“What is love, Ma?” I said.
She reached across with one swift move and whacked me upside the head with her wooden noodle spoon.
“Ow! What’d you do that for?” There are certain rituals that human beings perform for absolutely no reason. I had to ask the question; it was part of the ritual. For my trouble, I got a second whack.
“I don’t know, Ma,” I said. “I don’t know him well enough to love him.”
Ma put down the spoon and looked at me, her eyes locked on mine, suddenly shiny with tears or something else.
“Aw, Sierra,” she said softly. “You got it bad.”
The room was completely still for a long moment, the air filled with steamy, spaghetti smells. Finally, Al had the good sense to choke on his pasta. Ma reached over and smacked him good-naturedly. “What’s the matter with you?” she cried. “Your sister’s in love and all you can think to do is stuff your face? Have a little respect!”
“And you,” she said, her attention turned back to me. “Eat! Mangia! You ever see a happy man with a skinny woman?”
We all laughed, the tension broken for the time being. But I knew I wouldn’t have long to wait for the next round of questions. It was far better to eat and run off to the Tiffany, where there was only one question: How much money can I make them guys cough up tonight?
* * *
By the time I roared down Thomas Drive and into the Tiffany parking lot, I had switched in my head from Sierra, her mother’s daughter, to Sierra, Mistress of the Night. No matter what was going on in the real world, me and the Fluff still had bills to pay and pasta to buy. You gotta have a good head if you’re gonna rule the night.
I always notice the change in myself when I start getting ready to leave the house. I stand taller, pulling myself up by the tops of my shoulders, brining my breasts up into focus. I move slower, deliberately. I powder and wax and shine every square inch of my body, because at the Tiffany, my body is a temple and I’m looking for worshipers, preferably rich ones with loose, floppy wallets oozing money.
Don’t take me wrong here. I like most of the guys I meet. I don’t mind talking to them and hearing all their problems and dreams, but the bottom line is this: It’s my freakin’ job. No more. No less.
So, by the time I hit the backstage dressing room, I was moving to the music, zoning out on my own inner space. I was a green. Therefore, I found it only appropriate to dress like Cleopatra. I wound a little rubber snake around my arm, threw on a black wig, and wrapped my body in a toga. Simple but effective.
Ralph, the stagehand, cranked the smoke machine as I walked out. I’ve been trying to convince him and some of the guys to carry me out on their shoulders, but Ralph says he can’t, his back would go out. I know that’s not true, but I don’t bust him about it. Truth is, Ralph’s young and probably doesn’t think he could control himself. He’s afraid he’d embarrass himself onstage. So I say, what the hell, live and let live. But it would be a powerful entrance.
Instead I stood there, surrounded by smoke, and reached one hand up to make the snake on my arm wiggle, like maybe it was real. Then I started moving and swaying to the music, my hands slowly caressing my thighs. With one fast jerk, just as the music built and froze for two counts, I ripped away the toga.
There I was, standing out on the edge of the runway, wearing nothing but a gold thong bikini and a snake. That’s when I noticed the boys from the racetrack. I had to notice them. Meatloaf was so excited his body was jerking and I thought he was having some kind of a seizure. Frank was leering and standing a little too close to the edge of the stage. The rest of Roy Dell’s crew was right behind Frank. But where was Roy Dell?
I looked up and caught Bruno the bouncer’s eye. This was a crew that didn’t respond well to structure. However, Bruno was one of those structures that didn’t respond well to customers touching the merchandise.
True to form, Frank was the first to make a move. He took a step forward, bringing himself right up against the twinkle lights of the runway, and reached out a thick, muscular arm.
Bruno, materializing beside Frank, slowly reached his Goliath-sized arm over Frank’s shoulder and wrapped his fingers around Frank’s wrist. No words were exchanged, but the look of pain that crossed Frank’s face pleased me.
“Step back,” Bruno said, his voice a flat monotone of seeming indifference.
