Lucy walloped and then bent over, choking violently, causing the chair to squeak and lurch beneath her. It was a common thing—these coughing and hacking fits of gasps and wheezes that no doubt, were a direct result of the carcinogens she was sucking into her lungs at a rate of three packs a day. She turned bright red in the process, and Panther hurried back into the hall to fetch her a glass of water.
What seemed like an eternity later, Lucy dropped the receiver back into its ancient cradle and stood up. Not only was she fat, but she was short too.
“Lucy,” Panther began, as she shoved La Costa forward from the spot she stood frozen to on the floor, “this is La Costa Jackson. She’s got experience . . . worked for Günter up until about six months ago. She was answering phones at Sophisticate for a while. Now she’s cocktail waitressing at a bar near the airport and crashing with me. Thought we could use her here.”
“Pleased to meet you, honey.” Lucy stepped forward to shake La Costa’s hand, treating her at the same time, to the distinctive sour odor of bourbon on her breath. “So, you are interested in working here, are you?” She hoisted her hefty frame onto her desk.
Lucy’s words curled peculiarly at the ends, like they were fancy loops in the air. As it turned out, Lucy picked up the dialect in London from the many years she lived there. Some people said that the accent was fake. Either way, it was as much a defining part of Lucy’s essence as the milky-white skin that she wore.
She reached into a drawer and extracted a brown cigarette. At first La Costa thought it might be a cigar, but once Lucy flicked a slender gold lighter and touched the tip to ignite it, it emitted a strange, fragrant smoke that reminded La Costa of burning leaves, only sweeter. It was a clove cigarette, Panther later explained. Another of many signature props that Lucy relied on and never was seen without.
The largest and most coveted one being her 1975 Cadillac Coup De Ville. It had gold-spoke wheels and red leather seats. Her license plate simply read: LADYCAT. It was a gift from a Lieutenant Governor from one of the dreaded states that starts with an A. Panther could not exactly remember all the details.
“He visited her every chance he got when he came through town. He had, among other
things, connections. His generosities kept the Mink Kitty going for a time when she almost lost it during the goddamn Reagan recession. Theirs was a well-known, poorly concealed, eight-year affair. Most people really didn’t care, except, of course, for Mrs. Lieutenant Governor, Deidre Richardson, who could do little about her husband’s philandering.
“Rumor has it that Lucy and Deidre actually met once, when Mrs. Richardson visited the club with an entourage of goons from the state department. She was trying to catch Lucy in breach of code or some such shit. Tried to have her shut down, but nothing ever came of it, though,” Panther explained. “Once word got back to the governor, Lucy was never harassed again.”
“What ever happened to Deidre Richardson?” La Costa asked anxiously.
“Dead . . . of course. Isn’t that cozy? She swallowed enough Percocet to choke a horse.”
La Costa got the job. Her interview consisted of balancing a cocktail tray filled with water glasses over her head, while negotiating a maze of low lounge tables, while wearing three-inch heels. No contest.
She then had to parade in front of Lucy in a flimsy silk teddy worn by all the Kittens in the club.
The final test was a two-minute dance routine, in which the head busboy, Arturo, posed as the customer. La Costa was required to perform a scintillating table dance for him, stripping off her dress down to only her panties. When the straps of her lace brassiere released and her bouncy thirty-eight Ds sprang loose with large, luscious Hershey’s Kiss nipples at the ready—everyone in the room took notice. Arturo blushed at the instant erection it elicited in his pants.
Lucy squealed with laughter, embarrassing him into a quivering pool of Jell-O. “Okay, darlin’. You’re in! You passed the jalapeno test!”
The first thing La Costa did was quit her job at the sports bar that she had held for the previous three weeks. She would need all her free time for more lucrative pursuits, like teaching herself new dance moves, jogging religiously each day, and memorizing the stack of training manuals and drink lists provided by the club. There was so much to know. Kittens had a code of behaviors that had to be followed to the letter. Rigorous dictates about their costumes, footwear, hosiery, interaction with patrons, drink service—even the way they were allowed to stand while working on the club floor.
