by Mike Markel
“I got ya that list of people working yesterday,” he said. As he shifted his weight so he could pull a piece of paper out of a pants pocket, I could see his man boobs shift through his washed-out turtleneck. He slid the paper to me across the table.
“Thanks,” I said as I unfolded it and scanned the information. It showed just the names of two bartenders, two bouncers, and three “girls.” I shook my head, then looked up at him. “I asked for contact information.”
“I don’t have that on me,” he said, shaking his head like I was asking for their mothers’ maiden names and there was no way he could have foreseen that.
“By noon today. Fax, email, run a piece of paper over, whatever.” I looked at him. “You understand me?”
He nodded. I could tell by the way he was pulling his shoulders in and bowing his head that he had some experience dealing with cops. “Can you tell me what this is about?”
I glanced down at the sheet of paper. “You got a girl listed as Natalya. No last name?”
He put his hands up. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the records on her. My accountant has her full name. She’s Russian or something. I got it written down somewhere.”
“She got papers?”
“That what this is about? Because, absolutely, we do a thorough check. Absolutely everything. She told me her name. It was kind of long and complicated. I just don’t know where that piece of paper is.” He wiped at his forehead with a damp handkerchief. “But I’m saying, we only hire legit girls.”
I sighed. “Like I said when I called you this morning, we’re hoping you can help us with a case we’re working on.”
He nodded his head and put his arms out in a gesture of servility. “Of course, of course.”
“That’s great,” I said. “We recovered a body in the alley next to your bar early this morning.”
“Just to be sure, you understand the alley is not part of the bar. That’s city property.”
“You’re not from Montana, are you, Mr. Vinson?”
He looked a little confused. “I know, I got a bit of an accent. New Jersey.” He paused. “Why’d you say that?”
“Most people, they hear there’s a body in the alley next to their place, they say, ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ maybe “That’s too bad.’ They say something like that. You say, ‘Don’t blame me.’ See where I’m going?”
“You’re right,” he said, pushing his palms down to show he understood my point. “I’m very sorry to hear about that, I mean that someone died. It’s just I don’t usually get up this early. I’m up till three, four o’clock every night. And, to be perfectly frank with you, you bringing me here, I don’t even know what it’s about, it kind of shook me up. But your point is well taken. I shoulda said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ So tell me what you need from me about that. Was it a cowboy passed out, froze or something along those lines? It wasn’t a drunk-driving thing, am I right?”
“It wasn’t drunk driving, and it wasn’t a cowboy passing out and dying of hypothermia. It was a homicide.”
“Holy shit.” Philip Vinson’s head pulled back. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to use that language in front of a lady. But I had no idea we’re talking about a murder. Are you thinking it had something to do with my bar?”
“Yeah, the thought did cross our minds, seeing as it wasn’t all that likely that someone would want to hang out in that alley if he wasn’t there because of Johnny’s Lounge. That alley is a toilet. And not a clean toilet. Nobody would want to be there.”
“I understand completely what you’re saying.” Philip Vinson nodded his head. “I’ve phoned the city about it I can’t tell you how many times. They say they’re gonna do something about it, but they don’t. You’d think, with the taxes I pay, they’d be all over it.” He took a breath, wiping a sleeve across his forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m getting off topic here. Did you want to ask me some questions about last night? Let me start by saying I don’t know anything about someone getting killed there. You believe me about that, right? Personally, I got my hands full with things inside the bar. I don’t ever go out there. But is there something you wanna ask me?”
“Were you at Johnny’s last night?”
“The whole night. From maybe three in the afternoon till after two.”
“You didn’t even go out for dinner?”
“I usually get some takeout. You know, Chinese, Thai, some pizza. I have this kid, he’s maybe sixteen, seventeen, works for me. He picks it up.”
“You ever seen this man?” I turned to Ryan, who pulled a picture of Lee Rossman out of a folder and slid it across the table to Philip Vinson. It was from Montana! magazine, a photo of Lee Rossman, standing outside his big house. He was wearing blue jeans and a camo jacket, a big smile on his face.
“Jesus.” Vinson flinched. “I thought you were talking about a young guy, one of the oil workers, somebody like that.” He looked at the photo some more. “Sorry, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in Johnny’s.” He tilted his head and paused, like he wanted to be sure he was telling me the exact truth—because I deserved nothing less. “Let me be absolutely honest with you. I’m not saying for a fact that he’s never been in my place. We can gross fifty thou a night—that’s a weeknight. Weekends, two or three times that. So I can’t remember everyone comes in. You understand. I’m just saying I don’t recognize this guy. This is the guy got murdered?”
“That’s right, Mr. Vinson. Name of Lee Rossman. President of Rossman Mining. Got a bunch of rigs in the Bakken, out in the eastern part of the state. Most of your customers, the guys, they either work for him or know someone who does.”
“I don’t doubt you. I don’t doubt you at all. I’m just saying I don’t recognize this guy as being in my bar.”
“All right,” I said. “Do you remember any one of your employees—bartenders, strippers, bouncers—anybody telling you anything about a fight out there in the alley? Or any customers talking about how they’re gonna take it outside? Any employees go outside to the alley to help with some deliveries? Anything like that?”
