by Lee Geiger
Mr. Ponytail mocked Mac’s ignorance. “No way! You must live under a rock, Mister. Pearls of Asia has been around for ten years. This place has changed peoples’ lives, if not their sex.”
Mac didn’t know what to make of that statement, so he chose to ignore it. Mr. Ponytail escorted Mac and gave him a seat at the very far end of the bar, right next to what appeared to be the stage. “Mister, if you don’t mind me saying so, you are one hot looking dude. I just gave you the best seat in the house. The girls are going to owe me big time for this. Don’t be surprised if you get molested.”
Mac had never seen a place like this. The restaurant consisted of a single windowless room that had just enough space for the hundred or so diners. The room was divided in two, with bar tables, chairs, and a long bench and upholstered red leather backrest on one side, and dining tables on the other. A forty-foot U-shaped bar dominated the room; one half for serving customers, the other half raised slightly higher and covered in red rubberized vinyl to make it look like a catwalk. The high ceiling was painted black and adorned with spotlights, and several Asian-influenced papiermâché chandeliers hung from the ceiling. One wall was accented in lime green paint and massive stalks of bamboo set at dramatic angles, while two others featured color morphing shoji screen walls that changed from pink to blue to gold. The room was more than just sexy and intimate. It was sensuous.
The scenery was eclectic. Mac noticed every flavor of freewheeling humanity you’d expect to find in San Francisco; lesbian couples holding hands; a table of gay men laughing and giving each other high-fives; a group of straight looking financial types in dark suits hoisting martinis in every color of the rainbow; a gaggle of middleaged women getting sloshed and silly; an older couple, licking away at ice cream cones, wearing khaki hiking shorts and talking in what sounded like Swedish. Not to mention the table of drunken bachelorettes, already toasting each other with a round of tequila shots. Everyone seemed to be having an outrageously good time.
Above all else, what really caught Mac’s eye were three stunning Asian women scurrying around the restaurant, serving drinks and taking orders. They wore full stage makeup and five-inch heels that didn’t slow down their mad dashes around the room one bit. One wore a tight-fitting strapless amber tube dress, while another had on an off the shoulder tiger-striped mini-dress. They were chatting up the crowd and appeared to be flirting with every man or woman they came in contact with.
Mac ordered a beer. Laid out on the glossy wood bar in front of him were red and white napkins and flame-colored chopsticks folded together in an origami-style sculpture. Mac smiled as he scanned the red leather bound menu featuring dishes best described as Cal-Asian cuisine, with delicious sounding cocktails named after exotic women: Diamond’s Daiquiri, Nadia’s Navel, and Reyna’s Love Potion. There was even a three-course combination special called a Ménage a Trois. You had to love a place like this.
Across the room a man made eye contact with Mac. It was Jackson, another officer from his precinct, out of uniform and sitting with a woman who looked like an anthropology student doing research, including the notepad. Mac acknowledged Jackson’s presence with a knowing wink.
Thirty minutes had passed and Mac still hadn’t seen Sheyla Samonte. He asked the bicep bulging bartender wearing a tight black t-shirt and spiked hair where she was.
“Oh, you mean Jasmine,” he answered. “Sheyla’s her real name, but when she’s working here she calls herself Jasmine. She came in late today. She’s probably downstairs getting ready. Jasmine is the star of the next show, the featured dancer, so she’ll be going on second. Ashley leads off, and she’ll be onstage in a minute or so. I’d put on a seatbelt if I were you.”
The three Asian waitresses walked up and gathered behind Mac. Though they were speaking Tagalog, the native tongue of the Philippines, Mac could tell they were sizing him up like a prized steer at a cattle auction. “Ang mga mata, sarap gumising sa tabi n’ya?” (Can you imagine waking up to those blue eyes?) “Ang sarap halikan nga mga labing yan.” (I would love to kiss those lips.) “Ano ka ba? Dedma ang mga mata at labi; sight mo ang mga kamay…ang lalaki!” (What’s up with you? Forget the eyes and lips; check out those hands…they’re huge!) They must have liked his suit.