La Costa wore a red nametag on her “collar,” which meant that she was a trainee Kitten. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. The costumes were glorious and expensive customized lingerie created by an in-house seamstress, who measured La Costa for her debut outfit, a lavender and lace teddy with a tiny matching apron. When she first put it on and peered into the mirror, she could hardly believe what she saw.
No one had ever taught her a skill, nor had anyone ever given her anything. Thanks to Panther and Lucy, she was being given a real chance to make something of herself. The feeling was foreign, but fantastic. And most unbelievably of all, she liked what she saw in the mirror looking back!
Chapter Nine
Los Angeles – 1989
Within three months, La Costa was working four nights a week and making more money than she ever imagined possible. She was serving cocktails in the show lounge and waiting on tables in the club’s restaurant. The tips were flowing, and so was her self-esteem.
Immediately, she had moved permanently into Panther’s apartment in Century City, along with five other girls from the club. The apartment was owned and managed by none other than Lucy DuMont. Rent was reasonable, and it had all the makings of a sorority house—with a twist.
The west side two-flat walk-up was no great shakes, but it was palatial compared to the rat holes that she had grown up in. It was more than adequate. Most of the girls from the club roomed together, sometimes three, four, or five of them all crammed into two- and three-bedroom units. They used the place on a “rotation” basis like flight attendants or traveling nurses would do, but these were the other kind of “working girls” who came and went at all hours—sometimes staying away for days at a time. There always was an available bed, a refrigerator filled with wine or beer, and enough drugs floating around to make every day a party.
La Costa decided to room with some of the other new girls rather than the more established Senior Kittens for fear of being taken advantage of. Newbies always got stuck with the worst of everything—mattresses, household chores, last use of the laundry facilities. It was a sorority all right, and at The Mink Kitty, all Kittens were expected to pay their dues.
La Costa was able to afford her portion of the groceries and rent, and still have a little left over for an occasional new outfit or a fancy meal from time to time in one of the trendy restaurants downtown. The girls most liked to hang out after work at a posh hotel bar called Braxton’s, which always seemed to draw a fun nightly crowd of the area’s movers and shakers. The dance club Trax was also a favorite haunt, where Kittens could be found hobnobbing with the likes of would-be actors and musicians, politicians, and movie producers. From time to time, a sports celebrity or screen icon would rent out the place and hire the Kittens to mingle with a few hundred of their closest friends and guests. The girls could usually be found at Trax following their shifts, dancing until dawn.
Not all Kittens worked for Lucy DuMont’s “side business.” It was referred to as simply Escorting, and none of the girls were forced into it. They had to come to it of their own accord and simply let Lucy know if they were interested. She handled things from there, first by putting them on the VIP stage, which enabled patrons to choose their escort companion by name, style, and type. Once a selection was made, Lucy would make the connection.
The club had several suites reserved in various posh hotels throughout the city, where one call to any of Lucy’s contacts provided a choice room and accommodati
ons for her ladies to meet with clients discriminately.
Insiders portended quite truthfully that the side business of Lucy DuMont’s escort service was far more lucrative than the strip club alone, but neither the truths nor the rumors hurt business in the least, and The Mink Kitty was definitely purring.
* * *
Being a Kitten required much dedication for the Kitten to maintain her figure. La Costa and the others would be given demerits if their weight should increase by as little as three pounds once they reached their “Kitten weight.” La Costa worked out every day at the gym, melting away a remarkable total of twenty-three pounds in just three months’ time, revealing a svelte, lean knockout beneath her curvaceous exterior. She would hold steady at a lean one hundred twenty-two pounds. The transformation was shocking, to say the least. Now, at five foot eight, she did have a striking figure that won her the privilege of spotlight status performing center stage in the VIP lounge not six months after she first arrived. She performed two shows nightly, stripping down to panties and pasties for the elite crowds of rowdy tourists and businessmen who passed through, filling her garters with tens, twenties, even hundred-dollar bills as she gyrated under the hot white lights, making it ever so impossible to imagine the life she left behind. On stage, La Costa’s well-crafted face showed no signs of the tired, frightened mask she wore beneath.
