hers. Maybe she was afraid of getting her license plate put on the Internet and thought it would be safe from Eric Hoffman there. I looked around to see if I could find Eric’s pickup truck, but there were no pickups in sight and I hadn’t seen any in the front lot that had looked familiar. It was probably too early for him to be on the prowl.
Sandra pulled into the space beside Donna’s car.
“What are we going to do now?” Sandra asked. “We can’t take Winston in there.”
“We could wait until they come out,” I said. “Donna’s not going to do anything to Mark in the Club. However, I think there’s a chance that we may learn something if we go inside. This is what we’ll do. We’ll go in the side door, which is near the dressing room. Believe it or not, the dancers are real women, with the same maternal instincts we have, and I’m sure they’ll be glad to see Winston.”
“But places like this are so…sleazy. And the nudity.”
“He’s too young to be affected by any of that. But I’ll be glad to go in alone and you can stay out here with Winston, if you like.”
That decided her. Sandra wouldn’t let me go in alone, in spite of the fact that I had been here several times before. We got out of the car and she lifted Winston out, half asleep. His head promptly dropped onto her shoulder. We walked to the side door, which was near where we had parked. I tried the door; it was unlocked. Lefty shouldn’t be so careless. Anybody could walk in.
We went through the doorway into the hall. We could hear the distant but insistent beat of rock music. The door to Lefty’s office was closed, as usual. I didn’t know whether he was in there and I didn’t want to inflict Winston on him so we went on around the corner to the dressing room. That door was open.
I led the way inside, where two of the dancers were sitting in front of the brightly lit mirrors, working on their makeup. The music was louder here; another dancer must be onstage. I recognized one of the two sitting here as Cherub. Cherub saw me in the mirror and swung around on her stool.
“Grandma,” she exclaimed, “what are you doing here? And who’s this?”
She was looking at Winston, still on Sandra’s shoulder, who had his eyes open now. He looked around with lively interest.
I said, “Cherub, this is my real granddaughter, Sandra. And this is her son, Winston.”
Cherub and Sandra said hello to each other. Cherub got up and walked over to Winston.
“Hi, Sweetheart,” she said, patting his head. “Ain’t you the handsome little boy.”
“Do you have a car?” Winston asked her.
“Have I got a car? Sure, I have a cool car.”
“What color is it?”
“It’s yellow.”
“That’s good. Yellow is my favorite color.”
Winston had made a friend. Sandra stood him on the floor, from where he continued to talk cars with Cherub. Sandra looked uncomfortable, which was not surprising, but I got the impression it was partly because of her dress: she still wore longish shorts and a baggy sweatshirt while Cherub had on a rather spectacular, if abbreviated, sequined costume.
When I could get a word in edgewise, I said, “Cherub, is there any way of seeing who’s in the audience without actually going out on the floor?”
“So you’re here on official business?” Cherub said. “Still working on the murder of the Shooting Star, eh? Lefty’s wandering around here, somewhere, up to no good. Let me see if I can corral him. I’ll be right back.”
Cherub went out the door. The other dancer, who was also intrigued with Winston, said her name was Melanie. Winston asked her if she had a car and soon they were deep in conversation.
Cherub returned within a couple of minutes, with Lefty trailing behind her. He wore a suit and one of his beautiful ties. He must be hot; his face glistened with sweat. When he saw me he said, “Lillian. What a pleasure.”
He took my hand in both of his paws, as usual. Fortunately, he had a surprisingly gentle touch or my hand would have been handburger. I glanced at Sandra, who looked as if she was wondering exactly how much time I had been spending here, and I hoped that Lefty’s spectacular tie would impress her. I introduced Lefty to her and Winston.
To Winston, Lefty said, “Take it easy on the girls, you hear? They’re very delicate,” and to Sandra, “So you’re Lillian’s granddaughter. I’ll bet she looked like you when she was your age.”
“Better,” Sandra said, modestly.
“Well, you can have a job here anytime. With that hair and that body, you’d be perfect. You don’t even need a wig. We’ll call you Shooting Star II because you have the same kind of appeal she had. And in addition you’ve got boobs.”
“Don’t pay any attention to Lefty,” Cherub said to Sandra. “He never head of political correctness.”
“In this business I’ve always got to keep my eye open for talent,” Lefty said. “And I know it when I see it. Can you dance, Sandra?”
“We’ll negotiate her contract later,” I said. “Right now, we believe there’s a couple in your audience that we’d like to keep an eye on.”
“No sooner said than done,” Lefty said. “Follow me.”
He led the way out of the dressing room. Cherub said she’d watch Winston and he was willing to stay with her because she had agreed to show him her car keys. Sandra and I followed Lefty along a hallway I hadn’t traversed before and up a flight of stairs I didn’t even know existed. At the top of the stairs I saw a closed door. Lefty opened it and led us into a room with a large window that overlooked the whole club below, including the stage, the bar and the audience.
“It’s a mirror on the other side,” Lefty said. “We can see them, but they can’t see us. It’s for security, but I also use it as a VIP lounge, for folks who don’t want to mix with the riffraff.”
There were several tables in our room, with chairs around them. It took our eyes a minute to adjust to the dim lighting of the scene before us. The spotlit stage, to our left, was the brightest area. We had a good view of a dancer who was doing her best to captivate the multitudes. The pounding beat of the music vibrated the glass of the window. As I became able to pick out the faces of individuals in the mostly-male audience, I noticed that while many of the men were watching the dancer with more-or-less rapt attention, some seemed to be more interested in their drinks and others were conversing and ignored her altogether. What must that do to her self-esteem?
“There they are,” Sandra said, pointing toward the back of the room.
Her young eyes had found Mark and Donna before mine could focus that far away. They were sitting at a small table, side by side, but definitely not touching each other. They had glasses in front of them, probably beer, and Donna seemed to be talking to Mark, in competition with the music.
“I wish we could hear what they’re saying,” I said.
“This has something to do with the Shooting Star, doesn’t it?” Lefty said, as he recognized Mark.
I nodded.
“I’ll tell you what we can do. I’ll invite them up here to the skybox. I’ve got this room miked. We can listen to what they’re saying in my office. I’ll tell them it’s to make the lady more comfortable, since there aren’t many of them in the audience. And drinks are on the house.”
“That will convince Mark,” I said. “He doesn’t have much money.”
“That other window overlooks the lap-dancing area,” Lefty said, pointing to an adjacent wall. Would you like to take a look at what’s happening there before we go downstairs?”
“Thanks, we’ll pass,” I said, quickly, before Sandra figured out what he was talking about.
Chapter 30
The first snatches of conversation we heard were between Mark and Donna and the waitress who had guided them up to the skybox, as Lefty liked to call it. She offered them another round of drinks, free. Mark, who sounded somewhat puzzled as to why they were getting special attention, said they would have one more round.
When the waitress left we listened, intently, for what we didn’t know. Lefty, Sandra and I were standing in his cramped office, too nervous to sit, while he adjusted knobs on an amplifier that projected their voices through
