— ”
“Yeah, but — ”
“We ’ re private. Hired by Tad Ford ’ s family,” Behr told her. Paul watched her try and catch up with this.
“His family?”
“Let ’ s just say they ’ re prominent.” Behr let this land. It seemed to reverberate off the chalky white walls. “They have a big family business you may have heard of. In Detroit.” He waited as she put it together. Suddenly it clicked, and what might have been went across her face so clearly that Paul could ’ ve reached out and touched the thought.
“Tad never told me he was…” Her words trailed off in a whiskey-voiced puddle of disappointment.
“Jeez, you think he would ’ ve mentioned it,” Behr shot across the couch to Paul. Paul gave him a shrug back. “I guess that ’ s just the kind of guy he was.”
“I guess,” the girl said. She sounded sick about it.
“So you think you remember any details about him? What he did before starting at the club? Any friends or associates you might ’ ve seen?” Paul admired Behr ’ s style with her. He was neither friendly nor heavy, more like an immovable object that would not be leaving until he got his information.
Now the girl spoke to them from a faraway place. Her own troubles had magnified and were making the room crowded. Paul expected Behr to give her a line about how Tad ’ s family would be grateful for any information, how they might pay for it. That ’ s what he would ’ ve done. But Behr didn ’ t. Paul made a mental note to ask him why not. Then he saw why. A change had come over the girl. Tad ’ s having been special made her special in kind, and now she wanted to talk.
“Tad used to be a customer, starting a while back. That ’ s how we met. He was a regular. I was his favorite. He didn ’ t spend money on any of the other girls…” She smiled. It was like a cold knife in Paul ’ s chest. He could imagine how powerless men at the club were in her presence. He was aware of how this bouncer had gone from an object of revulsion to a mysterious man of good taste in an instant when she thought he was from a wealthy family, and still her smile pierced him. “Come to think of it, he did spend plenty back then. And he used to come in with a guy back when he was a customer, then it tapered off when Tad started working at the club and I didn ’ t see the guy anymore.” Paul caught himself leaning forward on the faux leather sofa and tried to ease back into a more staid pose.
“What kind of guy?” Behr asked.
“A wiry little guy. Called Rooster.”
“Rooster.”
“That was his nickname, obviously.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Kinda sexy, but a little weird. What ’ s the word…?” She fished around in her mind for a minute, then gave up and continued. “He had kind of an Axl thing going, but with a little shorter hair. Spent lots of time in the gym. Would always leave the club to go and do late-night workouts. He was religious about it. He was pretty uncomfortable sitting and talking with the girls, too.” Behr absorbed the information, making a mental note to ask Terry Cottrell and other sources for help in running down the associate, but she wasn ’ t done yet. “I always knew Tad was in love with me. He was kind of shy and clumsy around me, but I thought that ’ s just the way he was all the time, then I realized how much worse it was around me… Then he started working at the Lady and that disqualified him.”
“Do you know what he was doing before?” Behr wondered in a voice so soft, Paul would have never thought he possessed it.
“He said he was a driver.”
“A driver. Like a chauffeur or a trucker?” Behr wanted clarification.
She shrugged, her breasts moving upward against her T-shirt. “Just a driver of some kind. Long hauls. He had that left-arm tan.” She demonstrated the arm hanging on the windowsill of a car door. “He used to try to impress me by promising trips. I thought he was trying to impress me.” They watched while she rethought her dealing with the dead man.
“Where ’ d he want to take you?”
“He knew Mexico. He said he could take me down to this or that amazing beach where nobody was around. Totally private. To villages where you could hire a native to cook you the best chicken you ’ d ever tasted for like seventy cents. But all the girls know: There are only certain guys that you go on a trip with. The ones who give you a first-class ticket or have their own plane.”
“Right,” Behr said without judgment.
“Makes sense,” Paul added, because his saying nothing was starting to feel conspicuous.
“Oh. Hold on,” she said, and bounded up and left the room with alarming speed. They heard her in the kitchen rustling around. A drawer opened and closed. Paul looked to Behr. Behr gave him nothing back. She returned and held out her hand to Behr. He took a small, carved wooden key chain from her. It had letters painted on it and a sun setting between palm trees.
“He gave it to me.”
“Ciudad del Sol.”
“Yeah.”
“This where he wanted to take you?”
“No. Someplace else. Jalisco or something.” Then she shuddered and hugged herself. “You can keep that, I don ’ t want to remember what happened to him. It gives me the creeps.”
“Okay,” Behr said, and palmed the little key chain.
“Recently he was talking all about how he had to distance himself from Rooster, which was strange because the guy hadn ’ t even been around much for a long time. I thought maybe he was jealous because the guy would get all the attention from the dancers, but Tad said he was a bad person.”
“Really.” Behr nodded. “Anything else?”
She bit her lower lip in thought, causing it to whiten. Then she stopped and it reddened to the point of near bursting. “No. Guess not.” They all stood and started for the front door.
“Menacing.” She stopped. “That ’ s the word I was looking for. That guy, Rooster, he was menacing.”
TWENTY-ONE
After midnight Sebo’s Gym was populated almost exclusively by fags, bodybuilders, and psychos. If anyone had any misconceptions about Rooster belonging to one of those groups, he ’ d be glad to straighten it out for him. Anytime. The place shimmered under banks of fluorescent lights. Barbells and iron plates sang out in harmony with violent grunts. The air smelled of disinfectant and steroid-laden shits that wafted out of the men ’ s locker room, where juiced-up lifters dropped them in between squeezing the boil-size pimples on their backs and shooting their next dose.
Still, it was the only option in town for guys in serious training. Not pumped-up buffy boys with their show muscles, but those looking for power. Rooster had tried to stick to morning workouts for a while, in the hope of avoiding the degenerate crowd. He ’ d learned of a method: Do the most important task of the day first, that way you can focus on it, do it to the highest level of your ability, and there would be little chance of putting it off or skipping it. He couldn ’ t stay with the plan though. It just didn ’ t work for him. Daylight left him cold. He couldn ’ t generate the intensity required for power cleans before nightfall, regardless of how many Turbo Teas he drank first. No, for Rooster, the only way to find the purging, heart-pounding, iron-pounding force was late night. He was never one to skip his workouts, anyway. Especially now.
He was on the bench. It was an indulgence he rarely afforded himself. Most guys in the gym threw down on bench press every single workout, skipping more important stuff like legs and core strength for the ostentatious chesty look that benching gave. Rooster knew doing a series of rows and sumo squats would serve him a lot better in the long run. But at 1:00A.M., a few days after a piece of business like that with Tad, nothing suited mind movies like bench press. Rooster crashed the bar, loaded with plates and memories, down on his chest. The stupefied look