Frank didn’t move, but little beads of perspiration began to pop out on his forehead. You could almost see the little kid in him want to say, “Make me.” Bruno felt Frank’s reluctance and squeezed a little tighter on his wrist. The skin beneath Bruno’s fingers turned a grayish white. I was starting to feel sorry for Frank.
Slowly, very slowly, Frank began to withdraw his hand from the edge of the runway. Just to taunt him, I lost my bikini top. Meatloaf started to drool, oblivious to Frank’s predicament. Mickey Rhodes broke off whatever high-level conversation he’d been having with Vincent and took two quick strides over to the area where his employees were in imminent danger.
I bent at the waist and reached my arms out in front of me, slid into a slow split, then rolled onto my stomach and arched my back. Even Mickey stopped for a second to appreciate true artistry in motion. That’s when I believe Meatloaf lost his entire paycheck to my thong, Frank got tossed by Bruno, and Mickey Rhodes saved half the track workforce from also getting kicked to the curb. He wedged himself between them and me, staring them down until they backed off and proceeded one at a time to offer me twenties in the most gentlemanly fashion. Like lambs led to slaughter, I sighed to myself, and who better to lead them than Cleopatra herself?
* * *
Marla was primping in the mirror when I returned to the dressing room.
“That big boy’ll tip good if you play to him,” she said matter-of-factly.
I wasn’t in the mood to hear Marla’s opinion of who to work. I’ve got radar for that kind of stuff. I can smell a heavy tipper coming eight hundred miles away. So I ignored her.
“I saw him give dear, departed Ruby a hundred-dollar bill not two weeks ago.” Marla was sly. She was watching me out of the corner of her eye while appearing to straighten her cleavage, stuffing most of her artificial enhancements into the uppermost portion of her bra cup.
I couldn’t help it. I had to know. “Which big boy are you referring to?” I asked, picking at a slice of cold pepperoni pizza that someone’d left behind in her rush to hit the stage.
Marla sighed in exasperation. “I believe you know him as Meatloaf,” she said, “but his Christian name is Albert.”
“Get out! Albert!”
Marla frowned. She fancies herself a social worker and laughing at someone’s Christian name was like slandering them.
“Wish he’d give me a hundred dollars,” Marla muttered. “I listened to him going on and on about Ruby just the other night. You’d think Meatloaf actually thought they were an item!”
Marla had me and we both knew it. I was drawn into a conversation with her against my better judgment. Sooner or later, Marla’d want something. She didn’t usually disseminate public service information without an ulterior motive.
“What’d he say about her?” I asked.
Marla gave me her that’s-for-me-to-know-and-you-to-find-out look, tossed her long black hair, and pretended to ponder.
“You know, I’ve been thinking it wouldn’t hurt you none to let Vincent put my name up ahead of yours just one time,” she said.
“Kiss my ass, Marla,” I said, cool as a cucumber. “Your name can come ahead of mine when I move on, retire, or die. Until then I headline. You don’t.” I edged a little closer into Marla’s personal space, something that made her acutely anxious on account of she knew it would take me no time whatsoever to wrap my hand around her hair and yank it until she cried or told me whatever it is I wanted to know. “What did Meatloaf say about Ruby?”
Marla dropped all pretense of preening in the mirror and whirled around to face me, at the same time backing up
toward the stage door.
“He said he shouldn’t have let her slip away, or something like that. I don’t remember exactly. He was mumbling something about protecting. All’s I know is he didn’t give me a big tip, and I listened to him moaning and wailing for a good ten minutes.”
I wasn’t listening. I was gone, out the door looking for Meatloaf. Pushing past men who grabbed at my silk kimono, I rushed to get to the table where I’d seen the Dead Lakes pit crew. It was empty. Glasses of half-melted ice and empty beer bottles littered the tabletop. I spun around, looking back at the runway, but there was no sign of Roy Dell’s crew.
“Damn!”
“I know, honey,” the waitress said, strolling up. “They stiffed me, too.”
I must’ve seemed confused because she kept explaining. “When the little guy got thrown out, the whole rest of the lot followed behind him like yard dogs following the supper dish. Their boss over there made ’em all go home,” she said, nodding to where Mickey Rhodes sat with Vincent.
