Strip Search

by Rex Burns

  Wager covered the chit with a bill and went into the cool, welcome darkness where his familiar Trans Am waited. He wasn’t immune; he wasn’t chosen; he wasn’t special. He was blind to danger, or sleepy, or just careless. That happened, but it couldn’t happen too often. He was not immune, and he’d better not be careless, because the slayer of three people was now after him. All because he was looking for a man with white hair. Thoonk.

  CHAPTER 12

  MAYBE IT WAS the bags under his eyes; maybe it was the taut and growing anger that had replaced last night’s shock and the preceding inexplicable depression over Doc’s death. Maybe it was just the smell of a long, bad night on his breath; but no one at work—not even Max—asked about the streak of raised and burned flesh along his cheek. He caught his partner eyeing it a couple times, and once he seemed ready to say something. But Wager, carefully setting the pile of reports and court depositions squarely on his desk, looked flatly into the man’s blue eyes and said, “Nice day, isn’t it?” Max could take a hint.

  Now, after a solid sleep that spanned the late afternoon and early evening and left the hinges of his jaw aching from the weight of his motionless head against the hard mattress, Wager steamed his flesh awake in a hot shower. By the time he finished dressing, the red numbers of his clock said 11:42. He squared the wide-brimmed hat low over his eyes and checked himself one last time in the mirror. The Taco Kid rides again. The scruffy, unshaven figure looked back with a tight smile that never made it to the eyes—so much for that day’s ration of humor.

  Fifteen minutes later, he swam among the crowds of the midnight streets.

  “Pssst—want a hit?” The mutter came from a shiny-eyed blond girl who may have been sixteen; her bangs and straight hair framed her face to make it look younger, and she smiled widely at him and glided past in a haze of cloudy excitement. She disappeared beyond the shoulders of a pair of homosexuals walking with their hands in each other’s hip pockets. They whispered something and giggled. A shirtless kid in ragged, filthy jeans asked him for his change, snarling “Fuck you” when Wager shoved past his upturned palm. A young couple pushed a baby stroller and held hands and smiled vacantly at the motion and noise. They paused to deal for a joint held up by a bearded man who leaned with one thin leg cocked back against the photograph-covered wall of an adult-movie arcade. He grinned down at the baby. “Aw, that’s a cute kid—I had a kid like that once. Can he have a sip of my beer? Kids love beer.” On the corner, his sequined shirt sparking light from the passing headlights, a pimp talked to two girls with worn backpacks and wide eyes. He smiled whitely and laughed, then shook his head and pointed toward a coffee shop, his arm snaking around the taller one’s waist. “Hey, man, you looking?” A boy caught Wager’s attention and gave his bleached hair a carefree toss; but his eyes held anxious hunger as they tried to read him. “You want it, I got it. If I don’t have it, I know who does. You looking, man?” A light hand rested on his arm, “Come on, honey, you’re too macho for boys,” said the unseen voice, while a tired youth with a beatific gaze and gunnysack robe handed out ink-smeared fliers which promised that Jesus would forgive anything and save anyone. The crowd, like a school of minnows, suddenly parted as two policemen strolled down the middle of the sidewalk in their own little capsule of space and eyed Wager suspiciously.

  He swung wide around the span of sidewalk claimed by LaBelle Brown and saw her, white purse swinging saucily against her pink dress, as she paced the curb, eyes challenging the slowly passing cars. Making his way through the crowds, he reached the light-filled entry of the Cinnamon Club and paused a moment in the haze of cigarette smoke that rolled like a pale fog out of the doorway.

  “Hi, there’s a seat over here.” A girl whose dark curls cupped her breasts smiled and started to lead him to a corner.

  “I’m looking for Little Ray. Is he here tonight?”

  “I don’t know him. My name’s Emma. You ready for a drink?”

  She put him at one of the tiny tables almost against the back wall. On the ramp, glistening in the red lights as if her flesh were oiled, a girl finished her third number. She had tightly curled blond hair down to her shoulders and an amazingly round and active rear end. The music roared to a pulsating climax and on the last note the girl froze, pressing her fingertips against the ceiling and sucking in her stomach to accentuate her pointed breasts and arcing posterior as the disc jockey, voice hoarse in the microphone, yelled enthusiastically, “All right—let’s hear it for Fanny Hill!” The girl smiled at the shouts and applause and modestly knelt to pick up the bills on the runway as the music shifted to a slower tempo. Wager searched the silhouettes for Little Ray’s clutch of hair.

  With his third beer, Wager’s head began to throb from the stuffy air and the ceaseless impact of noise. Finally, close to one, the man came in, and Wager didn’t let him get as far as a table.

  “Let’s step out back, Little Ray—I got some questions.”

  “Hey, man, where the hell you been? I thought we had a deal going.”

  “Maybe we do, maybe we don’t—maybe somebody screwed something up.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Let’s go out back and talk.”

  “I got some business first, man. This is my office call, you know?”

  “They’ll wait. It won’t take long.”

  The hardness in Wager’s voice worried the man. “What’s the problem?”

  “Somebody set me up,” said Wager. “I want to know who and why.”

