Strip Tease

by Carl Hiaasen

The room got tense. Erin said to Orly, “Congratulations. You’ve hit a new low.”

  “Watch it,” he warned. “You just watch how you talk.”

  Monique Jr., normally timid, said: “I don’t believe it—that’s why you made it so cold? So we’d get hard?”

  “Nipples,” Orly declared, “are a mighty important part of this enterprise.”

  In the corner, Shad muffled a laugh.

  Erin said, “Turn up the thermostat, or we don’t dance.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” said Orly.

  Erin picked up a ballpoint pen and wrote on the blotter: 72 DEGREES OR NO DANCING!

  Orly said, “I’ll pretend I didn’t see that.” He was waiting for Erin to back down. So were the other dancers. Orly adopted a menacing tone: “Insubordination can be dangerous, young lady. Remember what happened to poor Gonzalo.”

  Poor Gonzalo was the Eager Beaver’s previous owner, whose bullet-riddled corpse had been dumped on the interstate—punishment, Orly claimed, for filching from the coin boxes on the Foosball machines.

  “Bottom line is, Fat Tony likes things to run smooth,” Orly said.

  Erin suspected that Fat Tony and the Mafia had nothing to do with Gonzalo’s death. More likely, it was a dispute between Gonzalo and one of his many PCP suppliers.

  “Tell you what,” said Erin. “Why don’t you ask Fat Tony to stop by the club tonight?”

  Orly was dumbstruck. He rocked precariously in his roost.

  “I want him to strip down,” Erin said. “See if he doesn’t freeze his saggy old Mafia tits.”

  The other dancers murmured in amazement. What had gotten into this girl?

  “Well?” Erin said. “Give the man a call.”

  Orly looked whipped. “You’re on very thin ice,” he said weakly.

  Erin smiled. “I bet it’s warm and cozy down at the Flesh Farm.”

  “Oh Christ,” said Orly. “Don’t even think about it.”

  She turned to the other dancers. “Show of hands?” One by one, the women joined up.

  “No!” cried Orly. “You stay away from those fucking Lings!”

  “Then turn up the damn thermostat,” said Urbana Sprawl, freshly emboldened. “Fat Tony don’t want his dancers out sick with a chest cold.”

  The two Moniques began to giggle. Shad turned toward the imitation red velvet wall, to hide his grin. He knew there was no Fat Tony and no mob connection. The principal investors in the Eager Beaver were a group of relatively harmless orthopedic surgeons from Lowell, Massachusetts.

  A reluctant Orly said he’d raise the temperature in the main lounge to seventy degrees. Erin held out for seventy-one.

  “All right,” Orly agreed, “but I want to see some rock-hard cherries. I mean it!”

  Erin proceeded with Item Two on the agenda. “We’ve been kicking around some ideas for a new name.”

  “Forget it,” Orly sniffed. “I already said no.”

  “Something classy.”

  “You want classy? Teach these fucking bimbos how to dance. Then maybe we’ll talk about a classy name. For now, the Eager Beaver is perfect.”

  “Candy Rockers,” Erin said. “Sexy but not crude. What do you think?”

  “I think,” Orly said, “that I give these girls a video from only the hottest joint in Dallas, right? All they gotta do is pop it in the VCR and watch the motherfucking tape. I mean, a chimpanzee could pick up some a these steps—”

  “It takes time,” said Erin.

  “Like hell.” Orly pointed at Sabrina, who was absorbed in polishing her toenails. “You watch that tape?”

  Sabrina bowed her head and said no.

  “Case closed.” Orly slammed his hand on the arm of the chair. “Case closed. We’ll switch to a classy name when I see some classy dancing.”

  Urbana Sprawl waved. “Mr. Orly, I looked at that video. I believe those Dallas girls were high on crank.”

  “Oh, is that it?” Orly laid on the sarcasm.

  “Candy Rockers,” Erin said again. “Think about it, OK?”

  Someone knocked quietly on the door. Orly motioned to Shad, who went to the back of the office and positioned himself strategically at the doorway.

  “Who’s there?” he asked.

  A thick voice on the other side said: “Police.”

  Shad looked to his boss for instructions.

  “Shit,” Orly said. “What now?” His face turned the color of spackle.

