I looked from Glenda to the girls. "What about Sunday when the police had all the dancers come in for questioning?"
Bit-O-Honey threw her hands in the air, along with her chicken leg. "She never showed."
My gut lurched, and it wasn't from that kicking cow. "Has anyone reported her missing to the police?"
Glenda placed the bronzer brush on the counter. "Curaçao is known for her benders, Miss Franki. But I'm sure that Eugene told the police all about this today."
I leaned back in my chair. With Amber dead, Curaçao's disappearance could mean only one of two things. Either she didn't want to answer questions about her enemy's murder or she couldn't because she was dead too.
7
"Curaçao hasn't shown up for her shift, sugar," Glenda said, climbing onto the barstool beside me. "And she's still not answering her phone."
I took a sip of chicory coffee from Madame Moiselle's signature "mammary mug" as I digested the worrisome news. "Do we have an address for her?"
"That child is a free spirit," Glenda replied as though she were the epitome of conformity. "The last we heard, she was sleeping on some friend's couch. You'll have to ask Eugene if he knows who or where that is."
If he ever comes back. Eugene had been at the police station the entire day, and I knew why. Because he'd found Amber's body and had keys to the club, he was a prime suspect in the eyes of the law. The question was, did he deserve to be?
"In the meantime," Glenda continued as she hopped from the barstool in platform penny loafers, "the peep show must go on. Is it all right if I cover for Curaçao? Or do you need me to do some more sleuthin'?"
"It's six o'clock. The work day's over," I said, raising the mammary to my mouth.
"You going home?" she asked, tying her white button-down shirt into a knot beneath her bosom.
"Nah." I swiveled on my stool and leaned my back on the bar. "Bradley left town today, and Veronica offered to look after Napoleon, so I think I'll stick around tonight and observe—you know, see if I notice anything out of the ordinary." For a strip club, that is.
"Well, slap my ass and call me happy!" she exclaimed as she demonstrated the gesture. "I'm about to practice one of my acts for The Saints, Sinners, and Sluts Revue, so you'll finally get to see me dance."
I did my best to look enthusiastic, but seeing my sixty-something-year-old landlady strip was not on my bucket list—nor was slapping her ass. Besides, judging from her pigtail braids, micro-mini plaid skirt, and knee socks, I feared that she was about to reenact Britney Spears's "Baby One More Time" video. "You're a slut, right?"
"Yes indeedy, Miss Franki." She curtseyed, purposefully displaying boobs adorned with pasties shaped like crosses—the religious kind, not the Red Cross kind. "I'm a Catholic schoolgirl."
As she turned and strutted toward the stairs, I vowed vindication for present and former Catholic schoolgirls everywhere.
"Ride 'em, cowboy!" a female shouted.
Glancing toward the main stage, I saw Saddle galloping and cracking her whip as the song "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" began to play. "I don't care what Glenda says," I muttered, "that woman's name has nothing to do with making saddles."
I spun around to the bar to get one of Eve's honey-garlic chicken wings, but instead I came face-to-face with a turkey. From my up-close-and-personal viewpoint, I put him in his early forties. Apart from a noteworthy mole growing from his right eyebrow, his most distinguishing feature was his complete lack of fashion sense, i.e., baby blue bell-bottoms and a purple and white, floral-print shirt unbuttoned to his navel. If he'd been wearing a denim newsboy cap, he would've looked like one of the Wild and Crazy Guys.
"Hello, luscious. Didn't I see you at Hooters?" he asked, his eyes glued to my honkers.
I wasn't surprised by the lame line or the lascivious linger, but I was struck by the way he seemed to swallow his l's. It sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure why. "Sorry to disappoint you," I began, blowing my honey-garlic breath in his face, "but I'm not looking to hook up. I'm here on business."
His eyes glinted like the gold medallion nestled in the fur rug on his chest. "You're in luck, lady, because I'm the manager," he announced, holding out his hand. "Eugene Michael."
Finally. Opting to skip the handshake, I said, "I'm Franki Amato."
"Amato, eh?" He moved his unshaken hand to his chin and rubbed his unshaven beard. "We could use a fiery Italian onstage."
