Just in time, in fact, to see her dance.
The joint was like a hundred others he’d frequented. Smaller than some. Larger than others. There were four active stages. The women dancing on stage, as well as those circulating the tables for drinks, lap dances, and deals of a more intimate nature, were all beautiful. He was impressed. The place was understandably packed.
Because he’d only given the card the most cursory glance and then handed it to the cab driver, the club’s name had stopped him in his tracks when he first looked up and saw it blazing in crimson neon. The Kitty Kat Klub. It sent shivers up his spine to see her name in lights. He decided then and there that he’d lost it, that he was one total dumbass of a detective. If there was one place in town, he thought, where he could guarantee her not being, this was it.
Janice was down to a G-string and fluorescent blue halter top by the time Zolotow found a seat. She was moving to the rhythm of a song Zolotow quickly decided was called "Sweet Dreams are Made of These," simply because the band repeated that line over and over within the rhythmic pounding of the sparse lyrics. The music hardly mattered. Janice could tease with the best of them. He watched her wring every iota of angst-ridden lust out of the guys before she gave up the halter top. In return, her panties were overflowing with bills, very few of them bearing Washington’s dole visage. She worked the pole, the mirror, the floor, even the rafters at one point, and she worked the customers. Bending over, she revealed that tiny strip of material wedged up between her legs, so small and yet covering so much. She stroked her oiled thighs, massaged her breasts, slapped her ass, and used every trick in the book short of putting her red high heels behind her ears.
Zolotow found himself strangely immune to it all.
The lights were beginning to work on his mind, strobing in visions of Tony spread open like a gutted flower on the mirrored back wall of the stage. Janice was suddenly Kat, crouched over Tony’s body, his blood running thick and slow from her chin, down across her firm young breasts. Then it seemed that in every inky corner there crouched an ebony feline, fangs and claws glistening silver wet. He broke out in a sweat. The pounding in his head, which had at first synchronized itself to the rhythm of Janice’s chosen music, was now a thundering discord so that he was alternately pummeled from within and without. When the waitress asked him what he wanted from the bar, it was all he could do to croak, "Scotch."
Then the music was over and Janice came down off the stage, playfully turning the hands that stroked her flanks and snapped at her G-string, giving each of them a smile that said she’d be back just for them. She came through the howling mob, straight for his table, and placed herself in his lap. "Hi, lover. Slip me some money so the boss doesn’t get his shorts in a knot."
He slipped her a bill without looking at it, overpowered by the smell and proximity of her on top of the unexpected visions.
"Jesus, Zolo! Take it back, hon, it’s a fucking c-note."
"It’ll be yours tonight anyway," he mumbled, starting to pull himself together. His drink arrived and he passed the girl a bill, checking to make sure it was a five. He took a heavy hit off the scotch and felt worlds better.
Janice stuffed the hundred into his shirt pocket. "Club takes are split equally, baby. Give it to me later when I don’t have to share it with the others."
He knew that. Goddamn it, he knew that. He tucked a twenty into the front of her panties, letting his fingers slip briefly through her soft pubic hairs. I may be going broke, he thought, but I’m going out in style.
"I’ve been watching for you all night." She squirmed her buttocks against his crotch, but didn’t seem to find what she was looking for. "My dancing didn’t do it for you?"
He stroked her thigh, loving the feel of the oil she’d rubbed on before going on stage, loving the smoothness, the firmness, the feel of youth. Was that what he sought in all these women? The youth that he was losing? "Sorry. I just walked in near the end of it. You know what you do for me."
"Yeah, we’ll see about that." She checked his watch. "I got ten minutes more working the room, then I’m off for thirty. Did you drive?"
"Sorry, babe. I took a cab."
"Zolo!"
Until that moment, he’d completely forgotten her invitation to a parking lot quickie. "I thought I’d stay until closing," he lied. "That way we could leave together."
"Oh, baby, I’m going to be so tired."
He had a sudden flash, the image of her asleep that morning in his hotel room. "S’okay," he said. "You can sleep. I’ll just watch."
She kissed him. "You’re too sweet." Then the music started up and a buxom blonde took the stage. The D.J. introduced her, appropriately, as Candy. "Oh, man, you gotta watch Candy. She’s fucking fantastic." She shifted again on his lap, found the position she was looking for, and whispered in his ear, "You’re gonna love this."
Candy was good. Candy worked the room like it had no limits. If she’d been accepting them, guys would have been writing checks for their life savings and maxing out their VISA and American Express cards. It’s not that Janice hadn’t been good. It was just that Candy was better. Watching her, Zolotow felt himself growing hard. Janice felt it too. "You dirty old man," she chided, and then she began to work his lap with her buttocks, shifting herself up and down the length of his erection.
"Janice —"
"Quiet, baby. Nobody’s watching us. Every eye in the joint’s on Candy."
She was right about that.
He watched Candy, imagined her long, blond hair spilling over his face. He imagined the feel of her breasts in his hands, nipples firm against his palms. He imagined the musky smell of her cunt and a moment later realized he wasn’t imagining it. What he was smelling was Janice. Candy was turning her on as well.
