Murder in the Rue Ursulines

I ordered another beer and gave faint smiles to dancers as they tried to flirt with me, to coax a dollar bill into their underwear. The bar began to fill up, and Floretta Flynn finally showed up, grabbing a shot of something from the bartender and downing it. She was going for a country western motif with a towering red wig and a green dress that looked as if it would have been the height of fashion at a prom in 1975. She gave me a brittle grin and walked back over to the sound system. Once she was there, she rubbed her hand across the bottom of her nose-the old make-sure-my-nose-is-still-there-because-it’s-numb-from-the-coke-and-make-sure-there’s-no-powder move. The three dancers on the bar jumped down and two more jumped up.

Bingo.

Joey looked good in black Calvin Klein underwear with a red waistband. It fit his body like a sheath. He was lean and muscular, his abs rippling as he undulated at the other end of the bar. His skin was completely smooth, no hair on his body anywhere except for a tantalizing glimpse of pubic fuzz. There was a tattoo of a cross on his right arm, which made me smile a little bit. No kid from the Garden District would have that tattoo, I mused to myself. I watched as he knelt down and let a heavy-set older man fondle his butt. He was good at his job. He clenched and tightened the muscles in his buttocks as the man slid his hands over them. Then, having earned his dollar, he got up and began moving his hips to the music. He danced over to another man, knelt down, and slid the front of his underwear down, giving the man a glimpse of his genitals. He was rewarded with a few more dollars, and he obviously was flirting with the man, whose hands reached up to pinch the small nipples on his muscled chest.

I had to give him credit. Out of all the dancers I’d seen, he was by far the best looking, and the best dancer. I wondered if Adonis’ hatred was jealousy.

The other dancer, a pretty, young-looking blond, stopped in front of me, and got down on his knees, presenting me his crotch. He gave me a lazy smile, and then bent backwards. He straightened up and smiled at me. “Having fun?”

“You’re very limber.” I replied.

“I was a gymnast.” He winked at me, and leaned in closer, whispering in my ear, “You have no idea how flexible I really am. Would you like to find out?”

“It’s very tempting.” I fished a dollar out of my pocket, and handed it to him.

“You can put it in my underwear.” He gave me a dazzling smile.

“It’s okay, really.” I smiled back at him.

“It’s your money.” He took the dollar and moved away, and I turned my eyes back to Joey. He was making his way to my side of the bar. A remix of Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” came on, and then he was in front of me. He knelt down and gave me a puzzled look. “You look familiar.”

“I saw you at Cafe Envie the other day. With Rosemary Shannon.”

“Oh.” He nodded, smiling. “And you came here to see me dance?

“You’re very good.”

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled at me. “Thanks.” He traced his fingers down the side of my face. “You’re very sexy. I love big men.”

“Thank you.” I put my hand on his boot. “You’re very sexy, too.”

“You know, I’d do you for free.” He lowered his head shyly. “You are so my type. You want to go back for a lap dance? We don’t have to do anything, if you’d rather not.”

“I’d rather just talk, if that’s okay with you.” I stood up when he nodded. “Let’s go.”

He gave a delighted laugh and jumped down from the bar. He grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd. As we passed Adonis, who had some man’s hands down the front of his underwear, he gave me a hateful look and turned his head away. Oddly, I felt bad, as though I should apologize to him. Joey pulled me into the back room, pushing me to a secluded booth in the very back. I sat down, and he sat next to me. He put his head on my shoulder. He placed his legs across mine. I stiffened at first, then relaxed. “Put your arm around me,” he whispered. “If the boss sees us just sitting, he’ll have my ass.” After a slight hesitation, I put my arm around his shoulders. His skin was taut and cool. His entire body relaxed into mine. “I hate working here,” He mumbled against my neck.