I flashed a smart-aleck smile. "I'm sure you could, but it's not going to be this fiery Italian." I pulled a business card from my bag and placed it on the bar counter in front of him. "I'm investigating Amber Brown's murder."
He pulled a comb from his back pocket and ran it through his slicked-back hair, and I wondered whether he felt as cool and collected as he was trying to make me believe.
"You must be Glenda's friend," he said, returning the greasy comb to his pocket. "What can I do for you?"
"Answer some questions about Amber," I shot back.
He looked down and gave a frustrated sigh. "I met her the day she came into the club and asked me for a job, and I haven't seen her since she quit." He raised his head, and this time he looked me in the eyes. "So, I had nothing to do with her death, all right?"
Eugene was clearly on the defensive. The way I saw it, either he was tired of being questioned, or he was hiding something. "Do you know why she quit after only two months?"
"Strippers like to move around, look for better money, and in this industry it's easy to do," he said as he walked behind the bar. "You show up to a club, and if you've got good moves and the cash to pay the house fee, you can dance."
It didn't seem right that the women had to pay to work, but then there were a lot of things about this business that didn't seem right. "Carlos told me that you closed the club after he and Iris were arrested. What time did you leave?"
"At around five thirty," he replied as he browsed the bottles on the bar. "Then I went home to bed, and I didn't get up until Carlos called at noon and told me that his and Iris's bail had been set." He picked out a bottle of vodka. "And since no one can vouch for me, I'm evidently a suspect."
I remembered the surveillance camera that I'd seen in the VIP Room. "What about the video from the security system? If you had nothing to do with Amber's death, that could potentially clear you."
"There is no video because we don't run the system after hours," he replied, placing a highball glass on the counter. "Can I offer you a drink?"
"No, thanks." I wondered whether he was telling the truth about the video. If he was, Amber could've known that the cameras wouldn't be running since she'd worked at the club. But had the killer known this too? "Did Amber have problems with any of the clients?"
He laughed revealing discolored teeth, and my tooth gave a pang of repulsion. "The girls have problems with a lot of the clients," he said, pouring himself two fingers of vodka. "If I told you about some of our VIP Room regulars, you'd take me up on that drink offer."
After Bit-O-Honey's story about The Fly, I was inclined to agree with him. "What can you tell me about Amber's feud with Curaçao?"
"They had a few cat fights over one of Curaçao's regulars, a guy named Shakey." He took a swig of his drink and wiped his mouth. "Curaçao claims that he was going to propose to her and that Amber got wind of it and deliberately stole him."
If Curaçao had lost a husband to Amber, then she could've hated her enough to kill her. But until she surfaced, I couldn't rule out the possibility that she'd met with foul play too, maybe even at the hands of this Shakey character. "Do you think it's possible that Curaçao killed Amber?"
He gripped his glass. "As nuts as that chick is? Definitely."
"What about Shakey?" I pressed. "Do you think he could've done it?"
Eugene shot the remainder of his vodka. "I don't know anything about the guy except that he's a Texas oil man who wears a Stetson. But sure. Why not?"
I pulled out my notepad and jotted down the description,
although I didn't hold out much hope of finding Shakey given that he sounded like a few hundred thousand other men in Texas. "Do you have any idea where Curaçao is? Some of the girls told me that she hasn't been seen since her shift on Saturday night, and I'm afraid she could be in danger."
"Don't worry," he said, pouring another drink. "Like I told the police, she parties pretty hard—alcohol, drugs, you name it. Sometimes she takes off for days at a time without telling anyone. But she always comes back."
If Curaçao had a substance abuse problem, she could be somewhere getting high or in withdrawal or worse. "Do you happen to know the name of the friend she's staying with?"
He drained his glass. "Maybe."
I blinked, wondering whether he was expecting a bribe for the information. "It's either yes or no."
"No, it's Maybe," he said, placing the glass on the counter. "That's her name. She danced here once or twice a couple of months back."