  Erin wasn’t sure what to make of Sgt. Al García. She didn’t know if he was a good policeman or a lousy policeman, but she knew he’d never make it in the FBI. He was not an assiduous note taker.

  However, other factors worked in his favor. Eleven whole minutes had passed and Al García hadn’t yet propositioned her, or even asked if she was married. That set him apart from most cops who dropped by the Eager Beaver.

  He sat across from Erin in a back booth. Orly, citing phony flu symptoms, had slithered out the front exit. Shad was at the bar, haggling with a wholesaler over two cases of Haitian rum. On stage, Urbana Sprawl danced to a dirty rap song.

  Erin wore a lace teddy, a white G-string and high heels—not ideal attire for a police interview. García smoked a cigar and paid no attention to the perfumed surroundings. He handed Erin a Xeroxed copy of a Florida driver’s license. When she saw the photograph of Jerry Killian, she knew she was looking at a dead man. García had already told her.

  “Exactly what happened?” Her mouth had gone dry and her eardrums buzzed faintly.

  “Drowned,” the detective said. “Your picture is hanging in his apartment.”

  “Mine and a dozen others.”

  “I found a stack of cocktail napkins on the bedstand. Did you know about that? Eager Beaver cocktail napkins.”

  With extreme firmness, Erin said: “I never saw his bedroom.”

  “He wrote notes on these damn napkins. Notes to himself, notes to his kids, notes to you.” García paused. “Is the smoke bothering you?”

  “No,” said Erin, “it’s my all-time favorite aroma. That and gum turpentine.”

  Without apologizing, the detective extinguished the cigar.

  “Tell me what happened,” Erin said. It was still sinking in—Mr. Peepers was dead. This was too much. “I want to know everything,” she said.

  “What happened is, your friend floated up deceased in the Clark Fork River and spoiled my trout fishing. You ever been there—the Clark Fork?” García reached in his jacket and took out an envelope of family snapshots. He found one photo showing the river and the mountains, and he handed it to Erin. “Mineral County, Montana. Beautiful country, no?”

  Erin agreed. In the foreground of the photograph was an attractive woman and two children. They looked perfectly normal, Al García’s family.

  “Not many homicides in Mineral County,” the detective was saying. “The coroner takes one look at Mr. Tourist, all dressed up in his L.L. Beans, and says Accidental Drowning. Being the hardass ill-mannered big-city Cuban that I am, I politely request to peek inside Mr. Tourist’s chest. The coroner, nice guy, says sure. Unzips ’em right on the spot.”

  Erin’s low-cal lunch did a slow somersault in her stomach. She asked García what was found inside Jerry Killian.

  “Not much.” García held his dead cigar poised, like a paintbrush. “A little water in the lungs. That’s to be expected. But when a man drowns in a lake or a river, he also tends to suck up grass, bugs, sand—you’d be surprised. One night we got a floater off Key Biscayne, had a baby queen angelfish in his bronchioles!”

  Al García spoke loudly to be heard over the dance music. “You don’t look so hot. Want me to come back some other time?”

  “Could you get to the punch line,” Erin said, impatiently. “In ten minutes it’s my set.”

  “Sure,” said García. “Here’s the deal. The Clark Fork was full of bugs and leaves—dip a bucket in the river and you’d see what I mean. But the water in Killian’s body was amazingly clean.”
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  “Tap water,” Erin said.

  “You’re a smart girl.”

  “So somebody killed him?”

  “Probably in a bathtub,” García said, “if I had to guess.”

  “Can we go outside?” Erin asked.

  “Only if you let me smoke.”

  Shad followed them to the parking lot. Erin motioned him to go away. Al García acted as if he didn’t care one way or the other. He lit his cigar and leaned up against his car, an unmarked blue Caprice.

  Erin said, “You’re serious about Jerry being murdered?”

  “His ex says he went fishing out West every year. This time was different in one respect: when he got there, he never took out a fishing license. That’s damn strange.” García turned away and blew smoke into the darkness. “Two local boys saw him going downriver on a raft, alone in a rainstorm.”

  “Alive?”

  “I doubt it. You got any ideas, Mrs. Grant?”

  Erin said, “Let me think on it. Things are complicated.” Maternal instinct told her to avoid the subject of Angela, and Jerry Killian’s promise. It was possible that García already knew.

