by Shirl Henke
Quita finally stopped ignoring them. “Leila knew how to handle him. She got whatever she wanted from any man.”
“She was the headliner,” Shelly replied without rancor. “Best dancer, flashiest girl working here and we know flash’s what it’s all about.”
“Did Louie give you the eleven o’clock slot?” Quita asked.
“Yeah, that okay with youse?” Sam asked. The last thing she wanted was to make them jealous of her so they’d quit talking freely.
“Just so I keep my 2:00 a.m. gig,” Della said. “The slobs are too drunk to watch their wallets then.”
Sam figured they were too drunk to notice her sagging flesh, too, but would never say it.
“Leila worked the nine through eleven gigs. Louie moved her around, you know, depending on how the crowd was. She was his biggest draw,” Shelly explained.
The hard-looking black-haired woman gave the newcomer a level stare, then shoved back her chair and stood up. “I’m on in five,” she said, blowing a kiss at her own reflection in the mirror.
As soon as she left the room, Della and Shelly smiled at Sam. “Don’t mind Quita. She don’t like nobody,” Shelly said.
“How about Leila—did she get on with the rest of the dancers?” Sam was careful to call them dancers, not strippers, a term most disliked.
“Mostly she kept to herself. Quiet, but nice enough,” Della replied as she rolled a fishnet stocking up one leg.
“Yeah, she always seemed sad, you know. Maybe that’s why she was payin’ all that dough for a shrink,” Shelly said.
Matt hung up the phone and leaned back until his swivel chair squealed for mercy. Damned office furniture was made for munchkins. He shifted his weight and considered what he’d just learned from a hacker pal of his who’d supplied him with data not easily—or legally—attainable from any other source. The newsroom was almost deserted, so he’d felt no need for more privacy while calling Artie. What the paralegal Arthur Sellers had found in the terms of Susan Mallory Winchester’s will didn’t fit with the attempts on her son’s life. But somehow it was a piece in a bigger puzzle.
He checked his watch. Sam wasn’t answering her cell and wasn’t at the condo. He wanted to tell her what he’d learned and let her quick mind pick at it. Her gut intuitions were frequently as good as his. Okay, sometimes they were even better, he conceded.
Matt knew she was at the strip joint but tried not to think of what she was doing there. Since they first met, she’d made it abundantly clear that she’d been in dangerous situations and survived for thirty years before he came along. They had an understanding that neither would interfere in the other’s work. The trouble was, when she pulled a stunt like this, he found it nearly impossible to stand idly by. But she promised to shave him bald if he went to the Pink Pussycat. Matt knew his wife never made idle threats.
It was getting late. He tried not to worry or even visualize her up on a stage surrounded by drooling animals while she—no, he had to stop thinking about that! Dammit, he wanted to know she was all right. He started to shove away from his desk to get up, then reconsidered. Sam could take care of herself. If he blew her cover, he’d mess up the case. Sighing, he rolled his chair back and pulled a notepad from a drawer.
Let’s think this whole thing through. He began doodling on the paper to help himself visualize the connections between the major players in Farley Winchester’s unfortunate life. There were lots of players, alive and dead. He traced lines between Farley, Upton, his wife, Susan, and Reicht, then drew in Scruggs and Leila Satterwaite with big question marks.
When he’d started digging into the Winchester family, he’d found a few skeletons lurking. The cold case file on Susan’s death still questioned if her drug OD had been accidental. But neither the initial investigators nor the recent follow-up had been able to prove foul play. She had been a known drug abuser. An empty bottle of Dom Pérignon sat on the nightstand in her bedroom where her body had been found by a maid. The autopsy showed she’d ingested enough cocaine to drop a Clydesdale.
Mrs. Winchester had not slept with her husband for quite a few years, according to gossip. “A marriage not exactly made in heaven,” he muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Susan Mallory had wed Upton Winchester IV for the usual reasons socially prominent people did. “Love had nothing to do with it, like Tina said,” he muttered to himself.
