by Susan Cox
“Look, this is none of my business, but Katrina kept a record.”
She went completely still. “What kind of a record?”
“A sort of dossier of people she wanted to—influence, I guess.”
“You mean blackmail. People she wanted to blackmail.”
“I thought it might be. Anyway,” I said awkwardly, “you were included in it, because of what happened when you were in high school, and I just wondered if—”
“How much?”
“What?”
“Don’t be shy; how much?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sure you do,” she said. “Unless you don’t want money, is that it? Is there something else you want? Katrina was prepared to tell Jason’s parents about my abortion, and I offered her money to keep it quiet. But it wasn’t just money she wanted. She wanted me to accept her bid for the buildings. She said it would be impossible to accuse her of blackmail when I’d been paid three million dollars. I’d have been left with a two million dollar debt, and Jason’s family would never have agreed to us getting married with that hanging over me.”
Her expression hardened, the drab, rather colorless girl disappeared, and for the first time she looked like a formidable opponent. Katrina might very well have seen only the young woman with a lack of influence or connections, and underestimated her. “They’re Catholic—I mean, really Catholic, like supporting the St. Francis of Assisi memorial nearly single-handed Catholic. They would never understand the desperation I felt when I was sixteen, and they control Jason’s trust fund.
“I was raised in the projects” she said, her tone flat. “Marrying Jason, marrying into that family, is a dream come true. Nothing is getting in the way of that. Nothing. So I wouldn’t get any ideas.”
I gulped.
Angela smiled. “Lucky for me, Katrina died.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I was sweeping up the drift of paper from Aromas’ entrance on Sunday morning for no reason, really, because we weren’t open on Sundays, but I needed something to do besides think about Angela’s rather eerie take on Katrina’s murder, and what Grandfather and Davie were suffering in police custody. The little pile of flotsam reminded me of the neat pile of paper rubbish in the building where Sergei’s body was found. The McDonald’s wrappers were probably construction-worker lunches, and the coffee cups ditto, but I remembered something that didn’t quite fit with the fast food and candy bar wrappers. It was crumpled, but small—I’d bent to look at it closely because of the glint of gold. It was a napkin from the Venus de Milo. I suppose one of the construction workers could have dropped it, but I’d swept up a Venus de Milo coaster at Aromas the day Sergei visited me. It wasn’t much, but it might be a place to start reconstructing his movements in the days before he was killed, even if a priest walking into a strip club sounded like the beginning of a joke.
I had to do something. I took a cab to the landmark copper-clad flatiron building containing the Coppola Winery storefront in Little Italy. I dodged traffic on Green Street heading toward the tall sign for San Francisco’s most famous strip club, not far from its most famous bookstore, where the Beats hung out. The streets were full of tourists and the occasional homeless person shuffling along wrapped in a blanket or, in one case, pushing a shopping cart containing a small dog. On the cusp of Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Financial District, the air smelled like dim sum, spaghetti sauce, and diesel from the passing traffic. In other words, I was inhaling a fairly typical San Francisco mash-up.
I’d seen the inside of plenty of nightclubs, dance clubs, and what Nat called “joints.” Most of them looked tawdry in daylight, like a theater between performances, so the Venus de Milo was a surprise. When I walked in there at two o’clock on Sunday, I was expecting a dusty, backstage smell and trompe l’oeil artificiality. Instead, I got an eyeful of old-fashioned glamour. The chrome poles at the front of the raised stage were gleaming, the floor glittered with some sort of imbedded sparkles as I walked across it, and the deep purple stage curtains looked new. The small tables were lit with individual lamps with fringed shades and pale pink bulbs. It looked oddly wholesome. The room was empty, so I went through an archway leading to a smaller room, and a smaller stage, where five musicians were hammering out “Satisfaction.” A bank of wide open, ten-foot-high windows were keeping the air fresh, and opposite the stage, at the back of the bar, eye-popping carved mahogany panels of flowers, trees, and other innocent subjects rose to ceiling height. I paused to admire the carving as the band segued into “Ruby Tuesday.”
