Lost Girls

mention it could also be a career breaker. Therefore, I strongly advise you not to fuck up.''

He leans back again and grabs his cigarette from its brief resting place on the table's edge. I note that his words qualify as both the kindest and most effusive he has ever uttered to me.

''Thanks for the confidence. Now, if you'll excuse me, before I pack my bags I think I owe myself a night of selfcongratulation. Didn't I mention? I won the Busch trial today.''

''Well done, Bartholomew! You'll have to tell us all about it sometime.''

Graham's head is down and he's already sliding the Tripp file over the table at me. Bert stabs his half-finished cigarette out in the gray dunes of the boardroom ashtray, lifts his gut with a wheeze, and leaves without another look.

When Graham is finished handing everything over he carries himself to the door, his head perfectly still on delicate shoulders, but hips swinging in their sockets. Then he turns back to me and reveals one of his vampire smiles.

''May I suggest that if you plan on engaging in any carousing, you do it tonight. Things may get a little hectic for you over the next while.''

''No doubt.''

''So, care to join me for a bite? I know a perfect place not far from here.''

''Don't bother, Graham. I know a perfect place of my own.''

''Of course you do.''

He steps forward once more to where I sit, throws a hand out to me through the smoke now twisting up the air vent or lingering in blue pools in the ceiling light sockets. We shake hands: two formal pumps, his grip--as always--firmer than mine.

''Good luck, my boy,'' he says, releasing me and sliding back to the door. ''And enjoy it. I'm sure you'll find that there's nothing like your first homicide.''

chapter 3

With tie loosened and Tripp file stuck un-der my arm I walk out into the purple light of early evening and direct myself east toward the noise and tawdriness of Yonge Street for a victory drink. Victory for today, and the prospect of a more dazzling victory in the weeks to come. My first murder trial. And so long as no bodies turn up, the chances are good that I can manage to spare Mr. Tripp the indignities of long-term incarceration. I'm pleased with myself, and even more pleased after I've vacuumed the extra generous line of Great White Hope off my desk before leaving. Things are looking up.

I like strip bars, and of the many of this fine city the Zanzibar is my favorite. It occupies this position for no special reason other than it's exactly the way a strip bar should be. My law school friends and I used to come here after exams or for birthday piss-ups, but while those guys have all gone on to sensible marriages and four-bedroom Victorians in neighborhoods renowned for their alternative-education elementary schools and low crime rates, I've become a regular at the place.

What I like is the padded front door that seals off the interior from any trace of natural light, the always startling first appearance of a room appointed with women in various states of undress in place of paintings or potted plants, the air a mixture of beer mold and coconut oil spread over passing breasts and thighs. I even like the men, pathetic and despised, knowing they are pathetic and despised, offering up foolish portions of their wages to the waitress, talking to the girls before a table dance and imagining themselves as wealthier and better-looking than they are, the kind of men these girls might want to be with for free.

I like the young-looking ones. Their pouting shyness, teacup breasts, and Who, me? eyes. Girls' school tartan skirt and close-fitting white blouse. Off they come in teasing slow motion, leaving her standing as though before her mother's bureau mirror, index finger hooked on lower teeth and her other hand tracing over the smooth discovery of her body. Bad girls. A parade of faux teen naughtiness beneath the black stage lighting that hides the crude truth of blemishes, stretch marks, and scars. This is what I come here for, why I put my money down: to be free of this world of women and live again, for a time, in the world of girls.

''Something to drink?''

The waitress is an impatient hag who's been here forever and who doesn't bother to get to know any of the regulars for fear of having to use more than the few words she is obliged to in order to do her job. I like her too.

''Double rye with ginger on the side.''

She walks away without acknowledging my order and I look past her at tonight's offerings. Very California these days. With the summer always come the bleached bikini babes, tans burned onto skin through repeated sessions under the lamp, spherical implants high and unmoving. Soon the leather will return, though, the biker fantasies shipped down from Montreal to meet the demands of the Christmas office-party season. But I'll keep searching for my little girl.

And find her. There, dropping a lemon into her Coke over at the bar. From this distance and in this light she could be sixteen, fifteen. Not a day over twenty, at any rate. I give her a little two-fingered wave as though making a bid at an auction.

''Hi,'' she says when she comes over, lowers her eyes flirtatiously. Good. She's acting the part as well.

''Hello, there. Would you care to dance for me?''

''Okay,'' she says, looking around as though to make sure her teacher can't see her. Then she pulls over one of those plastic stands they use to dance on and sits on it.

''I'm Deanna.''

''I'm Barth.''

''You're a very handsome man, Barth.''

She giggles and raises herself as the dj fades out the Aerosmith and ''slows things down a bit'' with the lounge saxophone intro to ''Careless Whisper'' by George Michael. I down the first rye in two gulps without adding any ginger as Deanna picks open the buttons on her blouse and shimmies out of her skirt.

Behind her the waitress turns my way with eyes hooded by years of distaste followed by further years of boredom. Raise my finger to order another round, and on it goes: another ten-year-old top-40 song, another set of stretches and thrusts, another round. Throughout I am silent, everything still but my eyes.

She keeps going, turning and stroking and bending in cycles until another song ends and the dj comes over the sound system praising the dancer who's just finished her routine on the main stage: ''Oh y-eah! Gentlemen, let's hear it for the lovely Roxanne! Oh yeah! Rox- anne!'' Deanna pulls back from my chair and stands limply on her pedestal.

''Another?'' she asks.

''No, I don't think so. Thank you.''

Ask how many songs she's danced for me and, as usual, I'm startled by the size of the number. I pay her and include an excessive tip. It is my habit to leave excessive tips in strip bars.

''Thanks,'' she says, tucking the money into the zippered pouch she carries with her. Then she pulls her underwear back up, clips on her skirt, shrouds her breasts beneath her blouse, and steps down from her stand. She is as before, another stripper in a girl's school uniform, but with enough age now showing beneath her eyes and at the corners of her mouth to make her current act almost laughable.

''Have a great night,'' she says as she leaves.

''Have a great life,'' I say, slipping, having meant to use the same words she had.

Once outside I stand on the street for a time, close my eyes, and absorb Yonge Street's Friday-night cacophony of chanting panhandlers, vomiting drunks, hip-hop thudding out the windows of refitted Jettas and Civics. The air a humid cloud of sugary perfumes and jock deodorant wafting off the passing packs of high school kids in for the night from the suburbs. Breathe all of it in and let its ugliness fill my lungs. It occurs to me (not for the first time) that it's sometimes good to stop and remember that you live in a city: a clotted intersection of lives all set on different trajectories, each one indifferent to the other. There was a time, I think, when this kind of observation would have left me melancholy, but now it brings a certain comfort. The satisfaction of a suspicion confirmed, an idea buried inside yourself long enough to fossilize, its markings now permanently etched. When I open my eyes