Dog Gone And Dead

by Colleen Mooney

  A few minutes later another guy in a real tux, complete with a shirt, was working his way over to us while glad handing women at tables. He was good looking but he didn’t have the same effect on me as our waiter had. After I saw our waiter, I knew I could only have bills for him.

  When Mr. Tuxedo got to our table, he pulled up a chair, sat down opposite us and asked if we liked our drinks. He had the most perfect white smile any toothpaste ad would die to have on their billboard.

  “Hot Rod, this is my cousin, Mandy from Arkansas. Mandy, this is Hot Rod, the manager of all this,” Jess said smiling. My peripherals could see her watching me during the introductions. I didn’t react to the cover she made up for my name and relationship to her. Maybe she came up with it on the spot, or maybe she already knew she would use it but didn’t bother filling me in.

  “It’s a pleasure,” I said not knowing what an Arkansas accent sounds like. Jess must have thought mine would pass so I just went with it. “Thank you for the champagne, it’s all I ever drink.”

  “Well, any cousin of Jess is a cousin of mine, if anyone asks. Nice specs,” he said and flashed those pearly whites again. He put his arm around my shoulder and nuzzled his face into my hair. “You smell good.”

  The women in here were gonna swoon. Heck, I was starting to feel giddy myself from the way he looked at me and that easy smile he gave. This guy was a born charmer.

  “It’s gonna be packed tonight,” he said to Jess. “We have three hen parties in here.”

  He nodded to the tables behind us that I assumed he meant to be groups of women for bridal showers.

  “You got a bunch of horny women in here tonight. You should make good tips,” Jess said.

  “They should distract anyone noticing you two, but try to act like you’re into it. Big Al’s here tonight, in the back. He’s meeting someone and doesn’t want to be bothered. They’ll come out later and hang at the bar.”

  “Any idea who it is?” I asked.

  “It’s the guy he uses to move money. I overheard Al talking on the phone earlier saying, “Come here tonight. The heat has been turned up since that girl was murdered. We need to move up the time and change the drop location.’”

  “The girl?” I leaned onto the table on my elbows moving closer to Rod like I was flirting. “He didn’t use her name?”

  Rod leaned in and took one of my hands and covered them with both of his. Then he raised one of my hands to his face and I thought he was going to kiss it. Instead, he licked it which I found disgusting. I started to wipe it off on my pants under the table when he let go of it.

  “No names. He’s careful.” He got up to leave our table. He was still holding my other hand, extending his arm until our hands dropped apart, dramatically, like he was leaving for the front to fight in some war. “I’ll be back for you,” he dramatically mouthed to me and then threw a kiss so everyone in the place would notice.

  I had to smile to myself. Yep, I bet he says that to all the girls. He moved on to the group of giggling women right behind us. They had several tables pushed together and one was wearing a paper tiara that said, BRIDE. There were several gift bags on the table, all very small. When I looked around, there were two more tables with small gift bags and two more women wearing paper tiaras that said BRIDE.

  “This is rather an untraditional venue for a bridal shower,” I said to Jess.

  “You’d be surprised at the number of my friends who have had their wedding parties here. I’ve been to several. It’s a lot more fun than sitting around with a bunch of catty women playing stupid games and drinking punch.”

  “They even bring gifts?” I asked. “Those bags are really small. What type of gifts do you bring to a party like this?” I wondered if the small bags all contained gift certificates.

  “Oh, it’s probably oils, lubricants, crotch-less undies for him or her. Something like that,” Jess said.

  Jiff was right about me and this place. It was sleazy. I wanted to leave…I wanted to leave right after I saw Mr. Twenty-Dollar Bill dance.

  Jess was watching our waiter as he delivered drinks to the bridal party behind us. “I wouldn’t mind the Twenty-Dollar man as my personal waiter, bringing drinks only to me, at a party in my honor. If I deserved preferential treatment, I’d want him to deliver it.”

  “Talk to Hot Rod,” I said. “I bet if you let him lick your hand, or you lick his, he could make it happen for you.”

