Strip Search (28 page)

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. But it doesn’t mean much on a night like this.”

Wager figured there had been a lot of slow nights lately. He put a bill on the table under the curve of those tights. “In case I’m not here to see you dance.”

“Oh gee, thanks.” Her thumb folded it expertly into her palm.

Mostly on impulse, Wager asked, “Maybe you’d like to go out sometime?”

She smiled a wide thank-you but said, “We’re not allowed to date the customers. Club rule.”

“No offense meant.”

“None taken. Really!” She moved off into the scarlet gloom and Wager watched a male arm in a flowered Hawaiian shirt reach to tuck a bill into the garter of the girl onstage. Berg himself was trying to get things started among the mostly silent men.

“Let me clean the table for you.” Clarissa was back with a bar towel and brushed her hip lightly at his shoulder as she bent across him to wipe at the shiny wood. “Give me a call if you want anything.” She smiled again and was gone. Beside his glass was a square of paper about the size of a calling card. It held a neatly typed telephone number.

Wager was on his third slow beer when he saw the man come in and wondered how, in the past, he had missed him. The hair turned pink in the glow from the stage and moved across the black wall like a dying spark. Most of the people whose business depended on contacts made in dark corners wore recognizable hats like Wager’s or striking hairstyles like Little Ray’s. Whitey didn’t need that; his hair caught your eye like a faint, blinking light. If you were looking for him, it was something you wouldn’t miss. But if you weren’t, then you didn’t pay much attention to just another white head out buying what he could from the young girls.

The waitress at the front of the line started toward him and then stopped, called away by a word Wager couldn’t hear through the throb of music. A girl farther down the line went instead. He squinted to make her out but it wasn’t until a little later, when she stood in the pale glow of Nguyen’s bar, that he recognized one of the club lesbians, the one with the long brunette curls … the one who had known nothing about Annette Sheldon and didn’t want to … Sybil—that was her name: Sybil. Wager watched closely as she carried the tray back to the table and took payment. Then she headed back to Nguyen, who rang up the sale. Aside from a brief hello, neither Whitey nor Sybil said much, even on this slow night when the girls were trying to hustle a few more bucks out of their regulars. Instead, she wandered back toward the dressing room to get ready, Wager guessed, for her turn onstage. It was vague and pointless, just as Fat Willy’s man had said, and Wager, still waiting for something to happen, watched the man drain his glass and stand and walk out with a brief nod to Nguyen—who had told Wager he did not know the man.

It was the same at Barnum’s. Whitey had his drink and left the place, meeting with no one. It wasn’t your normal bar-hopping expedition, but it was what Wager expected. Nothing happened. Nothing. What did occur, and what made Wager drop back into the clusters of strolling night people, was Whitey’s unobtrusive skill at checking his trail for someone following him. He paused in front of an unlit display window and, using the shiny reflection, surveyed the figures behind him. Once, waiting for a quick break in traffic, he trotted heavily across Colfax in mid-block and stepped into a pharmacy where, a moment or two later, Wager caught his silhouette at the side of the window, watching. He changed pace quickly, speeding up near a corner as if about to turn into a dark side street, then doubled back to see if any familiar face was trying to keep up. Why would the man, whose stops were routine, be so cautious in going from point to point? As edgy as a whore in church, Whitey stayed with the crowds and with the well-lit sidewalks. And, Wager was sure, the maneuvers were habitual—Whitey wasn’t looking for Wager, in disguise or out. He was just being careful. A courier? Delivering what? Picking up what? The pattern of stops and the caution fit a courier. Everything fit except the fact that he made contact with no one. That is, almost no one … almost! The people he did make contact with in every bar were almost nobodies, so much a part of the club’s landscapes as to be invisible—almost. …

Wager, feeling a little bounce of excitement enter his stride, turned from the man who, half a block ahead, had paused again to glance in the window of another closed shop. Across the street and in the next block, rippling light bulbs spelled The Palm Room and above the letters, in brown and green neon, something vaguely resembling a palm tree swayed back and forth through three flickering positions. Wager knew where the man was going, and he knew now who his contact would be: Clarissa had shown him, and Wager had been too damned dumb to see it at the time. Right out in the open and so simple and natural you’d never notice a thing. That had to be the way it was done. And the next question was, “What?” What was Whitey delivering or picking up from the waitresses at each of his stops?

