Strip Poker

by Nancy Bartholomew

  I took a deep breath and started walking, my back to Big Mike. I was walking out of the club that had been my home for almost three years. I was leaving it in the hands of a man whose sole bent seemed to be the destruction of all the Tiffany stood for. I was leaving a sinking ship, and yet I felt I had no other choice. Only now I had the working lives of at least fifteen other people in my hands.

  Seven

  By the time we reached the parking lot, the wait staff and the bartenders had joined us. Everyone looked grim, their faces shadowed by the overhead lights, drawing the lines of worry into sharp relief. We looked like characters in a black-and-white melodrama.

  I was not going to make the mistake I’d made with Rusty again, so I decided against a pep talk. Instead I leaned on my Camaro and waited to see what was going to jump off.

  “My husband’s gonna kill me,” one girl said, her voice small with worry.

  “Hell, mine’s gonna throw a party!” another said, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  Tonya stepped forward, a chicken bone holding her hair up in a little ponytail that sprouted from the top of her head like a golden fountain. “I think y’all are looking at this wrong. It’s a temporary vacation. You know any one of us can get on at any of the clubs around here, and not just the bad clubs like the Beaver. I mean the good ones. Dancers stick together, good times or bad.”

  Tonya looked at me, waiting for me to pitch in. I pushed up off the hood and looked at my coworkers. For a moment I could see them as they really were, just frightened little kids.

  “Tonya’s right,” I said. “Times have been tough before. The other clubs have a shortage of talent. I’m sure we can work out a visiting-artist gig.”

  Bubbles, a short little thing with huge boobs and big blue eyes, gasped and looked at me. “Sierra, what about Marla? She’s been in Mississippi with her mama all week, but she’s coming back tomorrow. Who’s gonna tell her about Vincent?”

  This got everybody’s attention, and not just because Marla was my rival and the woman voted most likely to get under my skin in the shortest amount of time. Marla and Vincent had recently developed their professional relationship into a serious romance, so serious, in fact, that I had a vague uneasiness about my toehold as top dancer. Maybe Vincent would be so blinded by love he’d overlook the true talent at the Tiffany and give his squeeze top billing.

  “Bubbles, don’t sweat it. I’ll go over there and tell her.”

  “She is gonna freak,” Tonya said.

  Freaking was going to be the least of what Marla would do. Turning Marla loose in a crisis involving her beloved would be like turning King Kong loose in a cable car. We were looking at pure disaster, unless it was handled right. I figured to have enough past baggage and debts owed to get us through this, but you never knew with Marla. Her fifty-two-inch tits could be all the brains Marla had going for her. She might not be able to see that cooler heads needed to prevail. Whatever. I figured to worry about all that when I saw her.

  “All right,” I said, facing the others. “Let’s get out of here. Call my house tomorrow and I’ll give you an update. If anybody gets ahold of a club that wants some of us, call around and let the others know.”

  “Hey,” a male voice said. I turned and knew without looking that Izzy Rodriguez had overheard me.

  “Seems like you girls might be kind of stuck,” he said, strolling over to join us. He was chewing on the end of an unlit cigar, his teeth yellowed by age and poor hygiene. “I mean, I couldn’t help but see what went down in there, and I must say that was a bold move.” He looked over at me. “And perhaps a foolish one.” He let the words hang in the air for a second, long enough for the seeds of doubt to take hold in any mind that wasn’t firm in her conviction.

  “But don’t y’all worry. I could use y’all.” There was a flush of relief on the faces of the youngest talent. But the older ones, the ones who knew Izzy and his reputation, they stayed right where they were, their faces unmoved.

  “’Course now, I couldn’t pay you like Gambuzzo did, but hell, it’s something.”

  I stepped away from him, positioning myself between Izzy and the girls. “That’s nice, Mr. Rodriguez,” I purred. “We’ll be in touch.” Like when it snows in July, I thought.

  Izzy ignored me. “Auditions at ten A.M. tomorrow,” he said, starting to walk away to the white stretch limo that waited in a darkened corner of the parking lot. “Don’t y’all be late!”