  I really couldn’t see my mother or Jiff’s mother being up for this kind of party to celebrate upcoming nuptials. My mother insisted I ruined the family name by moving out of our home without being married or chaperoned. Chaperoned? Did she think we were the Rockefellers? Imagine what she’d say about this in lieu of a traditional wedding shower especially if I opened a gift with his and her lube.

  My mother gave my sister a pass even though she was very pregnant when she married, but she was still living at home. She actually believed she could keep my sister’s six-month pregnant body a secret at the wedding all because she still lived under their roof. If anyone should have had a chaperone it was my sister.

  Since I grew up next door to Dante, both families always expected us to marry. Dante’s mother, Miss Ruth, would participate in anything, this included, if I had agreed to marry her son. She had to settle for my sister marrying one of Dante’s brothers. The one that was the baby daddy.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The show was about to start according to someone with a Mr. Microphone making announcements, from backstage. There was no one out front that I could see trying to get everyone’s attention and the voice sounded a lot like Hot Rod’s. He told us the time we all had been waiting for had come. The music blasted louder along with women screaming following that announcement. When the screaming died down, Mr. Microphone said Hot Rod would be the first to take the stage. He knew how to rev up the fun and get this party started.

  The women went wild screaming again. When the screaming died down an octave, Mr. Microphone went on to cover the club rules—no jumping on tables or onto the stage during a performance, no grabbing the dancers… really? He announced a few more brainless instructions that anyone with an ounce of sense should already have learned as basic, common courtesy. This met with a fair amount of booing.

  I thought. Jiff was right. This is more like a wrestling match.

  The audience was further informed they could only throw tips on stage, hand tip money to the dancer or, respectfully—REALLY—tuck any bills inside their costume if the dancer was at your table, and indicated it was acceptable. Under no circumstances were audience members allowed throw their own items of clothing onto the stage, pull off the dancers’ costumes or they would be removed from the premises.

  I guessed the guy who met us at the door would be the one to remove someone from the premises. I looked around, and no one had a head even close to the size of a basketball. Easy night.

  Later, I realized ‘at your table’ means ‘in your face’ at your table. When he said, “Sit back, relax and get ready for a night of sexual abandonment,” every woman in the place—I was forced to stand or look out of place—jumped to their feet and the screaming started again. The bridal group behind us seemed to be making the most noise.

  Suddenly, the lights were racing across the stage which was no more than three feet off the floor with a T-shaped runway extending about ten feet into the crowded room of tables. Our table was dead center of the stage, closest to the foot of the runway. Dancers could step off the stage and be at our table.

  The sound system roared like a car engine being revved at the Indy 500. The sound continued to increase until it got to a decibel point that could cause permanent hearing loss. My ears hurt so I put my fingers in them to drown out the noise. Jess knocked my hand closest to her away from my ear. She gave me a stern look my mother used to give me when I was doing some unacceptable behavior, like in this instance, trying to keep myself from going deaf.

  The curtains flew open and there w
as Hot Rod sitting behind the steering wheel of a stage prop Mustang convertible—front only—wearing a mechanics jumpsuit. Only this jumpsuit was Lycra. Skin tight Lycra. He jumped out of the Mustang, did an impressive spin and landed flat on his back on a Craftsman Creeper, the kind mechanics use to roll under vehicles. My dad had one of those and he loved it.

  Rod rolled under the Mustang, and when he came out the other side he used his feet to spin around while he remained lying on the Creeper, doing some gyrations I don’t believe my dad knew could be done on one of those. I certainly never imaged anyone does those things on the Creeper all the times I saw it in our garage leaning against the wall.

  Hot Rod was pumping, grinding or gyrating to Sammy Hagar’s I Can’t Drive 55 and acting like he was repairing the car in between hip thrusts until he pulled off his flyaway jumpsuit and danced out to the T part of the stage. The curtains closed behind him. Nothing much between Rod and the audience but his smile and a small piece of Lycra working its magic with the women.