His great-aunt had been his role model…after a fashion. Claudia Witherspoon had rocked their proper Boston world by running away with a penniless French musician. But ultimately she returned to the family money—on her terms. He’d rejected the whole enchilada and moved to Florida to get a real job. Not so with Farley’s parents. The Winchesters possessed an impeccable pedigree but fading wealth. The Mallorys were very rich, but it was new money and new money didn’t get them admitted to the best clubs, even in Miami.
After providing Upton with the requisite heir, Susan had become increasingly unhappy, a recluse under medical super-vision. The Winchesters and the Mallorys together agreed to keep her drug and alcohol problems hidden from the media. The night she OD’d had begun with booze. Matt looked at the grainy photograph from the Herald’s morgue. A young woman with curly dark hair and a wistful smile. He could see the resemblance between her and her son.
At least she’d fixed her bastard husband in her will. Had she been trying to protect Farley? At best, given her subsequent problems, she’d been an indifferent mother whose only child was raised by a succession of nannies. Matt wondered how Sam would react when he told her that according to the terms of Susan Mallory Winchester’s will, all her fortune went to her son.
If he predeceased his father, all the money went to charity. Poor Upton had access to the Mallory millions only as long as Farley stayed alive.
Sam waited until Shelly and Della went onstage to do what they called a “duet.” Quita had gone to the bar earlier for a few lap dances before her next gig. That left Sam alone in the dressing room. She opened the drawer at Leila’s dressing table. Someone had cleaned it out. According to Pat, Leila had no next of kin they’d been able to dig up as yet. She wondered what had happened to the murdered woman’s personal effects. Police custody, of course. She considered what the closemouthed Patowski had and had not told her. He wasn’t leveling about this deal.
“What’s new? That’s Patty,” she muttered, moving on to several of the other dancers’ drawers, rummaging through to see if anything turned up that might shed light on why someone had beaten and strangled Leila Satterwaite. What the hell did they want from her? The only thing Sam knew for sure was that the killer hadn’t been a space alien.
She found lots of the expected stuff—body makeup, hair gel, false eyelashes, even an assortment of feminine hygiene products, but nothing that shed any light on Leila’s death. Suddenly, the door banged open and Quita stomped across the floor.
“Hey, bitch, what’re you doing with your mitts in my drawers?”
The image of that repelled Sam enough to render her speechless for a minute, but she recovered, holding up a pair of eyelashes in her palm that looked like alien insects mating. “I needed to borrow some eyelashes and you had the best ones. I’m sorry. I’ll pay you for ’em if you want.”
“Get your own damn kit,” Quita snapped, deftly using her clawlike long nails to snatch the hairy creatures from Sam’s hand.
“Jinx, you’re on next,” Shelly said, walking in on the confrontation. She was wearing nothing but a miniscule G-string. Even the tassels were gone and her body was dripping with perspiration. Ignoring the black-haired woman, she looked at Sam and said, “You need help with your costume? Louie’ll be back here to check you out. Always does when a new girl starts.”
“I’m kinda nervous,” Sam admitted, hoping to inspire sympathy.
Shelly smiled, understanding. “This your first time, kid?” she asked, toweling herself dry, then slipping into a shabby blue chenille bathrobe.
“Yeah. I kinda bluffed my way into the job, ya kn
ow? All I ever did before was hustle drinks at bars back in Boston, but this pays better and I need rent money.”
“C’mon, Quita, give the kid a hand,” Shelly said, reaching for a fuchsia-striped caftan and canary-yellow feather boa.
Grudgingly the other woman pulled a sequined G-string from a hook on the wall and handed it to Sam. “Here. Stick a bunch of the feathers in it and pull ’em out one at a time. Drives those losers crazy.”
Shelly gave her a bunch of long electric-green feathers with a wink.
As she pulled off her skirt and briefs, Sam said, “I really don’t want Leila’s job, you know, after her being murdered and all. Did she have any regular customers who might’ve done it, you think?” She wriggled into the G-string. Damn, the thing pinched!
“You need a wax job,” Quita said critically.
“Nah, a few pubes get the men horny,” Shelly said, then turned back to Sam. “Leila had lots of regulars, mostly business types, older guys with enough dough to tip her real good.”
“Yeah, but don’t forget about that weird kid and his loser pal Elvis,” Quita said spitefully. “I told Louie he could get busted for serving a minor, but he never listened, the greedy prick.”
