What's a nice girl like you …
The old male rescue fantasy took hold even before he talked to her. What he could do for her!
And vice versa.
The leopard dress was off now, and she was holding on to the brass pole, each leg astride it, grinding her hips in time with the music, humping that lucky pole, her firm ass moving rhythmically in time with his pulse. Her eyes wide open now, she looked at Max and seemed to blush.
Now there's a first.
Then she smiled shyly at him, swung away from the pole, and drifted up to the edge of the stage. He slipped a twenty-dollar bill into her garter where it joined a number of singles. The garter was all she wore, other than the high-heeled shoes. Her strawberry nipples were erect, her mouth set in an innocent, yet seductive smile. She never said a word. She just turned around and bent over, putting her hands on her knees and arching her back. She wiggled her ass clockwise, as if on coasters, stopped and wiggled counterclockwise. With impressive muscle control, her buttocks quivered in time with the music, and he felt the contractions in his own loins.
Later, when her set was done, back in her slinky leopard dress and little leopard ears, Lisa wobbled up to him on six-inch heels and inquired with her whiskered smile and cat eyes if he'd like to buy her a drink.
"What's your name?" he had asked, "Jellylorum or Mistoffelees," for he had just taken his wife to see the musical Cats in London.
"Rumpleteazer," she said without missing a beat.
"You've seen the show," he said, surprised.
"No way! My boyfriend thinks live theater is watching three lesbians in leather and chains."
"Then how-"
"When I was a kid, I read the Eliot poems. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats."
"When you were a kid," he repeated, smiling.
"Yeah. I thought the poems were silly. I think Eliot should have stuck to 'The Waste Land.'"
"Really? You read a lot?"
"I'm taking classes. That's all I do. Study by day, strip by night."
He watched her size him up, noting the manicured, polished nails, the gold cuff links, the dark suit. She wasn't even subtle about it just taking inventory, probably calculating her tip by the pedigree of his watch. Cocking her head the way the older girls must have shown her, she said, "So you want a private dance or what?"
He laughed. "You really are a rumpleteazer, aren't you?
"I'm not J. Alfred Prufrock."
"What's your name? You never told me."
"Angel," she lied.
"Nah. I'm your angel."
And he was. Max Wanaker, who at that time owned a Miami freight forwarding company and had just beaten back a Teamsters strike, rescued Lisa Fremont teenage runaway. He spirited her out of the Tenderloin and put her in an apartment on Nob Hill. It was there-where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars-that Max made an amazing discovery. Lisa wasn't like the others, which is to say, she wasn't after money. This brainy stripper read Dostoevsky in the dressing room between sets, picked up her high school degree in night school, and was about to enroll in community college when Max bulldozed his way into her life and suggested Berkeley instead.
"You're smarter than I am," he told her that first night. And then repeated it time and again until she believed it was true.
Lisa poured Max another stiff shot of Glenmorangie, the pricey single-malt Scotch he ordered by the case. He twirled the golden liquid in the glass, sniffed it took a sip. The ritual done, he turned to her. "So what's the bottom line? Are we on the same page here?"
Speaking in corporate jargon when it's my life!
"I can't do it, Max. I can't prostitute myself."
Max's face reddened. He stared at her in disbelief. "What!"
"I would do anything for you, but not this."
"This is the only thing I've ever asked."
"I'm sorry. I want to help, but …"
Max had been wonderful. If it weren't for him, where would she be now? But what he had given her-the education, the belief in herself-had changed her. She didn't know precisely when she had rejected Max's way of life, but somewhere between the Tiki Club and the Supreme Court, she had moved on. "You're asking too much, Max."
"After all I've done for you," Max said, his voice a razor despite the mellow whiskey, "don't you think you owe me this?"
He'd never said that before, not even close. Anger boiled up inside her. Her look was lethal, her voice icy. "Why not just total up my bill, and I'll pay you back with interest. What's the prime rate these days, Max?"
"It's not the money and you know it. I just resent this attitude of yours, like you're looking down at me."
Lisa padded barefoot to the bar and dumped her drink into the sink. "From the curb to the gutter, Max. It's not that far."
Max looked wounded, like it was his blood going down the drain. "You stopped smoking. You're not drinking. Is there anything else you're not going to do, anything I ought to know about?"
She didn't answer, just stood there, stone-faced.
"The new, improved Lisa Fremont," he said, sarcastically.
"Don't you like me this way?"
# # #
No, Max Wanaker thought. He didn't like her this way at all. Christ who had she become? Maybe it served him right. He had wanted Lisa to grow, had encouraged her independence, but look what happened. The roses still bloomed, but they'd grown thorns. He liked Lisa the girl, not Lisa Fremont, Esq., the woman, the goddam lawyer. She's been a tough kid. Hell, she had to be to survive. Now she gets misty eyed looking at statues and books. How long until she learns that her precious oaths and credos are just faded ink on rotting paper?
Max struggled to control his anger and mask his desperation. He wanted to tell her just how important the case was to him. He wanted to tell her that it wasn't just
