Kapak had picked up the property cheap and remodeled the building quietly, using small crews one at a time. On opening day he had carpenters bring in the refinished bar from a failed German restaurant and install the four brass stripper poles. At 5:00 P.M., before the sunset, the sign that said TEMPTRESS in red neon script went up on the roof. The first girls had been hired as dancers for Siren.
Kapak watched the bar traffic for the final half-hour of the night. There were the usual number of young men who wanted to cheat the clock by ordering extra rounds of drinks at the end of the evening. He watched the waitresses scurrying from table to table to fill the last legal orders, scoop up their tips, and move on. He caught sight of Sherri Wynn across the room and thought about the payments on her Volvo. His gift to her hadn’t slowed her down.
He got up and moved slowly through the crowded room past the girls working the poles. They seemed to have caught the same sense of urgency as the night ended, trying to attract the attention of the customers who were just breaking bills of large denomination they hadn’t planned to spend and receiving cash back from the waitresses and bartenders. He saw a couple of men decide not to put the money back in their pockets, but tip one or two of the dancers.
The office was at the back of the building near the end of a corridor past the dressing rooms and the storerooms. Beyond it was only the kitchen, where he could see the cleanup was almost finished. The busboys and the kitchen floor man were mopping and wiping, and the dishwashers had the machines running hard. After closing, all that would be left were the last few racks of glasses from the late drinkers.
He opened the office door and stepped inside. Dave Skelley was on his feet, counting and banding the night’s take and setting the bills in stacks. He said, “Salinas from Wash brought his night’s take over here. He said you were busy tonight and asked him to do it.”
“That’s right. It turns out I’m not busy anymore. Somebody asked me to meet him, and then never showed up. Was Salinas worried about me?”
“No. The only reason he told me was that I asked him where you were.”
“Wasting my time is the answer. I’ll be back in a minute.” Kapak stepped out of the office into the bare corridor, but just as he was taking out his cell phone, the four dancers came toward him on their way to their dressing room. “Hi, Mr. Kapak.” “Hi, boss.” “Long night.” “So long.” They carried bits of fabric that had been parts of their costumes they’d picked up from the stage area as they’d left.
He spoke in the direction of the whole group, his eyes at the level of their foreheads. There was an etiquette to talking to four naked women. “You’re doing a nice job for the club, ladies. I hope the tips were good.”
“Not good enough.” It was the blond one whose name he kept forgetting. Mary Ann? Marian? Better not to guess and get it wrong.
Kapak snatched his wallet out of his coat pocket and extracted four hundred-dollar bills. “A tip from the house. Thanks for your effort.” He handed each of them a bill and shrugged off two attempts to hug him. “Good night.”
As soon as they disappeared into the dressing room, he used his cell phone to dial Salinas’s. “Hey. It’s me.”
“Hi,” said Salinas.
“Hey, pal. I wondered if Rogoso ever called the club tonight.”
“No. I thought you went to see him.”
“I went. They took me to a parking lot by the corner of Sepulveda and Roscoe where we’d met one time about a year ago, but Rogoso never showed up. I wondered if he had tried to reach me or anything.”
“No, not that I know of.”
“Well, okay. I didn’t want to bother you while you’re closing, but you know how it is.”
“Yeah, sure. Anything else up?”
“No. Good night.”
Salinas and Kapak both hung up. Kapak felt as though he was covered now. He walked back out into the club and spent some time talking with the waiters, bartenders, and kitchen workers. The security people cleared the club, trying to be firm but still keep the atmosphere cheerful and calm. After a time, he saw the last four dancers leaving through the swinging doors to the kitchen. With their makeup washed off and in their sweatshirts and blue jeans and boots and sneakers, they had transformed themselves from magical creatures to ordinary, plain, tired women. Two of the security guards went out the kitchen door with them and returned after they had driven away.
Kapak went back into the office, where Skelley the manager and Sherri Wynn had finished counting the money. Skelley said, “Twelve thousand seven hundred and seventeen in cash, nine thousand eight hundred and nine in credit and debit cards.”
“The credit thing just keeps growing,” Kapak said. “When I got into this business it was all cash. Nobody wanted to give his card and have his wife see the monthly bill.”
Sherri smiled. “Would you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t?”
“I haven’t been married in about thirty years. I just can’t quite remember having a wife to catch me at things. What I’m wondering is if we ought to install an ATM machine in the back of each of the clubs by the telephones and see if we can get more cash. It might make more money for everybody who lives on tips.”
Skelley shrugged. “I don’t know. I can call a few banks to see what they think.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll get started tomorrow,” Skelley said.
Skelley finished the deposit slip for the money and put the cash and the slip in the canvas bag. “Well, this is done. You don’t want it driven to the bank anymore, right?”
“Right. Two robberies outside that bank were enough for me. We’ll just keep everything in the safe at Siren and have a couple of guys stay with it all night. In a day or so we’ll work out another system that’s easier and less risky. Maybe we’ll have an armored car service come around each night and pick it up. Right now what I want is to be sure we don’t make it too easy for the bastards. We’ll do things a little differently each night.”
“Sounds good to me,” Skelley said. He put the cash bag into a briefcase.
“Want anybody to go with you?”
“Nah,” said Skelley. “I think it’s safer alone. We’ve never done it this way, and so nobody expects it. Nobody notices one guy driving alone.” He and Kapak walked through the club to the parking lot.
“No matter what, be careful,” Kapak said. “I don’t know what Carver is up to, or where he is at any moment, or how many people he has working with him. He could be out there somewhere in the dark, watching us right now and waiting for us to make a mistake. If it looks like somebody’s following you, drive right to the police station. If you can’t make it, toss the money out the window and let them chase it.”
“I’ll do that.”
He got into his car and gave a little wave, then drove off into the night. Kapak watched his taillights disappear, then went back into Temptress, where everyone but the bouncers had left for home. As he made his way back to the office, he considered telling the last couple of security men to go home, and then sleeping the night on the leather couch here. He stepped in and closed the door, then turned and saw that Sherri Wynn was perched on the edge of the desk again. “What’s up, Sherri?”
“I thought I’d wait for you.”
“Something wrong?”
“Not with me. You just seemed kind of lost tonight, as though you didn’t know what to do with yourself. Aimless, maybe.”
He smiled, but his heart had stopped and then begun again. He had to persuade her that nothing was different.
“Maybe it was the way you looked when you said you hadn’t been married in thirty years. Some nights a person just doesn’t feel like being alone.”
He looked down at his feet, then back up at her. She went on. “I thought maybe you’d like to come over for a while. I’m not sleepy, and I could make you a midnight snack.”