Film Strip (2 page)

The son of a bitch didn't even have the courtesy to act all torn up about my well-being. No, he was smirking. Of course, that's his job. He has to act unconcerned, to laugh in the face of danger. He was probably trying to make me feel safe, as if some crazed maniac hadn't just killed my new buddy and taken a bite out of me.

“Well, if you'd wanted to see me, Sierra, you coulda just called. You didn't have to generate a homicide and assault with intent to maim your own person.”

I lifted my head groggily from the gurney and favored him with the Lavotini raised eyebrow. “Hey, Nailor. Kiss my exposed ass.”

“Sure, honey, if you think that'll help.”

“Nailor! How about a little sympathy and concern here? I am wounded.”

“Superficially.”

How is it that the man could smell so good?

“I could've been killed, you know. That maniac could've been aiming for me.”

He pulled up a stool and sat close to my head, reaching over and taking my hand. “I know, honey,” he said. He leaned a little closer and stroked the side of my face, gently pulling a strand of hair out of the way. “Does it hurt bad?”

I moaned, but it was not on account of the pain. I loved the feel of his work-roughened fingers paired with the gentleness of his touch. I could get used to those fingers. “Ummmm,” I moaned again, louder.

“Sierra, are you in pain?” Now I had his concern.

“Oh, yes,” I sighed. “Big, big pain. Oh, baby, I might not make it.”

This would've been fine had I not giggled.

“Sierra!” He pushed back and sat up, taking his lovely fingers with him. “We're in the ER, for Pete's sake!” He looked at me again, his eyebrows knit together like a stern father. “Well then, I think you're up to answering a few questions.” And with that, he whipped out a little notepad and settled down to work. Damn, I'd lost him again.

“You heard the shot that hit you and Venus, did you not?”

I moaned, this time because the medication was wearing off. It felt like my little chihuahua, Fluffy, had sunk her teeth into my left cheek and forgotten to remove them.

“I heard it, but I was facing my car, so I didn't see a thing.”

Nailor took great care to write this all down.

“Did you see anything suspicious right before she got shot or maybe earlier in the evening?”

Outside the tiny examining room I could hear the banter of nurses and cops, the sounds of carts wheeling past and equipment being prepared for other patients. I wanted nothing more than to go home to my trailer and crawl into bed.

“Sierra? Did you see anything suspicious?”

“Nailor, put two and two together here. I work in a strip club. It would be better to ask if there was anything unsuspicious going on.”

Nailor sighed. “You know what I mean,” he said.

I thought back over the immediate few moments before the shooting. Anything suspicious? No. I let my mind drift back over the events of the evening. The regulars had all been there, a few newcomers, out-of-towners. I started to shake my head and then stopped.

“Well, there was one new guy who seemed to be paying a lot of attention to Venus.” Meaning he had overlooked the real talent. After all, I was the headliner.

Nailor looked up. “What do you mean?”

I thought for a moment. “He sat at a table down front, didn't watch any of the other acts, didn't talk to the girls that were circulating, and only seemed to pay attention when Venus walked out.”

Nailor stretched. “What's unusual about that?”

It was all I could do to answer him now. The pain was spreading throughout my body, making it hard to concentrate.

“He didn't watch her like a customer. He wasn't inspecting the merchandise. In fact, he didn't look too happy with her.”

“Description?”

“Tall, a little husky, but like it was muscle, not fat. One of them gotta-shave-four-times-a-day guys. He put me in mind of Salvatore Minuchin, a wiseguy from the old neighborhood. Salvatore was the muscle for Lucky Pagnozzi, back before Lucky took the whack outside of the Sons of Italy Social Club. I don't know what Salvatore's doing now. I sorta lost track of him after he went to prison.” I was drifting, my eyes weighted down by the late hour and the pain.

“Was he wearing a suit or leisure clothes?” Nailor asked.

“Salvatore? No, I think it was a blue prison jumpsuit if I recall correctly.”

Nailor sighed and flipped his notebook shut. “Not Salvatore, Sierra, the guy from the club, the one watching Venus.”

“Yeah,” I said. A nurse entered the room with a syringe on a tray. World peace was at hand. “He was wearing a charcoal-gray Brooks Brothers suit.”