Mr. Ponytail sat a young couple next to Mac. The girlfriend had brought her boyfriend to Pearls of Asia for his birthday. Mac made small talk and wished him a happy birthday by buying a round of drinks. Mac soon realized he was having too good a time. He was still on the job, and though he wanted to be cool, he first needed to be a cop.
Without warning, the music died and the lights dimmed. The pulsating rhythm of “Umbrella” by Rihanna began to play, and the table of bachelorettes shrieked in glorious delight. A single spotlight switched on, and standing like a statue in the middle of the bar was Ashley, an enchanting Asian woman with legs that soared to her neck. Her dirty blonde hair flowed down to her waist, and it was straighter than half the men in the room. Carrying an umbrella as a prop, Ashley was wearing a black leather dress, fishnet stockings, and red stiletto heels. Topping off her seductive outfit was a gold sequined bowler. Mac closed his menu and placed it back on the bar. There were times to think about food. This wasn’t one of them.
Ashley’s Ferrari red lips moved in synch with the suggestive lyrics, and her tiptoeing spins, razor-sharp movements and hair tossing turns soon had the room in a frenzy. She was having fun without being freaky, sexy without being tawdry. The room was rocking like a Dick Clark New Year’s Eve party.
Midway through her number, Ashley paused, brought her hands to her chest, and angrily ripped off her dress. The audience gasped at first, and then like a massive wave hitting the beach, followed it up with a thunderous roar. In less time than it took to flip on a light switch, the energy inside Pearls of Asia went from festive to fierce.
Ashley tossed her dress at a table of men lusting for leather. Wearing a lacy black bra, red patent leather shorts, and a smile that could halt an armada, Ashley placed her hands on her hips and lifted her head high. Looking like a Parisian model, she held the provocative pose for the scores of flashes from cameras and smart phones. Armed with a pair of voluptuous breasts, much too perfect to be found in nature, Ashley then turned and strutted toward Mac.
Standing directly above him, and grinding her hips like a misbehaving schoolgirl, Ashley fell to her knees, threw back her hair, and gave Mac an up close and personal tour of her flawless décolletage. With lights flashing all around him, Mac rose up from his chair, only to have Ashley use her umbrella to shove him back into submission. So much for being cool.
The song came to an end, and the crowd rose to its feet. As Ashley walked off the stage to a rousing standing ovation, Mac was left with two thoughts. Where did she get that ultra-firm ass? And what was up, literally and figuratively, with that feeling in the nether region of his pants?
“Who is that girl?” shouted the girlfriend to nobody in particular. “Is she new? What an incredible dancer. She is so…damn… sexy!”
“Her name is Ashley,” the bartender yelled over the din. “She’s only been here a couple of weeks. I think she’s going to be one of the best dancers we’ve ever had.”
Soon the noise died down and an expectant hush came over the room. The haunting introductory notes of Bonnie Raitt’s “Let’s Give Them Something To Talk About” began to play, and emerging from the darkness strolled the second performer of the night, the much-anticipated Jasmine.
She did not disappoint. Wearing a shiny blue cocktail dress that featured a never-ending slit, and a black feather boa that framed her sensational cleavage, Jasmine’s natural beauty sucked the oxygen right out of the room. She had the chiseled cheekbones of a model, the lithe body of a runner, and the presence of a beauty queen. She had a major in glamour, with a minor in charisma.
Unlike Ashley, who bounced along the stage like an over inflated soccer ball, Jasmine moved with the effortless grace of a swan, mesmerizing the audience with an air of soph
istication and style. Camera lights flashed all around, like a crowd of tourists jostling to get a picture of the Mona Lisa. Mac stood straight up in his chair and stared. He was captivated, infatuated, and more awestruck than if he’d just seen Joe Montana.
The mood in the room became downright reverential. Mac overheard the girlfriend whisper to her boyfriend, “That’s Jasmine. She’s the one I told you about. Would you ever imagine?”
Jasmine radiated dignity and elegance, and she danced across the stage like a spoiled Siamese cat. As the song neared its climax, she turned and slinked her way toward Mac. Upon arrival, Jasmine dangled the boa in front of his face, dropped down onto her knees, and wrapped the feathery rope around his neck. She then pulled Mac’s head next to hers, placed her lips on his, and gave Mac a deep, wet, passionate kiss on his mouth. Instead of pulling away, Mac closed his eyes, arched his neck, and held the kiss for what seemed like an eternity. Hers were the softest lips he had ever felt.