Bingo. Scruggs again. That sucker turned up as regular as stickers on cactus. Sam had a funny feeling that Patowski had been stonewalling her about the yokel. And why in hell had the Georgia Highway Patrol let him go? She’d have bet the farm he didn’t have a permit for that Glock he’d pulled on them. After she found out what she could here, her next priority would be Elvis P. Scruggs, Florida panhandle man of mystery.
Just then Della came in, sweaty as Shelly. Overhearing Quita, she plopped down on her chair and said, “Farley wasn’t weird. Kind of sad, maybe a little spaced-out but he had real nice brown eyes.”
Shelly’s laugh was a cigarette-roughened rumble. “Spaced-out for sure. What’d you expect since they were all Space Quest junkies.”
“Leila, too?” Sam asked.
“Yep. Really trippin’ on that crap,” Shel said.
“What kind of place she from, going for that nutty stuff?” Sam echoed Shelly’s disapproval of Spacers, fishing for any background on the dead woman her coworkers could provide.
“Leila only said she’d come from somewhere upstate. Her daddy was a mean drunk. Beat her mom,” Della said, shaking her head as she lit a cigarette and took a drag.
“Yep, till one night he got skunked and wrecked his car—with her mama in it. Killed ’em both. Maybe that’s why she needed the shrink,” Shelly added seriously. “She was pretty straight, ya know. Didn’t drink or party.”
“Any idea where she went—the shrink, I mean? I—I kinda think I could use some help with a couple of problems…” Sam let her voice trail off as if embarrassed.
Shelly didn’t seem to mind as she picked up a jar of glittery goo and opened it. “Let me get your tits glued. Take off that halter so I can work.”
If the good sisters at St. Ignacious could see me now! Growing increasingly uncomfortable, Sam unhooked her halter and slid it off.
Della answered her question. “She never mentioned the shrink’s name but he had an office somewhere in the Brickell area.”
“Say, you got a great rack for not havin’ implants,” Shelly said as she started to daub pastie glue on Sam’s nipples. “Yep, I think she said her doc was in the Seascape Building.”
Jackpot! Sam wanted to crow. She had checked the directory at Seascape the day she interviewed Reicht. There were only a handful of psychiatrists and a couple of psychologists listed. She’d bet the farm Leila’s shrink was none other than Dr. Reese Reicht. Dammit, the pastie glue tickled! Matt would laugh about that. He was deathly ticklish and she never had been—until this.
“Maybe I’ll try seeing a doc, but I don’t think I can afford anybody at the Seascape. How’d she pay for it? She have a man?”
“Nah, I don’t think so. None that come ’round this joint anyway,” Shelly said. “I don’t think you’ll wanna twirl the tassels until you get some practice,” she added, standing back to inspect her handiwork with paste and glitter. “It takes practice to get the rhythm going just right.”
“I can imagine,” Sam said, not wanting to at all. Before she could say anything else, Quita more threw than placed the boa around her neck while Shelly stood by with the caftan.
“The trick is,” ever-helpful Shel explained, “to take your time, know what I mean? Slide around the pole and pull the silk caftan tight in places.” She illustrated, grabbing the gauzy fabric and yanking it over Sam’s hips and breasts. “Make the suckers wait for it. They’ll throw you more money if you go slow and pick out a decent lookin’ guy to concentrate on. You’ll get the hang of it, won’t she, Quita?”
“She’ll never get Leila’s job,” Quita replied with disdain.
“She made more money than any of us with tips,” Della admitted, inhaling smoke.
“Not always. I do okay, too,” Quita interjected, preening. Then she picked up Sam’s break-neck, spike-heeled strap sandals and shoved them at her. “You got good shoes,” she admitted grudgingly. She tapped her toe impatiently until Sam slipped them on.
“Could use a little jazzing up, though,” Shel said, smearing more of the nasty paste across the ankle straps and then sprinkling fuchsia glitter on it until the excess became wedged between Sam’s toes. It felt as though she’d just stepped in a nettle patch. The G-string pinched in places she really didn’t want it to and the pasties were starting to itch like hell.