Relaxants took the frizz from her hair, which she kept cropped at the chin in a flirty bob. Dramatic eyeliner, false lashes, and smoky shadow played up her rather small, inset eyes, making them appear larger than life. She was a beauty. Her lips stenciled to perfection, featuring a doll-like pout dabbed in the center with a touch of sticky pink lip gloss. A tiny raised mole (an ingenious creation of eye pencil and pressed powder) floated on her left cheek. “Every girl should punctuate her style,” she was known to say. La Costa’s beauty dot, as she liked to call it, became her signature trademark.
In the years that followed, no one ever looked for her. She thought about the possibility of someday going back to Arkansas. Of walking into Tallulah’s kitchen in a fine silk blouse carrying a designer beaded purse, prancing in her pricey pumps that cost more than her mother would have paid to Mr. Davidson for two months’ rent. She fantasized about walking on the choppy linoleum floor, across the speckled worn tiles that bowed in the center of the trailer, in those shoes, just to imagine the sound they would make, and then the look on Tallulah’s face when she would waltz right out again without saying a word.
And what, she wondered, became of the boys? Her brothers, Eli and Rufus? She sent checks back home of whatever she could spare from time to time, which were promptly cashed and gratefully received. She had hoped, since they were boys, that they were able to hold their own in the minefield of Tallulah’s precarious life. Sending money made La Costa feel a little better knowing that even at such a distance, her brothers would know that she was thinking about them. Telling them that she cared. It was not for Tallulah that she sent the money. It was for the boys.
She had prayed for them so often. Every day, in fact, when she remembered to pray. It seemed to have been so much easier to find the time before—when she was down and out, frightened and alone . . . hurting. The days and nights were a blur of activity and denial now. Life in the fast lane, so to speak. She was certain that the face of God was indeed watching, and, no doubt—frowning.
It wasn’t that there were not hard times anymore; times when she truly felt sad. Loneliness and isolation were her constant companions, despite her glamorous lifestyle that seemed to thrive only in the night-time hours, leaving her quite tired and spent in the light of day. It was not unusual for the girls to sleep in until well past two p.m. after working in the club until two or three a.m., partying well into the early morning hours, and then, when the drugs and the booze and the debauchery dissipated with the dawn they would stumble home—four to a taxi—and pass out from sheer exhaustion.
Oftentimes, La Costa would awake to find strange men who had spent the night leaving the apartment, their rumpled suits and shoes in hand, crawling to the elevator while crafting their alibis and patting down pockets for their car keys.
More than once, the stranger would be next to her in bed and she would panic frantically until she could find the crumpled latex discarded in the bathroom—assurance that even though her body was buzzing, a part of her brain still functioned on auto pilot, watching out for her. Protection first and always was her driving mantra. She was all she had.
Never did a day go by that she did not think of her own boy. The one she buried in the ocean. Still, she could not bring herself to admit how she was completely responsible for his death. She was reckless and stupid. Still. She pushed the thoughts away. Kept them buried. This was La Costa’s way of coping with truths too horrible to face. She simply shut out the thoughts from her mind and forged ahead.
* * *
The drugs and booze had done their work over time to age La Costa duly. It became harder to maintain a fresh, youthful look and a well-toned body when the only thing you fed it was a steady diet of sleeping pills to wind down and a smorgasbord of uppers washed down with champagne cocktails to stay awake, night after night.
Both La Costa as well as Panther were heavy smokers, finding that it helped curb the appetite and kept them at their ideal Kitten weight. But the practice merely masked an inventory of more serious addictions that followed. They shot up frequently before going on stage, for an extra “boost,” coming down slowly with the aid of barbiturates and pot, a steady supply that was as available as chewing gum around the club where everything was at their disposal—for a price. Soon it became progressively harder to keep up with their costly habits. And sleeping with the regular patrons for money, the ready answer.
