Film Strip (23 page)

“Well, lots of girls leave the business,” I said, and started to move away. But Candy's next words gave me shivers.

“She got killed, too. And nobody up there even spoke her name again, much less gave her any kind of tribute.”

“It's kind of the Tiffany way,” I said, not wanting to let Candy slip into the details. “We always honor those who have fallen in the line of duty. I mean, after all, who will do it if we don't?”

“Damn straight!” Tonya the Barbarian said.

C.B. straightened her shoulders and looked toward her gear bag. “All right,” she said. “When should we dance?”

I looked over at slack-jawed Vincent and said, “Right now would be ideal. The club's filling up, we've had a hell of a commotion outside, and people are thirsty and looking for another thrill. You would be perfect.”

Vincent smiled to see the Lavotini system working its magic.

“All right, then,” C.B. said, “let's get a move on. I'll be ready in ten minutes.”

I turned to the other dancers. “Let's make this big,” I said. “There isn't time to call in any of the girls from the other clubs, but let's show them how the Tiffany Gentlemen's Club faces down fear and salutes the girls that have gone on to their just rewards.”

I was really milking it, but a part of me believed what I was saying. We needed to do something not only for the girls who'd died, but for ourselves. We needed to reclaim our turf and this was the perfect way to do it.

Tonya and the four other dancers started rummaging through the costume closet. The strippers stood around for a moment, looking like they couldn't have cared less, but I was hoping maybe they had a shred of concern.

“Hey, guys,” I said, calling over to them. “Come over and go through the closet. Maybe you'll find some inspiration.” I was trying to sound decent and it must've worked, because three or four of them broke loose and joined the others in the wardrobe. Maybe they weren't all bad.

C.B. was busy pawing through her gear bag and dragging her suitcase over to a deserted corner. I knew for a fact that there was nothing in the wardrobe that would fit her. But I didn't need to worry. C.B. pulled out a red sequined tear-away gown and a black flapper headband. The tears still stood out on her cheeks, but now she had a task to do and her emotions were back in check.

“Guys,” I called to the cluster at the wardrobe, “look for something red, or red and black.”

Tonya poked her head out and looked in C.B.'s direction. “Oh,” she said, nodding at C.B., “I see.” She ducked back inside the closet and could be heard directing the others. It fell to me to find the music, so I left them and wandered back to the deejay's booth.

“I need something red,” I said.

The deejay pushed the headphones back off her ears and looked puzzled. “Did you say dead?”

I shook my head. “No, red. Red.”

Tina the deejay smiled. “Got just the thing,” she said. “It's old and it's slow, but it's sexy. How about ‘Lady in Red'? I've got a dance version where they speed it up in the middle. Would that get it?”

It would have to do. I nodded and headed backstage. The girls were beginning to file out and stand at the edge of the stairs. Tonya had managed to find them all red-and-black matching outfits, courtesy of Vincent, who'd scored the costumes, used, from a local theater group. The outfits looked like red satin corsets with black piping down the stays that framed the girls' torsos. They wore black fishnet thigh-high stockings with shiny red garters and spiky black stilettos. It was a class act, all right.

C.B. brought up the rear of the line in her red sequined gown and black headdress. By the time you took into account the feather rising from her headband and the six-inch heels, she was almost eight feet tall—all woman and all ready to go.

“You ready, C.B.?” I asked. She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “Don't do that, Candy,” I said. “You don't wanna wreck your makeup for your big salute.”

C.B. shook her head and fought back the tears. I walked up the steps, grabbed the microphone from Rusty's hand, and walked out onstage.

“Gentlemen,” I said, and waited as the crowd fell silent. “It is the Tiffany custom to honor those who have gone on before us to that palace of good times and compassion in the sky.” The men shifted in their seats, as pairing religion with exotic dancing was a foreign concept and they needed to mull it over. You could practically see the wheels turning in their pedestrian minds. Did nude dancers go to heaven? And what about those who watched them? Weren't they just as guilty? It made the customers a little uncomfortable. I let them stew in their conservative guilt for a second or two, figuring it would be good for the tip jar.

