“Let’s go back by her place,” Will said. “I want to talk to that guy we saw yesterday.”
“And maybe whoever stole your car brought it back.”
The car wasn’t there, but the guy was. Will stood on the porch and talked to the guy in Spanish while Karen stood there feeling useless. Then Will reached into his pocket and handed the guy a couple of twenties.
“Would it help if I give him money, too?” Karen whispered.
Will ignored her and kept talking. The guy nodded and said a few things that sounded like an assurance to Karen. For all she knew, though, he could have been telling them what had just happened on a Saved By the Bell rerun.
“What did he say?”
“If I understood him right, Kitty was there this morning but left a few hours ago.”
“Man! I thought you asked him to call you if she came home.”
“I did. He forgot.”
“So the money was to help him remember next time.”
“Exactly.”
Karen sighed. “I hope it helps. Okay, how many bars do we have left?”
“Three.”
“Good news and bad news. Only three more dives to wade through. Then again, only three more chances to find Kitty.” She could feel Cait slipping away with every second.
The first two clubs turned up nothing. As they had before, Will and Karen showed Kitty’s picture to waitresses and bartenders and while some people knew her, no one knew how to find her. They chased dead ends for the rest of the afternoon. By the time Will and Karen made it to the last bar on their list – a fairly high class one, considering – Karen decided maybe she had imagined the stupid girl.
“This is crazy.” She dropped into a chair at their small table, rested her forehead on her arms and groaned.
“What can I get you?” yet another waitress asked.
“You tell her,” Karen said, shifting so she met Will’s eyes. “I can’t even say it again.”
Will told the waitress who they were looking for and showed the picture. “Yeah, I know her. She works here.”
Karen lifted her head. “You’re kidding.”
“No. At least, I think she does. I’ve seen her on stage, I know. Not for a few days, though.”
“Is there a schedule or something you can check to see if she’s working tonight?”
“Sure. What do you want to drink?”
Will ordered soft drinks for them and tugged at a lock of Karen’s hair. “See. I told you we’d find her.”
“Finally. I thought we were going to have to hire a private detective.” She straightened and rubbed her temples. “Now that we’re going to be able to talk to her, I can’t remember what we’re going to say. I was thinking something like, ‘Admit my ex-husband paid you to plant the drugs or I’ll slap you.’”
“Maybe you ought to leave the talking to me.”
“Not a bad idea.”
They waited. And waited. The girl didn’t return.
“Where is she?” Karen stood and scanned the room.
“Probably forgot about us.”
Karen tapped her foot. “All right, I don’t have this kind of time, the bastard is trying to take my daughter. I’m going back to the dressing room to see if Kitty’s here.”
“Are you sure? Remember what happened last time you went to the dressing room?”
“Thanks for reminding me. And you’re older than I am, by the way.”
Karen walked past a table that was covered by a kind of purple cloth gazebo, where a huge woman with garish makeup and impressively tall hair sat with elbows on the table before her, arms pushing up an ample bosom. Dark cleavage loomed like a black hole that threatened to suck Karen in as she walked past. Two girls dressed in thongs and tuxedo vests with long tails stood at either side of her, casually swaying to the music and apparently waiting for the woman to need something that they would gladly provide.
Karen tried unsuccessfully not to stare as she walked by. She spotted a long hallway toward the back of the building and walked toward it like she belonged there.
A large guy in a real tux stepped out of the shadows to block her way. “Can I help you?”
“I'm looking for a girl.” Last night she’d just walked straight back.
“Tell me who you're looking for and I'll see if she's here.”
She very much doubted that Kitty would come waltzing out of her own accord if she heard someone wanted to speak to her. “I'd kind of like to surprise her.”
He took a deep breath, making his broad shoulders fill the doorway. “Only employees allowed back there. Who are you looking for and I'll see if she has time to talk to you?”
Well, hell. She thought briefly of flirting, then remembered where she was. After looking at perky boobs and tight butts all day, it was unlikely she could bat her eyelashes at him and get anywhere besides thrown out.
So she'd just have to try to embarrass him into letting her back there.
“Okay, here's the deal. Her name is Kitty. She called me from her cell phone. She's in the bathroom stall right now, and it's kind of an emergency.”
“She ain't O.D.ing, is she?”
“Oh no, of course not.” Karen shook her head. “It's just, well…it's kind of a delicate matter.” Hopefully that would be enough.
But apparently not for this guy. His face remained passive.
“For cryin' out loud, Louie. Let her go back. She ain't gonna hurt nothing.” A waitress walked by with a tray and rolled her eyes at the bouncer.
He frowned and studied her for a few seconds. “Okay, you have ten minutes. But keep in mind that I’ll throw you out the same as I would a man.”
“I'll do that,” she said as she moved past him. She made her way down the hallway, still not certain what she was going to say if and when she found Kitty. She would figure it out when the time came.
There was one dressing room for all the girls, about the size of her bedroom at home, with floor to ceiling mirrors along one wall and sinks and more mirrors along another wall. She looked around and saw two or three blondes, but none of them was Kitty.
