– Come on, baby. Here.
He taps his earlobe.
– Whisper it in my ear.
She puts her mouth close to his ear and starts to whisper. Jay puts his hand over his mouth.
– Oh my. You girls are naughty. Yo, Mike, these girls are naughty. We
He leans forward.
– So, yo, Scarface. Know where we could score a little sumthin’ sumthin’?
Do I know where they could score?
I reach into my jacket pocket and touch the unmarked brown pill bottle that contains exactly five white tablets imprinted with tiny smiling monkey faces. I wonder, will this qualify for keeping them out of trouble or getting them into trouble?
Fuck it. It’ll be better than having them running around the Rhino trying to score off the strippers. I pull out the pill bottle and hand it to Jay.
There is a moment of utter silence. Then Jay grabs my neck, leans over my shoulder and kisses my cheek.
– Yo, Scarface!
And he leads the chant that fills the car.
– Scar-face! Scar-face! Scar-face!
JAY AND VALIANT are still at it. I walk toward them, looking at the ground for a weapon so I don’t have to punch the guy and risk breaking my hand. I see a magazine. I pick it up and roll it into a tight cylinder and stand over the two writhing bodies. I take aim and slam the magazine across the back of Valiant’s head. He goes cross- eyed and I grab him by the collar and drag him off of Jay. I hit him a few more times, the magazine cracking his cheekbone before I drop him.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT AT the Spearmint Rhino and the place is a zoo.
Jumping the line is easy, just a matter of a couple C-notes for the guys at the door, but it makes me even more of a hero to Miguel, Jay and the Rain girls. Once inside, the trick becomes moving. The only open space is around the huge rectangular bar. I make a stop there and get a thousand dollars in dance tokens and hand them to the guys. Miguel starts shaking his head, but I force them into his hand.
– It’s part of the service.
Jay is doling out tokens to the girls.
– Yeah, yo, it’s part of the service.
I order Cuba Libres for the boys and Stoli cranberries for the girls. There are booths along the wall where strippers are giving lap dances. The real action is in the other direction, but the crowd around the stages and tables is so thick that the only way you can see the dancers is by looking at the video monitors above the bar. Jay points at the crowd.
– Yo, Scarface. We want in.
So I get them in. It costs another couple hundred, but one of the bouncers plows into the crowd and comes back a couple minutes later and waves us to a table. The group he just kicked off of it stands to the side and gives us dirty looks.
The atmosphere is a touch less formal here than at the Palms. In less than half an hour I notice people starting to notice Miguel. Soon after they start coming by the table to shake his hand. He takes it in stride, and I try to look intimidating to anyone who might want to cause trouble. In the normal course of events, an MLB draft pick, even the first pick, would only be recognized by the most rabid seamheads. But Miguel is different. His achievements during last year’s Olympics gave him unprecedented visibility for an amateur player. He’s not superstar recognizable, and mostly it’s the men who know who he is, but he still draws traffic. I keep my sunglasses on.
At first Miguel keeps pestering Jay about heading for another casino.
– There aren’t even slots in here, man!
But eventually Jay pours enough booze down Miguel’s throat, and he sees enough tits, that he gets into the spirit of the place.
Jay gets lap dances. Miguel gets lap dances. The Rain girls get lap dances. Jay pays the dancers to lap dance each other. Glasses pile on the table.
Hours pass like that.
Then Jay says something.
– Is that guy fingering that chick?
It’s one of the guys who got kicked off our table. It’s very, very late and he and his buddies have gotten a new table right next to ours. Jay is pointing at the guy.
– Seriously, yo. Is he finger-fucking that chick?
What the guy is doing is definitely spending a lot of time trying to get his fingers inside the dancer’s g-string. The current song is almost over, his special moment drawing to a close, so she just keeps pulling his hand away. But then the song ends and she goes to get up and he grabs her wrist and holds out a fifty.
– Uh-uh, baby. One more dance. Come on, baby.
She cranes her head, looking for a bouncer, but the only one nearby is chatting up another dancer and not paying attention, not enforcing the no-touching-the-dancers-ever rule. She points a long fingernail at Finger Fucker.
– OK, one more, honey. But be nice. No touching.
– Yeah, yeah. No touching.
She starts writhing on his lap and he winks at his buddies over her shoulder and stuffs his finger into her G- string, yanking it to the side and almost ripping it off. She jumps back.
– That’s it, asshole.
She makes a move toward the bouncer and Finger Fucker grabs her again.
– No way, baby. I still got some song left.
His buddies are laughing. One of them looks like Uncle Fester’s long-lost son. The other has a perfect Prince Valiant haircut.
The dancer is still trying to get away, calling for the bouncer, who looks like he might finally have noticed a customer getting out of hand.
– Hey, mister.
It’s Miguel.
– Lay off.
Finger Fucker looks over.
– Wha’d you say?
– Said lay off the talent, guy. Let the lady go.
Jay stands up.
– And stop trying to stick your fingers up her action.
– Say what?
Finger Fucker lets go of the dancer’s wrist and stands up and the bouncer and three of his cohorts pile into him and his buddies and wrap them up and drag them toward the front door. They go out, shouting back at us, Uncle Fester pointing at Miguel.
– Fucking asshole. Fucking big shot. Fucking take our table. You ain’t shit. Mets suck!
They get stuffed out the front door.
Everybody still in the place is looking at us now. Talking about what happened.
The bouncer who got us the table is coming over.
– You guys cool?
I nod.
– Yeah, but we need to split. Can we use the back door?
He points toward the bathrooms. Miguel and Jay are already up and moving. The girls are gathering their