Not looking, but knowing that the man was working his way along the other sidewalk beyond the blur of cars, Wager stretched his legs to reach the flickering sign. Whitey would still be looking behind him while Wager was now in front, and that little twist gave the kind of smile to his lips that brought startled looks from some of the people he pushed by. He turned into The Palm Room and paused under the shaggy plastic fronds that hung from the entry-way ceiling. Blinking against the cigarette smoke and painfully amplified noise, Wager groped his way toward the bar and the half-dozen motionless figures watching the woman on stage.

“Can I get you a table?” A girl stood at his elbow and smiled. “My name’s Tess.”

Wager glanced past her and understood why the men at the bar stared fixedly. A nude girl sat on her heels, knees apart, and leaned back, lifting her breasts toward the ceiling, while her partner, a giant, glistening python, inched its thick body between her legs and up her round stomach in small, rippling moves. Its markings, an intricate pattern of greens and yellows and browns, shone in the spotlight with a clean and primitive sharpness that, to Wager, dominated all that was happening around it, drawing his eyes with the fascination of the substantial.

“Who’s that onstage?”

“The dancer’s Simba. The snake’s Leo. You like snakes?”

“I like the snake better than the broad. No, I don’t want a table—not yet. Just some phone change.” He looked around. “You got a phone here?”

Without wasting another word, she tossed a hand toward the small white sign glowing in a far corner and turned back to her station.

Wager, an eye on the doorway, waited for the bartender to finish mixing an order and come toward him, dragging his towel along the bar top. “Help you?”

He held out a bill. “Phone change, please.”

“Sure.”

Taking the handful of coins, Wager stood at the telephone, his gaze toward the door. Placing a call, he listened to the recorded voice tell him the time and temperature over and over until Whitey, unhurried, finally came in. One of the waitresses came forward with a smile and he followed her to a table. Wager hung up and moved in behind them.

From his small table, Wager saw the waitress ask something; the man nodded, both hands empty and forearms resting in front of him.

“Getcha something now?”

Tess was back and Wager said, “Dark beer.”

“Heineken’s okay?”

“Fine.”

Whitey watched the stage, where the python’s head was nearing the girl’s neck; she had begun to flex her hips to the same rhythm as the snake’s measured ripple and the beat of the throbbing drum. Still watching as the waitress took his order, he reached into his coat’s left vest pocket and brought out something that his hand half-covered and laid it on the table in front of him. Then he reached for his wallet and pulled out a bill. The waitress came back with the tray and served him; Whitey handed her the bill and Wager saw through the dimness that the table in front of the man was empty of everything except his glass and the napkin it rested on. But Whitey’s eyes were still on the stage and, casually, he tucked something away into his right vest pocket. He brings something in his left pocket; he takes something in his right pocket—but Wager hadn’t seen what it was. Like watching bumps moving under a blanket, you know something’s going on, and you have a pretty good idea of what it is. But exactly how it’s happening is still hidden.

The recorded drums ended in a deafening roll and the girl stood, the snake draped heavily back and forth across her shoulders, its long tail dangling between her breasts. The music went into a quick and slightly quieter tune and she paced around the lip of the stage, twisting sharply on the ball of each foot and pausing with each step to show off her body and the snake’s and to allow the men to stuff bills into the thongs of her sandals. Whitey sipped once at his drink and stood, shadowed eyes going over the half-empty room. They hesitated when they came to Wager, sitting at the table just behind him, and he felt that little electric tingle that comes when you know you’ve been spotted. Then the dim face finished its survey and Whitey strode slowly toward the exit as if waiting for someone to follow him.

