Last Girl Dancing

by Kate Aeon

  Ginger Rose nodded toward Jess, but didn’t say anything to her. Instead, she leaned against the wall next to the dressing table and closed her eyes. “Thanks, River, thanks. God, he scared the shit out of me. Right side of your locker?”

  River put a locker key in the redhead’s hand and said, “Right side. Whichever costume you want.”

  “I’ll have it cleaned before I stick it back in your locker. Bastard destroyed all my costumes. You have any idea how much it’s going to cost me to replace them? Most of them were originals from seamstresses — not that off-the-rack stuff. There’s no way I wasn’t going to show up for work today, though. I have a house payment and a car payment, and he’s going, ‘Find a job where you keep your clothes on.’ Just like that. I don’t know how to type, and I don’t know how to file, and retail won’t pay the bills. Besides, I love dancing.”

  River, who was ready, patted her on the shoulder on her way to the door. “Don’t give him another thought.” She grinned a little, and spun once in front of Cree, Jess, and the redhead. “New costume — just got it today. You like?”

  “Definitely a boost for the pedophile crowd,” the redhead said, and Cree, who’d been watching her lips, laughed.

  “I like it,” Cree said.

  Jess said, “It’s cute.”

  “Got it online, forty-five bucks. Summer, I’m on in about thirty seconds, and you’re next after me, so you have fifteen minutes until you go on. Make sure you’re ready in ten and out by the door, though, so you have a little time to breathe. You’ll do fine.”

  “Newbie?” the redhead asked River.

  “It’s her first time.”

  “Sure it is,” Ginger Rose said, rolling her eyes, and left the dressing room.

  Jess’s surprise must have shown on her face, because River said, “A lot of girls claim it’s their first time. Mostly to the guys, though. The guys like newbies, and sometimes they tip better when they think you’ve never stripped. But you really look like you’ve never done this before. Honestly, once you get out there, it’s a whole lot easier. The waiting is the worst part. You’ll be great.”

  The bottom fell out of Jess’s stomach. “Thanks,” she said.

  When Ginger Rose returned with a belly-dancer costume, however, Jess decided to ignore the redhead’s previous derisive comment. She said, “Give your ex-boyfriend another thought. When you go home, take a couple of big, muscular friends with you. You don’t need to be a statistic, and if you walk into your house and discover that you’re alone with a pissed-off ex waiting for you, you could be.” Ginger Rose started pulling on the borrowed costume. She turned to look at Jess. “This from experience?”

  “Yes,” Jess said, not elaborating.

  Ginger Rose stared at her face in the mirror. “Don’t worry about me and Stan. He’s a goddamned bastard. But all three of my brothers are over at my house right now helping him move out. And when I say helping, you should imagine Stan’s shit flying out onto the grass in pieces. I guarantee you my brothers are a big, big help. I called them at work on my way over here, and every one of them said they’d take a couple hours off to make sure I went home safe.” She looked over at Jess and frowned. “And you don’t have the right coloring to borrow makeup from, dammit. You know how hard it is to find makeup that goes with red hair?”

  “Unfortunately, I do,” Jess said. “I was a redhead for a while once. It was too much trouble.”

  “You do blonde well, though. It matches your skin and your eyes. I can’t be a blonde. It just makes all my freckles stand out.”

  “You’re a natural redhead?” Jess asked, looking at the shocking red of Ginger Rose’s hair and doubting deeply.

  “Yeah — but not this red. Red hair gets darker when you get older. I was a carrot when I was six, but now if I don’t mess with it, it’s mostly brown, except when I’m in the sun. Which, the way I burn, is about never.” She patted Cree on the shoulder, and Cree looked over. “May I borrow your makeup?” she asked, enunciating clearly so that Cree could read her lips.

  “Sure,” Cree said. “Anything you need.” She did a good job of modulating her tones and her volume; Jess wondered if she’d always been deaf, or if her hearing loss came later.

