Film Strip

by Nancy Bartholomew

  “I need something red,” I said.

  The deejay pushed the headphones back off her ears and looked puzzled. “Did you say dead?”

  I shook my head. “No, red. Red.”

  Tina the deejay smiled. “Got just the thing,” she said. “It’s old and it’s slow, but it’s sexy. How about ‘Lady in Red’? I’ve got a dance version where they speed it up in the middle. Would that get it?”

  It would have to do. I nodded and headed backstage. The girls were beginning to file out and stand at the edge of the stairs. Tonya had managed to find them all red-and-black matching outfits, courtesy of Vincent, who’d scored the costumes, used, from a local theater group. The outfits looked like red satin corsets with black piping down the stays that framed the girls’ torsos. They wore black fishnet thigh-high stockings with shiny red garters and spiky black stilettos. It was a class act, all right.

  C.B. brought up the rear of the line in her red sequined gown and black headdress. By the time you took into account the feather rising from her headband and the six-inch heels, she was almost eight feet tall—all woman and all ready to go.

  “You ready, C.B.?” I asked. She nodded, tears filling her eyes. “Don’t do that, Candy,” I said. “You don’t wanna wreck your makeup for your big salute.”

  C.B. shook her head and fought back the tears. I walked up the steps, grabbed the microphone from Rusty’s hand, and walked out onstage.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, and waited as the crowd fell silent. “It is the Tiffany custom to honor those who have gone on before us to that palace of good times and compassion in the sky.” The men shifted in their seats, as pairing religion with exotic dancing was a foreign concept and they needed to mull it over. You could practically see the wheels turning in their pedestrian minds. Did nude dancers go to heaven? And what about those who watched them? Weren’t they just as guilty? It made the customers a little uncomfortable. I let them stew in their conservative guilt for a second or two, figuring it would be good for the tip jar.

  “We have lost two of our dancers this week,” I said, “and the killer is still at large. A lesser group of women might cower in fear, waiting for the killer to strike again, but not us. We’re the Tiffany Girls and we don’t run from trouble.”

  There was a chorus of cheers behind me as the girls started to believe the spiel I was spinning. I leaned down and took a shot glass of Wild Turkey from Colleen the waitress.

  “And don’t think that we believe for a moment that Marla the Bomber did it. We know she didn’t, and we know someone out there did!” I leaned forward and searched over the audience, as if letting someone know I saw him and that I knew for certain he was there.

  I raised the shot glass and motioned to the crowd to raise theirs. “So here’s to the girls who gave their all.” The crowd stood and saluted. “And here’s to the girls of the Tiffany. We’re fearless and we’re naked!”

  The men screamed, and the dancers began filing onto the stage. The music began to thump and the girls started moving, all but Candy Barr. She stood just offstage, a frozen look on her face and sheer terror in her eyes.

  The others moved in front of me and I stepped back behind the curtain. Rusty was coaxing, and finally pushing, the tall girl toward the stage. “Get out there,” he urged. “They’re waiting!” Indeed they were. The others had formed a phalanx and were waiting for Candy to walk out, front and center.

  “I can’t,” she whimpered.

  I wasn’t about to play therapist and ask why not. The music was playing, the girls were in position, and the customers were growing impatient. I grabbed one of her arms and yanked, while Rusty applied his two hands to her ass and pushed. With a great heave, Candy Barr arrived onstage.

  There was a collective gasp from the onlookers as they took in the full effect of Candy’s magnificent body. Then came the hoots of approval as they waited for her to begin her routine, the only problem being that Candy had no intention of moving. She was paralyzed with stage fright.

  Tonya sidled up to her and I could see her encouraging C.B. to move. Another dancer moved over to her left, and gently began bumping her with her hip. That at least got Candy to begin swaying. Whatever Tonya the Barbarian did, Candy attempted to copy, with disastrous results. It became glaringly apparent that Candy had another problem: She had no sense of rhythm. The girl just couldn’t dance.

