Tea Leafing: A Novel (20 page)

* * * *

Fifi Mahoney’s in the
Little Five Points area of Atlanta was one of Birdie’s favorite haunts. Toting
a small, plastic, Easter-style basket, she pulled items from their shelves like
a kid in a toy store. Stage make-up, eyelash plumping powder, blue-tinted lip
gloss, Hollywood tape, a band-aid box of fake moles, a bottle of extra dark
self-tanner and some liquid blush. She continued to browse for another half
hour, reading labels and adding a few more choice finds to her overflowing
yellow basket.

The best wigs in town
could be found at Fifi’s and Birdie spent some time trying different looks. She
shopped for a bit in a hot pink bob, trying to casually check herself out in
the many mirrors scattered around the store. Adding sunglasses, removing them,
twisting scarves around her head Rhoda-style, she made faces, trying to look
sophisticated. She cycled through several cuts and colors before putting on a
black, curly wig that looked like a naughty Farrah Faucett knock-off.

“So, what’s the word,
Bird?” the Bettie Page look alike asked as she unloaded her treasure trove onto
the glass display case in front of the register.

“Not a fackin’ thing.
Just picking up some stuff to help me get motivated about wark. It’s ‘Chicken
Pluckers’ this week.” Atlanta was the site of the annual International Poultry
Exposition. It was the biggest week of the year in the strip club industry and
the money was insane. The guys were nice enough, but they were corny. After the
convention ended every year, it took several weeks to decompress from the bad
jokes. Birdie was particularly busy, mostly because of her name.

“I hope in me next life
I come back one of ‘em cuz ‘ats the happiest bunch o’ bastards I’ve evah seen.”
Birdie flipped the rubber band holding her money to her wrist and peeled bills
from the roll.

The Bettie Page clerk
nodded, “So I hear.” She smiled at Birdie and slid a small brown paper bag into
the larger plastic one. “Here ya go, Birdie. Free drugs with every two-hundred
dollar purchase.” she winked conspiratorially.

Birdie slid the black
curly wig off her head and across the counter, “Thanks, hen. Will ya add this
as well,
por favor
?”

Bettie Page added the
wig to her bag and finished totaling the damage. Birdie grinned as she pushed
her sunglasses into place and headed out into the January sun. She slid her
hand into the recesses of her bag, feeling the smooth vial through the brown
paper wrapper.

CHAPTER 40

Denny’s was great for
after-hours, but there was nothing like a Sunday evening dinner at their
favorite Thai place in the Highlands. The lighting was low, the booths were
private and the Thai was hot.

Mary Jane, Grace and
Sam were studying their menus when Birdie came through the door.

The three grinned as
she made her way to the table.

Their regular waitress
appeared with miniature kettles of green tea.

“Hi, gurls. Wha’ you
havin’?”

“Hey Mae,” Mary Jane
smiled up at the petite woman who wore rhinestone-studded reading glasses on a
beaded chain, and a loud floral frock.

“Pad Thai Chickens all
around.” Grace said, glancing at her compadres.

“No, I want a curry.”
Birdie said decidedly, “Make it hot and no damn tofu, please.”

Mae scratched the
orders on her pad and mumbled, “Hot damn curry, no tofu.” Looking up through
her spectacles she said, “Okay,
be
out in minute.” She
turned and was off as quickly as she’d appeared.

 
“Is everyone on track?” Sam wasted no
time.

The group nodded as
Birdie buried her face in her napkin. She seemed about to sneeze.

“Birdie?”

“Yup.” Birdie looked
up, moving the napkin away. Large brown moles made a dot-to-dot on the lower
half of her face.

The girls squealed with
laughter. Birdie sat staring vacantly. Grace squirmed in her seat and pushed
Mary Jane out of the booth with both hands.

“Lemme out! I think I
just pee’d a little!
”

“Oh GOD, GRACE!” Mary
Jane guffawed as she jumped out of her seat.

Grace slid from the
booth and high-tailed it to the bathroom.

Sam and Mary Jane
continued to giggle, watching patrons sneak looks at Birdie, trying to figure
out if she had an unfortunate birth defect.

“Ok, well, I guess we
know Birdie ran her errand.” Sam said into her cup of hot green tea.