Now I wished that I'd asked for some of that vodka, because this case was going to give me a nervous breakdown. "You seem to know a lot about Curaçao. Were you ever intimately involved with her? Or with Amber?"
He moved in close and looked me in the eyes. "Honey, I stay as far away from these chicks as I can get."
A shrill whistle pierced the air followed by a strident "Yippee-ki-yay, y'all!"
I almost jumped from my stool. I glared over my shoulder and saw Saddle exiting the stage as Carlos the bartender pushed a fake altar up a ramp. Glenda must have been preparing to make her ungodly entrance, and that was my cue to look the hell away.
"Tell me something," I said, turning back to Eugene. "What do you think Amber was doing in that bathtub?"
He leaned on the counter with his forearms. "Probably getting it on with some loser who killed her for kicks."
I pretended to look at my notes while I recovered from my revulsion. "Did the police mention anything about a necklace?"
"You mean the amber?" he asked, arching the brow with the mole.
Apparently, he'd been questioned about the pendant even though Veronica had advised Detective Sullivan to keep its existence from the public. "Yeah, I'm curious about whether you have any thoughts on why the killer would steal it."
He straightened and hiked up his pants. "My first thought was that one of the girls killed Amber for the pendant."
I narrowed my eyes. "Why would you think that?"
"Because stuff goes missing around here practically every day," he said, opening his arms wide. "If it isn't nailed down or locked up, the girls take it. And they love sparkly things."
"So," I began, crossing my arms, "all strippers are thieves, huh?"
"Not all of them," he replied, raising a finger. "Just some."
For a second, I figured that he was trying to deflect suspicion from himself. But then I remembered that I had seen one of the girls, probably Curaçao, leaving the club with a suitcase containing Lord only knew what. "You mean, like Curaçao?"
"Primarily her," he replied with a pointed look.
"Eugene," Glenda called as she flounced up to the bar in her stripper schoolgirl uniform. "That darn sound system stopped working again." She gave a haughty flip of her braids. "I just can't work in these conditions."
It had to be divine intervention.
"I'll take care of it," he said, taking one last, lustful look at my breasts before exiting the bar.
Eugene was a creep, but I wasn't convinced that he was a killer. Curaçao, however, was a different story. From the sound of things, she had a healthy hatred for Amber and a strong motive to kill her on top of some psychological issues. I needed to talk to her ASAP.
I just hoped that I still could.
The legs on the stripper-pole clock above the bar read ten p.m. I yawned and looked around Madame Moiselle's. After four straight hours of shaking, slapping, and sliding, I was spent. And I wasn't even doing the dancing. I was considering calling it a night because, as far as I could tell, everything was on the up and up at the club—thanks in part to the silicone.
My phone began to vibrate on the counter, and Ruth's name appeared on the display.
Eager for a break from the boobs and booties, I grabbed my phone and hurried through the hotbed of horny men toward the exit. But outside on Bourbon Street, it was almost as loud as the club. I tapped answer and covered my ear with my hand in an attempt to drown out the blaring jazz music and the din of the revelers. "Hey, Ruth," I shouted. "I'm glad you called."
"Where are you at?" she barked. "A damn rave?"
All right, maybe I wasn't so glad. "Madame Moiselle's."
A moment of silence ensued, followed by a gagging sound.
"Ruth?" I prodded worried that she was choking on an ice cube or something. "Are you okay?"
She inhaled sharply. "I told you to lay low," she rasped, "so first you come to the bank and get sloppy drunk, then you head straight to a titty bar?"
I grimaced as I realized that she hadn't been gagging, but raging. "Relax, will ya?" I huffed. "I'm here investigating a case. And I didn't get 'sloppy drunk.'"
She harrumphed. "Then why does my desk smell like a saloon?"
Annoyed, I collapsed against the exterior wall of the club—until a woman standing next to me pulled up her "I'm getting married, B*tches" t-shirt to flash some guys on the balcony across the street. "That was no well whiskey," I began, bolting away from the bodacious bride, "that was Dom Pérignon champagne, and it inspired a perfume, FYI."
"Yeah, for cheap tarts," she quipped. "Now what in the hell were you thinkin' drinkin' bubbly at my desk?"