  I waited until the driver opened Izzy’s door and then shut it behind him before I spoke.

  “Don’t do it,” I said. “Rumor is, Rodriguez is running dope out the back door and prostitutes his girls. Don’t get mixed up in that.”

  I had high hopes that they’d listen, but I knew we’d lose a few. The younger ones with kids to support or a worthless boyfriend who wanted money at any price, they’d be the ones to go. They’d be the ones I couldn’t reach.

  I thought about the easy ones the whole way back to the trailer park; the vulnerable ones were always the first to fall prey to the trap. Exotic dancing is not for lightweights looking to collect fast money, but those are the ones who wander into the life and end up victims. Sierra Lavotini was nobody’s victim, and if I had my way in this war with Mike Riggs and the rest of the world who had lined up against Vincent Gambuzzo, I wouldn’t make victims out of my staff either. ’Cause see, they were my girls and I was responsible for them. I’d led them out of their jobs, and I’d cover them until we were back in again.

  Fluffy was sitting on the kitchen stoop when I arrived home. She was shivering in the early-evening air, but obviously was not quite cold enough to move inside. She was smiling. Life at Raydean’s must’ve been good.

  “You look like the cat that ate the canary,” I said.

  Fluffy grunted and let out a long, slow dog belch.

  “Back at you,” I said, and walked into the trailer. The light was on over the stove, and the kitchen was bathed in a warm yellow glow that for a second reminded me of Ma’s kitchen, and then just as quickly depressed me. No Christmas with the family this year. I looked over at the refrigerator. My airline ticket was stuck to the door, held by a magnet made to look like Santa Claus. Ho, ho, ho.

  Fluffy rubbed her face against my ankle, as if she knew.

  “Ain’t nothin’ for it,” I muttered, and picked up the phone. Why put off the inevitable? Might as well call them and let the blues begin. I looked at the ticket again. I was due to leave in thirty-six hours. There was no way to wrap this one up and make the world okay in less than two days, one day really if you counted this day as half shot and the departure day as nonexistent because it was a morning flight. Nope, there was nothing to do but call.

  I sat counting the rings. My brother Joey caught it on the third one.

  “Lavotini,” he barked.

  “Lavotini,” I answered.

  “Sierra?”

  “You know another Lavotini female that ain’t over sixty?” I said.

  Joey laughed. “Yeah, as a matter of fact. The former Mrs. Francis Lavotini, or your cousin Donna, or any one of a half-dozen other women in this family aside from you. Figures you’re only seeing yourself, you little princess.”

  “Hey, whoa! I am not a freakin’ princess.”

  “Couldn’t tell it by me.”

  The whole time I was bantering with Joey I was also listening, straining to hear who was around in the background, hoping for a taste of home that comes of hearing Ma bustling around the kitchen or Pa yelling out something. It was after dinnertime, but oftentimes my brothers ate with Ma and Pa, then sat around talking fire department business until after nine or ten. I just wanted a little piece of that now, but all I heard was silence.

  “So, Joey, listen. Is Ma around? I gotta tell her something no good and I’d rather get it over with.”

  Joey’s voice shifted an octave deeper. Joey’s creeping up on thirty but sometimes I forget. I keep him frozen in time somewhere around fifteen. Maybe it’s on account of he�
��s so laid-back and lowkey that you forget he’s growing up in front of you. Maybe on account of he’s the closest brother to me and I don’t feel any older than a kid myself. Who knows?

  “Sierra, Ma, she don’t need no more bad news right now. So if this is something big, tell me.”

  Joey’s voice was somber and it scared me. “What do you mean, Joey? What’s going on?”

  Joey’s voice dropped still lower and he was half whispering, as if he didn’t want to be overheard.

  “Just tell me what’s up. I can’t really talk too good, you see what I’m saying?”

  No, I did not see what he was saying, but I knew it was frightening me and that he was very, very serious, so I did as he asked.

  “I can’t come home for Christmas,” I said.

  Joey made a noise like a loud buzzer. “Wrong answer. Try again.”

  I was pacing around the kitchen, the long phone cord moving with me, Fluffy right at my side.

