Liann reached over and placed her hand on top of mine. She didn’t say anything, and while her touch felt warm, it brought no real comfort.
“I’ve danced for couples before,” Tracy said. “Plenty of times. It wasn’t that weird. But I’d never danced for a couple like that. At first I thought maybe they were father and daughter. Hell, maybe he was her grandfather. But then he reached out and took her hand and pulled her close, and I got it. I understood what was going on between them two. They were a couple.”
“Tom?” Liann asked. “Are you okay? Are you going to be sick?”
I didn’t know. I didn’t answer. But I did feel like I was coming down with something. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep everything down, if the beer and greasy food was going to come pouring back out of me in a hot, messy rush.
Liann was up and almost immediately came back with another cup of club soda. The sickness eased; my temperature regulated.
“Do you want to stop, Tom?” Liann asked. “We can do this another day.”
I shook my head.
“I know it’s hard to hear,” Tracy said, although she didn’t sound all that sympathetic.
“Why didn’t you tell this to the police back then?” I asked. “Why are you telling us this now?”
Liann stepped in. “Tracy didn’t make the connection until she saw the stories and the picture in the paper this week, the stories about Caitlin’s service. When she saw them, she called me. Like Tracy said, I’ve helped her out before when she’s had a little trouble. And some other members of her family as well. It was no big deal, just kid stuff. She’s over that now, though.” Liann reached out and placed that comforting, motherly hand on Tracy’s arm again. “She trusts me.”
“You remembered Caitlin all that time later?” I asked Tracy. “You recognized her picture in the paper?”
“I’d seen you before,” she said. “And then. .” Her voice trailed off.
I looked from her to Liann, waiting for the rest. “And?” I asked.
“Go on, Tracy,” Liann said. “Tell him.”
I wanted to tell her to stop. I wanted to say,
But I couldn’t stop listening.
“He went and sat down, the guy. And the girl-” She paused. “Your daughter sat in the chair across from him. You know what a lap dance is, right?”
I’d been to enough bachelor parties to get the picture, and Liann nodded, too. “They make us do it reverse cowgirl style,” Tracy said. “They want us to face away from the guy, so only our butt touches his lap. And we’re dressed, of course. That’s the law. And with us facing away, I guess they figure it’s less likely the guy’s going to get all handsy or something. I don’t know why they think that. If a guy’s going to get handsy, he’ll do it no matter what, right? But when this guy asked me to face him, I felt nervous. I mean, he was already creeping me out and everything, and then he brought the girl with him, your girl, and I just didn’t feel right.” She sighed. “But I didn’t feel like I could say no to him. We’re not supposed to say no unless we really feel like we’re in danger, and I couldn’t say I felt in danger. And I needed the money and the job. So I went along. And everything went fine. He didn’t lay a hand on me.”
She paused and lit another cigarette.
“But?” I asked.
“He didn’t even look at me,” Tracy said. She might have tried, but she couldn’t hide the trace of disappointment in her voice. “He looked right past me at the-your daughter. He kept his eyes locked on her the whole time I danced in his lap. She’s younger than me, I guess.” Tracy shrugged. “We only do it for one song. When the song ends, we get up. I turned around and saw the girl. She wore this blank look on her face, no emotion. Nothing. She looked kind of dead. But she was staring right at him. Her eyes were locked on his, like she was under hypnosis or something and couldn’t move without him saying so. It gave me the creeps even more, even worse than if he’d hit her or something.”
Tracy paused, and fished yet another cigarette from her bag. “I left the room first,” she said. “I stepped outside the little closet, and I’m supposed to go right back to the dance floor, you know, and start working all over again. But I didn’t. I stayed right outside the door. I didn’t have a plan or anything. I just felt like doing it. I felt like I needed to be there for some reason. Maybe I was thinking of my own little girl. Cassie. Maybe I was thinking if she were ever in that situation I’d want somebody to try to do something for her.
“But the two of them didn’t come out right away. I waited a minute, two minutes, and nothing. No sign of them. Like I said, I’d danced for couples before, and I know sometimes it gets them. . excited, you know? Some couples get off on that kind of stuff. But they’re not allowed to do anything about it, not on our property, you know? That would get us in trouble, and we’re supposed to look out for that kind of thing. So I went back in to check.”
She stopped and looked at Liann. It seemed to be some kind of sore spot between them and Tracy was silently pleading her case one last time in hopes that Liann would let her off the hook.
Liann shook her head. “We talked about this, Tracy,” she said. “You have to tell the whole story. It’s your story, and you have to own it.”
After a long pause, Tracy turned back to me. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” I replied, even though I didn’t believe it was okay. In truth, I wanted to run and hide.
“When I went back in, the girl was on the floor, on her knees, facing away from me. .”
She didn’t have to complete the picture. I got it. We all did. Even if it hadn’t been Caitlin, if it had been somebody else’s daughter, I’d want that man brought to justice. I’d want him castrated and tortured. No one’s daughter should have to do that. No parent should have to hear about it. The fact that it might be my daughter, that I hoped it was my daughter, made it almost too much to bear.
“I guess they stopped when they heard me come into the room. Then they came out, and they were walking side by side. He kept his arm around her, like they were a couple, but when I looked close, I saw it was a real tight grip. His arm was around her waist, like he didn’t want to let her go.”
“Or like he was afraid she would run,” Liann said.
“Yeah,” Tracy said. “Like that. He held his head real close to hers, real close, like he was whispering something to her. . or kissing her.”
I swallowed and waited for more.
“She was on my side, the girl. It was just lucky that way. I put my hand out, real slow and gentle, and I touched her arm. I didn’t think he’d see me, but I wanted her to know I was there if she needed something or wanted to say something. The girl turned to me. She looked right at me. Her face still looked blank and all zom- bielike, but her eyes showed something else. Fear, I guess. Emotion. Like she wanted to say something to me. She really wanted to, I could tell. And the girl actually started to-she opened her mouth and looked right at me, and I thought she was going to ask me for help. And I would have done it, too, right there. I would have.”
“What did she say?” I asked, my voice getting louder.
“Nothing,” Tracy said. “Right when her mouth opened, the guy saw me there, and he must have seen my hand on her arm, because he jerked her away, pulled her right back to him the way you pull a dog on a leash, you know? He didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t have to. He just stared at me as they walked away, his eyes telling me to stay back, to butt out, to mind my own business.” Tracy seemed to have forgotten her cigarette. Its ash was growing and tipping toward the floor. “I wish I’d done something or said something. I think about it all the time.”
Her last words sounded scripted, almost insincere, but Liann reached over and gave Tracy’s hand a squeeze.
“You’re doing something now,” Liann said. “This is how you can help that girl.”
Tracy looked at me. “I saw that picture in the paper last night, and I called Liann right away.” She looked over at Liann and smiled. “I do trust her. I got busted once-”
“That’s not important, Tracy,” Liann said.
Tracy shrugged. “Whatever, right? It all came together. I want to see this man stopped. I want to see him punished.”
Her voice took on an edge that wasn’t there before, one that sounded personal. She stabbed the dying cigarette into the ashtray as if to punctuate her point. She looked away from me then, her hand near her