  Jess leaned into my ear and yelled so loud it made my ear buzz, “Yell, clap, throw some bills at him. You’re sitting there like a bump on a cucumber.” She was discreetly trying to pour her drink out under our table but it was landing on my foot.

  I immediately clapped, yelled and did a wolf whistle and dug some ones out of my purse. Most women were trying to get his attention by doing lewd things to lure him to their table. Didn’t the thought cross their minds that there might be cameras in here? Certainly, their friends could blackmail them by taking videos on their cell phone cameras. No telling where those could wind up.

  Hot Rod danced out to the end of the runway and teased the crowd pointing at different tables to see who yelled the loudest or made the most provocative moves for him to dance over to. I was rummaging in my purse looking for the one-dollar bills when his legs straddled over either side of mine all the while doing hips thrusts. It looked like he was trying to have sex with the air.

  I tried to hand him a few bills, but he pointed to his costume, and here I use the term, costume, as the description for lack of what it really looked like… dental floss. OMG! He wanted me to put the money in his G-string.

  Women were throwing bunched up bills at him and they were raining down on my head and some fell on the stage. I finally folded the bills in fourths and aimed to slide them in the Lycra string at his hip. Oh no. He grabbed my hand before I could put the bills there and pointed to the front of his costume. The women screamed even louder, “Do it! Do it!”

  I looked at Jess who nodded toward Hot Rod standing there. I just pulled out the front of what he was wearing with a fingernail, closed my eyes, and tucked in the bills as fast as I could with two fingers on my other hand.

  Rod took my hand and provocatively licked it which only made the women scream louder if that was possible. Then he went to gyrate at the table behind us while I discreetly wiped my hand off on my pants under the table, again.

  I thought, Oh brother! This info I came here for better be worth it.

  I continued to clap, and wolf whistle. Screaming like I was locked in a warehouse full of Zombies coming to attack me did not come natural for me like it seemed to for most of the women in here. Jess started screaming a la trapped by Zombies in a warehouse.

  Finally, Hot Rod cruised on back to the stage with more dollar bills than I thought his costume would accommodate. Lycra is truly a wonder fabric. The cheering women rose to a standing ovation. He did one more hip thrust at the crowd, then disappeared behind the curtain while some other dancers came out and collected his tips from the stage, tables and floor.

  Mr. Mic, the endearment I began to call the announcer to myself, was describing the next man of muscle to drive us wild. He was the All American man you wanted on our military team, G.I. Joe. He described him as one who had “Special Forces” all women could appreciate. I hoped this wasn’t going to be our very own special agent, Mike Perricone. Probably not, since he didn’t refer to him as Magic Mike, Surfer Boy or Baywatch. Mr. Mic went on to introduce G.I. Joe as the military man who knew what full engagement meant and believed in full body contact. Watch out ladies!

  I would have to admit, if I was being truthful, I was anxious to see more of that waiter. When the curtain opened, there were several pieces of workout equipment on stage. There were a couple of barbells, a flat bench with a bar, some free weights, and a chin up or pull-up bar on a stand. G.I. Joe had his back to us—it was a really nice back. He was painted in camouflage body paint from his head to his feet. He did have on some sort of camouflage G-string and combat boots. He looked nude, like he was wearing only body paint and no clothes. Well, he wasn’t wearing much in the way of clothing. The boots were not tied.

  When the music from the movie Top Gun played Danger Zone, he jumped up and did a couple of pull ups. I could see every muscle ripple down his back to his legs. I think Big Al’s slogan came from this guy’s buns. He had buns so tight… well, you remember the slogan. Whoever put these dance numbers together didn’t have a clear understanding of what the different military divisions actually did. G. I.’s refer mostly to the Army and Top Gun was about the Air Force.

  Who really cared? I was already wolf whistling and yelling for more. He kicked off the boots and pulled his feet up to his chest, over his head and through his arms all the while holding onto the chin-up bar. He proceeded to do upside down pull ups. I had never seen anything like it in any gym I’ve ever been to. I couldn’t take my eyes off of his body. I watched every move he made and every muscle flex. I could have sat there and watched him do upside down pull ups for the rest of my natural life.