“Were you dropped on
your head?” Mary Jane stared wide-eyed as she swatted Birdie with her menu.

The three laughed and
exchanged updates until Grace returned from the back.

“False alarm, but
Birdie, I can’t look at you until you get those things off your face!”

“You’re mad! I don’t
know what you’re talkin’ about.” Birdie said, maintaining an innocent look.

Grace slid back into
the booth, keeping her eyes away from Birdie.

 
“All Right! Damn you people, you’re no
fun.” Birdie smirked as she peeled the mole collection off her skin.

Grace slipped a stack
of eight-by-ten photos from her bag and scooted them to the center of the
table.

“Sorry for the delay.
I’ve had Kyle drama. Here are the shots from Lena’s funeral.”

Sam grabbed half the
stack and began flipping through it while Birdie and Mary Jane took the rest.

“Wow, were you using a
wide-angle? You managed to get the whole crowd. Good goin lady!”

“What’s that nitwit
Kyle doing now?”

“You know, the usual. I
swear he’s the moodiest guy I’ve ever met. I think he’s on the rag this week.”

“Bloody lazy, that’s
wha’ he is.
All that grief and he couldn’t ask for a better
husband than you.
You need to find yourself another trouble.”

“He is trouble.”

“No, hen. ‘Trouble’ is
short for ‘trouble and strife’, means ‘wife’ in Cockney rhyme slang.”

“Why do I feel like I
need a translator just to have a conversation with you?” Grace shook her head
and smiled.

“That’s him.” Mary Jane
pointed at the glossy photo she held in her hand.

“Kyle?”

“No, the guy that was
up in the Skybox that night. He’s the one that was hanging around with Fedya’s
entourage.”

“Well that clears that
up. What about the other two guys?”

“Can’t say I recognize
them from anywhere.”

“Gimme,” Birdie handed
her stack across the table to Mary Jane and held out her hand for the swap. She
examined the images from the new pile.

“I just can’t see them
very clearly.” Birdie squinted at one of the images showing the two men
standing twenty yards or so behind the mourners.

Grace dove into her
purse and after a few moments of shuffling produced a loupe. “Maybe this will
help.”

Birdie took the
magnifier and placed it over the photo looking down. “It’s too dark. I still
can’t see.”

“Hold it up to the
light Bird, so it’s behind the image. Your head is blocking the light right
now.” Grace directed, pointing to the lamp over the table.

“Ahhh, world of
difference.
Yup
. The one on the left is one of the
blokes from the sedan, but I can’t say as I know who the cute one next to him
is.”

Grace produced a
Sharpie and circled the twosome on one of the shots and the lone photographer
on the other. “Ok, so two outta three ain’t bad.”

“Guess we are safe with
the educated guess that the two guys are cops or FBI or something.”

“What do you think the
chances are that they could be private investigators hired by Lena’s family?”
Sam looked off into the gathering crowd by the door.

“Hadn’t even considered
that possibility, really. Do you think Amanda would know?” Mary Jane asked.

“I get the sense
Amanda’s folks still speak freely in front of her, like she’s a kid who can’t
understand what they’re saying. We should call her and check it out.”

Sam pulled a phone from
her pocket and started dialing as the three continued their speculation.

“Let me see that other
guy in the photo.” Grace took the photo and loupe.

“He is hot.
Damn
.”
She moved the loupe away from her eye. “Maybe he’s a movie star who was
secretly in love with Lena.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”
Birdie said dryly.

“Okay, thanks babe.”
Sam snapped the phone shut.

“Well?”

“Nope. No P.I.s that
she knows of. She’s gonna sneak a peek at her dad’s checkbook tonight and call
us back if there’s an entry that looks suspicious.”

Mae glided up, balancing
a tray as wide as she was tall and snapped what looked like a tall luggage rack
open next to her. She squatted down, shifting the weight of the tray onto the
stand and began doling out small dishes of aromatic, steaming goodness.

The foursome thanked
Mae with smiles and nods as they tucked into the Sunday night treats.

“So, we know you got
the moles Birdie, what about the
other
stuff?” Sam asked through her mouthful of noodles.

Birdie grinned,
“Mmmhmm.”