  “Joey, I’m sorry. You know I want to be there. I just can’t come. There’s trouble at the club. If I don’t do something, a lot of people could lose their jobs or worse. We got big trouble here, hon.”

  “Sierra,” Joey whispered, “we got bigger trouble here. Trust me on this.”

  “Is it Pa? Is something wrong on the job?”

  Joey snorted. “What, him? There ain’t nothing wrong on the job, Sierra. That’s piddlety shit compared to what’s up. But I tell you one thing, if he don’t start acting right about this, I’m gonna whip his tired ass!”

  “Joey!”

  “I’m serious, Sierra. We need you up here and I don’t mean want you, we freakin’ need you.”

  My heart was starting to pound. “Joey, quit fooling around. What’s wrong?”

  But Joey wasn’t budging. “All’s I’m gonna tell you is this, Sierra: Ma and Pa need you. They were waiting to tell you until you got up here, and you have to come.”

  Joey was a firefighter, just like two of my other three brothers. He didn’t exaggerate. If he said something was wrong, it was. If he didn’t want to say it over the phone, then it ranked up there as a national emergency. My family was like that. When trouble hit, they closed ranks. Look how many times they’d come to me. No, the Lavotinis were tough. They didn’t go outside the family in an emergency. They didn’t talk about it to outsiders. They just took care of the problem, no matter how big or small.

  “Sierra,” Joey whispered. “I don’t want to tell you and have you all upset and by yourself. I’m just telling you it’s bad and you need to come home.”

  “Joey, all right. You want me to come sooner? Try and fly out tomorrow?”

  Joey thought for a moment. “No, don’t do that. I don’t want them knowing I spilled it. Don’t talk to nobody. I don’t want it getting back to them, all right? It’ll wait until you get here, but not any longer.” There was silence for a second, then he spoke again, but this time I heard the tears in his voice.

  “Sierra, pray, all right?”

  If I could’ve come through the phone, I would’ve.

  “Hold on, honey,” I whispered. “I’m on my way.”

  Eight

  I hung up and the phone rang again. Joey, I thought, thinking twice and deciding to tell me after all.

  “Okay, what’s wrong?” I said. There was the briefest hint of a pause, then I heard Eugene’s voice, frantic, the sounds of the hospital in the background.

  “They called a code on Bruno,” he said.

  “When?”

  “Now! Sierra, he’s dying. They’re all in there. They’re shouting and they got all these machines.” Eugene’s voice broke off. In the background I heard faint voices and beeping.

  “I’m on my way,” I said, and hung up. Bruno wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t die.

  I ran out the door, hopping into the Camaro and squealing rubber down the asphalt. I was five minutes from the hospital. Five minutes feels like an eternity when you’re hoping someone won’t die on you. I drove blindly, my mind reviewing old movie clips of Bruno pulling some drunk tire salesman off me, or touching my shoulder like he knew how I felt when my friend Ruby Diamond died. Bruno was stupid—Raydean had that much right—but he was my kind of stupid. He was loving stupid. His errors were due to trying too hard, not wanting to be less than he was. Okay, so he wanted to be a pro wrestler. Okay, so he believed the WCW matches were real. But that was Bruno for you, always wanting to believe in heroes.

  I was full-out crying by the time I pulled into the medical center parking lot. It didn’t help to see Eugene outside, crying as hard as me and smoking a cigarette.

  I ran up to him, almost afraid to look him in the eye, not wanting to hear it. “What happened?” I asked.

  “He died on his way back into surgery, Sierra,” Eugene said. “They were right by the elevator, running, when his heart stopped again.” Eugene shivered and took a long drag on his smoke. “They brought the fucking paddles right out there in the middle of the hallway. Some nurse was on his chest, beatin’ the shit out of him, and then they zapped my boy right there.”

  Eugene was seeing it, his eyes staring out into the lot. “Motherfucker wouldn’t start up. They pushed some needle right into his fuckin’ heart, and I’m screaming, ‘Wake up, asshole!’ But Bruno wouldn’t do it.”