“Like it?” The gravelly voice came out of thin air. When I turned, a man stepped down from a high table in a dark corner and waved a hand at the carvings. He was tall and big, not young, but not old enough for his full head of silver hair. He was all in black—jeans, shirt, belt, and motorcycle boots. A small, silver skull hung from a leather thong around his neck, and he was wearing a leather bracelet on one wrist and a Rolex on the other. “Rescued from the aught six fire.”
“Half the buildings in the city seem to have that story.”
“Came from a bawdy house up on Pacific, so that’s different.” He chuckled. “What can I do for you? Here to listen to the boys?” He tipped his head toward the musicians, who were intent on their instruments. The bass player looked up at me and winked. The band segued into “Waiting for a Lady” and I smiled. What can I say? My father was a Stones fan.
Mine host waved me to one of the stools at his table. “They play here for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons; leave the windows open; pull in a few tourists. You don’t look like a tourist.”
“I don’t?”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Well then. Like I said. Get you a drink?”
“Coke?”
He went around the bar and started fiddling with glasses. He slid the Coke over to me when he got back to the table. “Five bucks. You can leave it in the tip jar.” He nodded at the coffee tin on a stool in front of the stage.
I leaned over to drop the bill in the jar. The bass player winked and smiled at me again. I sighed. A year ago I might have taken up the invitation in that smile; he had that thin grungy look, my favorite bad boy type not so long ago. I smiled back, minus the flirt, and he shrugged faintly. I turned back to my table companion.
I took a sip of my Coke, trying to decide if his hair was natural or if he’d had it colored. Nat would flirt with him and call him a silver fox. “I’m trying to fill in the blanks of a friend’s visit here.”
“Ask the friend.”
“You’d think, but he’s dead.”
“My condolences,” he said. “Not sure I can help. We get a lot of people through here.”
“This one would be unusual. At least, I think so.” Who knew what was unusual for a San Francisco strip club? “He was a priest.”
He rubbed his chin. “That would make him stand out, all right. You mean a real priest or a guy in a costume? We get some cosplay folks. Barbarians, vicars and tarts, that kind of thing.”
“I didn’t know people did vicars and tarts over here. It’s more of an English thing, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Everything is international now and this is San Francisco. Any excuse to get into costume.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. On my way here I’d passed a pack of two dozen cross-dressing cyclists, led by someone with a fine handlebar moustache, wearing a pink sun dress. “Right. Well this was a real priest. Heavy accent, gold front tooth.”
“Yeah, you don’t see too many gold teeth nowadays. Was this an older guy?”
“Sixties, I’d guess. Looked older, though, so you might think he was early seventies. He had a—difficult life. That ages people, right?”
He sighed heavily. “Honey, you have no idea. Yeah, I saw your friend. He was here one night a bit more than a week ago. Tuesday, maybe? He showed up in full dress uniform—you know, black suit, white collar, cross and chain. He caused a pause in th
e action, y’know? He marched in and picked a fight with a guy minding his own business at a back table. No idea what they were fighting about—you’re right about that accent, honey—but whatever it was, it had the old boy exercised. Two of the bouncers escorted him outside. They’re good boys,” he added, as if to reassure me. “They didn’t muscle him, just walked him out.”
“Who was the other fellow—er, guy?”
“Don’t know his name.”
“Does he use a credit card? Maybe you could check?”
“This is a titty bar—a high class one, but still. He’s gonna pay cash.” He sighed when I didn’t say anything. “Tell me why you wanna know. You’re cute, and that accent works for you, honey, but I don’t wanna be helping some woman get her jerk of a hubby into court.”
“The priest was a good friend of my grandfather’s. He’s—well, he’s really upset about his friend dying and wants to trace where he spent his last few days. He did a few things that were out of character, and his family lives in—Europe—so they can’t find out much, and my grandfather feels an obligation to his old friend’s family.”
“Your grandfather, eh? Well, that’s a new one. Was the old guy really a priest?”
