cheese-factor appeal, but it was spotlessly clean, the waitresses moving among the tables with precise energy, the cogs of the club all warming up to produce a night of longing and money.
A woman was dancing solo on the stage, and her moves were not of the simple shake-the-tits variety. She was tall, redheaded, and she moved with easy grace and wry suggestion, performing to David Byrne’s cover of Cole Porter’s ‘Don’t Fence Me In’ as opposed to a generic dance-club beat. She was dressed as a skimpily clad cowgirl, a Stetson perfectly angled on her head, topless but wearing a thin bandolier that divided her high and mighty breasts, leather chaps over a sparkly G-string, and a holster. She drew her guns and sprayed a couple of heavy-jowled men with water. They hooted and clapped. She blew imaginary smoke from the gun’s barrel and the men howled in appreciation. She moved with the confidence and style of a Broadway dancer who happened to be showing her breasts, a funkier Fosse girl. Removing her gunslinger gloves, she dropped them on the balding head of a delighted patron.
Whit moved to the bar, looking for Gooch. They’d decided to come in separately. Gooch had been in for ten minutes already. He saw Gooch, sitting alone at a corner table, nursing a beer, watching the stage. He selected another corner table and sat down.
His stomach dropped as he realized his mother was possibly less than a hundred yards away from him. He could come face-to-face with the shadow that had always loomed over his life. While surrounded by strippers and men waving crisp dollar bills. It was not the reunion he had envisioned as a child. Little flowers of sweat blossomed under his arms, along his ribs, on his back.
A waitress, dressed immaculately in a white shirt, red leather vest, black bow tie and a black leather miniskirt, snug over supple hips, appeared almost instantly. ‘Sir? What may I get you?’
‘A Corona, please.’
The frosty beer, with the requisite lime slice perched in the bottle’s opening, quickly materialized on a napkin before him. He paid with cash and watched the tall redhead finish her show to wild applause while the announcer’s voice said, ‘Give it up for Red Robin! She’s heading back to the plains to’ – a pause hung in the air – ’rope her dogies, and she’ll be back in a while. Now coming onto our main stage is Desire O’Malley, she’s got a pot of gold at the end of her rainbow!’ And in a burst of Celtic drums and fiddles, a bosomy colleen with a jaunty green hat and suit jacket riverdanced onto the stage, clogging with a surprising degree of expertise, barely restrained breasts jiggling. She wore a little fake leprechaun’s beard that she tossed into the crowd amid laughter and clapping.
It was horndog-ridiculous, but the women were extraordinarily pretty. None of them – and Whit watched a few working the room, offering lap dances or sitting and chatting with customers – had a weary, worn look to them from eking out a living in an exploitative field. Playboy could come through with a camera crew and do shots to fill a year’s worth of magazines in ten minutes.
He glanced past the stage. He saw two doors that looked like they led to restrooms and a darkened alcove, lit with a thin, red gleam. Offices, he guessed. On the left side, away from the stage, stood a curving staircase, with burnished cypress rails. A small velvet rope closed the staircase off, with a PRIVATE sign hung discreetly on the rope. At the top of the staircase stood another door, shut.
He took a sip of his beer and a voice next to him said, ‘Would you like a dance, sir?’
Whit glanced up to see one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on. She was movie-star gorgeous; skin the color of lightly milked coffee, hair cut short because the hair could never be more than a frame for that stunning face. Full mouth, cheekbones high, delicate jaw, brown eyes you could drown in. A brief bra of CDs covered her top; a thin, fake computer screen, shaped to fit, covered her loins over tearaway hot pants.
‘I got Ds in computer science,’ he said.
She laughed. Politely. Like the line wasn’t new.
‘I’d die of happiness if you danced with me,’ Whit said.
‘Not with you,’ she said. Letting him have his joke. ‘For you.’
‘A lap dance?’
‘Sure.’
‘How about just sitting and talking to me for a minute?’
She hesitated. He supposed there was actually more intimacy in talking than in dancing; she could gyrate, give a little hip sway, expose her breasts and it would be less revealing than a conversation, where they would have to scope out each other as actual human beings.
He asked, ‘How much is it for a dance?’
‘A hundred.’
‘Well, you put a hundred on my tab but sit here and chat with me for a minute,’ Whit said. ‘No dance. I’m recovering from heart surgery.’
She signaled the waitress with a twirl of her finger. Whit realized he’d have to give a credit card; he didn’t have that much cash on him. A risk. But he had to talk to people, and there was no reason to believe if his mother worked here she would see one out of dozens of credit receipts. He gave the waitress his card and the black girl sat down next to Whit at the little table. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Geekgirl,’ she said.
‘No, really.’
‘Tasha.’
‘Hi, Tasha, I’m Whit.’
‘I’ve heard a lot of lines in this place but heart surgery is a new one.’ She fixed him with an intelligent, amused gaze.
‘I’m a weak man, like every other man here.’
‘You in town on business like every other man here?’
‘Yeah. I’m a location scout for a film company.’ He’d considered several ploys to get him into the offices of the club and in an instant decided on this one.
She raised one perfectly styled eyebrow. ‘A film company.’
‘Sorry. I’m not in casting,’ he said. ‘I assume this place is thick with aspiring actresses.’
‘Yeah, we got girls here hungry to do Shakespeare. Hoping to bring deep new angles to Ophelia.’ Sarcasm in her tone. ‘Not me.’
‘What are you aspiring to?’
‘World peace,’ she said.
He swallowed a thick gulp of beer. The waitress came and brought Tasha a club soda, slice of lime bobbing among the ice cubes. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’
‘Don’t take anything I say,’ she said, ‘seriously.’
‘You strike me as a woman of refinement and intelligence.’
Her smile got tight. ‘I’m a naturally friendly person.’
‘What’s upstairs?’
‘I’m not that friendly,’ she said.
‘I didn’t mean to imply that, Tasha,’ Whit said.
‘Private suites. We get a lot of famous people here, like to have their food and drinks and dances out of the glare. So are you trying to impress me with your Hollywood connections or are you really looking for a place to shoot your movie?’
‘I suspect I can’t impress you very easily. You seem too smart for that.’ And too smart for this place. He watched as Desire O’Malley finished her number, wearing a glittery shamrock-shaped G-string over her clover as she bounded off the stage. ‘And yes, I’m scouting for a thriller. Hero is a spy trying to capture a rogue agent who’s stolen a deadly virus. His romantic interest goes undercover as a stripper in three scenes to get close to an informant. So we need a club.’
‘Why aren’t you shooting in LA?’
‘Texas is cheaper. So who would I talk to here about filming?’
‘Frank. But be warned, he’ll want to be in the movie.’
‘Frank.’
‘Frank Polo. He’s the manager. But kind of a figure-head.’
‘I know that name.’
‘Sweetpea, if you know his name you don’t have good taste in music.’ Tasha leaned forward, started to sing in a clear alto that cut through the humping music of the performer on stage. ‘Baby you’re my groove… baby you’re