Nailor sighed again. “Sierra, focus.”

“No kidding. I know my suits and this was a Brooks Brothers. I make my living off of knowing my customers. He wasn't stargazing and he wasn't looking to shop the talent. He was suspicious, just the man you want to talk with.”

“If you don't mind?” The nurse glared at Nailor. He was holding her up, endangering her patient's welfare.

“He don't mind,” I muttered. “He don't mind at all.”

Three

John Nailor drove me home in his unmarked brown Taurus police car. He stretched me out on the backseat, covering me with his coat and treating me as if I were a bubble about to burst at any second. I felt nothing. I floated on a cloud of Demerol-induced nirvana, not really caring that a bullet could've permanently scarred one of my main sources of income. Life was good.

Fluffy, my hairless chihuahua, waited on the stoop of my trailer. She did not share my euphoria. She was hungry and I was late.

Nailor pulled me out of the backseat and was holding me up, his arm around my waist, and my head on his shoulder. Fluffy approved of this, at least. Her little tail started to wag and she yipped.

“Hey, Fluff,” Nailor called softly. “Hungry, girl?”

“Starved,” I answered.

“Hold it right there, buddy,” a voice called out. Nailor and I froze, for two different reasons. I stopped because I recognized the sound of my crazy neighbor, Raydean, the woman voted most likely to be unpredictable and violent by the members of the Lively Oaks Trailer Park. Nailor froze because he had heard the unmistakable sound of someone chambering a round into a shotgun. Nailor knew Raydean, so he knew what he was up against.

“To my way of thinking,” Raydean called softly, “it is not at all gentlemanly to get a young woman drunk and then try to have your way with her. We don't do things like that on
this
planet.”

Raydean was late for her Prolixin shot, that much I could tell. Raydean on a good day is insane. On a bad day, when she hasn't had her anti-psychotic medication, Raydean is your worst nightmare: an alien hunter who sees little green men crawling about everywhere. This was a very bad day.

“Raydean,” I said, instantly sober, “it's me and Detective Nailor, honey. He's not trying to have his way with me.”

Ba-boom!
The gun erupted into the early-morning air, echoing in the narrow alleyway between our trailers. John threw me to the ground and dove on top of me. Fluffy ran back through the doggie door, into the trailer. Raydean laughed.

“Lookit them suckers run!” she cried, and fired the shotgun again, this time shooting toward a pine tree behind my trailer.

“Go home to the Mothership!” she yelled.

“Raydean!” I yelled. “Knock it off! You'll alert the starship troopers.”

That stopped her in her tracks.

“Summonabitch,” she muttered. “That's all we need.”

I raised my head just a few inches and looked around. There was no sign of life in the street, but curtains twitched at all the windows of the surrounding trailers. Folks were used to Raydean's antics.

Five trailers down a door opened. Raydean lifted her gray-haired head from its resting place on the barrel of the gun and looked. Pat, the charter boat captain and my landlady, was about to face Raydean down.

“Aw, Sierra,” Raydean whined, “now look what you've gone and done!”

“Me?” Nailor was lying on me like a heavy carpet.

“Yes, you. Now
she's
coming. She'll be carting me off to the mental health center for a shot, and the next thing you know, I'll be sitting in group therapy with some young chick social worker named Mavis, talking about what day it is and who's the damn president. Shee-it!”

Nailor snorted, stifling a laugh.

“Don't move,” I whispered. “It isn't safe just yet.” Nailor's body went limp against mine; well, sort of limp. “Raydean,” I said, “put the gun down, honey. You know how Pat is about weapons.”

Raydean slowly lowered the shotgun. She stood there on her stoop, her stockings sagging down around her ankles, the pockets of her faded pink housedress stuffed with balled-up tissues and gun magazines.

“First I got to contend with a Flemish invasion, and now I got to put up with
her.
It just ain't fair.”

Raydean was firmly convinced that the Flemish were alien beings. It was a delusion that, thus far, not even medication could remove. But Raydean is my friend, and a useful ally upon occasion, and if believing in a Flemish invasion is one of her minor quirks, well then, let he who is without neurosis cast the first stone.

