Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 (34 page)

“You mean V.I.P.” He winked.

“No.” I shook my head. “Just regular.”

Birch nodded and chuckled off the jab under his breath.

The next moment, the blaring ′70s rock was silenced, an apparent signal for the strippers to make way for the principal dancer in this redneck ballet. They scrabbled off on bruised knees, wet hair dangling in clumps, and bulldozing collapsing pyramids of dollar bills in front of them.

Birch pointed toward the shack.

The lights dimmed, and a jaundiced glow rose behind the dirty shower curtain covering the front door of the facade. At the edges of the porch, slobbery men set down their jugs and hushed each other as though in reverence to approaching royalty. It became so quiet, I could hear the chickens scratching in their
cages and crickets chirping or rubbing their legs together or whatever the fuck they do. Though that last bit was probably being pumped in through the speakers to set the mood. The stage light brightened until columns of dust motes stabbed into the audience from between the rusty metal curtain rings, stretching across the waves of corrugated roofing above and the five o’clock shadows of drooling businessmen below.

And then
she
stalked into silhouette—no … shuffled is a better word—to the opening cowbells of Nazareth’s “Hair of the Dog”—’cuz really, what else would you expect?

“Harry Sue!” I could have sworn someone yelled.

“Harry Sue!” the crowd shouted back in liturgical response.

“
Harry
Sue?” I asked Birch.

“Short for Harriet, maybe?” He shrugged without taking his eyes off the dirty play unfolding.

When the guitar roared in, Harry Sue snatched back the curtain and stomped out onto the porch in Daisy Duke overalls and the most hideous high heels—since when did Jellies make a heel? Her blond hair teased and tortured into massive pigtails, hay jutting from the strips of gingham holding them in place. Her face was pretty enough, if you could get past her wild eyes, bee-stung lips, and the mass of fake freckles that sadly recalled the broken blood vessels of an alcoholic more than the fresh sun-kissed face of a farmgirl.

She didn’t tease the crowd of howling men much, making quick work of the denim overalls with two rehearsed snaps at each shoulder; they slid off her bone-thin frame and pooled around her ankles. The ensuing slapstick of Harry wrestling her feet out of the denim mess would have been charming had my eyes
not been stuck to her undergarments. Not satisfied with a dirty wife-beater and some holey panties, the stripper wore cut-off Dr. Dentons complete with the trapdoor. Of course, in true trashy stripper fashion, Harry Sue wore hers backwards.

The room was filled with redneck boner and there I stood in the middle of it, without a vomit bag, a designer cocktail, or a canister of mustard gas. You couldn’t move through the room without rotating aroused men like turnstiles and I had no intention of doing that. I did notice that Johnny Birch was standing awful close to me.

Glad to see you, close.

Too close.

“That’s my asshole, asshole.” I jerked away from his probing fingers.

Johnny grinned in response, totally deserving the punch I threw into his kidneys.

“Ow!” He ran his fingers through his hair, eyes darting nervously at the men around us, as if any of them were looking for anything other than a beaver shot. “Jesus. It’s all in good fun.”

“Touch me again and we’ll see who’s having fun.”

“Aw.” He scowled.

Harry Sue slunk down in one of the rockers, and the men whimpered in unison—apparently prepared for what Harry Sue had in store for us. She rocked slowly, pivoting her ass forward on the edge of the chair until the flap was front and center. She toyed with the buttons, tweaking them like nipples.

I glowered. Shot a glance at Birch. Wished I were drinking.

The stripper got my attention when she unbuttoned one side of the flap, then the other, finally, exposing
the biggest ′70s bush I’d ever seen.
⁶
It was massive. Afro-like. Harry Sue needed to be introduced to the wonders of Brazilian waxing, though she’d likely be charged extra. And then it clicked. The men weren’t yelling Harry Sue.

They were shouting
Hairy
Sue.

Still. It didn’t make sense.

I’ve read
Cosmo
. I know men prefer shaved to bouffant. Yet they were clearly enthralled by this stripper. I watched more closely.

Hairy (let’s just drop the Sue part; it never had any real value, anyway) reached for the butter churn and pulled out the plunger dripping melted butter down the front of her jammies.

She peeked at the mess, frowned, then licked the end of the plunger before returning it to the churn. In one motion, she slipped out of the Dr. Dentons and reached into an aluminum pail next to the rocker and retrieved an ear of corn, which she preceded to shuck using her teeth. She sprinkled her breasts with corn silk. With the ear she traced circles across her belly, her thighs, and then, as though by accident, she dropped the cob on the porch, gasped, and then slipped from the chair into a full split, hovering briefly above the ear before nestling it against her buttery crotch.

I shifted from one foot to the other.

There was absolutely nothing sexy about this. These guys were all perverts.

Hairy Sue rose then and bowed to the wild applause and showers of dollar bills. She posed there like she owned that porch, corncob dripping and a fat smile spread across her face.

The lights dimmed.

“I’d sure like to see
your
bush.” Birch again. His lips curled into a lewd smile.