Every head turned to stare at her, and the room fell silent. Finally, one girl in a robe walked toward Karen.
“Ummm…can I help you?”
“I'm looking for a girl named Kitty.”
“Are you her sister?”
Karen was so glad not to be mistaken for Kitty’s mother that she almost nodded. “Yes – I mean, no, no. I’m just…a friend.”
“Oh. Well…I don't think she's here.” She turned around to face the group. “Anybody seen Kitty today?”
There were murmurings to the negative, and one girl said, “She may have left town already.”
“Left town? Where was she going?”
The girl shrugged and fiddled with her bra, adjusting the straps so her breasts swelled. “She said she was going to move somewhere. Atlanta, maybe. Or maybe it was San Diego.”
Okay, that narrowed it down. “Did she say when? Why?”
“I wasn't really listening,” the girl said as she teased her hair and sprayed it.
Karen covered a cough and waited patiently.
“She said some guy was taking her away. Or sending for her. Or something. Things were definitely going to be better for her, wherever she was going. He was paying for the whole thing, bus ticket and setting her up in a new place, maybe even getting her a new job or something. I don't know. She went on and on.”
Bus ticket, huh? That could very conceivably be Michael. Mr. Big Spender.
“Do you remember when she told you all this?”
The girl stopped and cocked her head, as if collecting all her brain cells for maximum use. “Well, it wasn't yesterday, because I was off yesterday. And it probably wasn't the day before, because that was the day the water heater broke and flooded the kitchen and I was not in the mood to talk to anyone that day. I probably would have slapped her and stolen her bus ticket if she'd talked to me that day. So it must have been the day
before.”
Karen nodded. She was glad she wasn't betting any money on anything this girl said.
No, she realized. She was simply betting her child and her freedom. “And you don't remember when she said she was leaving?”
The girl shook her head, looking truly regretful that she couldn't be more help. “No, sorry.”
“Would she have given notice if she was going to quit working here?”
“Given notice?”
“Yeah, you know, told the boss that she'd be leaving?”
The girl snorted. “Maybe.” Her tone made it clear that she didn't find it likely.
“Okay, thanks for your help.” Karen hesitated a moment, then wondered what she had to lose. She took out a pen and piece of paper and wrote down her home number. “If you remember where she said she was going or anything else, would you call me? Anything, really.” She tried to think of something that might get her some sympathy. “She has some information that might help me in a…in a custody battle.”
The girl's eyebrows shot up. “Your old man trying to take your kids? Oh, I hate it when they do that! My ex tried to take mine, the bastard. Don't worry. We'll help you.” She turned to the other girls. “Hey, this lady is about to lose her kids if we don't find Kitty. Has anybody seen her? Think about it.”
Karen wished she'd thought of the custody thing with the other clubs. Almost immediately she was surrounded by girls all expressing their sympathy and willingness to help. By the time she was finished, she’d collected several useless bits of information, one or two promising leads, three invitations for a drink after the club closed, and one invitation to dinner that she didn’t think was completely platonic. Karen walked away with a few phone numbers that she mentally marked “purple boa feathers,” “nose ring,” and “can’t possible be real.”
She turned to leave, then turned back. “I’m sorry, but…if you don’t mind.” She pointed at the red stud in one girl’s nose. “Did that hurt?”
The girl shook her head. “Not really.” She popped one breast out of her bra to show a gold bar that ran horizontally through her nipple, and a sparkly chain that swung from one end to the other. “But this was a real bitch.”
Will was standing at the bar when she got back. “Okay, here’s what I found out. Kitty has plans to leave town, but no one was really sure where she was going, could be any big city in the continental United States. She’s not scheduled to work tonight, but one girl said Kitty has a standing date – “ She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, “A date on Friday nights.”
“Date?”
“From the way she said it, I’m thinking it’s the kind of date girls get paid for.”
Will raised his eyebrows. “Well, I just talked to the bartender and he said Kitty always goes to a place called He’s Not Here on Friday nights.”
“He’s Not Here? Where’s that?”
“I got the address. Looks like on the other side of town.”
Karen sighed and hitched her purse on her shoulder. “Okay, let’s go.”
The music inside He’s Not Here was so loud Karen could feel the beat through her feet before they reached the door. The sun had set but it wasn’t fully dark yet. The crowd inside was more raucous than they’d seen all day; she heard hoots above the music. Her stomach clenched at the idea of another seedy strip club full of naked women. It was just too depressing. All those perky breasts and flat stomachs…not an ounce of cellulite to be found…
She looked over at Will as they made their way across the parking lot. He didn’t seem upset at the prospect of seeing more naked women, but he didn’t appear thrilled, either. He chewed the inside of his lip and held his hand out absent-mindedly as they approached the front door. He opened his mouth to say something.
Dolly Parton barged out the front door and ran into Will, knocking him off balance.
“Oh, look at me, I’m more clumsy than a bull with high heels on!” Dolly patted Will, who staggered and stared.
Shania Twain followed Dolly. “Girl, you knocking men over out here? I know you’re desperate, but seriously.”
Karen blinked and looked from one woman to the other.
