'Nothing.' She looked around. 'What do you think a person has to do to get a drink in this place?'
Up on stage the sailorgirl was walking round the chair. Now that she was on her feet I could see just how short her skirt was. I wondered if she realised she’d forgotten to put her knickers on. Sylvie followed my gaze.
'She’s a classically trained ballerina.'
'I suspected that.'
Sylvie raised her eyebrows then peeled her lips back into a dazzling smile as the prospect of more alcohol approached.
The waitress’s uniform was deep pink edging sweet pink, it hugged her form, dipping and swooping around a wolf-whistle of a body. I gave her my stage show grin and she smiled back, taking all those cliches about Botticelli angels, wrapping them up and tying a bow on them. Then she clocked Sylvie and her expression glazed to strictly business. The waitress kept her eyes lowered as she took our order, then returned to slide our drinks onto the table without a smile.
I put my hand on the waitress’s arm and said ‘Dankeschon’, looking her in the eyes, making my tone soft and soothing.
She hesitated, glancing at Sylvie as if trying to decide whether she was worth a murder sentence, then murmured, 'Bitteschon’, and turned her back on us.
I lifted my lager and peered at the girl on stage through its liquid lens.
'Do you think I should check this for arsenic?'
Sylvie shot a look of venom towards the departing waitress.
'Why?'
'You don’t seem too popular around here.'
'Don’t worry, things have a way of rebounding on bitches like her.'
'Bad karma.'
'Something like that.'
Up on stage the naughty nautical shifted her rear making the pleats on her skirt bounce. The singer straddled the chair and I shifted my eyes from the shadows beneath her pelmet-lengthed skirt towards her face while she belted out the last verse of her song.
You can tell my papa, that’s all right,
'Cause he comes in here every night,
But don’t tell mama what you saw!
She tipped her sailor’s cap at the audience, smiled at the scattering of applause and left the stage, darting a quick look at our table.
Our waitress took her place; she’d changed into a stage costume and was smiling now, flanked by two equally jolly and equally busty girls. The trio were dressed identically in short shorts, low-slung halter-necks and cheekily angled bowler hats. They each dragged a chair on with them and started to go through a routine that must have been hell on the thighs. I had no illusions, Germans didn’t need to plunder their past for their own amusement, this was aimed at tourists hungry for a taste of Weimar decadence, but there was something about the way the flesh at the top of the girls’ legs trembled as they went through their steps that appealed to me.
The fascination seemed lost on Sylvie. She mooched a cigarette, and started talking loudly about the costumes she was designing for herself. Up on stage the trio were doing a syncopated wiggle while beside me Sylvie fought for my attention with descriptions of satin corsets and nipple tassels. Travel was certainly expanding my horizons. Sylvie’s voice rose a notch and I put my hand on hers. She smiled warmly at me, triumphant at wresting back my attention.
'What do you think?'
'I think you’ll get us thrown out.'
She shot me a hard look, then suddenly she was on her feet, waving towards the doorway, and that was when I saw Dix.
Dix was as stone calm as he’d been at our last meeting, but Sylvie’s high was edging on a fever. She described the evening, acting out both of our parts, not minding that Dix only nodded where she laughed, but then she was laughing enough for all three of us, her eyes darting between Dix and me, as if unsure of whether she could hold us both on her leash while there were so many other distractions around.
'You have to come tomorrow, Dix, it’s an ace trick, they loved it.'
'OK.' Dix looked beyond Sylvie at the girls on stage, following their legs, his face unimpressed, as if he’d seen the act before and didn’t find it much improved. He turned to me. 'So, William, did they want to see a magical trick or did they want to watch you cut her open?'
'Is that not a bit sick?'
Dix’s face wore a serious expression, but it was hard to see his eyes behind his specs.
'Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.'
Sylvie’s smile was eager; her teeth shone white against the nightclub gloom.
'They want to see you murder me, William.'
'Aye, the greatest show on Earth.'
Dix looked me straight in the eye, his voice mellow, and I thought that perhaps he meant what he said.
'There are people who would pay a lot of money to see it.'
