Disconnection (14 page)

Sela nodded. “You’re Lisa?”

“The one and only. This is your first time in a strip joint?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, you look like it. Miss Prissy Pants. What do you do anyway?”

“I’m a waitress.”

“How much do you make?”

“Two-fifteen an hour, plus tips.”

“Do you have to split your tips with the bus boy?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Lisa laughed. “Do you know how much money I make just walking around naked? I’m telling you, babe, stripping’s not what it used to be. Did you know Anna Nicole Smith was a stripper?”

“Nope.”

“Yeah. And she got out of it after she fell in love with that oil tycoon. Made a name for herself out in Hollywood. And now she’s got her own TV show. If she can do it, you know, than so can I.”

“So, that’s what you want to do?”

Lisa looked away from her reflection for the first time and turned around to have a good look at Sela. “Sure. But I think I’ll launch my own perfume first.” She dramatically held her arms up in the air. “Call it—’Lusty Lovelace by Lisa’.” She squealed with delight. “What do you think?”

I
think you and Stuart Reed would be perfect together
. “Sounds ambitious. I hope you succeed.”

“So, what do you want with me anyway? I didn’t sleep with your boyfriend, did I?” She turned back around and began applying make-up once more.

Sela took a deep breath. “I’m here about Chloe.”

Lisa’s sponge dropped into her lap. She watched Sela from the mirror’s reflection. “What about Chloe?” she asked.

“You were her best friend?”

Lisa smiled with teeth that had never known an orthodontist. “Is that what she told you? My, that’s sweet of her. I always considered Chloe more of a pupil and me the teacher, you know? Not really friends.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Lisa unveiled a wand of gooey, black mascara. “We had good times. I nearly fucking blew it when I heard she died. But Chloe was just another one of those good girls wanting to go bad, you know what I’m saying? And she saw me as her … I can’t think of the word.”

“Mentor?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“Were you with her the night she died?”

Lisa withdrew a brown eyebrow pencil from her silver Caboodle and began to darken her eyebrows with large, dramatic sweeps. “Yes. You’re not another damn cop, are ya?”

“Do I look like a cop?”

“Don’t know. Don’t know many cops.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“Why are you asking all this shit if you’re not a cop?”

“I’m a friend of the family,” Sela lied. “Chloe’s mom…she wanted me to talk to her friends, see if they knew anything.”

Lisa slanted her eyes as if she did not totally believe her. Finally she answered, “Right, like that black cop grilling me for an hour wasn’t enough? Do you know who I’m talking about? Did he interrogate you, too?”

“No, but I think I know who you’re talking about.”

Lisa said, “Okay. She came by here Friday night, right before she was gonna meet up with some guy. Some out-of-towner, she told me. I think he might have gone to Tulane with her; that’s what she suggested anyway.”

“And how did she describe him?”

“Physically?”

“Yeah,” Sela confirmed.

Lisa shrugged her shoulders. “She didn’t. I’ve never known her to date ugly dudes, though. She was pretty, she could get any guy she wanted. Hey, you know something? You look a lot like her.”

“So I’ve been told. Chloe didn’t say anything else about this guy? Come on, think. She must have said
something.”

“I am thinking. Don’t give me a fucking hard time. I mean it. That black guy already gave me enough shit. Just between you and me, I was sort of off my face when Chloe came by. Speaking of, you got any coke?” Lisa raised one painted brow.

Sela shifted her weight impatiently. “Nope.” She wanted to add,
Do I look like I have any coke on me, you stupid, insensitive bitch?

Lisa pursed her colored lips. “Yeah. You don’t look the type. Miss Goody Goody.”

Sela cleared her throat. “You said you thought he went to Tulane?”

“Yeah, but I might be imagining that part. I seem to remember her making it out like he was really smart. That was another thing about Chloe—she liked hot guys with brains. She was a smart girl, you know. Knew a lot of shit about a lot of shit.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her report cards. Did the dreamboat have a name?”

“Probably. But most men do.” Lisa smiled in the mirror at her little joke. She thrust her fingers into ajar of facial glitter and began rubbing it on her face.

Sela asked, “Was she serious about him?”

