Others appear to be regulars who have already staked claims. The girls cuddle up to them in the booths. One of them takes a seat on a guy’s lap, wearing a short tight skirt that leaves little to the imagination, and with no preliminaries, she starts to move to the gyrations of the music.
There is a loud recorded drum roll from the PA system and a husky male voice announces: “Give a warm welcome to Carlotta, let’s hear it.” A few stuttering claps and a wolf whistle later, a girl with dark hair and a costume that is mostly a mirage from the designer’s memory enters the stage, leg first, through a slit in the curtain. She moves like a snake charmer, her feet and lower legs disappearing in the fog that spills from the stage. I wonder what the OSHA claim would look like if she sucks this crap into her lungs. Worse, I begin to wonder what my claim might be if I sit here much longer. That is when I see her.
She enters the room through the curtain on the other side of the raised stage. There is no missing her. Even in the dim light with the fog and the disorientation from the laser lights, Ben stands out. Slender, petite, and with all the feline curves that nature designed for a sexual lure, to any guy with good vision, her form alone would be enough to stun sound judgment and put his libido on steroids. Your average caveman would have her by the hair dragging her back to his den before you could say “beat my time.” Two of the more rowdy guys from the party try to corral her. She sidesteps them and keeps going. Apparently she’s not into head ties.
I stand up, wave my arms, and call the waiter over. He sees me but doesn’t move. I hold up some green, two crisp twenties to get his attention, and he skates toward me through the fog like a star in the Ice Capades. “That girl over there. I think her name is Crystal. I’d like to buy her a drink.”
“Oh, yes, sir. A lovely girl. Good choice.” He says it like I’m ordering vintage wine as he snatches the twenties from my fingers.
Before he can move, I see some guy on the other side of the stage grab her by the arm and start to hustle her off to his table. The only thing slowing him down is his staggering gait. I wonder if he’s with the wedding party. I look to the waiter. “It’s worth a hundred to you if you can get her away from him and over here,” I tell him.
“Yes, sir. Let me see what I can do, sir.”
“And open a tab for me.”
“I will do that immediately.”
“After you get the girl,” I tell him.
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” He is gone in a servile flash.
I glance back at Herman. He gives me a shrug with one shoulder, then quickly nods toward the other side of the room. By the time I look back the waiter has arrived at her table. She is now seated as he whispers in her ear. Slowly she rises from her chair and looks my way. Before she can move, the drunk is up grabbing at her arm, haggling with the waiter. He reaches for his wallet. What started out as a well-laid plan is turning into a meat auction with the girl caught in the middle. The customer has hold of one of her arms, the waiter has the other, each of them pulling in a different direction as if she is a wishbone.
I swing around to look at Herman, who turns both palms up as if to say, “What can we do?”
The girl has a panicked look, embarrassed and at the same time scared. It’s a stalemate. She appears stuck in limbo. The waiter puts his free hand up against the customer’s chest and gently pushes until gravity takes hold. The drunk stumbles backward toward his chair, releasing her arm as he goes in order to protect himself as he falls. He lands in the chair. Before he can assemble his legs into a coherent force to rise once more, the waiter has his prey in tow and is headed back to my table. What a hundred bucks will do.
“Ms. Crystal, this gentleman would like to buy you a drink.”
I’m on my feet. “Please, join me. My name is Paul. Have a seat.” I pull the chair out for her and she settles gently onto it like a hummingbird on a perch. She is wearing a tight micro-mini dress that climbs precariously up her shapely thigh as she crosses one leg over the other.
I have one eye on the drunk, who finally manages to get up. He is looking around on the floor as if maybe he’s dropped his wallet before he realizes it’s in his hand. He turns in a complete circle and very nearly returns to his chair before he remembers why he got up in the first place. He stands there staring at my table, a monument to drunk indignation, then takes a couple of tentative steps. From the look of it, his legs are not entirely sure they each have the same destination.
“What would you like to drink?” The waiter looks first to her. He has excellent peripheral vision. He sees the man stumbling this way. Before she can speak, the waiter raises one hand and flashes a bright laser pointer toward the mirror behind the bar. He flashes it one more time and instantly two guys in black T-shirts, heavy-chested bouncers, come out from an area behind the bar. Like heat-seeking missiles they home in on the drunk staggering this way.
The girl says something to the waiter, but I don’t hear it. I assume she’s ordered a drink. She may have ordered the club’s entire inventory of liquor for all I know. At the moment, my attention is drawn to the action on the other side of the room. The stumbling inebriate is scooped off his feet from behind. From the look of astonishment on his face, he seems to be questioning how it is that he can suddenly fly. He is carried like a stack of straw overhead and then soundlessly and within seconds disappears through a dark door that, for all I know, could lead to a coal bin on the other side of the room. For a moment I wonder if he might show up in Shanghai in a few months working cargo on some hobo-ridden, rusted-out freighter. I make a mental note not to find out.
None of this is lost on the Solemn Order of Head Ties, who suddenly temper their volume. A guy with his pants down quickly pulls them up, his gaze still fixed on the dark door of doom.
“And you, sir?” The waiter looks at me.
“What?”
“Would you like another drink?”
“Oh, ah, I’ll just have another club soda-make that with a twist of lime this time,” I tell him. “Oh, and a little something for you,” I say. I palm him a scrunched-up hundred-dollar bill.
“Oh, thank you, sir! Much appreciated.”
The move is not wasted on the girl, who takes in every detail and seems to smell the money from the scent still on my hand. “What is it that you do for a living?” she asks.
“I’m in business. I live in Omaha and I own a company that manufactures fertilizer.” And at the moment I’m just full of bullshit. “My name is Warren. . ”
“I thought you said your name was Paul?”
“Oh, ah, Paul Warren,” I tell her. One thing is clear. She’s going to need a lot more to drink if this is going to work. And I will have to insist on full rations, nothing watered down.
Ben, Crystal, whatever her name is, is absolutely knock-’em-dead gorgeous. Even if I stay sober, she is going to be a challenge. Alex was right. She is ether in the flesh, the stuff of which young men’s dreams are made. She flashes a smile that is deadly, so stunningly beautiful that I want to stare, but I don’t allow myself. I exercise restraint. I am here on business. I avert my eyes, look at something else, the candle on the table, the naked woman on the stage. I pretend to be cool. Suddenly I find myself sneaking a glance. She turns and catches me and I blush. What is worse, she knows it and it doesn’t faze her. This should not surprise me. She has no doubt lived her entire life with this affliction. The usual dazed reaction from every paralyzed male she meets. She sizes me up from across the table.
“What brings you here tonight?” she asks.
“You do.” My first truthful statement.
“Now I know you’re lying.” She issues a smile, generating enough heat to melt the male ego. “How did you find out about this place?”
“A friend told me.”