  “Hey, now—I don’t know nothing about any setup!”

  Wager nudged the man’s arm toward the rear exit. “That’s what I want you to tell me, Little Ray: how much you don’t know about it.”

  They stood in the cool air and pale glow of the parking lot behind the club. Every slot was filled with late-model cars and Wager counted four Datson ZXs, each with a slightly different flash of racing stripes. Some salesman had offered the girls a group discount.

  “What kind of setup, man? What are you laying on me?”

  “Somebody tried to waste me. I figure it’s somebody who heard you shooting off your mouth about our deal.”

  Little Ray’s eyes gave him away. “No, man—I ain’t said nothing to nobody!”

  “Bullshit. It’s all over the street. You’re claiming you’re the next capo di capo or some shit.”

  “No—now, listen—”

  “You listen, asshole; my associates, they don’t like people talking about their business. ‘Discretion’—you know what that means? It means you keep your mouth shut when you do business with me or anybody I speak for. You got that?”

  “Yeah, sure, but I—”

  “I heard you been shooting off your mouth. I heard it from people I respect. And something else, Little Ray; somebody you talked to tied it to me. And they went after me. It was very close, Little Ray.” Wager shoved the barrel of his Star PD under the man’s chin and hooked a roll of pale, trembling flesh over the muzzle. “And if I get even a hint that you had a part of it, you are a dead man, Little Ray.”

  “I didn’t! I mean, I might have said something to a friend or something about a big deal coming down. I mean, who wouldn’t—it’s really big, you know? But, man, I did not—I did not!—set you up or finger you to nobody!”

  Wager stared into the man’s eyes and let the silence and the barrel of the gun work for him.

  Little Ray’s chin waggled back and forth like a ball on the end of a stick. “I swear! I don’t even know your name, man!”

  “I want you to find out who it was.”

  “What?”

  “You’re supposed to know the street—that’s part of our deal. So show me how well you know it—you find out who tried to do a number on me.”

  “Hey, man, that’s not the kind of contacts—”

  “Find out, Little Ray. I will see you right here tomorrow at the same time, and you will prove to me you had nothing to do with it.”

  “I can’t just go down the street as
king—”

  “A man with white hair. Like an albino. He comes to this place. You find out who he is and I’ll find out if he’s the one.” The pistol nudged Little Ray’s chin up. “If I don’t see you tomorrow night, I’ll get suspicious. You understand?”

  “Yes!”

  Wager clicked on the safety and stuck the pistol in his belt under the long fringe of the Mexican vest. Little Ray rubbed beneath his chin with the back of his hand and stared at Wager as if seeing him for the first time.

  “I figure—and my associates figure—we still got a deal going. If you want to be rich and happy, don’t screw it up.”

  “I won’t! A deal’s a deal, man, right!”

  “Then you show me that all this is just an unfortunate misunderstanding. You tell me tomorrow who that man is.”

  Little Ray swallowed and nodded, his spray of stiff hair wagging. Wager left him alone in the flat glare from the lights high up the brick wall. When Wager paused to look back, he saw Little Ray gazing with unblinking and empty eyes into the dark. The man rubbed again at the spot beneath his chin, and his shoulders rose and fell as if he had been holding his breath for a long time. Then he turned and walked stiffly back into the Cinnamon Club, his hand holding the scarred doorframe for a moment’s support before he disappeared.

  “No more fun and games, Willy. I want him.”

  “I never seen the man, Wager. I don’t know him.”

  “You know about him. I want him.”

  “How come you so het up about this dude?”

  “He tried to off me.”

  From his side of the Cadillac’s wide front seat, Willy’s eyes glinted in the mottled light of the street lamp high up in the trees. “He took a shot at you?”

  “Yes. I want him.”

  “Haw—that makes it kind of personal, don’t it? I thought us taxpayers gave you enough coin to pay for that kind of stuff.” When Wager did not answer, Willy said, “You don’t see no humor in the situation?” Then, “No, I guess you don’t.” Sighing, the big man asked, “What’s he worth to you?”

  “No money this time, Willy.”

  “Say, what?”

  “He took a shot at me. I don’t put a price on that.”

  “But, Wager, I’m a businessman!”

  “This isn’t business.”

  Willy tipped his panama hat back and dabbed at his broad forehead with a folded handkerchief that wafted a faint scent. “What I hear you say is that Doc was worth a few bucks. But you, my man, are priceless!”

  Wager guessed that was about the size of it.

  “Um. I thought Black Pride was something. But, man, you got a bad case of Spick Fever.” He tucked the handkerchief in his vest pocket. “Maybe someday it’ll turn out to be terminal.”

  “You have something on him, Willy. I want to know what it is.”

  Once more the bulging figure sighed, then he wagged his head. “Well, it ain’t much. But it does hurt to give it away free, you know?” Wager didn’t reply. Willy grunted something inarticulate. “Here’s all I got: he’s new around town and he’s up to some hustle. But nobody knows much of what he’s into. Whatever his act is, it’s got something to do with the strip—he shows up here and there in the clubs.”

  “What clubs?”

  “Well, you know one: the Cinnamon Club.”