  “For the record,” he said, “you didn’t kill him, did you?”

  Erin laughed in bitter astonishment. “No, sir. I didn’t love him, I didn’t sleep with him, and I most definitely didn’t kill him.”

  “I believe you,” García said. “But I’m a sucker for high heels.”

  He gave her his card. She studied it curiously. “This says Dade County.”

  “Yeah, that’s a problem. We’re in Broward, aren’t we?” García rolled the stogie back and forth in his mouth. “Montana’s a long way off, Mrs. Grant. It may take me a while to drum up local interest.”

  “But technically it’s not your jurisdiction.”

  “That’s right,” he said, agreeably. “I’m meddling, pure and simple.”

  “Why?” Erin asked.

  “Because my boy is the one who found him.” García took out his car keys. “You got children, you’ll understand.”

  “Is he all right—your son?”

  “Sure. He just wants to know what happened, and I’d prefer to tell him the truth. Anyway, floaters happen to be right up my alley, I’m proud to say.”

  Al García’s voice trailed off. He looked tired and preoccupied and ten years older than he probably was. Erin fought back an urge to tell him everything.

  “I’d like to help,” she said, “but I doubt if I can. Mr. Killian was a customer, that’s all. I hardly knew the man.”

  García flicked the cigar. It landed with a hiss in a puddle.

  After he got in the car, Erin motioned him to roll down the window. She stepped up to the door and said, “If it’s not an official investigation, how’d you get inside his apartment?”

  “All I did was ask the super.” García winked. “A badge is a badge.” He started the car. “Get back inside,” he told Erin, “before you catch cold.”

  “Will there be a service?” she asked.

  “For Killian? Not for a while. The coroner promised he won’t sign the papers for a week or so, until I check around.”

  “So where’s Jerry’s body?”

  “In a freezer in downtown Missoula,” García said. “Him and two tons of dead elk.”

  Cousin Joyce wasn’t the very last person in the world that Mordecai wanted to see, but she was high on the list.

  “Disaster,” she said, dropping a stack of color slides on his desk. “I found these in Paul’s underwear drawer.”

  “And how is Paul?” asked Mordecai.

  “Feeling better,” Joyce said. “Temporarily.”

  “Any luck locating the phantom synagogue?”

  “There was no synagogue,” she said. “Look at the slides, Mordecai.”

  They were the photographs taken by Paul Guber’s friend at the ill-fated bachelor party. The lawyer went through the slides methodically, holding each one up to a goosenecked lamp.

  Joyce sat down and began to sniffle. “That’s the man I wanted to marry.”

  As Mordecai peered at the pictures, he longed for a projector and a screen. The women were happy-looking, gorgeous and nude. The lawyer pitied Paul Guber, for there was no mistaking his youthful face, buried serenely in the bare loins of a brunette. The effect was to give him a curly goatee.

  “Obviously alcohol was involved,” Mordecai said. “Too much alcohol.”

  “Don’t make excuses. I want you to sue the bastard.”

  “For what? You’re not married yet.”

  “Some lawyer,” she said, blowing her nose.

  “What’s this?” Mordecai was examining the last slide, which differed in content from the others. In it, a paunchy silver-haired man loomed over the still-kneeling Paul Guber. With both hands the stranger was raising a green bottle over his head, as if swinging an ax. His face was twisted with rage. Behind the stranger was the figure of a larger man lunging with outstretched arms, trying to stop the attack.

  “Dynamite,” Mordecai said. He took a magnifying glass from the top drawer and hunched over the slide.

  “I’m so glad you’re amused,” said Joyce. “My future is in shambles, but thank God you’re enjoying yourself.”

  “Joyce?”

  “What?”

  “Shut up, please.”

  The sniffling stopped. His cousin’s expression turned cold and spiteful.

  Mordecai glowed as he looked up from the pictures. “I know these guys!”

  “Who? What are you smiling about?”

  “Joyce, go home immediately. Take care of your fiancé.”

  “I can’t. He’s playing golf.”

  “No!” Mordecai exclaimed. “He can’t possibly be playing golf. He’s a very sick man. He’s got cluster migraines. Blackouts. Double vision. Go find him, Joyce. Tend to him.”

  The lawyer hustled her toward the door. “I’ll be out to see you tomorrow. We’ve much to talk about.”