CHAPTER 41

“Ms. Ursula Amoureuse!
Oh my God! Look at ‘cha! We heard you’d become a feature but had no idea you
were the one here this week!” Sam grinned from ear to ear and hugged her old
friend. “Wait ‘til Grace sees you. She’s
gonna
freak.
Look at your boobs — they’re huge! And you’re BLONDE! You look amazing.”

Sam and Grace were
living in Savannah when they met Ursula. She came into the club they worked at for
amateur night. She won, got hired, and a few short weeks later, after seeing
her first feature stripper, declared that was the life for her. The other
dancers assumed she’d become disenchanted with the process and burn out. She
worked like crazy, investing all her spare time and money into her goal, and
she succeeded. Ursula had climbed to the top of the profession and had become
one of the most sought-after performers in the business.

There are two types of
dancers: house girls and feature acts. House girls are the ones who work the
same club every night, maybe traveling a little and occasionally working at other
clubs, but basically hung their g-string in one place. Feature girls are the
headliners who travel from club to club, sometimes internationally. They get
paid a flat rate just to show up and perform for a week, then they move on.
When a feature is on the main stage the other satellite stages are empty, and
no table dances are allowed. These ladies don’t just show up and strip, they
put on a show in the truest sense of the word. They do fire shows, shower
shows, floorshows, body paint shows, and any kind of show you can imagine.
They’ve got props for days and custom-tailored costumes that run into the
thousands. Some have ridiculously large boobs and some are straight from the
pages of a men’s magazine. Feature acts make most of their money from their
promotional items, which they sell between sets. Guys can have their picture
taken with the nude
beauties,
buy their posters, hats,
tee shirts, and a host of other merchandise. Shrewd businesswomen that they
are, they do their best to franchise the name they’ve made for themselves.

It’s a grueling life of
constant travel and little privacy, but it’s incredibly lucrative if you’ve got
the drive. One of the features Sam and Grace met years before had her M.B.A.
from Brown and was a year away from retiring at thirty-three. She’d set her
goals, stuck to her investments, and had made a comfortable life for herself.
Sam remembered asking her what the first thing she was going to do after she
retired was. Without skipping a beat she said, “Take these friggin’ implants
out and lay on the beach for the rest of my life.”

Ursula was the same
sweet, bubbly person Sam remembered from so many years ago. She was relieved to
see that the stress of the job hadn’t changed her.

Gio glided up behind Ursula
and put his arm around her waist.

“Hey, Sexy, are you
ready for a packed house tonight?” He said, leering at her through imitation
Dolce & Gabbana glasses intended to make him look smarter or something.

“The question is, are
you ready, Gio?” Ursula gave him a shy smile and casually uncoiled herself from
his grip. She hiccupped a small giggle and tossed her blonde locks over her
shoulder.

Gio was hooked. He
stood, mesmerized by the beautiful creature before him. Sam was sure he was
going to drool down his linen shirt.

“Excuse me!” Nikki
stood before Gio. Her face was an unattractive shade of pink. “Can I pay my tip
out or are you too busy?”

“Yeah, just a minute,
Nikki.”

“NOW.”

She turned and huffed
toward the office.

“I’ll talk to you aftah
the show, Ursula.” He gave her a longing
coup
d’ oeil
and scowled at Sam before falling into step behind Nikki.

Ursula raised her
eyebrows, “Office politics?”

“You know it.”

“UUUURSSUUUULAAAA!!”
Grace came screaming across the floor.

The two collided in a
hug, shrieking with joy. Sam hoped the force of the collision wouldn’t burst anyone’s
implants.

The three nattered on
in an animated fashion until a waitress interrupted.

“Sorry, but Sam and
Grace, you’re wanted in VIP 12.”

The three agreed to
meet after the show. Sam and Grace headed for the elevator.

“Shit, we haven’t even
talked to anyone yet and we got a VIP? I wonder if it’s one of our regulars.”

“Who knows? Frankly,
who cares? What luck!”

The two walked along
the second floor balcony and stared down at the growing crowd below. They
strutted in time with the heavy rap music, doing little dance moves as they
went. The room was already pulsing with energy, and smoke wound its lazy way
toward the high ceilings. The colored lights flashed, and the music thundered
on as the two turned into the doorway of VIP 12.