“We have lost two of our dancers this week,” I said, “and the killer is still at large. A lesser group of women might cower in fear, waiting for the killer to strike again, but not us. We're the Tiffany Girls and we don't run from trouble.”

There was a chorus of cheers behind me as the girls started to believe the spiel I was spinning. I leaned down and took a shot glass of Wild Turkey from Colleen the waitress.

“And don't think that we believe for a moment that Marla the Bomber did it. We know she didn't, and we know someone out there did!” I leaned forward and searched over the audience, as if letting someone know I saw him and that I knew for certain he was there.

I raised the shot glass and motioned to the crowd to raise theirs. “So here's to the girls who gave their all.” The crowd stood and saluted. “And here's to the girls of the Tiffany. We're fearless and we're naked!”

The men screamed, and the dancers began filing onto the stage. The music began to thump and the girls started moving, all but Candy Barr. She stood just offstage, a frozen look on her face and sheer terror in her eyes.

The others moved in front of me and I stepped back behind the curtain. Rusty was coaxing, and finally pushing, the tall girl toward the stage. “Get out there,” he urged. “They're waiting!” Indeed they were. The others had formed a phalanx and were waiting for Candy to walk out, front and center.

“I can't,” she whimpered.

I wasn't about to play therapist and ask why not. The music was playing, the girls were in position, and the customers were growing impatient. I grabbed one of her arms and yanked, while Rusty applied his two hands to her ass and pushed. With a great heave, Candy Barr arrived onstage.

There was a collective gasp from the onlookers as they took in the full effect of Candy's magnificent body. Then came the hoots of approval as they waited for her to begin her routine, the only problem being that Candy had no intention of moving. She was paralyzed with stage fright.

Tonya sidled up to her and I could see her encouraging C.B. to move. Another dancer moved over to her left, and gently began bumping her with her hip. That at least got Candy to begin swaying. Whatever Tonya the Barbarian did, Candy attempted to copy, with disastrous results. It became glaringly apparent that Candy had another problem: She had no sense of rhythm. The girl just couldn't dance.

I caught a glimpse of Vincent standing by the edge of the bar, next to Little Ricky. Bruno and Gordon stood just behind them. All four men looked horrified. Vincent buried his face in his hands, and Bruno reached forward and patted him on the shoulder. What a disaster. Barry Sanduski had sent us a bombshell all right, a real dud.

The other girls sensed the trouble and began to do what they could to enact damage control. They used C.B. like a maypole, dancing around her and unwinding her clothing. Candy smiled nervously and shimmied back and forth, but not in time to the music. The customers continued to stare up at the giant woman, watching the spectacle taking place before them with mouths open and eyes wide. Only thing missing was the tips. No one reached for their wallets. They just stood there, staring.

There was no way on earth that the act could've been construed as sexy or tantalizing. Men tip because it's their way of saying, “I'd like you to do that for me and me alone.” Nobody was wishing Candy Barr on themselves. They seemed, if anything, to be viewing the act as their worst sexual fantasy come true: A giant woman flops on top of you and then has no sense of rhythm. I could hardly blame them.

Rusty stood by my side, moaning until the last thirty seconds when he cranked up the smoke machine so high it covered everything but Candy's face. The customers' last vision of our ill-fated tribute was Candy Barr's head, floating seven feet above the stage floor, bouncing in an erratic pattern that had no connection whatsoever to the music.

Some days you're the windshield. Some days you're the bug. The Tiffany had just been squashed flat across the windshield of bad luck and hard times.

Twenty-eight

The night passed like one long disaster. Vincent wouldn't let Candy back out onstage, which prompted a flood of tears from her and pissed off all the other dancers, who were forced to share their dressing room with the wailing guest artist.

“At least when a kid starts caterwauling in a store, I can walk out,” Tonya complained. “Now I gotta sit with it in my own dressing room. It's ruining my concentration.”