The audience erupted in pandemonium. Jasmine rose to her feet, gave Mac a flirtatious wink, and strolled off the stage. She did more than entertain the audience. She owned them.
The lights returned and the house music boomed. Mac sat back down on his chair, his mind on sensory overload. The young couple laughed, and the boyfriend gave Mac a high-five.
“So how do you like sitting in the Hot Seat?” asked the girlfriend. “The girls do that to everyone who sits there.”
“Incredible…fantastic.” Mac was practically speechless, which happened about as often as a San Francisco blizzard.
“It is, isn’t it?” enthused the girlfriend. “And you would never know, would you?”
Regaining his composure, Mac took a healthy swig from his beer and asked with a quizzical look, “Know what?”
“The girls,” she said, looking at him as though he was the last person to get the punch line of a joke. “They’re transsexuals. All these girls are male underneath.”
Mac’s mind went blank, and the color ran from his face. Someone had just hit the control-alt-delete function of his brain.
The young woman gave Mac a concerned look, wondering if he was okay. “You can’t say you didn’t know. Everyone knows the waitresses at Pearls of Asia are transsexuals, or as they like to call themselves, ‘gender illusionists.’ Like the hottest girl here, Jasmine, who just gave you that amazing kiss.”
Mac’s head began to reboot. Sheyla Samonte was a transsexual? A man dressed as a woman? She was Paul Osher’s mistress? And she, or he, had just kissed him?
Mac reached for his wallet, threw the bartender some bills, and bolted for the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
Friday, September 12, 2008 - 8:00 am
“The San Francisco Police Department has confirmed that Michelle Osher, the award-winning broadcaster and former Miss America 1985, whose body was found in her penthouse apartment on Nob Hill Thursday morning, was murdered. Few details are known at this time. According to San Francisco Police Chief Daniel Stone, ‘Finding the people responsible for the death of Michelle Osher is this department’s highest priority.’”
The San Francisco Chronicle
MAC LAY ON TOP of his bed, still wearing yesterday’s suit. His tongue bore the brunt of a midnight cigar, which lasted longer than the bottle of wine. His alarm went off over an hour ago, and he was nursing more than a bad hangover. The image of Sheyla Samonte, her lips pressed against his, was etched into his mind. Whoever she was, or whatever she was, no one had ever kissed him like that before.
Struggling to upgrade to vertical from horizontal, Mac undressed and dragged himself to the bathroom. After making a pit stop to disgorge the poisons that had turned his stomach into a cesspool, Mac headed for the shower. This one would go into extra innings.
Sitting cross-legged on the tile floor, Mac let the water from the shower cascade over his head like a waterfall. Today’s daybreak deluge, however, wasn’t accompanied by his normal routine of bright lights and a KNBR sports report blaring from the shower radio. On this particular morning, just hours after receiving an unforgettable kiss from a special pair of lips, the bathroom was dark. Unlit. As pitch black as a raven’s feather. Not a single glow from a nightlight or a crack in the door. It was as dark as outer space, minus the stars.
This was Mac’s way of making sense of a nonsensical world: sitting on his butt, surrounded by the song of a shower, baptized by hot water and darkness. The bathroom blackout provided a still and blank canvas to help him find the answers. Where was his father? What happened to his marriage? Why did his partner get shot?
Only those closest to Mac knew of his unusual method of meditating. His wife knew, but she tolerated his habit by ignoring it. His mother knew, and she understood it was the reason why her thirty-two year old son, whom she hadn’t seen cry in over twenty years, wanted to move back in with her. After losing both his partner and wife in the course of two weeks, Mac didn’t want to be alone, and unlike the apartment he shared with Denise, the bathroom he grew up with didn’t have a window.
Sitting in the murky obscurity, his mouth tasting like a greasy back alley puddle, Mac tried to make sense of what happened at the corner of Ninth and Howard. What was a ‘gender illusionist?’ How does a man make himself look like that? And why did admiring The Body That Ashley Built get him so aroused last night? Or now?
