Strip Search

by Rex Burns

  Wager cleared his throat. “Saturday,” he said. “How late did she work, Ms. Singer?”

  “Scarlet. She stayed until closing, a little after. She always worked the floor for the last set.” She caught Wager’s glance and explained. “Serving drinks. Girls with seniority get the best times on Fridays and Saturdays. New girls get Tuesdays and Wednesdays—the slow nights.”

  “She worked here a long time?”

  “Almost two years, she told me. That’s a real long time in this business. I came six months ago when Berg took over and hired some new girls. I’m not going to stay much longer, though. It’s not worth it.”

  “How’s that?”

  She shrugged and focused on her long, fake fingernails. One had slipped and she re-glued it over the chewed nail beneath. “The money’s good, but you get, I don’t know, hard. At first it’s kind of new and even exciting—all those men watching you, and you can just feel what they want: you. Then you get kind of … superior. You kind of enjoy teasing them because it makes you feel better than they are.” She shrugged. “After a while, you kind of want more … I don’t know how to say it. It’s like, well, you got to have that kind of excitement all the time or you don’t feel like you’re anybody.” She aimed a dagger-nail toward the sound of the shower. “Then maybe you go stale. You do it, but you really hate the customers even while you’re up there doing it. Like Rebecca. She’s a real bitch.”

  “Rebecca’s all right,” said the girl filing her nails. “You just keep your fucking mouth shut about Rebecca.”

  Scarlet’s lips tightened and she hissed to Wager, “That’s her girlfriend—they’re lesbians.”

  The girl filing her nails looked up with a little sneer and then shrugged.

  “What about Mrs. Sheldon?” Wager asked. “How’d she feel about the customers?”

  Scarlet was still angry and lowered her voice so that Wager had to strain to hear. “Her name’s Shelly. We use our professional names, you know?”

  Wager nodded. He’d seen it before: personal names revealed a self that people liked to keep distant from what they had to do. An alias, a nickname, a stage name let them move into a different personality, one that felt no guilt for whatever chance or ignorance or greed led them into. “How did Shelly feel?”

  “I think she still liked it—she came across that way when she danced, you know? She acted like she was on Broadway or something. But she was a good dancer—really.” Speak no ill of the dead. “I learned some good moves and steps from her.” Her voice rose a bit, “Not like some of the cows that just go out and swing their butts around.”

  The fingernail file paused. “You knew all your moves by the time you were ten years old, honey.”

  “Did she have any boyfriends?” Wager asked. “Anybody she’d go out with other than her husband?”

  “Dike,” muttered Scarlet. Then, “She better not. Not where Berg could find out about it, anyway. He really keeps an eye out for that—the Vice people would have his license tomorrow if he let that get started.” She added, pulling her robe together again, “Her husband, I don’t think he’d know if she was two-timing him or not.”

  “Do you know Mr. Sheldon?”

  “Yeah. He’s a wimp. I met him once at the club picnic. We have this picnic at Washington Park once a year. Beer and steak, you know? And live music. It’s real nice—if certain types of girls don’t show up to spoil it.”

  “Was he jealous of her?”

  “You think he did it?” Her blue eyes blinked surprise.

  “We don’t know who did it. Do you think he might have?”

  “No way! He’s not one of these people that do things. There’s two kinds of people—the doers and the happeners. He’s a happener. You know, things happen to him instead.”

  Wager nodded but thought otherwise. Anybody was capable of murder. Burglary, rape, extortion, embezzlement—not everybody could do those crimes. But murder was democratic. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?”

  “No. Some weirdo in the audience, I guess. I mean, they’re out there.” A note of worry tinged her voice. “That’s another reason not to date them—most of the customers you feel sorry for, but there’s always a few. …”

  “Do you know of any?”

  “Weirdoes? Not their names—they come and go. But you can kind of tell the way they watch you dance. Their eyes …”

  “Were any of them in last Saturday?”

  She gave a helpless shrug. “I can’t remember. Saturday’s so busy.”

  “Did you see who Shelly left with Saturday night?”