  I caught a glimpse of Vincent standing by the edge of the bar, next to Little Ricky. Bruno and Gordon stood just behind them. All four men looked horrified. Vincent buried his face in his hands, and Bruno reached forward and patted him on the shoulder. What a disaster. Barry Sanduski had sent us a bombshell all right, a real dud.

  The other girls sensed the trouble and began to do what they could to enact damage control. They used C.B. like a maypole, dancing around her and unwinding her clothing. Candy smiled nervously and shimmied back and forth, but not in time to the music. The customers continued to stare up at the giant woman, watching the spectacle taking place before them with mouths open and eyes wide. Only thing missing was the tips. No one reached for their wallets. They just stood there, staring.

  There was no way on earth that the act could’ve been construed as sexy or tantalizing. Men tip because it’s their way of saying, “I’d like you to do that for me and me alone.” Nobody was wishing Candy Barr on themselves. They seemed, if anything, to be viewing the act as their worst sexual fantasy come true: A giant woman flops on top of you and then has no sense of rhythm. I could hardly blame them.

  Rusty stood by my side, moaning until the last thirty seconds when he cranked up the smoke machine so high it covered everything but Candy’s face. The customers’ last vision of our ill-fated tribute was Candy Barr’s head, floating seven feet above the stage floor, bouncing in an erratic pattern that had no connection whatsoever to the music.

  Some days you’re the windshield. Some days you’re the bug. The Tiffany had just been squashed flat across the windshield of bad luck and hard times.

  Twenty-eight

  The night passed like one long disaster. Vincent wouldn’t let Candy back out onstage, which prompted a flood of tears from her and pissed off all the other dancers, who were forced to share their dressing room with the wailing guest artist.

  “At least when a kid starts caterwauling in a store, I can walk out,” Tonya complained. “Now I gotta sit with it in my own dressing room. It’s ruining my concentration.”

  When Candy started throwing things, a full-scale intervention became necessary. Bruno was sent in to deal with her while Gordon tried to cover the entire house. This led to a drunk-and-disorderly charge against an airman who scaled the runway and attempted to fondle a stripper. A fight broke out between the airman’s friends and a group of regulars, Little Ricky among them, who felt protective of their girls. The police arrived very quickly, as half of Panama City’s police force was still out in the parking lot processing Nailor’s car, but they were seen as unwelcome by both the airmen and the regulars. It seems they felt they were entitled to clean up their own squabble without government interference. The police saw the situation differently and this resulted in a heavy loss of glass and furniture. Vincent screamed until his face reached a nuclear-red glow and stayed that way for the entire night. Everyone’s tips were down, but all in all, as I told Vincent, it was a successful evening. The local TV news crews covered the Tiffany, giving us the lead-story slot on the eleven o’clock news.

  “That’s better than a one-minute commercial,” I told him. “Tomorrow night we’ll be jammed.”

  “Yeah,” Vincent groused, “but with what type of clientele?”

  He had a point, but I wasn’t in the mood to concede. “You just wait,” I said. “We’ll make more money than ever.”

  He didn’t believe me for a second, and when it came down to it, I had to admit I was blowing smoke. The Tiffany was in trouble. Clubs don’t have a long shelf life once they’re viewed as going downhill, or too rough for your upper-middle-class mon
ey-droppers. We were in a hell of a spot.

  I left around three A.M. It felt more like I’d pulled a twenty-four-hour shift than my usual eight to ten. My body ached, my spirit was sagging, and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. Nailor was nowhere in sight, and if I knew the police, he’d be downtown filling out forms in triplicate for days.

  I slid behind the wheel of my Camaro and cranked the engine. Bruce Springsteen started singing about meeting someone on the strip, and I let him rasp out his tale of woe. He sang like I felt, irritated and raw.

  It’s been my experience that on those nights when you’re really exhausted, really craving a soft pillow and a dreamless sleep, insomnia is a given. It was no different that night. I pulled up on the parking pad, saw Fluffy’s eyes glowing out at me from the top step, and felt my body spring alive.