  “What about Foxy Dick’s?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. My sources tell me he spends most of his time in that low-life skin joint out east, the Turkish Delights.” Willy’s eyes glinted his way again. “I reckon you don’t care if that’s outside your jurisdiction.”

  “That’s right. I don’t care. What’s he do in these places?”

  “If I knew, I could tell you. Whatever it is, he keeps it mighty quiet.”

  Wager gazed through the tinted glass of the car’s windshield at the dim residential street lined with parked cars. On the far corner, a freon streetlamp cast a pink glow that leached the color from buildings and shrubs and showed an elderly couple holding each other up as they stepped slowly across the intersection. Both the man and the woman had white hair. Funny how many white-haired people he was suddenly noticing. “Who’s he do business with?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “You tell me he does business. That means he talks to somebody. Who?”

  “What I hear, Wager, is that he don’t talk to much of nobody. He shows up and orders a drink, sits there by hisself, and pretty soon he leaves.”

  “And he never talks to anyone? Come on!”

  “Once, maybe twice, I hear he talks to this juice man name of Clinton. You know him?”

  “The one we popped for killing Goddard?”

  “And couldn’t hang nothing on. That’s the one.”

  Wager tried to see some meaning in that, but the only thing it gave him was another unconnected item and a sour taste in his mouth. “What’s Clinton up to now?”

  “Same as ever—sharking money at five percent a day and telling everybody that nobody can touch him. Which it looks like he is right.”

  Wager started to open the door, but Fat Willy held up a hand to halt him. A diamond on the man’s little finger splintered light into a tiny rainbow. “Wager, you got all this for no money, but that don’t mean it’s free. Come a time I need something that money cannot buy, my man, I’ll be collecting.”

  Wager closed the heavy door. If that time ever came, he’d worry about it then.

  He had been right: at night the wicker-basket doorway to the Turkish Delights gave the place an entry that promised something special for your money. Wager pushed open the gilded door and heard a shriek of laughter, quickly drowned in brassy chords amplified enough to tremble the walls. Through the hazy glow of blue neon hidden somewhere in the ceiling, he could make out a room whose furniture was crowded down to the far end. There, gyrating in and out of a cone of light, a nude girl on a platform jerked her elbows to the loud thud of a jukebox while men shouted “Do it” and someone held up a book of flaming matches at the side of the stage. At this end of the room, the floor was cleared for dancing, and along the right wall, like dark cribs, was a line of shadowy booths. The bar was against the other wall; a scattered row of figures leaned on it, feet on a brass rail, faces catching the chill glow from the stage. A female voice came close out of the shadows, “Hi, you want to sit near the stage or in a booth? You can buy me some champagne in the booth.” Wet teeth glinted in the blue gleam.

  Another chorus of “Do it” came from the crowd at the side of the platform, and the dancer laughed at the burning matchbook and its column of smoke spinning with her in the hazy cone of light. “Do it!”

  Wager ignored the pull of the girl’s hand and headed for the bar. “I just want a beer right now.”

  Her smile turned down instead of up. “Spending big tonight?”

  “Maybe later. What’s your name?”

  “Lolita.”

  “Maybe later, Lolita.”

  “Sure, Big Spender.”

  Her dim shape went back to join three or four girls perched on the barstools clustered near the door. Wager groped through the blue shadows toward the bartender, a slope-shouldered silhouette against the paleness of the bar mirror. The shout of voices rose, “Yeah—right—yeah!”

  The nude girl planted her feet near the edge of the platform and leaned back from the waist, legs spread, as a man held the burning matchbook closer to her groin. “Do it!” She motioned the fire closer and a moment later clenched her abdomen to blow out the flame as a cheer drowned out the music and bills were thrust toward her from applauding hands.

  “Pussy farts.” The man standing beside Wager smiled. He had a pudgy face and a smudge of thin goatee at the very end of his chin. “You don’t see that just anywhere—it’s a real talent. As good as anything on TV.”

  “Right,” said Wager. “A class act.” He ordered a Killian’s from the bartender, whose glance said he did not recognize Wager. He handed the man a five and raised his eyebrows at the
one-dollar bill coming back.

  “Cover charge,” said the unsmiling bartender. “For the floor show.”

  Wager tapped the single toward the slope-shouldered man. “Keep it all.”

  The bartender smiled one dollar’s worth of thanks.

  “Has Whitey been in yet?” Wager asked him.

  “Who?”

  “The guy with white hair. Comes in sometimes with Clinton.”

  The bartender’s eyes blinked once and he said, “I don’t know them.”

  “It’s worth something.” Wager reached beneath his woven vest and showed a roll of twenties.

  “It’s not worth anything if I don’t know them,” said the bartender. He moved toward the waitresses’ station.

  Wager tucked the bills away and drank his beer. At his shoulder, he felt the interest of the pudgy man. Finally he leaned through the noise of the jukebox to ask Wager, “You come here a lot?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, I thought I hadn’t seen you before. I come here a lot.”

  “It’s a real fine place,” said Wager.

  “Yeah. And the girls are really nice, too. That one you were talking to—Lolita—she really is good. She can do a hot-and-cold real good.”

  “A what?”