I finished the cafe au lait and walked outside. I called Teddy and got him on his cell. It sounded like he was in his car.
“You know some strip club called Body Shots?”
He grunted. “Man, I don’t go to places like that no more.”
“Do you know it?”
“I can make some calls,” he said. “Sure my boys know.”
“I need you to take me there.”
“Thought you was leavin’ to see your woman in Mississippi,” he said. “Why you want to go out and party?”
“I think I found the folks who took ALIAS for his money.”
“What you mean?”
“A con man named Bloom and a stripper that goes by the name of Dahlia.”
“They workin’ with my brother?”
“I don’t know.”
“But they got the kid’s money?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Where you want me to pick you up?”
“The warehouse.”
39
“I told you, I ain’t never been to this place Body Shots and never use to hang with Malcolm and ALIAS at the Booty Call,” Teddy said as we pulled away from Julia Street in his new white Escalade with gold rims and Gucci interior. “What kind of shit is that? That was some half-assed movie with Will Smith’s wife and I don’t do strip clubs. Not anymore.”
“ALIAS said you owned a table there.”
“That’s not true.”
“Teddy?”
“A strip club is like goin’ to some buffet where they show you the food but you can’t eat,” Teddy said, wheeling up Canal and down onto I-10, headed to Airline Highway, the beginning of old Highway 61. The old road now filled with abandoned roadside motels and diners and places once used by travelers before the interstate. Now it was empty pools and crack dealers and motel rooms rented by the hour. “You know? Like, look at all these beautiful steaks. And all that baked potato with sour cream and chives and shit. But if you try and get one mouthful, you get arrested. Ain’t that fucked-up?”
A 1950s drive-in movie theater sat between a decaying motel advertising AC and color televisions and a defunct steak house. The lot had been surrounded with wire but the tall screen and speaker boxes still stood. Everything still neat and tidy, only a few weeds growing through the cracked asphalt as if the owner waited for the day that the old highway would be back. Until then, it seemed the movie would remain private, only something a few could imagine.
“I just bought this,” Teddy said, thumping his steering wheel. “You like it?”
“Did you really need it?” I said. “Why don’t you put that money to some good use?”
“What, you a communist, Travers?” he asked.
“No, man,” I said. “I just don’t like to see a waste.”
“You remember that community center where we had Malcolm’s wake?”
“Sure.”
“Ninth Ward Records built that shit, man.”
“Good.”
“But you think all the jewelry and cars and homes and women are… what did you say? A waste.”
“Aren’t they?”
“See, you still don’t get it,” he said. “The culture of our world, right. That’s what my people want to see. They want to see you livin’ large and steppin’ out with the Gucci and Vuitton and all them suits from Armani and your woman wearin’ Versace and gold and platinum and diamonds.”
“Maybe you could be different,” I said. “Maybe you could set a better example for the kids who buy those CDs in Uptown, spending the only thirteen dollars they have on a Ninth Ward record.”
Teddy turned down the Master P and looked over at me, the highway whizzing past. “You ever been black?”
“One night,” I said. “But I was very drunk. Someone told me about it later.”
“No playin’,” he said. “You got to know what it feels like to walk into a restaurant or bar or Saks or some shit and have people not wait on you. Have security guards followin’ you while you tryin’ to pick out some goddamned gloves for your brother’s Christmas or bein’ asked to leave a movie theater ’cause you talkin’ too loud.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I said. “I never thought you wore blackness on your sleeve.”
“I wear something else, man,” he said. “I wear the car, the jewelry, the two-thousand-dollar suit ’cause that makes people respect me. When I walk into Canal Place, man, people waitin’ for me at the door. They don’t see black no more; they see green. You understand?”
Teddy parked close to the door of the strip club and we could hear the bass-driven funk rattling the corrugated tin of the building. He locked up the Escalade from his key chain and buttoned up his black suit.
He carried a carved wooden cane under his arm as we walked inside.
He didn’t even try to pay a cover.
The little black girl in leather pants and snakeskin bikini top just giggled when he walked in, and ran to get the manager.
“Clout,” I said. “You got it.”
“I got the cash.”
Teddy didn’t look around at the women or the layout, he just took a quick turn and walked up a small flight of steps where there was a circular table and booth. A card on the table read RESERVED.
“This is Stank’s place,” he said. “He called ahead.”
We took a seat. A waitress came over, tight T-shirt with no bra, hoop earrings, and bleached hair, and asked what we wanted. I ordered coffee and Teddy wanted some brandy. He asked for the best they had and I was wondering if Teddy thought the Body Shots had some kind of private reserve.
“What ever happened to that good-lookin’ girl you was seein’ when we played?” Teddy asked.
“The blonde?”
“Yeah.”
“She left me when I quit,” I said. “I wasn’t as good-looking without a salary.”
“Wasn’t into that whole cool blues professor shit?”
“She thought McKinley Morganfield was a former president.”
“Who the fuck was McKinley Morganfield?”
“Never mind.”
As the waitress laid down the drinks, the manager of the bar – a short, swarthy little guy in a black polo shirt and pants – took a seat with us. He shook Teddy’s hand and presented him with a few cigars. Teddy handed one to me but didn’t introduce us. I nodded at the guy and drank my coffee.
The song changed to “Don’t Mean Nothin’” by Richard Marx. I wondered if I’d just entered some kind of eighties time warp or if Richard Marx singing about having self-worth had somehow made him a patron saint to strippers.
“You like Richard Marx?” I asked the little manager.
“Sure, yeah,” he said, snorting, giving Teddy a “you believe this guy” look. “Whatever.”
“Beni?” he asked. “Stank drop some money here.”
“You know it.”