The two giggled and hurried toward the parking lot.
Will and Karen remained frozen in the doorway, until someone came up behind them and cleared their throat. They entered the bar.
Will was giving Celine Dion a twenty for their cover charge when it dawned on Karen where, exactly, they were.
“Ah-ha. I get it. He's Not Here.”
Will cleared his throat and looked around the room. “I think I might be the only confirmed he in the place.”
“Do you want to leave?” she whispered. She could see by the set of his jaw that he was already feeling more than a little awkward.
He sighed. “More than I've ever wanted to leave any place in my life. But if Kitty is here…”
“Is this kind of a weird place for her to hang out?” Karen took hold of Will's arm and looked around the room as Cher led them to their table. The costumes were really good. It was difficult for her to tell which women had been born that way, and which ones had significant cosmetic enhancements.
“Who knows?” Will slid down in his seat. “Maybe she's with one of these…guys. I've heard lots of straight couples go to gay bars, and that some women actually prefer to be with cross-dressers.”
“Not me. I'd hate to be with someone who has better legs than I do. I need a drink.”
“Me too. But…”
“You want me to order?”
“Do you mind? I swear Cher was checking me out.”
“Don't worry.” Karen squeezed his hand and laughed. “You're safe as long as you stick with me. I'll protect your virtue.”
His lip curled and he rolled his eyes. “I'm glad you're enjoying my discomfort.”
“Damn right I'm enjoying your discomfort. Do I need to remind you of all the perky boobs and swiveling asses I've stared at for the past twenty-four hours? And of your less-than-sympathetic attitude?”
“That was different, and I was sympathetic.”
“They're just boobs. Don't sweat it.”
“I repeat, this is totally different.”
“Actually, it's very similar. Once again everyone is checking you out and no one even knows I'm here.”
“Poor thing.” He gave a grudging nod as a waitress who looked like Gloria Estefan approached their table.
“Hey kids,” she said. “There's a two drink minimum. What can I bring you?”
Karen ordered wine for her and beer for Will. “We're looking for a girl.”
“You came to the right place, honey.”
“She goes by the name of Kitty. She's tall and has long blonde hair.”
“Kitty, huh? Doesn't ring a bell, but I'll ask around.”
As she walked away, Karen looked at Will. “See, she was perfectly nice. Good, friendly service.”
“That would be fine, if she were really a she.”
“You seem very uncomfortable. Are you homophobic?”
“Of course I'm homophobic.” He shifted in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “All straight men are homophobic, at least if they’re being honest. That's how you know you’re straight.”
Karen shook her head. “That's not true. I saw a guy on Oprah who said men who are threatened by gay men are actually unsure about their own sexuality.”
“Okay, in the first place, that guy was either a liar, or he was gay. And second, I'm not threatened, I'm creeped out by men in four-inch sandals and panty hose. There's a difference.”
“I have to admit I don’t really enjoy being around men who have bigger cleavage than I do.” She scooted her chair a little closer to his, thoroughly enjoying his discomfort after their recent tour through a bewildering forest of nipples. “Do you need reassurance about your intense heterosexuality?” She threaded her arm through his. Hmmm…he really was pretty damn sexy.
“Now isn't that sweet.” A redheaded wa
itress stopped by their table and pointed a three-inch-long blue fingernail at them. “But you don't have to get so possessive, Darling.” She put a hand on Karen's shoulder. “No one's going to try and steal your man.”
“Oh, I'm not worried,” Karen said. “He's positively devoted to me.”
“We're looking for someone,” Will said, from the look on his face garnering every last shred of his patience.
Gloria Estefan came back. “They're looking for a girl named Kitty. Do you know her?”
“She may also go by Cat.”
“Well honey, I know two Kitty's, two Cat's and a whole mess of dogs.” She laughed, burgundy lips wide open.
“You get around,” Karen said, then wished the words back.
But the redhead didn't take offense. “I do my best. What does this girl look like?”
“Long blonde hair. Long skinny legs. Bad teeth.”
“That narrows it down.”
“Is she that girl with the big red truck?”
The redhead snapped her fingers. “Does she hang around a brunette with thick ankles?”
Will looked at Karen. Karen shrugged. “It's possible.” She refrained from pointing out that the place was crawling with brunettes with thick ankles.
“I'll bet I know who you're talking about.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. If it's who I'm thinking about, she’s here. I saw her maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“Just coming in.”
Will stood. “Do you see her now?”
The two waitresses both looked around the room. “Not right off,” the redhead said. “But I’ll look around and tell her you want to see her.”
Will put a hand out to stop her. “Do me a favor. Don’t say anything to her, just come back and get me and point her out, okay?”
Gloria frowned. “Are you going to start trouble?”
Will shook his head. “I promise, I just need to talk to her.”
The two looked at each other, and finally the redhead shrugged. “I’ll see if I can find her.”
The lights went down just then and the stage lights came up.
“Uh-oh,” Gloria said. “Liza's coming on. You don't want to miss this.”
“Wanna bet?” Will muttered. “Finally, maybe we’re getting somewhere.”
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