I sighed. Compared to a conversation with Ruth, the strip club seemed like a spa. "Look, I spilled it on your desk because I tripped over Jeff when I found him eavesdropping at Bradley's office door."
"Well, well, well." She took a sonorous slurp. "And I found him alone in Bradley's office when I came back from my mammogram. The doc said my girls are doing fine, by the way."
My lips curled. I was up to my eyeballs in "girls" here at the club and on Bourbon Street, so I didn't need Ruth's old gals added to the mammary mix. "What was Jeff doing in Bradley's office?"
"He said he was looking for some loan contract, but we both know that was a load of bull pucky." She let out a boisterous belch. "So, I waited until he went home for the night, and then I broke into his office."
Panic gripped my chest. The last thing Bradley or I needed right now was Ruth getting arrested. "You didn't damage the door or anything, did you?"
"I want to keep my job, thank you." She popped the tab of some kind of can. "If you must know, I picked the lock. It's a skill I acquired in the Girl Scouts."
"For what?" I exclaimed. "The breaking-and-entering badge?"
"Let's just say that it was an inner-city troop and leave it at that."
As I processed her reply, something hit me in the head. I reached down to pick up the offending object—a set of Mardi Gras beads with a plastic penis pendant that said Madame Moiselle's.
"Sorry, Franki," Bit-O-Honey called from above.
I looked up to see her—and her bare breasts—leaning over the balcony as I rubbed the welt on my head. "Did you find anything interesting in Jeff's office?"
"You bet your patootie, I did," Ruth growled. "A receipt from Casamento's for two soft-shell crab loaves."
Casamento's was an old Italian restaurant on Magazine Street that looked like a giant swimming pool inside because of the original owner's penchant for imported tile. "So what? I just ate pan bread and oyster stew there a week ago."
"I'll tell you what." She chomped a piece of ice. "It's dated the day before Martin Slater, one of those two clients Bradley lost, canceled his account. And according to Bradley's client files, that's not only Slater's favorite restaurant, it's his favorite meal too."
My jaw tensed, and I squeezed the plastic penis. It looked bad—for Jeff—but I needed to be certain that he was turning clients against Bradley. "We need hard evidence." I caught a glimpse of my hand and prompt
ly dropped the beads. "Like an email or letter."
"I'm on it," she said. "Now I've gotta scoot. The Best of Divorce Court is coming on."
I knew better than to stand between Ruth and her armchair justice, so I hung up without further ado.
As I stood on the street pondering the situation at Pontchartrain Bank, a guy wearing nothing but a mesh shirt rubbernecked my rack. I laid a lethal look on him and entered Madame Moiselle's. It was cleaner inside the club.
"Club's closed! Everyone out!"
I bolted up on my barstool at the sound of Carlos's voice. The t & a show had gotten so tiresome that I must've dozed off.
Carlos removed some dirty glasses from the bar. "Glenda asked me to tell you that she was going upstairs to change."
"Thanks," I said. Although I couldn't fathom why she had to change when the costumes she wore at the club were the same as her street clothes.
As he began loading the glasses into a dishwasher, I scanned the room and saw the last of the patrons stumbling out the exit. Now that the club was empty, I wanted to search for any evidence that might've been overlooked.
"Hey, Carlos," I began, sliding off my stool, "when Glenda comes down would you let her know that I'm taking a look around the club?"
"Sure thing," he replied as he wiped the counter where my head had been laying.
Hoping I hadn't left behind a pool of drool, I headed for the prop room behind the main stage to check out Lili St. Cyr's claw-foot tub. When I pushed open the door and switched on the light, I gasped. Many of the items were larger than life so that a dancer could fit inside. There was a martini glass, a birdcage, a fishbowl, and a high heel, just to name a few. It looked like a giant was having a garage sale.
After a minute or so of searching, I spotted the bathtub in a corner to my right beside a three-tiered cake. For a moment, I forgot about the tub and gazed with yearning at the colossal confection. It had been so long since I'd had sweets that I seriously considered taking a bite.
Franki Amato Mysteries Box Set Page 61