Wager let him go. He did not know if Whitey recognized him as a cop in disguise or if the bartender at the Turkish Delights had described him as the short Mexican who was asking all the questions and who should have been smart enough to quit while he was in one piece. He hoped it was the latter, but it didn’t make too much difference now—Wager had seen all he would be able to see, and there was no need to spook the man further. Finishing his beer, he raised his finger for another. Give Whitey plenty of line—let him stand around outside until he felt safe and went to his next contact. Now was not the time to rush.

The loudspeaker announced Big Bertha and Her Incredible Fifty-Twos, and Wager sat back to enjoy the show. A woman with frizzy blond hair laughed and joked with the men at her feet as they called to her to take it off. She did, one gauzy wrap at a time. She held out the shimmering color as she spun and tossed it into the darkness at the end of the runway, where a pale hand reached to pull the floating cloth to safety. By the second number and Wager’s third beer, she was down to three or four transparent veils with her bra and panties saved for the final dance. Tess brought him another round without being asked. Wager sipped until the grand finale, then he placed a bill on the runway as he left.

A small tripod facing exiting customers held a carnival-like sign that proclaimed, Ladies! Every Tuesday Nite: Don’t Miss Won Hung Lo. He Will Amaze and Delight You with His Dancing Anatomy!

He was in no hurry; he had more than an hour and spent it shaving off his darkened bristles and changing back into the unofficial summer uniform for detectives: slacks, open white shirt, sport coat whose only purpose was to cover the Star PD holstered on his hip.

At one-thirty, he headed for the Cinnamon Club; ten minutes later, he sat in his dark Trans Am, sheltered by the shadows of a tree that overhung the alley leading to the club’s parking lot. A little after two, he saw Sybil and Rebecca pull out of the lot in their shiny ZX. Their address was in his little green notebook from the first interviews, which now seemed so long ago, and he might have waited for them there. But he wanted to be sure of them; he felt the almost quivering tightness in his chest that told him he was getting close, and he did not want to lose them now.

He followed them through the residential streets whose only traffic was the occasional late automobile speeding recklessly through intersections or the bright cab busy taking working girls home after club closings. Ahead, in the middle of the block, the Datsun swung its long hood under the shine of a streetlight and disappeared between concrete piers that lifted an apartment tower over a parking garage for residents. Wager pulled into the only open space along the curb, a fire zone, and crossed the street as he heard the muffled sound of two car doors somewhere in the dimly lit parking garage. He ducked under the traffic bar and found the women waiting for the sharp glow of the elevator lights to bounce down through the numbers to the basement garage.

They heard his shoes and jerked around, fear widening their eyes.

“Police, Sybil.” He had his badge out. “Detective Wager. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

The hand that clutched her own throat fell away with a sigh, and Rebecca, the one who had the butterflies tattooed on each cheek, breathed, “Shit—you ought to wear a bell around your neck or something.”

“Can I come up?”

They glanced at each other. “You’re sure this is police business?” asked Rebecca.

“It is.”

The elevator arrived with a ding and the doors pumped open, spilling light across them. Neither woman entered. “What kind of police business—what kind of questions?”

“It’s about the white-haired man. The one you waited on tonight.”

Sybil’s eyes blinked rapidly two or three times and she was very still. Rebecca, without moving, seemed to draw farther away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you do. I want to know what his racket is. I want to know what it is he gave you, and what you gave him.”

“Nothing—I don’t even know the man!”

“Come on, Sybil. Think about it. You asked him if he wanted the usual to drink, and that doesn’t sound like strangers in the night. He handed you something. When you brought the change, you gave him something. It was a delivery and a pickup. Now what was it?”

“You don’t have to tell him nothing, Syb. You go to hell, cop—she doesn’t have to tell you a thing!”

The elevator doors shut with a slight hiss and the light from the car died with it.

“You can tell me here without being arrested, or you can tell me at the station, Sybil. If I hear it from you here, Whitey won’t know where I found out—he’s got a half-dozen drops along the strip and it could have been any one of them. But if you’re brought in, I’ll make damned certain the arrest report gets in the newspaper.”

“Arrest for what? What the hell can you arrest her for, cop?”

“Three counts of accessory to murder.”