Too soon, the music died and Candy ducked out through the back, disdaining to work the room like many of the top girls Zolotow had seen across the country. Zolotow was left with a throbbing in his groin, unsatisfied. Janice leaned back and kissed him over her shoulder, arching her back so that he could see her breasts. Her nipples were knotted with lust. "Next girl’s new," she said, licking at his lips, "we’ll both have to see if she’s any good."
Zolotow didn’t care what she looked like, as long as Janice didn’t stop moving in his lap.
"Settle down, guys!" the announcer yelled. "Candy’ll be back, hotter than ever. Right now I need you to make our new girl feel welcome. Give it up for Kat!"
Zolotow’s heart stopped and dropped to the pit of his stomach. It was her. It was honest to fucking God her. When she took the stage, his erection lurched against Janice’s backside.
Janice laughed. "Oh, baby, I think this kitty’s got your number."
Somehow I wasn’t at all surprised to see him sitting there. It was the girl on his lap that struck me as odd. Her resemblance to me was uncanny. Oh, Zolo, I thought, what demons are you nursing, darling? Have you come to kill me or make love to me? Was Tony’s death not enough to satisfy your curiosity about the beast?
Of course he recognized me immediately. I saw his free hand slip under his jacket—his other hand was clamped between the girl’s legs, captive to whatever demons she was working out for herself. I tensed for a moment, but he didn’t pull out whatever gun he’d concealed there. Instead he just held it while his eyes clouded over with lust and the stripper who looked like me moved on his lap.
I let my eyes go feline, flashing him warning and invitation at once. He saw the change, and his back arched. His right hand came out from under the jacket and I thought for a second he was pulling the gun, but he only gripped the stripper’s shoulder and pulled her down hard against him.
I let my eyes slip away from his, turning toward the men who crowded the brass rail at the edge of the stage. Pheromones. Body movements as old as time, as indigenous as their own hormones. Lust in a gesture. Desire in a glance. They were mine. Every fucking one of them. I knew I was overdoing it, but after all, it was a special occasion.
&n
bsp; She danced to the strangest music, hardly the sort of thing you expected to hear at a strip club. "It’s a band called Tool," Janice told Zolotow. "God, why would anyone pick something so weird to strip to?" Strange, yes, but as Kat moved and undressed, Janice began to pant, pressing against him as urgently as he was pressing against her.
There’s a shadow just behind me
Shrouding every step I take
Making every promise empty
Pointing every finger at me
Waiting like a stalking butler. . .
Something was wrong. The crowd was mesmerized—God, every cock in the room must be about to explode—but there was no money flowing. Kat danced and every eye followed her, but the half-folded green bills remained clenched in the hands of the onlookers.
Janice’s head fell back against Zolotow’s chest. Her body quivered and her breath hissed through clenched teeth. The cheeks of her ass were clenched so tight that Zolotow actually felt as if he was in her, as if there weren’t three layers of cloth between them. As her buttocks trembled with orgasm, he felt himself surging forward. Heat and passion swelled from the center of him, focused there where he was pressed against Janice, but intended for the animal beauty on the stage.
I am just a worthless liar
I am just an imbecile
I will only complicate you
Trust in me and fall as well
I will find a center in you
I will chew it up and leave
I will work to elevate you
Just enough to bring you down
Trust me, trust me, trust me. . .
Guitars screamed and someone screamed with them. The room erupted in chaos. A bouncer took one of the patrons to the ground, pounding him several times in the back of the head to keep him off the stage. From somewhere there came the sound of shattering glass. Zolotow heard none of it as his orgasm surged forth.
"Zolo! You’re hurting me!"
There were blue bruises rising where he’d gripped her shoulders. It took a great deal of effort to pull his hands free. When he did, she sprang from his lap. He was trembling. His vision was blurred. When he tried to stand, his legs wanted to fold.
"What the hell’s wrong with you?" Janice screamed. "You nearly broke my fucking shoulders! God, what’s wrong with this whole fucking joint? The guys are going apeshit and that stupid bitch didn’t even collect any money."
"Where. . .?" Zolotow croaked.
"What?"
"Where the fuck did she go?" he yelled, shoving her aside.
"Christ, Zolo, lighten up! She’s probably backstage."
The room was in turmoil. The D.J. was trying to restore order, but half the crowd was screaming for more of Kat and the other half was trashing the place. Zolotow sprang up on the stage, wincing at the press of his erection against his trousers, fighting his rising embarrassment over the warm, wet spot he felt.
A bouncer interceded between him and a hidden door at the rear of the stage. Zolotow used an old jujitsu trick, faking a trip that laid him out on the floor beside the bouncer. But as he fell, his left leg hooked the bouncer’s ankle and his right foot shot out against the bouncer’s captured knee. There was a sickening crunch! The bouncer went down with a howl of agony and Zolotow was up and through the doorway.
There were screams as he burst into the dressing room with the Beretta drawn. He swept the room with the gun, nearly squeezing the trigger at every dark-haired girl. He recognized they weren’t Kat most quickly by the fear on their faces. She wouldn’t be afraid of him.
She was nowhere to be seen.