Vinson shook his head, looking disappointed because he really wanted to help. “We don’t take any deliveries after business hours.” He closed his eyes to think. “No, nothing about any fights in the alley.”
“Do you know if any of your girls were involved with Lee Rossman—any of the waitresses, strippers? Any of the male employees?”
“Let me tell you my policy on ‘involved.’” His face went all solemn. “We got an absolute, iron-clad rule. My waitresses carry the drinks, but they don’t touch the customers. My dancers can take tips when they’re dancing, and they do table dances—fifty bucks for five minutes—but it’s completely out in the open. And there’s no touching the girls when they’re not on the stage. We got no private rooms, no VIP lounges, anything. I got an office upstairs, no couches, no mattresses. Nothing of the kind. My girls are not hooking out of my bar. Absolutely not. I find out they’re even thinking of that, they’re gone. That night.”
“All right, Mr. Vinson, take a deep breath. No one’s accusing you of running hookers out of your bar. I’m just asking whether you know if any of your girls were involved with Lee Rossman—prostitutes, girlfriends, nannies, housekeepers, whatever.”
“I can’t control what the girls do on their own time. I haven’t heard of anything like that. Like I said, I can’t swear it isn’t going on, but I don’t know anything about something like that. And I’m willing to swear to that.”
“Okay, Mr. Vinson—”
“Look, I didn’t put that money in those guys’ pockets. I can’t swear that there aren’t some hookers come to my place, but most of the girls come for the dancing. They’re not working girls. They’re just there for the dancing. They want to leave with the oil guys—that’s their legal right to do that. There’s nothing illegal there. But any professionals come to my place, they’re not on my payroll. That I can swear to on my mother’s grave.”
“All right, Mr. Vin
son, we hear you. You’re not running girls out of your bar. Here’s what we need you to help us with.” I picked up the sheet of paper with the five names. “My partner and I are gonna come over to Johnny’s at one pm this afternoon. You get those people in there at one o’clock. Don’t tell them what it’s about. Just tell them to get in there. If there’s any others you didn’t list, call them, too. You hear me?”
“I don’t know what their schedules are.” He shook his head like this was a little more than he could promise. “Some of them might be off today.”
“I understand that.” I nodded. “But this is a murder investigation. If we don’t see them all there at one o’clock, we’re gonna come back tonight and start questioning everyone—all the employees, all the customers.”
“You’re gonna shut me down?”
“I didn’t say that. I said we’re gonna come over tonight. You can stay open. But we’re gonna have to turn off the sound system, the DJ, whatever you got. So we can hear. And we’re gonna turn the lights up bright so we can see. You know, to take notes. We’ll have maybe eight or twelve officers with us. But we’re not gonna shut you down. Do you understand me?”
He nodded. “One o’clock.”
“That would be a good time to give me that list with the contact information.”
And with that little interchange, Philip Vinson and I had reached an understanding.
Chapter 5
I parked the Dodge Charger in a metered spot a few doors down from the entrance to Johnny’s Lounge. “I guess you’ve never been in Johnny’s,” I said to Ryan. He’s Mormon and takes it seriously.
“Couple of times,” he said, “when I was on patrol. Drunk and disorderlies.”
I shut off the big engine and put down the visor with the Official Police Business sign on it. I glanced over at the alley, right beyond the bar. It was still taped off, a squad car blocking the entrance. Robin must not have finished scraping the various kinds of shit off the ground.
Walking up to the entrance of Johnny’s Lounge, I recognized the big, heavy, scratched-up wooden door, cut in a crescent shape along the top. We walked in, and I felt that comforting warmth of a dimly lit bar at midday. It took me a few seconds to adjust to the darkness—no windows, only the red, yellow, and blue lights from the neon beer signs. Hanging from the ceiling was some kind of swoopy wood and metal fixture a good thirty feet across, filled with dozens of lights of all different sizes and shapes. Luckily, it was turned off. I imagined its purpose was to put out strobing light to amp up the Ecstasy when the DJ started thump-thumping around eight tonight. I breathed in the familiar smell of old beer, liquor, sweat, and drugstore perfume, but I didn’t quite recognize the place.
A few years ago, when I was an active drunk, a shabby little place called Callahan’s was my go-to, pass-out spot. Occasionally, I would hit other bars, part of my effort to remain well-rounded, well-travelled, and well-oiled. But Callahan’s best fit my lifestyle: humble aspirations, underwhelming results. It was dark and generally quiet. There was an old-style TV, the kind that was deeper than it was wide, strapped to a thick metal arm sticking out of the wall over the bar. The volume was always off, with the subtitles misspelled to the point of gibberish at the bottom of the screen. A couple of cheesy little bookshelf speakers at the ends of the bar piped out white-people jazz at a low volume. There was one bartender, who lifted his chin a half-inch to welcome me and didn’t need to be told to bring me a Jack Daniel’s. No annoying lights, no dancing, no DJs, no live music, no strippers. Just alcohol and guys on business trips who wanted to nail a woman who wasn’t all that into conversation.
