“He’s dating a stripper. She’s bleeding him.”
“Crush is gay,” Ray said. “I found his porn once. Country boys. Cowboys. He likes them blond and buff.”
“Maybe he’s branched out since then.”
“That’s rare, I’ve been told. Have you met this woman?”
“No. But I do know her name. And I think I’ve heard her voice.”
“If she dances, it’s either in Laurel or Lockwood. There are only two joints. Try and find her for me, would you? The man is deteriorating. We need facts.”
“They’ll card me. I’m underage. I won’t get in.”
“Bring some free pizzas over. Bribe the door guys. Say someone canceled an order and you have extras.”
I said I’d try.
“Her name’s not Lexus, is it? Like the car? Or Mango? Is it Mango? Like the fruit?”
“It’s Cassandra, I think.”
“She must be new in town. They float over from North Dakota, from the oil patch. There’s not much money there now, with crude so low.”
“You’re sure the porn was his?” I said. “Where did you find it?”
“In the men’s room trash can.”
“Then it could have been anyone’s. A customer’s.”
“Except that I don’t serve that type,” said Ray.
I ignored this remark and headed home, back to my basement apartment in the Heights. Too many late nights, too much coffee, too many pills, and people start saying things just to wake their brains. Whatever you hear after five a.m., it’s garbage, and whatever you say to others is garbage too. It’s the same way with pizza, which isn’t really food, just something to chew so you can feel your mouth move. Pizza is crap. A lot of things are crap. It’s okay, though — it’s fine. Crap won’t kill you, so it’s fine.
What will kill you are rockets fired from hidden positions in countries that your country is trying to save.
The first place was dead, with no one on the stage, just two girls at the bar with a trucker type between them dealing out fives and tens for their tequila shots and paying more attention to the TV — which was showing a ball game — than to their tits and babble. I ordered a beer and inquired after Cassandra, whom the bartender said had been fired over a year ago for biting the face of an off-duty state trooper who’d begged her to pee on him in a private room. I asked the bartender if he knew Crush and he said that he did but only by reputation, though what sort of reputation he didn’t specify. When I brought out a twenty and pressed him for details, one of the girls leaned over, snatched the bill, and dragged me off to a booth in a dim corner, where she asked for another twenty to tell her tale. I could see by her unfocused eyes she didn’t have a tale but was laboring to dream one up. In the meantime, she straddled my lap and went to work, grinding away with her coltish little ass and tickling my ears with precision bursts of breath that raised goose bumps on my neck and scalp. I liked her a lot. She had spirit. She had ideas. It made me feel less judgmental about Crush. I could see how the skilled devotions of such a girl — she reminded me of a nurse, this one, so dutiful and thorough — might rouse an impulse of selfless generosity.
During a pause to cool off, I mentioned Crush again, this time supplying a physical description.
“No eyebrows?” she said. “Or very little eyebrows? And stuck on Cassandra? And huge, with veiny hands?”
“Yes.” She was simply repeating what I’d just told her.
“No. Never met him.”
“But you know Cassandra?”
“I did. Before she hurt that guy and left.”
“Does she still dance?”
“Not publicly. You have a phone?”
I nodded.
“There’s no signal in this place. If you can wait five minutes, I’ll grab my real clothes and we can do this from the truck stop. I’m finished tonight. I took a Molly, but it wore off. Now I want pancakes. Do you want pancakes? I do. A short stack of pancakes loaded with chocolate chips.”
“Do what at the truck stop?” I asked her.
“Get online.”
The girl, who went by Ultra, used my debit card to register with the website. Our booth faced a window that looked out on the interstate where three police cars with whirling colored lights were involved in some sort of major enforcement action against the obese male driver of a green hatchback. Once we entered the site, a grid of photos appeared that showed up poorly on my phone, whose screen was cracked and slightly wet inside. Ultra tapped on one of the pictures several times before the shaky image of a woman sitting cross-legged on a bed appeared. She was dressed in a red bra and panties and held a teddy bear whose head lolled sideways as if its neck was broken. She was pretty enough, with high, curved cheekbones, but her hair was dyed blue and cut short, down to the roots, with lots of random tufts and fuzzy spots.
“Interact with her,” Ultra said.
“You. I’ve never done this.”
“She can’t see you, don’t worry.”
“Where is she?”
“Interact!”
“Hi out there. What’s your name?” Cassandra asked us. She stroked the dead bear and bit her lower lip. “Are we going to play tonight? I like to play.”
“It’s Ultra. From the Fox Hole,” Ultra said.
“Ultra,” Cassandra repeated. She looked confused. Behind her small bed was a poster of a boy band popular with seven-year-old girls.
“I’m here with a guy who says he wants to meet you — a guy from the club. He knows a friend of yours. I’m turning this over to him so I can eat.”
Our waitress approached with a thermal coffee pitcher but took in enough with one glance to understand that earning her tip meant ignoring us tonight.
“Cassandra, my name is Brian Schick,” I said. “I work at Oasis Pizza with your friend Crush. He didn’t show up for work last night. We’re worried.”
Cassandra set the stuffed animal aside, rolled off her panties over her long legs, and intimately displayed herself. “You like it? It’s yours if you want it. Check it out.” She reminded me of a 4-H kid with a prize rabbit. There was genuine pride in her face, a kind of glow.
“I’m wondering if we could meet somewhere and talk. Like a restaurant,” I said. “Tomorrow. Somewhere real.”
“This is my real.”
“I’m serious. I’ll buy you lunch,” I said.
“Impossible. I’m no longer based in Montana. I haven’t been there for sixteen months. You’re reaching me in a coastal Southern state famed for its theme parks and laid-back way of life.”
“You’re not in Billings?” I looked over at Ultra, who ignored me, cutting up her heap of sticky pancakes. These ladies stuck up for each other, which I admired.
“As for Crush,” said Cassandra, “there’s not much I can tell you. I really don’t know him. We’ve never met in person. Only like this, like you and me right now. He says he used to watch me dance, but I don’t remember. The lights were in my eyes.”
“But he’s paying for your Grand Cherokee,” I said.
“He’s been lagging on that, if you want to know the truth. I had to deactivate him.”
“Deactivate?”
Cassandra reached over and retrieved the bear. She stood it between her legs to block my view and then held up one of its arms with her right hand and waved goodbye with it. “I’ll catch you later, Brian. Have Ultra explain real life to you someday.” She switched off her feed and my screen displayed the bilclass="underline" $27.50.
Ultra said, “Check your statement for that card. Close the account if you start to see weird charges. That probably wasn’t the most secure transaction.”