“Of course not. Chloe was never serious about any guy. Guys came and went, you know what I mean? Anything more than a one-night stand and it was serious.”

“You think she was involved with those people who put the Fishhook sign on her back?”

Lisa paused from rubbing the glitter on her face, turned around, and stared at Sela with a blank expression on her face. “Fuck, I don’t know. I told you, we weren’t really that close.”

Yeah, well, Chloe seemed to think you were
.

Sela left Lisa behind in the dressing room with little confidence that she had found any useful information. The bouncer was waiting for her at the entrance of the bar. “Your two friends got kicked out,” he said.

Sela felt no shock at this revelation. “Why?” she asked.

“That piece of trash friend of your boyfriend’s started a fight with one of our patrons—something about the war in Iraq.”

Sela rolled her eyes. “And?”

“The patron got pissed and pushed him away, and your boyfriend’s friend took a stool and knocked it over his head. Luckily we got him out of here before any more damage was done. But your boyfriend left with him, said to tell you to wait for him, he’d be back to fetch you.”

“Great,” Sela said. Just great. She somehow managed to get stranded at the French Quarter every time. And unfortunately, there was no Dean around to bail her out. She would have to simply wait for Woodrow to come back.

Well, she wasn’t going to stay at Johnnie’s Cabaret another minute.

“Listen,” she said to the bouncer, “when Woodrow—I mean, my boyfriend—comes back, can you tell him that I’ll wait for him at Hot Nuts, that bar down the street?”

“Sure thing.”

“Thanks.”

Sela left the strip club certain that she would never enter another one for the rest of her life. She walked down the dark street, which was empty save for the random street vendor closing up shop. Though she was technically in the French Quarter, the strip club was more along the outskirts, away from the main crowds, close to where the precinct ended and the standard streets of any American city began.

Sela was only yards away from the bar when she heard the tip-tap of footsteps behind her. She looked on the brick wall and saw the growing image of a human form sneaking into her own as if the two shadows were creating their own illusion.

Sela walked faster. Her breath quickened, her heart rose and fell in her chest. The footsteps were getting closer, closer. In only a fraction of a second, her stalker would reach her.

Just before Sela could reach for the handle of the bar’s door, a hand reached out and grabbed Sela’s shirt from behind.

Sela screamed.

R
elax! Jesus H. Christ, relax, and stop screaming!”

Sela stopped long enough to look in the face of her stalker. Mandy stood staring at her with bewildered eyes, her mouth open, her face an unusual shade of red. Sela, anger boiling in the pit of her gut, pushed her closest friend against the wall. “Thanks a whole lot!” she screamed.

“What did I do?” Mandy asked, flinging herself off the bricks and rubbing the dirt from her tight V-neck shirt.

“You took twenty years off my life, that’s what you did!”

Mandy shook her head and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth disapprovingly. “I can’t believe you,” she said. “I only wanted to talk to you. I saw you walking down the street alone and I was wondering where the hell you were going. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve talked to you?”

“I’ve been at Frank’s.”

“Every hour of every day? Come on, Sela.”

Sela drew a sharp breath and slowly exhaled. “I’m sorry for the distance, Mandy, but I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately.”

“So much that you’ve ignored your best friend?”

“You’re right. There’s no excuse.”

A smile slowly crept on Mandy’s face. She reached over and gave Sela a half-hug. “Make it up to me,” she said. “Buy me a Hurricane.”

Mandy’s breath already smelled like the floor of Bourbon Street. “You’ve been drinking,” Sela acknowledged.

“So, what’s one more drink?”

“I don’t think so, Mandy.”

“Oh, come on, you’ve been avoiding me all week, the least you can do is get shit-faced drunk with me.”

Sela folded her arms over her chest. “You know, the last time I gave way to your invitation, I ended up stuck in a smoky bar, listening to a knock-off cover band, and finding a phone belonging to a dead girl.”

“A phone belonging to a dead girl?” Mandy tilted her head. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Sela waved her hands in the air. “Forget about it. I was headed to the bar anyway to wait for Woodrow.”

“Woodrow? Your neighbor Woodrow?”

“Yeah.”

“The hotty?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are you with Woodrow?
Oh, my God
, did he finally ask you out?”