"Where’d she go?" he screamed at them. They were too busy cowering and screaming to answer. Janice came in behind him and he turned the gun on her. "Where?"
"Shit, Zolo, the back door’s right there."
He hit the safety bar with his hip, slamming the door out against the side of the building. Sweeping the alley with the pistol, he stepped out through the doorway. There was a dumpster, a car, several cardboard boxes. No Kat. There was movement from within the car, hidden by the yellow glare of the single sodium vapor light in the alley. He took a step toward the vehicle and it seemed, suddenly, that his brain had finally exploded.
He hit the curb face first and rolled, coming to a halt against a pair of legs. Somewhere a car door opened. A boot whipped out and the Beretta skated away from his dead fingers. He tried to move, but nothing worked. Janice joined the figure standing over him and it occurred to him from out of nowhere that he’d never once told her his nickname was Zolo. Martin Zolotow, he’d said. She hadn’t called him Martin or Marty. She’d called him Zolo.
Janice’s face seemed to bring her companion’s into focus.
Bennet.
"You didn’t kill the son of bitch, did you?" asked someone from the side. Zolotow didn’t recognize the voice, but then he wasn’t sure his hearing was even working properly. Mostly he just heard a loud buzzing. He tried to turn his head, but his neck wouldn’t work. Bennet had clubbed him good.
"He’s no good to me dead," added the unknown voice.
"He ain’t dead," Bennet said, kicking Zolotow roughly in the ribs.
"Hey, you said you wouldn’t hurt him!"
Bennet turned to regard Janice. "And you said you’d bring him out to the parking lot at ten. Stupid cunt."
"He didn’t drive," Janice explained. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Improvise," Bennet told her. Suddenly he grabbed her by the hair. "But the best thing you coulda’ done, bitch, was stay the fuck away from us. Now you know too fucking much." From within his jacket he pulled a large knife. Zolotow couldn’t be sure, but he thought he recognized it from the zoo video. Left-handed. The bastard was left-handed! Bennet yanked Janice’s head back by the hair, exposing her delicate neck, and casually, almost tenderly, ran the length of the blade across her throat.
Blood splashed across Zolotow’s face. He managed to scream incoherently as Bennet eased the thrashing prostitute to the curb.
"What a fucking waste," said the voice from the side.
Someone kicked Zolotow in the head and everything went black.
When Zolotow woke, his first thought was of Heaven. He’d read the tabloids, seen the video takes. Death was supposed to be followed by visions of a great white light. A tunnel. Warmth and comfort and an overwhelming feeling that everything would be alright. Then the pain hit, and his image of paradise was shot to hell. He nearly blacked out again as lances of ice slammed through his brain.
"He’s coming to."
The words sank in, but it was a long, frightening moment before a name and a face surfaced from his memory. Bennet. There was no mistaking that arrogant twang. Zolotow thanked whatever dark gods were looking after him that his mind wasn’t sputtering out on him. If he could place that name, then he could think, and that was all that was left to him at the moment.
He squeezed his eyes shut painfully, then allowed them to open again, more slowly. It didn’t help much. The light was directed into his eyes. Once he managed a pained semi-focus on the room surrounding him, he was able to make out the outlines of three figures, but no details. He was seated in a straight-backed, wooden chair, tied securely in place with nylon cord. Whoever had tied him knew their stuff. There was no chance of working himself free. The Beretta was gone. It felt like the PPK was still in place, but there was no way to reach it. Two lamps—photographic equipment, he guessed—were directed into his eyes.
"Welcome back to the living, Detective Zolotow," a sibilant, whispery voice proclaimed. The sound insinuated itself into Zolotow’s mind; not loud, but powerful. He recognized the voice as belonging to the man who’d been concerned that Bennet would kill him in the alley. Now that he’d heard it twice, he detected a faint, subdued, European accent. French maybe.
"Who are you," Zolotow managed to grate, "and why didn’t you just kill me and be done with it?"
"I think you know the answer to your second question," the voice chided. Zolotow was able to pin it
to the tallest of the three silhouettes. The guy had be at least six foot eight. "She’s near, and I’m afraid I must have her. You will lead me to her, and perhaps I will let you live."
There wasn’t much point in playing dumb, but Zolotow was fighting for time to order his thoughts. "I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about."
"You always chase dancers through back alleys with your gun drawn, asshole?" Bennet’s voice again.
Most of it came back to him then. The club. The alley. Janice. Oh, God, Janice. Eyes narrowed, he focused on the form which he now recognized to be Bennet. "You’re a dead man, Bennet."
Bennet laughed, stepped around in front of the light and hit him, hard.
Zolotow spat blood and blinked at the darkness pressing in from the edges of his vision. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft. "I’m going to take that fucking knife of yours —"
A backhanded blow slammed his head over the back of the chair.
"— and shove it so far up your ass that you’ll be tasting your own shit on the tip of it."
Bennet drew back his hand to hit him again.
"Enough!" commanded the tall man.
"Son of a bitch doesn’t know when to shut up," Bennet spit.
"Dead," Zolotow hissed. "You’re fucking dead, Bennet."
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