  The crowd went wild, and I was impressed enough to add a couple of extra wolf whistles. Secretly, I hoped he’d come to the end of the runway so I could have a closer, more personal view of him. I took a sneak peek at Jess who was nodding and moving around in her seat with the music. Her eyes were glued to this guy. She had a twenty in one hand. I thought I better get out my twenty and be ready when he comes by our table. I wouldn’t want to miss my chance to have him stand over me a little extra time.

  He worked his way down the end of the runway and hopped down and started accepting the twenty-dollar bill tips. No one would touch him because of the body paint. When he got to our table, he was doing some hip thrusting action Hot Rod must have taught him.

  When I finally looked up at his face, I caught a profile and then he turned and I saw him head on.

  Wait… what?

  It was Wallace—our super polite, All American husband, father, Security Guard at Jiff’s condo building who was, indeed, in the military stationed at Hurlburt Field with a wife, two children and one on the way.

  I felt like I had plunged into an ice bath. Any impure thoughts I had of G.I. Joe had gone into a deep freeze. OMG! The second shock wave that followed my recognition of Wallace was what if he recognized me?

  I started to come to terms with the shock of his identity and now felt cornered sitting dead center in the room. I felt every ounce of shame the years in a catholic school system heaped on me for ogling him, and for being in a place like this in the first place. OMG! He was gyrating his way right up to our table. He was bound to look at me. Someone who knew me would recognize me in this get up if they looked in my face. I held my head down, flashed my iPhone camera like I was taking a picture so the Transition lens would darken, and put my hand out with the twenty-dollar bill acting like I was looking for something I dropped on the floor with my phone light. I noticed the Transition lens darkening.

  I felt him take the twenty from my hand and say, “Thank you, Ma’am.”

  Yep, it was Wallace. No mistake.

  I wanted to go home and take a shower.

  I looked up when he had already moved to the next table. I felt an arm slide around my shoulder and Hot Rod had joined us again, sitting between Jess and me. He was back wearing his tuxedo.

  “Are you enjoying the show?” he whispered in my ear. He raised his hand at a passing waite
r and made the universal circular motion indicating another round of champagne.

  I nodded as enthusiastically as I could with the most fake smile I could muster.

  “Look at the bar,” Rod was nuzzling my hair with his face so I could hear him and no one could see him talking. “That’s Al and the guy he had the meeting with. They won’t stay long, one drink, that’s it.”

  While I played along with Rod smiling and wiggling around in my seat like a schoolgirl, I twisted to see who was at the bar. Well, this was a night for surprises. First, Wallace and now, I saw Daniel Becnel at the bar with a man that I recognized as Big Al from the Facebook photo on Ashley Westlake’s page. Besides the male dancers, bartenders and waiters, they were the only other men in the place—the only men not wearing Lycra or a tuxedo. Daniel had his back mostly to the crowd, and he wasn’t looking in my direction.

  “Who is the man with Big Al? Do you know him?” I cuddled up to Hot Rod asking in his ear.

  “No name, but he’s the man who moves money for Al. He’s got a big, fast sailboat and access to all of Al’s cigarette boats up and down the coast,” Rod said. He started to get up, holding my hand as if he dreaded saying goodbye like he was leaving again for another foreign war. He leaned down, and I thought he was going to kiss my hand this time, but instead, he licked it. Again.

  I texted Jess:

  2 men in here know me, and 1 is at the bar w/ Al.

  She didn’t look calm. I felt terrified. She glanced at my phone and nodded. Then we both went back to watching the next dancer out who was, by no means, competition for Wallace, aka G.I. Joe or Hot Rod. We saw what we came to see, and I was pretty sure we had all the info Hot Rod could pass along. I was ready to high tail it out of there.

  Jess texted me, Ready when you are

  There was no bill for us so we left two twenty-dollar bills on the table with a note that read, for G.I. Joe—our Waiter.