  “No. We settled up with Nguyen—he’s the night bartender—and came off the floor. By the time I finished changing, she was gone.”

  Wager thanked her and motioned for the girl who was filing her fingernails. She was a leggy brunette whose hair fell in thick curls and caught the glare of the dressing table lights with a ruby tint. She wore stained Levi’s and had pulled on a baggy sweatshirt that read HERS.

  “Is this going to take long?” she asked.

  “Not long. Can I have your name, please?”

  Her stage name was Sybil. She had worked here four months. She knew Shelly only at work and that was all she knew. She had no idea who might have killed her. Now could she go?

  Wager’s third witness was Clarissa—Nadine Bell—who had been working at the club for six weeks. Before that, she worked in a roadhouse up north in Boulder County. That was her first job, and she worked there only two weeks.

  “Why?”

  “It was a rough place—a biker’s place. Their girls did the dancing and they really didn’t want me around.” She admitted with a slight shudder, “They scared me. Besides, the money’s a lot better here. And nobody’s always, well, you know. It’s just a lot better place.”

  “How much do you make?”

  “I can pay the rent and have a little left over. And I just bought a new car.” She added, “I paid cash.”

  “How much do you think Shelly made?”

  “She did all right for herself—she was a good dancer, and she knew how to work the tips. Berg gave her the late sets, too.” She figured silently. “I guess as much as a thousand in a good week.”

  And most of that would be tax-free. “Do all the girls do as well?”

  “Not me, that’s for sure. You have to get the good sets on Friday and Saturday to do that well.” Clarissa’s hair was long, too, and had been lightened; it was parted by a dark streak in the middle and swept back behind her ears and was clipped in place by two tortoiseshell hairpins. “With Shelly gone, we’ll all move up. Another two or three months, and I should get the good ones.”

  “What did you do before you started dancing?”

  She smiled. “I went to college. I want to be a writer. Another year of this and I’ll have enough stories to last a lifetime.” Her chin lifted. “And enough money to let me write for a while, too!”

  “Did Shelly have any boyfriends?”

  “No. She was married.”

  “Did her husband ever come here? To check up on her, maybe?”

  “I never met him if he did. But I don’t think he’d be the jealous type.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She worked here a long time. Anybody who was jealous wouldn’t let their wife work here that long, even for the money. Besides, there’s Berg.”

  “What about Berg?”

  Clarissa hesitated a moment, her dark eyes expressionless beneath the pale yellow of her hair. “Berg gets first ride. That’s part of the ‘hiring interview.’”

  “He what?”

  “You know what I mean. That’s all he wants—it’s a macho thing with him. After that, he leaves you alone.”

  “Mr. Sheldon knew this?”

  Clarissa shrugged. “It’s no secret. Call it show biz. I’ve heard of people doing a lot worse for a lot less money. And it doesn’t mean a thing—except to Berg. It’s his own ego he pumps, not you.”

  Wager and Axton
worked through the dozen or so girls as they came into the dressing room while the club emptied out. But the information did not vary: Shelly received grudging respect because of her earnings and because she knew something about dancing. Some of the girls liked her, some didn’t, but no one knew her very well because she seldom talked to anyone except about club business. In fact, few of the girls knew each other very well, and most seemed to want it that way. Axton finished before Wager did and motioned that he’d wait outside; a few minutes later, Wager joined him in the tiny hallway. Axton sniffed at the lapel of his jacket. “I smell like a French whorehouse—I hope I can air out before I get home.”

  They watched the tight designer jeans on one of the girls as she walked on spiked heels toward the bar.

  “Just tell Polly the truth: you were interviewing nude dancers.”

  “Right—thanks. What’d you get?”

  Three of his interviewees had started this week, after Annette Sheldon had disappeared, and could tell him nothing. Two others who had worked last Saturday night had since quit, but the other responses indicated they hadn’t been special friends of the murdered woman. “A lot of zilch.”

  “Me, too. Annette was a good dancer. She made good money. She apparently had no boyfriends. And she stuck strictly to business.”