  Eugene looked over at me then and smiled softly. “Motherfucker took four zaps to start his heart up again. Do you believe that? Four times.” Eugene shook his head. “They zap me once, I’m gonna wake up! He was dead, Sierra. They were looking at their watches like they be thinkin’ my brother was fuckin’ wasted! Son of a bitch showed them. His ass is on the table again with that little boy cuttin’ on him. And I done told him, too. I said, ‘Don’t mess up with the brother.’”

  “Oh, I’m sure that put the doc right at ease. Threaten his ass and see if his hands shake while he’s cutting!”

  Eugene looked back at the parking lot. “I was just trying to make sure this didn’t go down like some managed-care HMO bullshit.”

  “Managed care? What are you talking about?”

  Eugene smiled. “Baby, before I was a bouncer, I ran the claims review department for an HMO. Them people’ll waste your ass to save a buck. I got burnt out on the con job, you know what I’m saying?”

  I looked at Eugene, really looked this time. The Tiffany Gentleman’s Club never asked too many questions when they hired staff. After all, Gambuzzo just wanted to know his bouncers could clean house. It didn’t occur to him to find out what other skills his security team harbored. Eugene was a brain, a brain on hiatus from the corporate world of health care. Go figure.

  “Well, your intentions were clean, my friend,” I said, “but your methodology was lacking.”

  Eugene pitched his cigarette into the parking lot and turned to open the door. “We’d better get back up there,” he said.

  I started in after him, then caught the reflection in the glass door. Eugene wasn’t rushing back to wait in the ICU waiting room; he was avoiding the owner of the silver Miata that was pulling up to the front door.

  “Sierra!” Marla’s shrill voice cried. “Just a damn minute!”

  Eugene was gone. I turned around and stepped over to the curb where Marla sat in her little toy convertible. Her long black hair was held back by a silver lamé scarf that matched the car’s paint job. Her perfectly manicured fire-engine-red nails drummed the steering wheel, and her false eyelashes were in no way passing for natural. She looked like a dime-store mannequin in a B-grade fifties movie.

  “’Bout time you got back,” I said. I didn’t mean it, but it was something neutral to say, something to hold off showing all my cards until I figured how much she knew about the situation. With Marla you gotta not overwhelm her with facts. Her tiny brain can’t hold but so much at a time. Beyond her limit, Marla is all emotion—negative, wailing, uncontrollable emotion.

  Marla eyed me like I was maybe a day short of fresh, and started in. “What are you doing about Vincent? Have you ta
lked to that …” Here she paused to find a word that wouldn’t lead to her immediate demise. “Man,” she finally said. “Is he going to take care of things? Why can’t Vincent come home right now?”

  I stood there staring at her, waiting for the well of questions to run dry. “Marla,” I said finally, “Bruno just almost died. He could be dead now for all I know. Let me deal with this first. I’ll get back to you.”

  Marla’s face changed, softening. “I thought he was better,” she said.

  “Setback.”

  Marla switched off the ignition and stepped out of the car. “Okay, let’s go inside.”

  “Marla, you can’t leave your car here. This is the entrance to the hospital.”

  Marla straightened up to her full five-foot-eight-inch height and looked through the glass front door at the security guard, an elderly man with a hearing aid. She adjusted her red tube top, licked her lips, and stared right at the old man, as if she were only studying her reflection. Then, with a fake start, she pretended to notice him, tossing her hair back like Veronica Lake in the good old days. She smiled, bit her lower lip softly, and stuck out her B-52 bombers. The security guard was putty in her hands.

  “Let’s roll,” she said. She sauntered past the security desk, tossing her keys in the old man’s lap. “I’ll be back, sweetie,” she purred, “but if you don’t mind, I think the left rear tire’s a little low.”

  The guard couldn’t even answer; Marla made sure of that. She leaned down and slid her arm across his shoulder, her tits practically down his throat, and kissed him on the cheek. “You are so cute!” she cooed.

  I was sick.

  The elevator doors chose that moment to open and we vanished before the guard could recover. Marla’s face changed back to its normal snarl and she was on me again.

  “If your boyfriend can’t clean this mess up, maybe you oughta call that Uncle Moose of yours. It’s a downright shame you cause all this trouble and then can’t clean it up!”