'Let's just say I hit the Wahl.' THE X BAR was in the basement of an old furniture depot on Erie Avenue. A tall black man in a yellowing white linen suit stood at the door. He wore a Panama hat and red patent-leather shoes, a dozen or so gold bangle bracelets on his right wrist. Two doorways west, partially shadowed, stood a shorter but far more muscular man-shaved head, sparrow tats on his massive arms.
The cover charge was twenty-five dollars each. They paid a pretty young woman in a pink leather fetish dress just inside the door. She slipped the money through a metal slot in the wall behind her.
They entered and went down a long, narrow staircase to an even longer hallway. The walls were painted a glossy raspberry enamel. The thumping rhythm of a disco song got louder as they neared the end of the corridor.
The X Bar was one of the few hard-core S amp;M clubs left in Philadelphia, a throwback to the hedonistic 1970s, a pre-AIDS world in which anything went.
Before they made the turn into the main room, they encountered a niche built into the wall, a deep alcove in which a woman sat on a chair. She was middle-aged, white. She wore a leather master mask. At first, Byrne wasn't sure if she was real or not. The skin on her arms and thighs looked waxen, and she sat absolutely still. When a pair of men approached, the woman stood up. One of the men wore a full-torso straitjacket and a dog collar attached to a leash. The other man roughly yanked him to the woman's feet. The woman took out a riding crop and lightly flailed the one in the straitjacket. Soon he began to cry.
As Byrne and Victoria made their way across the main room, Byrne saw that half the people were in S amp;M costumes: leather and chains, spikes, catsuits. The other half were the curious, the hangers-on, the parasites on the lifestyle. At the far end was a small stage with a lone spotlight on a wooden chair. No one was on the stage at the moment.
Byrne walked behind Victoria. He watched the reactions she aroused. The men immediately spotted her: her sexy figure, the smooth confident gait, that mane of black shiny hair. When they saw her face they did a double take.
But in this place, in this lighting, she was exotica. All styles were served here.
They made their way to the back bar, where a bartender was wiping down the mahogany. He wore a leather vest, no shirt, a studded collar. He had greasy brown hair, swept back from his forehead, a deep widow's peak. Each forearm held an elaborate spider tattoo. At the last second, the man looked up. He saw Victoria and smiled a mouthful of yellow teeth, topped by grayish gums.
'Hey, baby,' he said.
'How are you?' Victoria replied. She slipped onto the last stool.
The man leaned over and kissed her hand. 'Never better,' he replied.
The bartender looked over her shoulder, saw Byrne, and his smile quickly faded. Byrne held his gaze until the man looked away. Byrne then glanced behind the bar. Next to the shelves of liquor were racks of books appealing to the BDSM culture-leather sex, fisting, tickling, slave training, spanking.
'The place is crowded,' Victoria said.
'You should see it on Saturday nights,' the man replied.
I'll pass, Byrne thought.
'This is a good friend of mine,' Victoria said to the bartender. 'Denny Riley.'
The man was forced to officially acknowledge Byrne's presence. Byrne shook hands with him. They had met before, but the man at the bar didn't remember. His name was Darryl Porter. Byrne had been there the night Porter had been busted for procuring and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The bust came at a party in Northern Liberties where a group of underaged girls were found partying with a pair of Nigerian businessmen. Some of the girls were as young as twelve. Porter, if Byrne remembered correctly, had done only a year or so on a plea bargain. Darryl Porter was a chicken hawk. For this and many other reasons, Byrne wanted to wash his hand.
'So what brings you to our little slice of heaven?' Porter asked. He poured a glass of white wine and set it in front of Victoria. He didn't even ask Byrne.
'I'm looking for an old friend,' Victoria said.
'Who would that be?'
'Julian Matisse.'
Darryl Porter furrowed his brow. Either he was a good actor or he didn't know, Byrne thought. He watched the man's eyes. Then-a flicker? Definitely.
'Julian's in jail. Greene, last I heard.'
Victoria sipped her wine, shook her head. 'He's out.'
Darryl Porter mugged, wiped down the bar. 'First I'm hearing of it. I thought he was pulling the whole train.'
'He's out on some kind of technicality, I think.'
'Julian's good people,' Porter said. 'We go back.'
Byrne wanted to jump across the bar. Instead he glanced to his right. A short, bald man was sitting on the stool next to Victoria. The man was meekly giving Byrne the eye. He wore a Campfire Girl outfit.
Byrne turned his attention back to Darryl Porter. Porter filled a few drink orders, returned, leaned over the bar, whispered something in Victoria's ear, keeping eye contact with Byrne the whole time. Men and their fucking power trips, Byrne thought.
Victoria laughed, tossed her hair over a shoulder. It made Byrne's stomach flip to think she would in any way be flattered by the attentions of someone like Darryl Porter. She was so much more than that. Maybe she was just playing her part. Maybe it was jealousy on his part.
'We've got to run,' Victoria said.
'Okay, babe. I'll ask around. If I hear anything, I'll call you,' Porter said.
Victoria nodded. 'Cool.'
'Where can I reach you?' he asked.
'I'll call you tomorrow.'
Victoria dropped a ten on the bar. Porter folded it up and handed it back to her. She smiled, slipped off her stool. Porter smiled back, went back to wiping down the bar. He didn't look at Byrne again.
On stage, a pair of women in blindfolds and gag ball trainers knelt before a huge black man in a leather mask.
The man held a thong whip.
Byrne and Victoria stepped out in the humid night air, no closer to finding Julian Matisse than they had been at the beginning of the night. After the madness of the X Bar, the city was shockingly still and quiet. It even smelled clean.
It was nearly four o'clock.
On the way to the car, they rounded a corner and saw two kids: young black boys, maybe eight and ten years old, patched jeans, ratty sneaks. They sat on a row house stoop behind a box full of mixed-breed puppies. Victoria looked over at Byrne, lower lip out, eyebrows aloft.
'No, no, no,' Byrne said. 'Unh-unh. No way.'
'You should have a puppy, Kevin.'
'Not me.'
'Why not?'
'Tori,' Byrne said. 'I have enough trouble taking care of myself.'
She gave him a puppy look of her own then knelt down next to the box and surveyed the small sea of furry faces. She grabbed one of the dogs, stood, and held him up in the streetlight, like a chalice.
Byrne leaned against the brick wall, propped his cane. He took the dog. The puppy's rear legs freewheeled in the air as it began to lick his face.
'He likes you, man,' the younger kid said. He was obviously the Donald Trump of this organization.
As far as Byrne could tell, the puppy was a shepherd-collie mix, another child of the night. 'If I were interested in buying this dog-and I'm not saying I am-how much would you want for it?' he asked.
'Fiddy dollars,' the kid said.
Byrne looked at the handmade sign on the front of the cardboard box. 'It says twenty dollars on the box.'
'That's a five.'