  Fluffy barked softly, her way of saying, “About time you came back. I’m hungry.”

  “Makes two of us,” I answered, and made us both a cold meatloaf sandwich.

  Two lights remained on in the living room. The card table was set up, the hands dealt, and Pa’s Chianti bottle was empty. From the look of the pile of change sitting in front of Raydean’s chair, Francis had gone down swinging. I heard a gentle snore and saw Pat sleeping on the futon. It had been a long night.

  I assumed that Francis had gone to bed and that Raydean had returned to her trailer, but I was wrong. The scuffling sound of her bunny slippers startled me as she appeared in the living room doorway. She was wide awake.

  “That brother of yours has two strikes against him,” she said. “He can’t play cards for shit and he can’t hold his wine worth a flip. I just now got him settled in bed. Before that he was bowl-hugging the porcelain throne. Thought all you Italians could hold your alcohol.”

  “See, Raydean, see what happens when you stereotype a group of people?”

  Raydean “humphed” and walked past me to the kitchen table, where she perched on a barstool and reached for the jar of peanut butter that sat in the middle next to the napkins.

  “You got any soda crackers?” she asked. “And a knife?”

  Fluffy made the leap onto her lap and the two of them waited expectantly.

  “All right,” I said, and sighed. “I know when I’m beat.”

  I pulled out the crackers and two butter knives, perched on another stool, and opened a new bottle of Pa’s Chianti. Fluffy munched on crackers and Raydean dug into the peanut butter. They munched and I talked. Sometimes it’s just good to put the words and events out in the open; kind of gives you a fresh perspective.

  I couldn’t tell if Raydean was really tracking me. She seemed more interested in spreading peanut butter on crackers and then lining them up across the table like a wall. But when I finished recounting all the events of the evening, she looked at me with her sharp birdlike eyes and sighed.

  “Girl, you’re always the last to know,” she said.

  “How’s that, Raydean?”

  Fluffy rearranged herself so she could watch me. Raydean pushed one lumpy peanut butter cracker forward, then looked back at me.

  “It’s about you this time, honey. Wake up and smell the coffee.”

  “What do you mean, it’s about me?”

  Raydean’s attention had been diverted to the window. “Did you see that?” she asked.

  I looked over my shoulder and saw only the glow of the streetlight. “No, what was it?” Fluffy growled low in her throat, her little body quivering.

  “Probably Flemish,” Raydean said. “They’re nocturnal critters. Sneak up on you, paralyze your brain, and spirit you off to the mother ship. It’s a certainteed fact that most alien experimentation occurs at night. That way the hapless victim don’t know if it were a dream or real life.”

  I was about to give up when Raydean’s thoughts circled back around and came in for a landing.

  “What do you think all these killings and attempted killings have in common?” she asked. She sounded like Sister Boniface, my old kindergarten teacher, singsong voiced and cheery.

  “I don’t know, Raydean. That’s what I’ve been sitting here trying to figure.”

  She shook her head, like maybe I’d never learn my alphabet, and spelled it out for me.

  “Every time somebody dies, you’re there. A lesser friend would think you’re the one doing it, but not me.” Fluffy licked her hand in approval. “Them two girls weren’t killed on account of not paying up. That flat don’t make sense. And then you kill the guy what came to get ’em to see the daylight? Naw.” She shook her head. “And now you got your honey’s car blown sky high. Figure it out, girl.”

  I still didn’t see it. “There’s a connection to you,” she went on. “They were killed on account of something you were doing or not doing. What I don’t understand is why they haven’t come after you yet.”

  A cold chill ran up my spine and back down my arms.

  “Maybe it has to do with the club,” I said. “Maybe someone wants the club to close.”

  Raydean slid two more crackers across the table and molded them into her wall.

  “Nope,” she said. “If that were true, they’d kill Vincent and the house dancers, not your visiting team.”

  I mulled it over for a second, only to be interrupted by Fluffy breaking away from Raydean, running to the bay window, and barking up a storm.

  “Damn,” said Raydean. “Where’s Marlena when I need her?”