“It shouldn’t be much longer,” he was saying to Vincent as I approached their table. “And you can take that to the bank.”
“All’s I want to take to the bank,” Vincent replied, his jaw muscle twitching, “is the money.”
I should’ve stopped myself, but impulse control is not my long suit. I had crossed the room and was standing by their table before I’d thought about what I was going to say. So I wound up standing there like little Joey Romano the time his mama chewed him out in the street for stealing an apple off a cart down at the Italian market in South Philly. He’d just stood there, his mama wailing on him, with this goofball, quasi-nonchalant look on his face, like maybe every kid gets his ass whipped in the street by his mama at age eleven. I had the same expression on my face now, I just knew it.
Vincent only looked up when he saw Mickey had stopped listening to him and had turned his attention to me.
“What, Sierra? What? I’m busy here.” Vincent puffed out his chest like maybe he was really important. He was doing it for Mickey’s benefit, but Mickey couldn’t see past the tips of my 38DDs.
“Where are the boys?” I asked, looking only at Mickey, like maybe he was gonna get lucky if he told me.
Mickey squeaked and found his voice. “I sent those animals back to Wewa. I saw how they were acting and I apologize for them.”
I leaned over, resting my hands palm down on the tiny table, and stuck my chest as close to his face as possible without asphyxiating him.
“That’s too bad,” I purred. “I was hoping to talk to them.”
“You were?” Mickey seemed shocked. “A lady such as yourself ought not trouble herself with morons!”
I let my face droop down into a look of deepest sorrow. “Aw, I guess you can see right through me, Mr. Rhodes.”
“Mickey, call me Mickey,” he gasped.
“Mickey, if the truth be known, one of the girls was just telling me how close Meatloaf was to my dearly departed friend Ruby. I just thought maybe if I talked to him, it would relieve some of the pain we’re both in.” A little tear rolled down my cheek, prompting Mickey to reach for a handkerchief and offer it to me. He looked uncomfortable with my distress, and I couldn’t blame him. I was doing my best to seem inconsolable.
“Sierra,” Vincent sighed, “this ain’t hardly the time—”
“Eh, bite me, Gambuzzo!” I snapped, completely blowing the moment I had worked so hard to create. Vincent jumped up out of his chair, Mickey along with him. Vincent was looking to hurt me and Mickey to defend my honor should it actually come to blows.
I stared at Vincent and he stared right back just as hard. We were both breathing heavily. In fact we were all breathing heavily, but Mickey was panting for another reason altogether. In that tense minute, I remembered that it wouldn’t do to lose my cool right now.
“Screw it!” I snapped finally, and seemed to give in. “It’s the grief. I’m overwhelmed.” Vincent appeared to be considering publicly humiliating me when I was at my weakest, so I added, “But what with Ruby dying and me having company from Cape May”—I looked straight into Vincent’s eyes, indicating that he should know Moose had sent in his henchmen—“I just can’t be held responsible for my emotions.”
Mickey sighed and reached out to pat my arm. Vincent looked downright frightened, because at that moment his wanna-be mobsterism was encountering the possibility that the real thing was in town.
“Whatever.” Vincent gave up.
“However,” Mickey replied, “however I can be of service.”
I bent my head over Mickey’s handkerchief and turned away. “I’ll be all right,” I said. “These things just take time.”
The music started up, Marla skipped out onstage, and I was forgotten. Wherever Meatloaf was and whatever he knew, it wasn’t going to be discovered by me tonight. Tonight was a dead loss, except for the wad of money I’d collected off the dirt track dummies.
Seventeen
I was tired. My feet ached. All I wanted was a good night’s sleep. It was all I could think about—the way my sheets would feel against my skin, the hum of the central air, the darkness of my room. It was stupidity at work in its most elemental form.
In Philly you learn: Don’t go out and not watch the street. Don’t walk across a dark parking lot to your car thinking about anything but who might be out there and what you’ll do if they confront you. You stop thinking about that, and eventually, some wise guy’ll try and make you a victim, and it’ll happen sooner rather than later.