I nearly vomited up my dinner (let’s not go into what that might have been, just yet). “Is that some kind of wood nymph joke? ’Cause I’m done with your poor impulse control.”

“Hey.” He stepped back, spread his arms, and wiggled his fingers. “I can control the trees and stuff.”

I let my eyes wander down to the tent in his pants. “But not the wood?”

He sagged.

“Maybe we should just talk.” He covered his crotch with cupped hands, a flush rising in his cheeks.

I followed him back to a booth underneath a monstrous moose head, where he laid out the scenario. It was the first time I’d seen his face in full light. He wasn’t hideous, though his features were sharp and his nose a bit too thin. The brown of his eyes shimmered with veins of gold, and his lips, though pale, were full and unexpectedly alluring. He looked much better on TV, but that was probably the makeup.

Mmm. Makeup.

“The calls started coming about three months ago,” he said. “At first the caller wouldn’t say anything. Just hang up after I’d answered. The phone company said they were always from phone booths. I didn’t even know those still existed, but they do.”

I nodded, though I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one, either. Still, why do people feel the need to tell me the most random crap? Like I care. I’m dead.

“About a month ago, they started getting threatening. Not overtly so, just freaky. Like letting me know that I was being monitored. ‘You’re at the Texaco on
First.’ Like that. And then they’d just hang up and I’d be standing there at the pump, not just worried that my cell was going to spark and blow me up, but now that someone was nearby watching. Then a couple of weeks ago I get the first one.”

“First what?”

Johnny reached into a briefcase he must’ve stored under the table before his lap dance and pulled out a plastic shipping envelope, the kind lined with Bubble Wrap. He placed it on the table between us and leaned forward, searching the room for observers. Half the crowd had been culled into the back rooms, and the other half were busy drinking themselves into stupors.

I made eye contact with Gil across the room. He looked concerned. It must have been my expression of pure boredom. My eyes dropped back to the envelope.

“I’m not a private detective, Birch. I’m in advertising. Can we get on with this?”

“I know. I know. But, I don’t need you for that. I need you for your celebrity.”

Celebrity?

Oh, yes. He’d snared my attention with that. “Go on.”

He opened the end of the envelope and pulled out a thin shingle of wood. Stretched across it and attached with thick pins was a creature like none I’d seen, almost insect-like, with wings that clung to its sides like a termite. Its flesh was as black as obsidian and shiny from toe to its segmented abdomen to its horribly humanoid head. The creature’s waxy face was frozen in a torturous silent scream.

“Gross. What the hell is it?” I was unable to look away from the little body, pinned as it was like a lab experiment. Better there than flying around, though, or I’d be snatching a flyswatter.

“I don’t really know. But it looks like a fucking threat to me.” He slid it back into the envelope and tossed it into his bag. “Anyways! I’m going on tour this spring and clearly, with this shit going on …” He kicked at the briefcase. “I’m going to need some protection.”

“All right. How is my ‘celebrity’ going to do that?”

“It’s not. I’m putting together a team of bodyguards, and what better way to do it nowadays than with my own fabulous reality contest show? Can you see it? Celebrity judges and weekly death matches. It’s exactly what Supernatural TV is aching for. Cameron Hansen would host, of course, and all we’d need is our Paula. You’d be our Simon.”

“Simon? I’m too cute and, anyway, you’d be our fucking Paula. What we’d need is a Randy.” I reached for my purse and began to scoot out of the booth. The idea was ludicrous.

“Maybe.” His voice thundered. “But I’m a nut with financial resources and I’d be willing to pay.”

“So you’re looking for more than just a guest judge here, then? We’re talking about exclusive advertising contract with product placement?”

“That could be arranged.”

“Let me think about it.” I looked around the Hooch and Cooch and couldn’t quite believe that such a gross experience might lead to a potential financial windfall. “All right, let’s plan to meet somewhere less … disgusting, and then we’ll talk about it. Sound good?”

“Up to you.”

“Well, let’s figure it out in the parking lot. I don’t think I can stomach this place much longer.”

As we stood to leave, a commotion began in the hallway to the private rooms. A steady stream of men
were rushing from the exit, most of them screaming and none of them attempting to shield the bulge in their trousers. Following them was a roar that vibrated through the room and a crash as the chicken coops shattered sending several birds flapping and skittering off toward the door in the shack. Gil and Ethel ran into the room, my mother brandishing a machete, Gil some sort of short club.

“We better get out of here.” I turned to Birch, but he’d already darted for the front door. Behind him a massive hairy beast emerged from the tangle of metal cages. Its bulbous head sheared the ceiling as it lurched, creating a groove across the ripples of metal. Its thick, muscled arms ended in rakish claws that shredded the floorboards into mulch with each powerful swipe. It stopped in the center of the room, head twisting wildly from one patron to the next until it found its quarry.

The creature howled with such force, the floor shook under me, slobber clung to foot-long fangs like sloppy pennants flapping in the direction of Johnny Birch, who let out a quivering whimper.

It rushed forward.

Dammit, I thought. There goes the TV show.