“He was, yes,” I said, and got a skeptical look.
He heaved himself off his stool. “Like I said, we deal in cash, mostly, but I’ll see if any of the girls remember anything. They won’t be in ’til later. You can come back or you can call.”
“And maybe the doorman and bouncers?”
He sighed. “Yeah, okay.”
“Do you have security cameras?”
He gave me a sardonic look and snorted. “Security cameras. My customers would freak. I wouldn’t have any customers.”
“I’ll come back. What time do you think would be best?”
“Come at eight. I’ll find out who was on for the first of that week.”
I felt his eyes on me as I left.
Back at The Coffee, Nat was horrified. “The Venus! Why didn’t you take me?”
“It was nice. Clean. No one there. I was fine. Strange fellow with a gray ponytail and sunglasses hanging out seemed to be in charge. He said he’d find out who argued with Father Segei. I’m going back tonight.”
“Gray ponytail and—right, chickie. I’m comin’ with.” He held out a flat hand. “No arguments. What time?”
“He said about eight,” I grumbled. “You know, it’s not as if a strip club in the middle of the tourist trek is going to be dangerous. Did you know people go in costumes sometimes?”
“Furries?” Nat looked surprised.
“I don’t know what furries are—”
“Lucky you.”
“—but he mentioned cosplay. So Klingons, maybe?”
“Qapla’!” Nat said.
Nat wanted to take his gun and I asked him not to, so instead he took a sort of expanding baton thing in his Louis Vuitton messenger bag. We arrived in a cab just after eight thirty—Nat having made a last-minute wardrobe change after he decided to take the messenger bag—and I asked the man at the door for my friend from the afternoon. There was a bit of hesitation, since I’d forgotten to get his name, but the ponytail and skull necklace description did the trick.
“Oh yeah, Zane told us to look out for you.” He raised his arm and flicked a finger, and a young woman wearing heels, a glittery cami, and a micro-mini came tottering over to take charge of us.
“Zane?” I mouthed at Nat behind her back. He shrugged and gave me big eyes. She showed us to a booth against the back wall with a good view of a dancer, wearing not very much apart from Lucite shoes with six-inch platforms and a lot of glitter. She was fervently embracing the chrome poles at the edge of the stage in a variety of athletic positions. I’m not easily embarrassed, but it was still hard to know where to look. There weren’t many people at the tables in the audience, except for one group of six or seven men in their thirties, who seemed determined to wring every ounce of entertainment out of the night. They were calling to the dancer and leaning over to tuck money into the strings of her thong. The music was almost painfully loud.
I looked at Nat a little helplessly and he grinned. “Too bad, the show’s wasted on both of us,” he shouted, and then he snorted and started to laugh so hard he bent over the table and his shoulders shook. I shoved him to get him to shut up, but his giggles were contagious and before long we were both convulsed. Every time one of us sobered even a little, we caught each other’s eye and we started up again. He was banging his open hand on our table as Zane came over and snapped his fingers impatiently when neither of us noticed him. He turned away, and I hastily wriggled out of the booth to follow him. Nat grimaced at me behind his back as Zane led us up a flight of stairs into an office with a smoked glass window looking out over the club. He closed the door, which muffled the music instantly.
It turned out he was from Texas. He and Nat hit it off. They stared in each other’s eyes in a way that straight men just don’t, at least not if they want to keep their teeth, and after their handshake ended they kept their hands casually on the small conference table, fingers almost touching.
“How long have you been in the City, Zane?” Nat asked him.
“Since I was eighteen and figured out what my dick was for.”
They grinned at each other, clearly equally pleased with the exchange.
I kept my peace for a few more minutes, but then I interrupted their conversation, which seemed to be mostly sly innuendo and double entendres filled in with the occasional hand gesture and sly allusions to the way things were done back home.