  This time I saw it. Someone moved across the front of the trailer and was heading for the back door. Fluffy didn’t hesitate, she hurled herself through the doggie-door and out into the night.

  “Fluffy!” I cried, jumping off my stool and running after her. “Fluffy, come back!”

  I flung open the door and raced outside, not thinking of anything but my baby.

  Nailor stood at the foot of the steps, Fluffy in his arms and a confused look on his face. “What’s all the fuss about?”

  “You snuck up on us!” I said.

  “Of course I did. I didn’t know if you were sleeping or not, and I didn’t want to wake up that brother of yours.” He smiled and I knew what he was thinking. He’d hoped to sneak in.

  “What were you going to do if I was sleeping? Throw a rock against my window?”

  He started up the steps. “Exactly,” he said. Then he saw Raydean and the sexy smile faded.

  She waved him in, still seated at the table, still spreading peanut butter crackers in a pile that threatened to spill off the tabletop.

  “You need to get in on this,” she said.

  “I’m not hungry,” he answered.

  “Didn’t ask if you was. I’m talking about Sierra’s situation.” Nailor proceeded cautiously, pulling out a barstool and perching at the table’s edge. “She don’t realize the danger she’s in. That psycho you’re after is killing everyone around our Sierra.”

  “With all due respect…” he began.

  “Horsepatooty!” Raydean said. “That’s cop speak for we’re not gonna listen to a word you say. I heard enough people asking for due respect in my lifetime to know what’s coming.” She hopped down from her stool and took two steps toward him. She was going to give him a piece of her mind, maybe the very last piece of her mind. “Mark my words, alien, it ain’t over till it’s over, and you’d better stand by her, ’cause she’s in danger.”

  She didn’t wait for a response. She was out the door and across the street before either of us could say a word. Fluffy walked her to the door of her trailer and stood waiting until the door closed. Fluffy waited a minute, crossed back across the street, and walked into the house, past the two of us, and into the living room, where she plopped down on the futon next to snoring Pat. Obviously, she agreed with Raydean.

  Nailor reached for my empty glass, poured it full of Pa’s Chianti and took a long swallow. His face wrinkled, his eyes squinted almost shut, and he shook his head quickly, as if trying to knock something loose.

  “Damn, Sierra! How do you drink this
stuff?”

  I ran my hands up over his back and across the tops of his shoulders. “Quickly,” I answered. “I drink it quickly.” I waited for him to drink more before saying anything else. When half his glass was gone, I continued. “Raydean says that every time someone has died, I’ve been there, the only common denominator. She thinks this has something to do with me.”

  Nailor relaxed his body against my hands, letting me knead his shoulders. This was another conversation that he didn’t want to have.

  “So why would someone want to kill off people in front of you or near you?” he asked. He reached for my hand and pulled me around to face him, bringing me inside his legs as he sat on his stool drinking his wine. “If Marla wanted to kill off those girls and Barboni to send you a message, I fail to see what it was. What was she doing, killing off the competition? And why kill Barboni?”

  Killing off the competition? Then what was Barboni?

  “Come on, babe, let’s go to bed. I’m exhausted,” he said.

  Nailor didn’t stand on ceremony. “Exhausted?” I said softly, running my fingers in between his thighs. “I don’t think someone’s very exhausted.”

  Nailor sighed as I traced an outline with my fingertip. “Now that you mention it,” he said, gripping my wrist and standing, “I don’t feel quite so tired. Maybe I should take you back here and show you what I mean.”

  He was walking across the living room, switching off lights as he went, pulling me along by the hand, and heading for the bedroom. I was in danger, all right, immediate, wonderful danger.

  We tiptoed past the guest room. Francis lay tucked under the covers. He wouldn’t be moving for hours.

  I yawned when we reached my room. “Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe we should get some sleep.”

  Nailor laughed softly and pulled me to him. His fingers started unbuttoning my blouse, but his eyes never left my face. There was no mistaking what the man wanted, and no doubt at all that he would get it.