  Jess sat there for a few more minutes, staring at herself in the mirror. She put on the hat, took a deep breath, and gave herself the dancer smile. I’ve already found out things we needed to know, she told herself. They need me here. I can make a difference in this investigation.

  She looked at the clock and sighed again. First time for everything, she told herself. It’s only skin. It’s dancing, and you know how to dance. Smile a lot, make eye contact, don’t do the ballet thing. The pole is a man; your hands are his hands.

  And don’t throw up on stage.

  Jess curled on the bench seat in the bay window in her tiny room, listening to two of her three apartment mates arguing about the number of calories in a quarter slice of pizza, and whether it would be better to eat a quarter of a slice each and keep it down, or eat two or three pieces and then purge it.

  She shouldn’t have roomed with other dancers, she thought. She didn’t need their neuroses as well as her own.

  She watched the rain sliding down the window and said, “We have a bad connection. You’re doing what?”

  “You heard me. Stripping,” Ginny said.

  “Oh, my God. Does Mama know?”

  And Ginny had managed to sound incredulous. “Are you insane? It’s bad enough I’m doing this. You think I’m going to tell her how I’m making my money and then hear about it for the rest of forever? I’m desperate, Jessie. I’m not crazy.”

  “Surely there’s something else you could do.”

  “Of course there is,” Ginny had said. “But not anything that’s going to let me take home three thousand dollars a week, which is what I’m getting right now. It’s temporary, Jessie. I’ll have enough money to pay my tuition for the next year, and then I’ll be done. I’ll join a troupe somewhere, or start auditioning for roles in musicals. But she can’t pay my way.” For an instant, Jess caught a tone of jealousy as Ginny said, “And I didn’t get a full scholarship.”

  Jess sighed. “I’m sorry, Ginny. You should have. You’re wonderful.”

  “So you won’t tell Mama?"

  “No,” Jess said. “I won’t do that.” She’d paused and taken a deep breath. “What’s it like?”

  The line fell silent for a moment, and then Ginny’s voice came back, bemused. “It’s horrible. Men touch you, even though they’re not supposed to. They ask you to let them do things to you that would just make your jaw drop. They act like the biggest favor they could do for you is take you into a dark corner and screw you over the back of a chair.” And then she laughed. “And at the same time, it’s wonderful. When you’re on stage and the lights are on you, you can see them admiring you. Wanting you. Lusting after you. You’re this goddess, and they’re your worshipers, throwing money at you and begging you to be with them. You’re all-powerful. It’s... like a drug. The applause, the appreciation. Some of the men are really nice. I sit and talk to them, and they have such sad lives at home. They’re so grateful for my attention.”

  “It sounds like a weird job,” Jess said.

  “That’s not the half of it.” She laughed. “Just be grateful you’ll never know.”

  Hank was almost the first customer through the door when Goldcastle opened, but the lunch crowd was large. He found himself a place right up against the stage, and settled in with the beer he was going to pretend to drink and a lunch special brought to him by a waitress from the restaurant who was taking orders from an abbreviated lunch menu in the ballroom. Corned-beef sandwich, fries, soggy pickle. None of it was very good, but then Hank supposed most of the guys who were eating in the grand ballroom didn’t pay much attention to the food.

  The deejay dropped the volume on the rock music he’d been playing and did an intro for a girl named River. A cute, young-looking dancer in a school unifo
rm with a plaid skirt, lacy ankle socks, and high, high heels came skipping out to something hideous, yet horribly appropriate, by Britney Spears.

  While River danced, Hank split his attention between her and the men watching her. The early crowd looked like a mix of guys on lunch break from offices around town and out-of-towners. It was tempting to look at the sleazy guy in the back and think that he was suspicious. Except that the victims gave every sign of having trusted the killer, and Hank would bet there wasn’t a girl working at Goldcastle who would willingly go anywhere with Raincoat Bob back there.

  Second song. Equally bouncy, equally bad. Some other teenage singer. Someone really needed to sit down with this River girl and discuss good music, and what it wasn’t. But the dancer was up at the pole, naked except for shoes, socks, and a plaid thong, and Hank had a job to do.

