it for her and then hung up, yawning again widely enough to crack his jaws. All this extra fun was beginning to catch up with him, but there was no rest for the wicked: he’d pulled the weekend roster and in six hours would be on duty again. He’d try Doc then.

  Even if he had remembered, he wouldn’t have had the chance. At nine-thirty, a call came in for Homicide to report to the alley in the south 1800 block between Washington and Clarkson. A body had been found in a trash dumpster. When Wager and Axton arrived, the usual cluster of cruisers and uniforms filled the narrow concrete way, and the medical examiner was striding quickly back to his car.

  “Finished certifying already?” Axton asked him.

  “Not very damn difficult. Bullet in the back of the head.”

  A horn tooted once behind them and Wager looked over his shoulder to see a glistening black van trimmed in silver nose cautiously through the small crowd of civilians. A stereo boomed loudly for
a moment before it was turned off, then the van eased into a wide spot in the alley, and the black-clad husband and wife got out. He waved familiarly at Wager and the woman smiled, too. Then they leaned against the shady side of the van to wait until they were needed.

  “Man, when I go, I do not want them people toting my carcass. Definitely.” Officer Blainey, shaking his head, met Axton and Wager. “One time I saw them drive up with their kid—about eleven years old. They’d been to a drive-in movie in that thing and got called out. This kid’s still eating popcorn out of a box and he’s dressed all in black, too!”

  “Maybe he thought it was just another movie,” said Wager.

  “I bet they even do their grocery shopping in it.” Blainey swabbed a handkerchief across his face. “Here’s all we got so far.” His pen ticked off the items concerning the victim: white male, about forty-five, one shot to the back of the head with a small-caliber weapon. No ID yet, and they didn’t want to look for one until the Homicide detectives came or the scene was recorded by the police photographer, who hadn’t yet arrived. The victim had been discovered a half-hour ago by a man collecting aluminum in the various dumpsters and garbage cans lining the alleys.

  “That him?” Wager nodded toward a shabby figure in a stained military overcoat standing by himself at the fender of a police car.

  “Yeah. He keeps trying to wander off. I told him to stay right in that spot or I’d park the car on his goddamned foot.”

  The man wagged a skinny hand at a fly circling his head.

  Max said, “I did the interviews last time.”

  Lifting his notebook, Wager went over to him. Axton went to peer into the dumpster.

  “You’re the one who found the victim?” Wager showed his badge.

  “Yeah. Listen, officer, how much longer you going to keep me here?” He had the seamed and puffy face of a wino, but his bristly jaw showed little gray yet—somewhere in his thirties, Wager guessed, though he looked closer to fifty. He kept his coat buttoned despite the heat, and, from the odor, Wager figured he suffered from the chill that came with filth.