Pat walked the length of the street, right out in the middle, like a gunslinger at high noon. She walked slow, probably because her arthritis was bothering her. At seventy, Pat was the only woman I knew who was still physically able to do the hard manual labor that comes with running a charter fishing boat. She is tenacious.

Pat was taking in the scene, her snow-white hair gleaming in the early-morning sunlight, her work jeans on, yellow rubber gloves hanging off a tool belt that stretched around her ample waist. Pat wasn't about to take any shit off Raydean.

She strolled up, stopped, and looked over at Raydean, who had dropped the gun and was standing like a sullen schoolgirl at the top of her stoop.

“Let's go on now,” Pat said, her eyes never leaving Raydean's face.

“Tomorrow,” Raydean said.

“You said that yesterday and where did it get us?” Then Pat looked over at Nailor lying on top of me, a long sigh escaping her lips. “If you two are going to monkey around, the least you could do would be to take it out of the gutter and into the bedroom. Why do you think trailer parks have such a poor reputation? Really, Sierra!”

Nailor, sensing that the dangerous moment had passed, slowly rose up and helped me to my feet. My leg gave way again and I staggered against him, drawing the attention of both women.

“Sierra, are you injured?” Pat asked quietly.

“Naw, that'un's taking advantage of her good nature and easy ways,” Raydean interjected.

“I got shot,” I said.

“In the line of duty?” Raydean's antenna was aquiver at the possibility of further alien activity.

“Yes, Raydean, in the line of duty. I was leaving work when someone shot another dancer and hit me, too.”

Pat's face grew worried. She sees herself as my surrogate mother and doesn't particularly fancy my line of work.

Nailor broke in. “I'm working on getting her inside and into bed,” he said.

“Oh, I can see that!” Raydean crowed.

Pat shook her head and motioned to Raydean. “Come on, honey. Let's go. We'll deal with Sierra's situation later.” She meant afterward, after Raydean was back on the planet and calmer heads could prevail.

I sighed and leaned heavily against Nailor. “You know,” I whispered, “in my condition, I really shouldn't be left alone.”

Nailor chuckled and I felt his arm tighten around my waist. Oh yes, I thought, I most definitely don't need to be left alone.

Four

I thought he would stay. And even though I wasn't in fighting trim, I was prepared. I limped off down the hallway to my bedroom, stripped off my clothes, and pulled on my sexiest nightgown. It was a white cotton number with lace bows and plenty of buttons. It was virginal, and perfectly appropriate for our first golden moment. Nailor had seen it before, but at that point in time he'd been in no shape to remember it. He'd remember it now, I thought.

I ran a brush through my hair and walked slowly down the hallway. He was in the kitchen, the phone in one hand and a can of dog food in the other.

“The witness heard her make the threat?” he asked, stooping to put the food in Fluffy's dish. Fluff licked his hand and the spoon in her rush to get to the food.

“Pick her up.” He straightened. “Yeah, now. I'll be right there.”

Shit. I looked down at my gown and back over at him. He hadn't even noticed. Well, there went the best-laid plans of one Sierra Lavotini.

He clicked off the phone and set it back on its base.

“Pick up who?” I asked.

He turned, his eyes taking in the Lavotini package. A half moan escaped his lips. For a moment he was distracted, then back on task.

“Marla,” he said.

“Marla! You're picking up Marla in connection with the murder? You think Marla shot me?”

Marla was my arch-rival at the Tiffany Gentleman's Club. She liked to think that her fifty-two-inch chest size made her the better dancer. Her main act was to dress up in a silver sequined outfit with wings that fit over her arms to make her look like a plane. She'd swoop out over the runway attached to an elaborate set of wires and pulleys, grab her tits, and yell, “Bombs away, boys!” The local airmen from Tyndall loved it. I thought it was trite and overworked. But I digress. Marla hated me, but why would she kill Venus Lovemotion?

“I'm not saying she shot Venus Lovemotion or you, either. We're just interested in speaking to her. There are a few discrepancies in her statement, that's all. I'm sure we can get it all cleared up.”

Fluffy yipped again. I looked down at her. She was smiling. I was not the only one who could picture Marla squirming on the hot seat down at police headquarters. In fact, if Nailor needed help with the interrogation, any help at all, well, I was at the ready.