Just then I remembered why I had crossed Johnny’s Lounge off my list. It wasn’t that it was too loud, which it was, or that it had strippers. I’m fine with strippers. I quit Johnny’s when they started watering the Jack Daniel’s, probably to pay for the stage and the lights and the sound system and the pole and the outfits and shit for the strippers. So, I guess it probably was because of the strippers.
We wiped our feet on the long carpet, which ran from the entrance right up to the bar. The carpet was red with black silhouettes of the woman with huge tits you see on truck mudflaps. Philip Vinson came rushing over, his boobs bouncing beneath his washed-out turtleneck. “Detectives, detectives,” he said, his arms out in an ornate welcome gesture, his doughy face wearing a pained enthusiasm, “welcome to Johnny’s Lounge. I’ve got most of my people here.” He gestured to a group of young people with sour expressions, yawning, checking their phones, and talking listlessly over near the far end of the bar. He reached into an inside pocket on his stained black suit jacket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here’s that contact information you needed,” he said, an obedient student handing in his homework.
Right at the top of my list of things a cop can absolutely count on: If you want a bar owner to cooperate, tell him you’re going to stop by tonight with a dozen uniforms and turn on all the lights.
“Thanks, Mr. Vinson.” I scanned the sheet of paper he had given me. It listed two bouncers, two bartenders, and three strippers. “Appreciate it. You mind staying here a few minutes while we talk to your people?”
“Of course.” He put his palms together and made a delicate suck-up bow. “Whatever you need.” He turned and hurried off to an empty booth over in the corner.
“Okay, Ryan, you take the two bouncers—” I held the paper up close to read it in the dim light. “That’s Billy and Ronnie. And the bartender named Rob.” He wrote the names in his skinny notebook and headed over to the group.
I walked behind him, up to the group of employees. “Alison Parker?” I said. A woman of about twenty-five nodded. “Come over here, would you?” She followed me to a booth on the other side of the bar.
“My name is Detective Seagate.” I gestured for her to sit across the table from me. “We’re talking with employees who worked here last night. About a homicide we think took place out in the alley.”
She was shifting in her seat but stopped. Her eyes got big. “Jesus.”
I pulled a photo of Lee Rossman out of my big shoulder bag and slid it across the table to her.
She picked it up and held it close, brushing some strands of brown hair back behind her ear. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Lee Rossman,” I said. “He was the president of Rossman Mining, headquartered here in town.”
“That’s the company all the young guys work for, right?” She was pretty, with delicate eyebrows, brown eyes set wide, and a narrow jaw. “You said out in the alley?”
“Yeah.”
“What was he doing there?”
“You should be a cop,” I said. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “How can I help?”
“Did you see him last night?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember seeing him; can’t say if he was here. We can have a couple hundred customers any given night.” She pointed to the length of the bar. There was a section, about fifty feet long, with stools bolted to the floor, and another section, just as big, without stools. That section would be for the dancin’ fools. “He could’ve been sitting at the bar for an hour—the other end from me—and I wouldn’t have seen him.”
“You don’t remember a couple guys getting into fights, the security guys telling them to take it outside?”
She smiled. “There could be five or ten fights a night,” she said. “Nothing out of the ordinary. But I didn’t hear about anything involving an old guy.”
“You didn’t hear the security guys talking about anything they’d seen in the alley out there?” I pointed at the wall.
“No, nothing.”
“How well do you know the dancers?”
She paused. “Not well,” she said, sitting back a little. I couldn’t get a read on her attitude one way or the other. “They’ve got a little dressing room. An old storage closet, actually. So they kind of know each other, but since I leave my clothes on
, they don’t hang with me.”
“There’s two dancers over there, right?” I said.
She squinted and reached into her bag for a pair of glasses.
“The blonde is Natalya.”
“Got a last name?”
Alison Parker frowned and shook her head.
“What can you tell me about her?”
“I know she keeps to herself, doesn’t speak much English, knows how to crawl around on a stage pretty good. The way she humps a pole, I’m surprised it doesn’t cum and go limp.”
“So she makes some money.”
Alison’s eyebrow went up a little. “Helluva lot more than I do.”
“And the other one?” I gestured with my chin to the other dancer, a big-framed woman standing with her back to us.
“Name’s Donna Hensley. Can’t dance for shit.”
“Why is she here?”
“Wait till she turns around.”
I looked down at the list. “And the third dancer: Susan Warnock.”
“Yeah, I know Susan a little. Older than the others. I think she’s got a kid or something.”
“She can dance?”
“Yeah, I guess, some. She’s pretty. Does all right here.”
“Let me ask you. The boss told us he’s real strict on making sure the girls don’t hook.”
She smiled.
“What?” I said.
“Did he also say he’s real strict about how you don’t have to fuck him to keep your job?”
I looked at her. “If you want to talk about that, I’ll put you onto some people who can help you.”
Alison waved her hand. “We worked it out.”
“Yeah?”
“I told him about how I grew up on a ranch with four brothers. How we’d use this big metal clamp to castrate the bulls. Things like that. I think I scared him.”