Great. Here she was in spike heels wearing a see-through gown and trailing a feather boa while every part of her body was in misery. But she had started the other women talking about Leila. She forced herself to focus on what Shel and Della were saying.
“She didn’t waste her money on booze or blow it up her nose,” Shelly said.
“Guess that doc took most of it,” Della replied, stubbing out her cigarette.
Sam pondered the mystery of Leila Satterwaite, a hardscrabble kid from upstate Florida, just like good ole Elvis. Was there a connection from their past? He was a Spacer so he could get next to a rich kid who needed a friend, but why would Leila do it? The local chapter’s honcho was a cop. That smelled funny to her, but she wasn’t going to get any more answers here. The key was one Elvis P. Scruggs and his missing seven years.
Now that she’d found out what she could here, Sam wanted to slip out the back door before she was forced to make her stage debut. But how the hell was she going to make a fast, inconspicuous getaway rigged out like this? There was no possibility she was going out on that stage in front of a howling audience of male gorillas in heat.
Loud yells of, “Take it off, baby!” and, “Yeah, sweet ass!” echoed from out front. Sam knew there were no other women performing during the break. The jerk-offs were watching a porn flick on TV monitors!
It was now or never. She started past the women. There was a spare ignition key magnetized beneath her van. All she had to do was make it to the rear door and run like hell.
Just as she reached the dressing room door, Louie appeared directly in front of her, blocking her way like a squat fireplug. And about as movable.
Chapter 18
This is it. I’m fucked. Sam could’ve taken down Louie, brawny little bastard that he was, if she’d been dressed for action. She was dressed for action all right, just not the kind she was used to handling.
“Not bad,” he said, looking her up and down. The caftan was so sheer that the bright lights from the dressing room outlined her every curve for his perusal. “Now, get on stage.”
As her mind raced, good ole Shel came up with the solution.
“Hey, Jinx, use your beaded bag. You can swing it instead of tassels. The men’ll go wild. Jeez, it’s heavy,” she said, handing the drawstring bag to Sam.
Yeah, I can use my beaded bag. She shoved her way past Louie turning toward the exit door instead of the stage, almost hoping he’d try to stop her. But he didn’t have
to. When she yanked on the knob, it didn’t budge. Now suddenly they got safety conscious!
“Hey, what the hell you think you’re doin’?” he growled. “That’s my costume you’re wearing and you made a deal to shake your booty out front. Get to it, baby.”
The way Sam figured it, she had two choices: she could bludgeon the locked door, which looked pretty solid, or she could use the quarter-filled handbag on Louie. That sounded like a lot more fun.
“Out of my way, scum sucker. I’ll mail your haute couture back to you in a plain brown wrapper.” She slid past him but he grabbed her feather boa and yanked on it until she thought he’d crushed her windpipe.
“We made a deal,” he growled, reeling her in.
“Here’s the deal, shorty,” Sam replied, pulling the boa loose from her throat, “Either you let me go or I moon crater that cute little cue ball head of yours.”
“I got a big crowd tonight and I promised ’em a new act. You’re it and you’re goin’ on if I have to drag you and strip you myself. Come to think of it…” A leering grin made his white teeth gleam in the dim light.
Sam swung the bag and connected with his mouth. So much for the perfect choppers. He fell to his knees, holding his hands over his bleeding lips.
“You fucking bitch! I’ll break your neck! I’ll yank your tits off and throw ’em at your dying ass,” he yelled after her.
She could hear his footsteps behind her as she picked up the caftan and dashed down the hall. There had to be another way out besides running the gauntlet of the horny. When she paused at the side of the stage, scanning the area, looking for an exit, Louie grabbed her again. He raised his fist to punch her. She used one spike heel on his instep, coming down hard.
He squealed and started hopping around on one foot, cursing, furious as a fighting cock being tossed into the ring. His mouth dripped blood, spraying it through busted teeth. But he came at Sam again. Hobbling, he grabbed a fistful of the caftan. Sam yanked free as it ripped, leaving Louie with only a small ragged piece of the gauzy fabric clutched in his meaty fist. She started to cross to the other side of the stage.