“No. It’s sort of a long story,” Sela said, and added, “One drink, Mandy. Just one.”

“Just one,” she promised. Mandy put her arm through Sela’s and together they walked through the big wood paneled door of Hot Nuts.

By the time she had finished dancing, Lisa had eighty-three bucks stuck in her G-string and maybe another twenty or so in the cups of her bra—if someone could call the racy gold sequined garment a bra. All and all, money wise, not a bad way to start a night.

Entering her dressing room, Lisa breathlessly sank into her chair and began patting a towel to her sweaty forehead and armpits. As she relaxed, she glanced over at Anna Nicole Smith, who smiled at her from her picture on the mirror.
She had worked in worse places than this
, Lisa thought. And because Lisa was starting her show biz career in a nicer strip club than any Anna Nicole had ever worked in, she decided that it only meant that her fame would pinnacle higher than her idol’s.

One day, one day soon, Lisa Hart would have a pink house in Beverly Hills. She would have a tiny dog she could carry around in a Louis Vuitton bag and a headboard for her bed covered in rich silks imported from places as far away as China. Women would stop her on the street and tell her how much they loved her perfume. She would have a cute boyfriend named Rocco or Vlad and they would drive on Rodeo Drive together in her red Corvette with the top down. Her song would be playing on the radio as they passed the Armani store. The DJ would say, “Here’s the new one from America’s sweetheart, Lisa Hart,” and Lisa would turn to Rocco or Vlad and he would say, “You really are fucking awesome, Lisa.”

All of this, of course, would come after she paid her coke dealer the final eight hundred she owed him, and once she got out of her one-year contract with that Iranian pencil dick mother-fucker whom she had slept with a few times so he would ignore her bad credit history and take her in as a tenant. This kind of shit took time, and good thing for Lisa, she was patient. She wasn’t where she wanted to be, but there were worse places to be. Like dead.

Thinking of Chloe made Lisa squirm. She took out two cotton puffs and began removing any traces of eye make-up. Keeping her hands busy helped the rush of panic that went through her every time she imagined Chloe’s young, attractive body floating in the muddy, godforsaken Mississippi River.

Right before Chloe’s death, Lisa had convinced Chloe to go to L.A. with her, to leave her life behind at that sucky kid’s club disguised as a college and move out of Mommy and Daddy’s house and discover the real world. She was so easily persuaded, that girl. At the time Lisa had felt almost guilty for such a quick manipulation. But Chloe, Lisa was convinced, in the end would benefit from the change. And one day, she would thank her for it.

Then Chloe went off and got herself killed, and now Lisa would have to pay full rent for a shabby L.A. apartment before her dreams were entirely fulfilled. What a load of lousy luck.

Lisa blinked back a tear.

A hand knocked on the door. “Hey, Lisa, you have a visitor outside,” called Celeste, a fellow employee at the strip club and one of Lisa’s biggest rivals in the Sexiest Small-Boobed Dancer category.

“Who is it?” Lisa asked impatiently, throwing her hair brush on the dressing table.

“How the fuck should I know? I can’t keep up with all your sugar daddies.”

Lisa had only engaged in a handful of acts that would have been considered by authorities as prostitution, and all for a good cause—that is, her future move to L.A.—she decided that if Celeste wanted to judge her on those few occasions, that was fine with her, because soon Lisa would be out of here and bitches like Celeste would be eating her dust.

“Where is my visitor?” Lisa growled.

“Outside, in the back.”

Lisa collected her make-up and threw it into her bag. She took one last look at the picture of the buxom blonde on her mirror and, without thinking, leaned down and kissed the image. “I love you, Anna Nicole,” she whispered, her eyes glittering as if she had just rendezvoused with a lover.

Lisa opened the door to the back alley and looked around. The alley was dark but she could see that there was no one waiting for her. Lights from the neon signs reflected on the gravel from the adjacent street.

Lisa had been fooled. But why? Celeste was a no-talent hack with ugly breasts and a clunker nose, but she had never played silly tricks like this before.

“Stupid bitch.” Lisa turned around to go back inside.

How immature. How fucking immature. Where were they, in high school? What did Celeste hope to achieve, that little bitch?