“So did you find out anything?” I asked Zane. Nat looked a little surprised, as if he’d forgotten I was there, and Zane blinked and looked over at me. I sighed. I guess it made a weird sort of sense for a gay man to be running a strip club. And Nat was single. But Zane was fifty if he was a day, which made the age difference considerable. And what the hell business was it of mine, anyway?
A waitress came in and put down paper coasters with the Venus de Milo in metallic gold, the same design I’d seen on the discarded napkin. “Get you something?”
Zane looked resigned and said to her, “Don’t make me tell you again, Virginia.”
“Sorry, boss.” She regrouped, took a breath, and looked down at her hands, her lips moving like a child reading silently. She looked up at Nat with a dazzling smile. “Good evening. My name is Vanessa and I’ll be at your service tonight. May I take your drinks order? I thought Vanessa was nice,” she added to Zane in a confiding tone. “Better than Virginia, which is a shit name.”
“Just keep to the same letter of the alphabet.” She bit her lip and nodded. “Okay, honey, these people don’t need drinks, they’re here to ask you about the priest.” He glanced at the view into the club downstairs and stood up. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He left us and Vanessa/Virginia looked at us both, wide-eyed. Her breasts were impossibly round, high, and immobile in her skimpy tank top. Nat smiled at her and she blinked and licked her lips. Good luck with that, kid, I thought.
“We’re trying to find the man who got into an argument with the priest,” I prompted, to get her attention. “Was it Tuesday, the week before last?”
She shook her head and flipped her hair back. “Oh, yeah; no, Wednesday. I remember because he left me a fifty-dollar tip. I bought these shoes the next day, which I know was Thursday because it was my night off.” She lifted a leg, pointed a toe, and admired her shoe while I admired her ability to stand on one leg in four-inch stilettos.
“So, the customer,” I prompted.
“Right. He comes in with a small group every now and then. Usually a weeknight. They pay cash, but that’s not unusual. I thought maybe one of them got a thing for one of the dancers—but that’s not unusual, either, a lot of the regulars have favorites. Wilma’s real popular, and she was dancing that night. She dances as Wanda Love. That’s her down there now.”
Nat and I watched a few of the dancer’s sinuous moves
in respectful silence. She was wearing a miniature thong, a gleaming coat of oil, and strategic patches of pink glitter almost covering her nipples. Both her bum cheeks were glittered, too, which we learned when she turned to swing them out over the edge of the stage. I think nude dancing is legal in San Francisco, but since this club was in an area mostly frequented by tourists, perhaps the thong was a sop to their finer feelings.
Vanessa was picking at her teeth with a highly decorated fingernail by the time Nat and I were able to tear our eyes away from Wanda Love. “Can you tell us anything about your customer? What does he look like? Do you know his name?”
“Not really. I mean, we’re not supposed to notice anything, if you know what I mean. He’s no kid, but well preserved. Sixty, maybe a bit older? Gray hair. Pretty blue eyes. English or Australian accent, maybe? He never told me his name and, like I said, he pays cash. He tips well, the girls like him, he never makes trouble. One of his friends got hammered this one time and told me they were secret agents.” Ignoring my start of surprise, she rolled her eyes. “Anyhoo, the customers sometimes say things like that—they’re astronauts or they’re TV stars. Like we care, but we act all impressed and stuff.” She sniffed. “A lotta the guys who come in here just wear casual, jeans or shorts even, but this customer always wears a sports coat—old school but sharp, y’know?” She shook her head at the enormity of the sartorial gaffe, while I told myself there were probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of gray-haired, older men with blue eyes and English accents within a mile of the club. And then gave up trying to imagine Grandfather sitting in a strip club even once, let alone more often.
By the end of the evening I had a splitting headache, and I’d decided all the (male) bartenders and bouncers were either gay or inhumanly blasé, because none of them spared a glance for the dancers. I was undecided whether the entertainment represented female empowerment or male exploitation, but either way, I found them really hard to ignore. We were waiting to talk to the bouncers. For his part, Nat kept turning his head to look at Zane, who sat at the bar facing the room with his legs spread wide, leaning back with both elbows resting on the bar.