“Then why do it?” I asked. I was curious. With no offense intended to the other dancers, they weren’t in the same league as Joey. With his looks and muscled body, he could as easily be dancing at the Pub-where he wouldn’t have to do lap dances, where he wouldn’t have to be groped by old men, where I would think he could make a lot more money. Maybe it had never occurred to him. “Can’t you dance somewhere else?”

“I’m not as big as they want in the other, classier bars.” He shifted, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his boot. He lit one and blew the smoke out. “What else am I going to do?” he shrugged. “I need money. I could be a waiter or a bartender, I guess, but I only have to come to work here two nights a week and I make enough money to live.” He sighed. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I moved to New Orleans, but-“ his voice trailed off. “What else can I do? Deal drugs? No thank you. At least this kind of work-“ he hesitated. “You make people happy, you know? These guys who come in here-they’re lonely mostly, and they just want to touch someone else. When they pay me to-you know-most of the time they just want to hold me and talk. A hundred bucks to let someone hold me for an hour and talk at me is pretty damned good money. Can’t make that working at McDonalds.”

“You know, I think I saw you the other night. Wednesday night.” I said, trying to keep my voice casual and conversational. “The night it was so foggy. I could swear it was you. You were wearing jeans and an LSU sweatshirt. Was that you?”

“Where did you see me?” He asked, delighted. He sat up straighter, which drove his crotch harder into mine.

“Just talk,” I said, pushing him gently away.

“You’re really sexy, you know. Just the kind of guy I like, big and strong and all muscle.” He brushed his lips against my ear. “I’d let you fuck me,” he breathed into my ear. “I don’t let most guys, you know. I let the clients blow me sometimes, but I don’t do penetration with anyone except men I am attracted to. Like you. Do you want to fuck me?”

“I saw you over on Ursulines Street. You were coming out of a house between Dauphine and Burgundy. Is that where you live?”

“Hardly. That’s Rosemary’s house.” He barked out a laugh. “I wish. That place is gorgeous. Someday I’m going to have a house like that, though. I’m going to be somebody.” He sighed. “But for now, no, I live with three other guys in this dump in the Marigny.” He started blowing smoke rings. “Half the time we don’t even have hot water, and the roaches-“ he shuddered. “They’re everywhere. It’s disgusting. It’s living like an animals.”

“How did you meet Rosemary?”

“I sat down on her stoop one day to have a smoke.” He picked his head up and frowned. “She came out and started talking to me. She said I reminded her of someone she used to know. I was hungry, and didn’t have any money. I asked for a couple of bucks. She said she was going to go run some errands, but if I carried some stuff for her, she’d buy me something to eat. I mean, it was a free meal, so why not, right?”

“Yeah.” The statement was so incredibly sad, I didn’t know what else to say.

“So we went to the Clover Grill after we did the errands, and she told me she’d pay me to do some errands for her from time to time…mostly it was picking up her dry-cleaning every Wednesday.” He laughed. “She sure went through some clothes every week! I’d pick up the clean stuff at the Quarter Laundrette, bring it by and pick up the next week’s load.” He shrugged. “Sometimes she had other stuff for me to do.”

“What about this last Wednesday night?”

“I went by there like usual.” He shrugged. “It was really weird, but hey, you know, money’s money, you know? And I was broke. So I showed up, like usual, and she let me in for just a second. She took the cleaning from me, but said she didn’t have anything to go back out this time. That was a first. And usually she would make me a sandwich or something to eat, and we’d hang in the kitchen for a while. This time, though, she didn’t want to hang around. She looked out the curtains one time, and told me I had to go. She really rushed me out, you know. I was kind of pissed, to tell you the truth. I saw someone across the street when I came out-and I slammed the door to let her know I was pissed.” He shrugged. “And that was you, right? And now you’ve found me.” He sounded delighted.

“Don’t you watch the news?” I asked. It was getting uncomfortably warm.

“Nah, I don’t watch that shit. It’s depressing.” He shrugged.

“Did you hear about the actress who got killed?”