  Joyce balked. “And what about me? I’m expected to forget what I saw on those pictures? My fiancé, the man I planned to marry, licking at the belly of some sleazy whore. I’m supposed to put that awful image out of my mind!”

  “If you’re smart, yes,” the lawyer said, “because we’ve still got one hell of a case.”

  “Suing a nudie bar?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Mordecai held his cousin by the shoulders. “First rule of torts: always go after the deepest pockets—in this case, the fellow who assaulted Paul.”

  “So who is he?” Joyce demanded.

  “We’ll discuss it later.”

  “A celebrity?” She was hoping for a movie star. “Let’s see that picture again.”

  “Later,” said Mordecai, aiming her toward the door.

  “He’s got money? You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Oh, I’m certain he can get it,” the lawyer said. “I’m as certain as I can be.”

  Mordecai thought: Finally it pays to be a Democrat!

  11

  Midnight found Congressman Dilbeck and Christopher Rojo in high spirits at the Flesh Farm. They were celebrating Dilbeck’s good news, as related by Malcolm Moldowsky via Erb Crandall: the blackmail threat was vanquished! The elated congressman sought no details, and none were offered. Moldy was a magician, his tricks meant to be secret and mystical. Dilbeck and Rojo drank a toast to the greasy little rat-fucker, then turned their attentions toward the dance stage. Soon the blue haze filled with paper airplanes made from U.S. currency. By closing time, Dilbeck and Rojo were fast friends with two of the Flesh Farm dancers.

  Dawn found the foursome eighty miles away, on a levee on the southeastern shore of Lake Okeechobee. Wearing only knee socks and Jockey shorts, Chris Rojo was orating the history of sugar cultivation and Congressman Dilbeck’s role in it. The dancers complained of being chewed by fire ants, and retreated on four-inch heels to the air-conditioned comfort of the limousine, where Pierre prepared Bloody Marys.

  Rojo paced the dike and cha
ttered nonstop, a typically brilliant cocaine monologue. “Two hundred thousand acres of muck, glorious muck,” he said. “Sweet sugar cane, far as the eye can see …”

  Dilbeck’s gin-clouded retinas barely saw past the laces of his shoes. The first rays of sunlight warmed his bare shoulders and ignited an itchy prickle of insect tracks. Dilbeck rocked from one leg to the other, as if he’d spent the night on a very small boat. “I may puke,” he announced to Rojo.

  It was the young millionaire’s first visit to the fields where his family fortune was sown. He raised lean brown arms to the sky and cried: “Twenty-three cents a pound!” The bleating caused Dilbeck to wince. “Twenty-three cents!” Rojo yowled again. “Thank you, Tio Sam! Thank you, Davey.”

  Twenty-three cents per pound was the average wholesale price of the sugar grown by Christopher Rojo’s family corporation. The inflated figure was set by the United States Congress and monitored by the Commodity Credit Corporation, an arm of the Department of Agriculture. Rojo had good reason to be thankful: Cane sugar from the Caribbean sold for only twelve cents per pound on the world market. Strict import quotas kept most foreign sugar out of America, thus allowing the Rojos to maintain their fixed price and, thus, their grossly excessive lifestyle. Whenever the import quotas came under attack from international trade groups, Congress charged to the rescue. Dilbeck was one of Big Sugar’s best friends, and Chris Rojo never missed an opportunity to demonstrate his gratitude. Now, standing on the levee, he locked the congressman in a ferociously sloppy embrace.

  Dilbeck felt himself teetering, and pulled free. “I don’t feel so good. Where are the girls?”

  “Who knows,” said Rojo. “Relax, my friend. There will always be girls.”

  The congressman squinted into the sun. “Did we get laid last night?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Me neither,” Dilbeck said. “I’m assuming we did.”

  “For a thousand dollars, I certainly hope so.”

  Dilbeck grimaced at the sum. “That’s what you paid?”

  “Five hundred each. So what?” Chris Rojo’s voice was dry and high-pitched. “It’s nothing to me,” he said. “Just money.”

  Dilbeck felt his body heat rise with the sun. He touched the back of his neck and found it damp. He wondered what had happened to his shirt. He hoped that one of Mr. Ling’s dancers had chewed it off in a sexual frenzy.