  He fished a five out of his wallet and held it up, and when the dancer swung over to get it, he stuck it into her thong at the hip. She flashed him a big, bright smile, and he could have been hurt by the shiver of distaste he felt underneath it. But he was looking with his fingertips. Seeing with his hands, and what he saw when he touched her was that she had a kid at home. Little girl. A decent home situation, a lot of love. Just the two of them, plus the dancer’s mother. River bore no taint of the death that was all over this place. The poison had not touched her.

  She did two slow songs after that, but Hank’s attention was on a couple of dancers in short, see-through robes who had started circulating among the tables, talking with customers, letting the men buy them drinks, doing table dances.

  He’d need to connect at least briefly with each of them, to see if he could get a feel for whether the killer was present, to see if he was hunting one of them. If his touch was fresh. Because if the killer was in the house right then, it would narrow the suspect list to something manageable.

  And then Jess came out, and Hank almost couldn’t breathe. He actually hadn’t seen her in any of the costumes she’d bought. She was smiling, her hair swinging loose to her shoulders, her bright red cowboy hat framing her face, and she moved like... like...

  He couldn’t think. He had no words. He was watching her, sort of hearing the music in the background but not in any meaningful way. He was lost in longing, knowing that he had turned her down and walked away from his chance to touch her. She was looking at other men, smiling at them, deftly flicking the vest off and tossing it behind her, playing with the guns at her hips, shimmying out of the gun belt, tossing away the chaps.

  And then her gaze connected with his, and it felt like he was the only man in the room. The only man on the planet. She was undressing. Undressing, exclusively for him, her gaze locked on his, her smile suddenly secret. Private. Between just the two of them. He stared at her body. At her breasts as she let him glimpse them, then hid them away, and his body ached to feel her against him. To touch her, to hold her, to make love to her.

  He’d had her in his arms. He’d felt her kiss, felt his body cry out for her touch, and he had pushed her away. He could see what he’d missed, and right at that moment, he was wishing to hell that he wasn’t missing it. And he had told her that the two of them weren’t going to happen. Couldn’t happen.

  The world was full of fools, but he was the fool who turned her down. He was that fool.

  Guys waving money at her drew her attention away from him, and the connection between the two of them broke. She was gone, and he wanted to go pound into the floor the men who had taken her away from him. He watched her dancing for them, taking their money, smiling when they shouted to her. He watched as the music slowed and her dance became sexier, and he didn’t even have to use his imagination to see him and her in bed together; he watched as the music slowed more and she moved from the pole to the floor.

  And he saw the other men looking at her, their eyes as hungry as his own, and jealousy ate into him. He wanted to touch her, and pulled a bill out of his wallet, and waved it, and she crawled over to him, smiling, and whispered, “How am I doing?”

  It was all he could do to get the word “Fine” past the lump in his throat.

  He slid the bill into the side of her thong with all the other money that was there, and the shock of the story that his fingertips told him made his knees weak.

  “He’s here,” he said loud enough that she and the mike in her navel could both get the words, but no one else. “He... he’s been watching you. He touched you.”

  The smile on her face never wavered. “Then we’ll find that sorry sonuvabitch,” she said, and crawled away, to take someone else’s money, to smile in someone else’s eyes. To do the job she was here to do, which was nothing like the job she looked like she was doing, Hank remembered. Finally.

  Behind him, two waiters suddenly moved from seat to seat at the bar that bellied up to the stage, bringing complimentary coffee in Styrofoam cups, offering a cup to any man who wanted one. They were the Vice guys, Hank realized, who had been forwarded his tip about the presence of the killer from the officers working the surveillance van.

  These inside guys had the sweet job — handing out the cups. Some poor rookie in plainclothes, however, would be out by the trash in back, waiting to go dumpster diving should any discarded cups come his way. And around the front of Goldcastle, just outside the door, another plainclothes cop would be hoping some of these guys would carry those cups out with them, then toss them in the trash, in plain sight. So that he could pick them up. DNA the legal way.