  “That’s my picture, too,” said Wager. “Let’s talk to the people up front.”

  In the now-empty club room, a busboy quickly dumped litter from the tables and stacked the chairs in front of another busboy, who pushed a broom in urgent thrusts across the floor. A colorless glare fell from the ceiling where a rheostat had turned up the lights, and the Vietnamese bartender, gray in the pale glow, stood at the cash register carefully entering totals into a ledger.

  “You’re Nguyen?” Wager asked.

  “Yes, sir.” He closed his account books over his thumb. “You want to know about Miss Shelly?”

  His English still had that oriental singsong that held so many echoes for Wager, and he half-wondered if, in some dusty, pungent village, he had marched past this man. “Did you see her leave last Saturday?”

  “No, sir. She checked her accounts. Table accounts. Then she went to dressing room. After that I was very busy. I didn’t see her leave.”

  “You didn’t see anyone follow her? No customer paying special attention to her?”

  “Special? No, sir.” He smiled, showing a row of gold-streaked teeth. “All the girls have regulars, yes? But not special like you mean, no.”

  “Did you see any of her regulars? Or anybody spending a lot of time with her in the last couple weeks?” asked Axton. “Maybe spending a lot of money on her?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you ever meet her husband?” asked Wager.

  “No, sir. He never come here. Mr. Berg, he don’t like husbands coming here.”

  “Anybody give her a specially big tip that night?” asked Max.

  “Not that she tells me. Maybe Ed knows.”

  “Who’s Ed?”

  “Disc jockey.” The bartender’s slender hand gestured toward the booth above and behind the runway where a light shone dimly through the ceiling glow. In the shade beneath the booth, a busboy whistled shrilly between his teeth and called to someone in the kitchen, “Let’s go, Carlos—andale, man!”

  Wager started toward the dance ramp.

  “Please, sir!” The bartender waved a nervous hand. “No shoes on stage, sir! You please walk around, yes?”

  Wager did, following the curve of the waist-high platform into a shadow where a narrow stairway led up to the booth. Behind him, Axton asked the bartender more of the now-familiar questions.

  At the top of the straight stairs, a door hung open, spilling light and stale, sweaty air into the club room. The disc jockey, in his mid-twenties, with a drooping mustache and blow-dried hair, looked up from a pile of tapes and records and shook his head. “Not up here, man. Off limits.”

  Wager showed his badge. “I’m investigating a homicide. A girl named Shelly. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “Homicide? Shelly? Does that mean murder, man?”

  He nodded. “Can I have your name, please?”

  “Man!” The brown eyes widened and stared at Wager. “Shelly…!” Absently, he reached for a cigarette and lit it, drawing deeply and hissing out a thin stream of smoke. “Man!”

  “You were working Saturday night, right?”

  “Huh? Oh—yeah. Every night.”

  “Can I have your name, please?”

  His name was Edward Gollmer and he had been the regular disc jockey since Berg bought the place. “That’s quite awhile in this business. People burn out. It’s really a lot harder than people think.”

  Wager nodded. “Did you see her Saturday night, Ed?”

  Gollmer had. She danced her three sets of three dances each and worked the floor as well. One of the better dancers, she was scheduled late in each round of sets. “That’s when the tipping gets heavy. And Shelly always did pretty good when she danced.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I get ten percent. That’s part of the deal—minimum wage from Berg and ten percent of the girls’ take. It’s not like I don’t earn it, man—it’s my job to establish the mood for the sets. I cool things down and then build them up a little bit, give a girl her introduction. Then I run their music the way they want it and handle the volume. That’s an art—you have to run the volume up a little at a time through the set, you know? It’s no easy job.”

  “Did you do the music for Shelly that night?”

  “Sure. She was real particular about it. A real artist, you know? She talked once about going to dance in Las Vegas or maybe she’d been there—I’m not sure. But she was good.”

  “Did she ever talk about any friends of hers? Or her husband’s?”

  “No. She was strictly business. She told me what she wanted and I did it, and that was it.”