When Candy started throwing things, a full-scale intervention became necessary. Bruno was sent in to deal with her while Gordon tried to cover the entire house. This led to a drunk-and-disorderly charge against an airman who scaled the runway and attempted to fondle a stripper. A fight broke out between the airman's friends and a group of regulars, Little Ricky among them, who felt protective of
their
girls. The police arrived very quickly, as half of Panama City's police force was still out in the parking lot processing Nailor's car, but they were seen as unwelcome by both the airmen and the regulars. It seems they felt they were entitled to clean up their own squabble without government interference. The police saw the situation differently and this resulted in a heavy loss of glass and furniture. Vincent screamed until his face reached a nuclear-red glow and stayed that way for the entire night. Everyone's tips were down, but all in all, as I told Vincent, it was a successful evening. The local TV news crews covered the Tiffany, giving us the lead-story slot on the eleven o'clock news.

“That's better than a one-minute commercial,” I told him. “Tomorrow night we'll be jammed.”

“Yeah,” Vincent groused, “but with what type of clientele?”

He had a point, but I wasn't in the mood to concede. “You just wait,” I said. “We'll make more money than ever.”

He didn't believe me for a second, and when it came down to it, I had to admit I was blowing smoke. The Tiffany was in trouble. Clubs don't have a long shelf life once they're viewed as going downhill, or too rough for your upper-middle-class money-droppers. We were in a hell of a spot.

I left around three
A.M.
It felt more like I'd pulled a twenty-four-hour shift than my usual eight to ten. My body ached, my spirit was sagging, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. Nailor was nowhere in sight, and if I knew the police, he'd be downtown filling out forms in triplicate for days.

I slid behind the wheel of my Camaro and cranked the engine. Bruce Springsteen started singing about meeting someone on the strip, and I let him rasp out his tale of woe. He sang like I felt, irritated and raw.

It's been my experience that on those nights when you're really exhausted, really craving a soft pillow and a dreamless sleep, insomnia is a given. It was no different that night. I pulled up on the parking pad, saw Fluffy's eyes glowing out at me from the top step, and felt my body spring alive.

Fluffy barked softly, her way of saying, “About time you came back. I'm hungry.”

“Makes two of us,” I answered, and made us both a cold meatloaf sandwich.

Two lights remained on in the living room. The card table was set up, the hands dealt, and Pa's Chianti bottle was empty. From the look of the pile of change sitting in front of Raydean's chair, Francis had gone down swinging. I heard a gentle snore and saw Pat sleeping on the futon. It had been a long night.

I assumed that Francis had gone to bed and that Raydean had returned to her trailer, but I was wrong. The scuffling sound of her bunny slippers startled me as she appeared in the living room doorway. She was wide awake.

“That brother of yours has two strikes against him,” she said. “He can't play cards for shit and he can't hold his wine worth a flip. I just now got him settled in bed. Before that he was bowl-hugging the porcelain throne. Thought all you Italians could hold your alcohol.”

“See, Raydean, see what happens when you stereotype a group of people?”

Raydean “humphed” and walked past me to the kitchen table, where she perched on a barstool and reached for the jar of peanut butter that sat in the middle next to the napkins.

“You got any soda crackers?” she asked. “And a knife?”

Fluffy made the leap onto her lap and the two of them waited expectantly.

“All right,” I said, and sighed. “I know when I'm beat.”

I pulled out the crackers and two butter knives, perched on another stool, and opened a new bottle of Pa's Chianti. Fluffy munched on crackers and Raydean dug into the peanut butter. They munched and I talked. Sometimes it's just good to put the words and events out in the open; kind of gives you a fresh perspective.

I couldn't tell if Raydean was really tracking me. She seemed more interested in spreading peanut butter on crackers and then lining them up across the table like a wall. But when I finished recounting all the events of the evening, she looked at me with her sharp birdlike eyes and sighed.

“Girl, you're always the last to know,” she said.

“How's that, Raydean?”

Fluffy rearranged herself so she could watch me. Raydean pushed one lumpy peanut butter cracker forward, then looked back at me.