Get a grip, Mac thought to himself. Get your mind back in the game, back on the case. But first get some coffee.
MAC CLIMBED THE STAIRS toward the kitchen. His mother lived in a five-story townhouse on Grand View Avenue in Noe Valley that she inherited from her late husband. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a two-car garage, and the rooms were stacked one on top of the other like layers on a wedding cake. Mac and his mother moved into this working-class neighborhood when he was six years old, after she divorced Mac’s father and got remarried a week later to Henry Parker. Five years later, Mr. Parker walked into work, sat down at his desk, and minutes later died of a heart attack. He left Victoria Parker the townhouse, no debts, and a small pile of cash, which she used to transform herself from a retired soccer mom into Wall Street’s version of Tyra Banks.
With a mug of coffee in one hand and a cup of green tea in the other, Mac skipped the private elevator and walked up two flights of stairs to the dining room, which his mother had converted into an office after Mac moved back home. Unshowered, her chestnut hair piled carelessly on top of her head, and wearing her every day trader’s uniform of sky blue flannel pajamas with matching slippers, Victoria Parker was speaking into a wireless headset while listening to CNBC and scanning four computer screens. This was a woman who took multi-tasking to a new level.
“Listen Dustin, I don’t care if the float on Lehman Brothers is skinnier than Paris Hilton. That sorry excuse for an investment bank is going broke faster than M.C. Hammer. If you can borrow enough stock so my short position gets north of a hundred thousand shares, I’ll treat you and your latest boy toy to another crazy night at Badlands. Now get to work.”
“Badlands?” Mac asked while placing her tea in front of her. “What’s my mother doing hanging out at a gay nightclub with her stockbroker?”
“Having more fun than I care to tell you about. Now talk to me about this case. It sounds exciting, like the San Francisco version of O.J. Simpson.”
“You got that right. A former Miss America is murdered, her wealthy husband has a mistress, and it turns out she works at a place called Pearls of Asia, where every waitress has the same plumbing as me. Hollywood couldn’t make this stuff up.”
“She works at Pearls of Asia?” cackled Victoria Parker. “You’ve got to be kidding. I love that place! My girlfriends and I had a Cougar Committee meeting there a few months ago. The food is great, the drinks are ferocious, and the girls are jaw-dropping gorgeous. Have you ever been there?”
“Not until last night. It’s not exactly a sports bar.”
“Mackey, you need to get out more often. For my mo
ney it’s the best restaurant in San Francisco for just plain fun. What did you think of it?”
“I had a good time, at least I did until one of those make believe ‘girls’ decided to give me a good night kiss smack on the lips.”
Victoria Parker put her hands over her mouth and burst into a howl of laughter. “Well that explains the empty wine bottle I discovered this morning.”
Mac could feel his face begin to flush, although he wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment. “It’s not funny, Mom. Another guy from the precinct saw her, or him, kiss me. I’m sure by noon it will be all over the precinct.”
Victoria Parker removed her headset and turned CNBC to mute, which she never liked to do. As far as she was concerned, CNBC provided the best analysis on Wall Street. If every talking head they paraded before the cameras said to “sell,” then she knew it was time to buy. In the case of Lehman Brothers, she knew the biggest player in the mortgage-backed securities market was in a fatal death-spiral when her illegal alien manicurist from Guadalajara scored a zero-down mortgage on a half-million dollar home. She needed more documentation to cross the border than she did to buy a house.
“First of all, that was a girl who kissed you, and she is more of a woman than that cold-blooded bitch you called a wife. Denise did everything she could to be more like a man so she could snag a bigger bonus check. Those girls at Pearls of Asia, on the other hand, spend every waking moment of their lives trying to be the best woman they can be. Have you ever noticed how they glide when they walk, or how they gracefully arch their neck when they flip their hair? It’s amazing how truly feminine they can be. You shouldn’t be embarrassed because she placed her lips on yours. You should be proud. She obviously has good taste.”
Mac shook his head. “‘Proud’ is not the word I’d use, Mom. ‘Confused’ is more like it.”