Lavish parties lasting for days were hosted by top photographers, dealmakers, entrepreneurs, stockbrokers, CEOs, club owners . . . a never-ending holiday with rich, powerful men footing the bill and vying for the chance to be alone with them. Kittens were a commodity, and on any given night they were liable to attend any number of extravagant, high-profile soirees, where the only invitation necessary was the smile that they wore. The drugs and the booze and the money were free flowing. A never-ending carnival ride where behind every door another admirer was there to meet one of Ms. Lucy’s girls and enjoy for themselves, much more.
Staying high was the mechanism that kept La Costa numb to the realities of her fate. But, unfortunately, it also blinded her greatly to the truth—that she was also numbing her soul. A feeling that frightened her to the core whenever she allowed it to surface.
Chapter Ten
1995
It was well past seven one morning when La Costa noticed that Panther had not come home the night before. The last she had seen of her was at some screen-director’s place in Woodland Hills, diving into a crystalline heart-shaped swimming pool fully clothed, while a coked-out cadre of partygoers looked on.
Was she all right? La Costa wondered. Panther had been pretty messed up. It wasn’t like her to just leave a party without checking on each other’s whereabouts. She remembered vaguely stumbling into the game room, where a man and a woman were arguing, trying to settle a bet. She staggered past the billiard table, where another couple was copulating right there on the green felt. Someone was tugging at her arm, and, wasted out of her mind . . . she followed. The tinkling of ice in his rock glass made her giggle . . . they waded through a hazy crowd of burnouts and junkies, leaning against the living room walls and stretched out on the floor. She remembered seeing two other girls from the club that she knew, Shana and Goldie. They waved her over. Shana was waving a champagne glass, and then the four of them stepped out onto the patio. That’s where she saw Panther, plunging out of the pool, running to the garden shed, peeling her skirt and blouse off as she ran; her straight black hair flowing down her back. She was laughing and falling down in the grass beneath a gigantic summer moon.
That was all La Costa could remember. Nothing more. The rest
of the memory went dark. She couldn’t remember how she even got home. Thankfully, she awoke in her own bed—alone. She was wearing the same outfit from the night before.
Panther’s bed, however, hadn’t been slept in.
The telephone razzed her brain from a deep sleep. “La Costa . . . it’s Shana!” She was frantic and breathless. “It’s Panther—we’re at County General. Jesus Christ, she wasn’t breathing! We found her this morning, lying beside the pool—out cold. They’re trying to pump her stomach now or some shit. Oh, God—Lucy’s gonna fucking freak out!”
La Costa didn’t bother changing. Dumping the contents of her purse onto the bed, she grabbed her keys and was out the door. The five shared a racy Corvette that was parked up the street. La Costa ran the four blocks to the garage with her high-heeled sandals tucked beneath her arm. Then she jumped behind the wheel and sped to the hospital, holding her splitting head all the way. At any moment, she feared, she would lose focus and hurl the red rocket into an oncoming lane. Tears streamed down her cheeks, burning her lips. The stale, rancid taste in her throat was a mixture of whiskey, cheese dip, and bile. She blew her nose on a fast-food napkin from the floorboard and prayed aloud as the wind rushed through her as she sped fearlessly and recklessly along the freeway. “Please, dear God . . . don’t let her die! Please don’t let Panther die!”
La Costa bolted through the emergency entrance doors and was instantly hit with the unmistakable stench of the trauma ward, mixed with the stale tangle of smells that always permeate hospitals. Sour wafts of air, antiseptic . . . sterile . . . full of fear. Of death.
Residents in lab coats and blue scrubs hurried in and out of doors, and orderlies in green uniforms wheeled carts and gurneys in all directions. La Costa sprinted to the large reception desk breathlessly.
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