“Sure. I’d like that.”
She got up, leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek, and hustled off toward the hallway that fed the backstage dressing room. What a lovely little body she had.
For now.
Maybe nobody was dealing at the Climax Club, but both Brandi and Mavis were using, and that took its toll. I didn’t really get next to any of the other dancers, but wouldn’t have been surprised if the whole bottomless bunch of them were doing likewise. Like when you see one roach, you can count on there being a hundred. And you can define roach however you like.
Earlier today, I’d sat with Max Climer in his penthouse office. He was in a light blue climax polo, smoking a Camel, with a stack of page proofs before him he was in the process of editing. The stereo was playing Marty Robbins, another on the short list of country-and-western artists that didn’t send me screaming. The Gunfighter Ballads album.
I gave him a report on what I’d observed, which was frankly not much.
“I gather you’re not workin’ alone,” he said.
“No. But you don’t need to meet my associate. He won’t be on site. Strictly helping me try to locate whoever might be watching you and looking for the right moment.”
“‘The right moment,’ you mean, to put my motherfuckin’ lights out.”
Even that remark didn’t register on his bland, childlike face.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m working on trying to determine who took out the contract, but first order of business is to keep it from getting carried out.”
He was frowning; had to look close to tell, but he was. “You know, Quarry, I rarely leave this building, except for occasional meals.”
“For now, either learn to cook, or order in... and be careful who’s at your door delivering the food.”
That made him chuckle; then he noticed I wasn’t smiling.
“I’ll be downstairs in the club this evening,” he said, “at least part of the time.”
“Like Bugs Bunny used to say — is this trip really necessary?” He nodded.
“We have a porn star dancin’ with us this weekend. Lisa Deleeuw. That always brings out a crowd, but also the protesters, and the TV cameras. I’ll have to stick my head outside and give an interview or two.”
“Why not invite the media inside?... No. Forget I said that. Your clientele probably wouldn’t appreciate the publicity.” I sucked some air in and let it out. “Okay. I’ll keep one eye on high windows.”
“Do that,” he said.
Boyd and I had supper at Berretta’s BBQ and talked over where we were in this odd-duck assignment.
The restaurant was good-size, one half brightly illuminated and family-oriented, the other with a long curved bar and several booths with low lighting, one of which we took. Soon we were dividing our attention between business and sandwiches piled high with pulled pork, coleslaw and barbecue sauce.
Boyd wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then wadded it up to join a pile of same. “I’ve got a good view of the second and third stories of the pawnshop building across from the Climax,” he said.
Which was our only real worry. I’d knocked on doors on the two floors of the buildings surrounding the Climax one, using various excuses for bothering what turned out to be the obviously settled tenants of the apartments on the those floors.
“Nobody’s in that third-floor apartment,” Boyd said. “Not a renter or a squatter.”
I asked him, “Are we on top of the rooftops, no pun intended?”
“I got ’em covered from the pad. I have to move from the front window to the side one now and then, but that’s no biggie.”
“Okay. I’ll be on foot, checking cars and such.”
He grinned, his mustache dripping with sauce. “Sounds like a plan.”
“You got some here,” I said, pointing to my upper lip.
“Oh. Thanks, Quarry.” He tended to it.
I wasn’t getting any of the stuff on my face. As far as you know.
That evening, in the Climax Club, Max Climer was circulating like a good host, stopping at tables to chat. He was wearing a black leather vest over a black-and-red paisley shirt, matching leather pants and pointed-toe cowboy boots. At seven p.m., the joint was already crowded, but otherwise it was the usual smoky scene. The only change was the absence of miner helmets — the visiting screen star did a full strip, but lights shining on her nether regions might display a lack of decorum.
And if some TV crew took advantage of an open-door moment and managed to sneak a shot of such crudity, they would be quick to air it (with some censoring, of course) and ignite even more social outrage from a public eager to see more.
I spent little of my time inside the bar, however, positioning myself instead across the street, windbreaker covering the nine mil in my back waistband, as I leaned against the pawnshop’s side exterior wall, taking in the show.
First to arrive was a group who emerged from down the street on the Climax side of the block, a flock wearing choir robes and a general air of hysteria, waving placards with such pithy sayings as, PORNOGRAPHY IS SOCIAL CANCER, PROTECT OUR CHILDREN — FIGHT PORNOGRAPHY, and PORNOGRAPHY MAKES YOU A SLAVE — GOD SETS YOU FREE.
A little long-winded, I thought (“porn” or “smut” would be better), and the signs weren’t handmade — they were print-shop stuff. A spontaneous demonstration this was not.
The timing was perfect — just as the choir reached the front entry of the Climax, waving their signs, and chanting, “Porn is the devil’s work,” the TV vans rolled in — local NBC, CBS, ABC... Action News, News 5, Eyewitness News. The long-haired crew members, in their untucked polos and jeans, looked more like candidates for Climax Club patrons than representatives of the press; but the on-air reporters were all pretty young women (good call!), who in their professional attire were the opposite of their unclad sisters within. A sound man would stay behind with his equipment at the rear of an open van while cameramen with bulky portable, microphone-strapped cameras on their shoulders followed the female onair personalities into the breech, as each station’s brave pair braved the screaming, sign-waving choir, every would-be Barbara Walters seeking out some representative loon to question.
Finally Climer came out on the doorstep of his sin palace and answered questions in a deadpan serious way, with all three local stations gathering around him in mini-news conference fashion, while the religious ralliers yelled louder, which only helped the devil they despised in making what I assume was his standard Freedom of Speech spiel.
I almost missed the black vinyl-topped Fleetwood Cadillac limo rolling up to the curb on my side of the street. It parked with the motor running. The windows were tinted, but lightly, so I could make out the two thuggish shapes in the front seat, in suit and tie, and another, much more vague shape in back.
Only for an instant did I think this was a surveillance vehicle. Make that a fraction of an instant. No matter how high-priced, a pair of hitmen would neither have the financial wherewithal nor the stupidity to use a Cadillac limousine on stakeout.
But it took me a whole ten seconds to figure out who the guy in back of the limo most likely would be.
I leaned in on the passenger side of the big vehicle and knocked on the window. A face swung my way and frowned at me, the forehead a thick shelf under which small dark eyes lurked; with short slicked-back hair, clean-shaven, he was threatening without trying.
I smiled and made a roll-the-window-down motion with a finger. He thought about the request, frowned a little, and powered down the window, no rolling necessary.
The small dark eyes got smaller, which was his way of saying, Yes?