I was standing by the Camaro, my key in the lock, when I heard him coming up on me fast, running. The damn key wouldn’t come out of the lock. I was disoriented because my mind had been wandering. I couldn’t even get to my Mace. He was on me before I could move, slamming me against the side of the car, throwing something over my head, and pulling me to the ground.
“Son of a bitch!” I yelled, my voice muffled by the thick fabric over my head.
“Shut the fuck up!” he growled, his voice thick. “Feel this?” Something round and hard pressed into the small of my back. He had a gun.
I nodded. My throat tightened as my heart threatened to burst through my chest. It was hot and close under the blanket. I couldn’t breathe. I was going to suffocate.
“I brought you something,” the voice said. “Something to make you think.”
I waited for him to hurt me, knowing that I couldn’t get away.
He was winding something around me: a rope. He pressed it tighter as he pulled it in and knotted it.
“You ask too many questions,” he said. “Let the dead rest. It ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
I bit my lip hard to keep from crying out. He shoved me against one of my tires, pushing himself away from me. Where was Bruno? Why wasn’t he out in the lot? He was almost always outside at closing time, making sure we got to our cars safely.
My assailant kicked me then. Right in the ribs, knocking the air out of my chest, leaving me dry-heaving as I lay on the warm asphalt. Son of a bitch. Then I heard him leave, heavy footsteps running across the lot, toward the thin ring of oleander bushes that divided the Tiffany’s parking lot from the endless string of tattoo parlors and strip-mall stores.
I lay there, waiting for the air to return to my lungs, struggling to move my arms out of the rope that bound them, and finding I was making progress. The rope rolled upward as I freed myself and pulled the thick fabric away from my head. With one final tug, I jerked free and cool. Beach air filled my starving lungs.
I sat there, gasping, staring at the drab olive-green wool blanket that the creep had used to cover my head. At my feet lay a Barbie doll, naked, one breast severed crudely and red fingernail polish dripping down her body to resemble blood. In one hand, Barbie held the head of a small brown dog, just like Fluffy.
A warning or a promise? I sat there, leaning against my car, still too weak to move, holding the Barbie doll.
“You rotten bastard,” I gasped out into the
darkness. “I’m going to find you. You got Ruby, but you ain’t gonna get me.” I eased myself slowly to my feet, gathered up the blanket, the rope, and the doll, and tossed them all into my backseat. My entire body was shaking.
“Yeah, you go on and hide in the darkness. You sneak up on people smaller than you and take them when they’re not looking, when they’re feeling safe. You just go on and do that!” I could hear my voice sounding shrill, bordering on hysteria. “But watch your back, you miserable lowlife, ’cause I’m coming.”
Fat lot of good it did me, saying that out loud to the darkness. Chances are he was far away by now, hiding from us all. It didn’t really matter. Those words were what picked me up off the ground and reminded me of who I was. I was a Lavotini and Lavotinis don’t run from bullies. They may regroup, they may call in their brothers to help, but a Lavotini doesn’t stand by and let her friend’s murderer go free.
Ruby’s killer had just made a serious mistake. He had sought to frighten me off with intimidation and had instead given me that false sense of courage that comes from intense rage. It was time to call in the big guns and quit eatin’ shit.
I jumped into the driver’s seat and chirped the tires as the Camaro screamed out onto Thomas Drive. I should’ve gone back inside. I should’ve told Vincent or called a cop or anything other than what I was doing now. But I couldn’t stop myself. I was shaking and driving too fast. Besides, what good would it do to tell the cops? I’d only end up reading about it in the paper. Hell, that’s probably what had gotten me roughed up: the newspaper article that named me as an eyewitness. And now that I thought about it, maybe Roy Dell and the boys hadn’t screwed up my car. Maybe someone had done it on purpose.
I was talking, loud, with the window open and the wind fighting to shove the words back down my throat. I talked and screamed my way across the Hathaway Bridge, past the used-car lots and cheap hotels that line Fifteenth Street, past the police department where who-knows-what was going on.
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