  “Did she give you her ten percent last Saturday?”

  “Sure. A girl doesn’t give it over, I have a word with Mr. B. She either feeds the kitty or she’s out on her sweet ass. Unless I screw up—then no ten percent.” He shrugged. “It happens once in a while. We’re all human, man, and some of the music the girls want. …” He shook his head and fingered the gold chain around his neck. “A monkey couldn’t hop to some of the music they drag in.”

  Wager asked, “Does the bartender get ten percent, too?”

  “Sure. He’s got the same arrangement I do. That’s where the real money is in this racket. It sure ain’t in the salary.”

  “Any of the girls ever skim?”

  “It happens once in awhile, sure. But you can usually tell—you have a pretty good idea what each night brings. Things have been dropping off lately, though. The depression, right? But it’s overall, if you know what I mean. A girl skims, she stands out.”

  “Shelly?”

  “No. Never. What for? Shit, she could pick up two, three hundred. And a few nights she even made half a grand.”

  “In one night? Five hundred dollars in one night?”

  “Right. You get a Saturday-night house pretty well oiled, they can put a lot of bucks on the table. It’s amazing what some guys will pay just to look up a girl’s snatch.” He shrugged. “Like I say, minimum wage, that’s for the IRS, you know?” A thought struck him. “Ah—you guys don’t talk to them, do you?”

  “Only about my own taxes, Ed.”

  Gollmer smiled with relief. “Right. What the IRS don’t know won’t hurt us.”

  “So Shelly paid you Saturday. Was that before or after she changed clothes?”

  “After. They go in and count the tips and then settle up on their way out.”

  “You saw her go out?”

  “Right. I was sitting at the bar and having my drink, like always. She says, ‘Here you go, Ed,’ and hands me my money, and then out she goes.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yeah—right.”

  “You saw her go out
the front door alone?”

  “No. The back door. Over there.” He pointed off across the vacant ramp whose waxed surface threw back the ceiling’s cold glow like a strip of ice. “There’s an employees’ lot out back where we park.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted her dead?”

  Gollmer shook his head.

  “Nobody in the audience who showed special interest in her? Gave her a big tip? Asked her out after the show?”

  “No more than usual. You know, ‘Can I give you a ride home?,’ that kind of crap. The out-of-towners do that, not the regulars. She got her share of it—she was a good-looking girl. Really a good figure.” He shook his head again. “Murdered … What, was she raped and killed?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “Well, I guess I’m not all that surprised.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You do get your share of sickies coming in here. Some of them…well, Cal has a tough job, you know?”

  “That’s the bouncer?”

  “Right. Mr. B. keeps the place clean; nothing rough, nothing dirty. It’s not like some of the other skin houses. Still,” he added, lighting another cigarette, “we do get our ration of sickies.”

  Wager went through the rest of the questions, asking the same thing a couple of different ways, but getting the same answers. Shelly left for the parking lot a little after two. She had been alone. No one seemed especially interested in her. Gollmer knew of no trouble between her and her husband. He knew of no one who might want her dead. And he could think of no sickie that stood out in the audience Saturday night.

  When Wager came back down the stairs, Axton was waiting for him.

  “Anything?”

  “It looks like the disc jockey was the last one to see her leave.”

  “Alone.” It wasn’t a question now.

  “Yeah. Let’s go out this way—it’s the employees’ parking lot.”

  It was a dirt square tucked between the windowless brick walls of the adjoining buildings and open at the back to an alley that glittered with crushed glass. Across the pavement, a high wooden fence with a board broken here and there guarded someone’s backyard, and beyond that a darkness of thick trees protected an old neighborhood from the noise and gleam of Colfax. High on the club’s wall above them, spotlights flooded the parking area with light. A black Mercedes sat in the slot closest to the door. Its license plate read MR. B. and on the wall in front of it was stenciled Reserved for Numero Uno. Other slots were numbered in older paint half-hidden under sprayed graffiti. Only four cars were left in the lot by now. They were all late models and one other had vanity plates reading D.J.-1.