  More than once, Jim had bitched about what a pain in the ass the fine art of collecting untainted evidence was. Hank was watching the start of a long, slow chain that wouldn’t bear fruit for weeks. If ever.

  But it was a start, wasn’t it?

  Hank stopped watching Jess, and started watching the faces of the men around him, trying to catch some glimpse of the killer. Because the killer was right up there against the stage, right where he could touch her, right where the residue of his sick hunger could linger.

  And any of the faces Hank saw could have been the guy. Staring at Jess the way they were, they all looked like a bunch of perverts. He could have gone around the stage kicking the shit out of every man there and he wouldn’t have lost a minute’s sleep.

  Which was why he and Jess couldn’t get involved, he told himself. He was ready to kill complete strangers for looking at her, and he’d only kissed her once. Imagine what would happen to his judgment if the two of them were actually sleeping together. If they were involved. If, God forbid, he fell in love with her.

  Her set ended and he caught a glimpse of her hurrying off the stage, and then the deejay did a big lead-up to a firecracker redhead in a belly-dancer outfit, and Hank realized that someone backstage could have touched Jess before she came out. Were there any men back there? Security guys or bouncers or boyfriends, maybe?

  Then he remembered that Jim had told him the UC guys couldn’t get back there during work hours because it was absolutely, unconditionally, no exceptions, dancers only. Otherwise Jess’s participation in this thing would not have been so critical.

  The harem girl had gotten rid of only the veil when Hank waved his money at her. She shimmied over to him, and all he could think was that next to Jess, she was invisible. He slid the bill into her costume.

  Without warning, violent, nightmare horror washed over him, so brutal and so sick that Hank sagged back into his seat, lost in the killer’s rage. She was next. This girl — this dancer — she was going to die this night. He knew which park the killer was going to dump her body in, and that the killer had a stage set. For her to dance on. One last private dance, after pain and torture and abuse. Everything was ready.

  Tonight, Hank thought. Tonight.

  The ferocity of that fresh rage, the bastard’s intense feelings of betrayal, and the hunger to degrade, destroy, pervert, hurt, and then slaughter, tore Hank up inside.

  He got to his feet, fled into the bathroom, and puked, his head hanging over the bowl, his hands on the stall to
either side. Bad. This was bad — as ferocious, as horrible, as any crime scene he’d ever touched.

  The restroom attendant was watching him when he came out of the stall wiping his mouth on a strip of toilet paper. “Are you all right, sir?”

  Hank raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, sure. I usually toss my lunch like that, don’t you?” He washed his hands and face, cupped water in his hands and rinsed his mouth out with it, and took the towel the man offered him. “Something I ate didn’t agree with me.”

  “Something you ate... here?”

  “That’s why I was here,” Hank said. “Lunch and titties.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. If you tell your waitress—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Hank said. “I feel fine now.”

  “Yes, sir.” The guy started to ask him something else, then stopped. “Are you a member?”

  “No.”

  Hank got out of there as fast as he could. He headed back to his seat, but his beer was gone and someone else was sitting in his place. He took a table along the back wall and called Jim.

  Jim picked up on the first ring.

  “I got the next victim, Jim,” he said. “He intends to kill her tonight, dump her body in Piedmont Park.” Hank swallowed against another wave of nausea and closed his eyes for a moment. “Dancer named Ginger Rose. She’s on the stage right now.”

  “You sure? Tonight?”

  “Positive. At least as positive as I can be. This one hit me so hard I tossed my lunch.”

  He was having a hard time hearing Jim over the noise of the club. The girl was dancing to “Genie in a Bottle,” and with the way he felt, the music was drilling straight through his skull. But he thought Jim had told him to hang on.

  Jim came back to the phone a moment later and said, “Our guys in place have her, and they’ll hand her off to mobile surveillance when she leaves. We won’t let anything happen to her.”

  Hank managed a mumbled, “I hope not,” but he was still so weak, so sick — still shaking so badly — that what actually came out of his mouth had to have been incoherent.