“I’m saving myself for my wedding night,” she said dryly.
I had that coming.
Dixie was still strutting, her vest not yet doffed, when Marguerite came out from a stage door wearing a long diaphanous black robe over her stripper garb. She walked straight to Bryant and sat, and he leaned in, talking to her intently. Now and then he would stop and sip his stupid drink through a straw. Marguerite just listened, then shrugged, got up and went back the way she came.
That might have been a failed negotiation for a table dance, but I didn’t think so. Those two seemed to know each other.
Bryant sat through Dixie’s three numbers, not watching the stage, just leaning on an elbow and occasionally sipping through his straw. There was something childish about him. Like Fatty Arbuckle in the silent movies — you know, the cheerful fat man who got accused of rape.
A chirpy voice asked, “Table dance, mister?”
The pert-breasted blonde from the smaller stage, weighted down with all that hair and wrapped up in a white gossamer robe open over a sparkly bra and matching G-string, beamed down at me. She looked so young I was ashamed of myself. Nonetheless, I asked her how much and she said five dollars. I told her I had ten for her if she would just sit down and kept me company for a while.
“Actually, I’m glad to sit down,” she said.
“And I’m glad for the company.”
She looked at me with big sky-blue eyes under over-the-top fake eyelashes and light blue eyeshadow. “My name’s Susie. Are you from L.A. or just visiting?”
“I’m from Chicago.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a private detective.”
That stopped her for a moment. “I don’t have any married boyfriends, actually. At least, if I do, I don’t know it. And if I did know it I wouldn’t want to talk about it, even for ten dollars.”
“I’m not on that kind of job.”
“What kind of job are you actually on?”
“You see that fat slob, Susie?”
“I see that overweight gentleman, yes.”
“Do you know him? He works next door. He’s a hypnotist.”
“I know who he is. Actually, I worked for him a while.”
I blinked. “As a receptionist?”
“How did you know?”
“I told you I’m a detective.”
“He was always trying to... you know. Fuck me. Actually.”
“And you didn’t want to actually fuck him.”
“No! Would you?”
“Hell no. What was he like?”
“Horrible. Sweaty. A real bragger.”
“What would he brag about?”
She made a disgusted face that still managed to be cute. “About helping the police and stuff. He actually said he caught the Boston Strangler.”
“Did he.”
“And some other strangler. And you know that terrible man who killed Bobby Kennedy?”
“Sirhan Sirhan?”
“Yes, Sirhad Sirhad. He said he actually hypnotized him.”
“Did he.”
“He did. For the police, probably. He works with the police a lot. He said he actually helped put him away, Sirhad Sirhad.”
Sometimes you strike gold in the most unlikely places.
I got out my billfold and gave her a twenty.
“I don’t have change,” she said apologetically.
“Actually, Susie,” I said, “I don’t need any.”
“You’re nice.” She got up, leaned in, gave me a kiss on the cheek.
Best twenty dollars I’d spent in a long time.
A dancer I’d seen in Chicago, Haji, was doing her exotic thing on stage, Raul and his Revelations struggling to cope with Martin Denny’s “Misirlou.” She proceeded to perform a belly dance that was too good for this clip joint.
In the middle of Haji’s act, Bryant got up and went out fast, his beeline not taking him anywhere near me, though I ducked down just the same. When he made it to the door, I got up to follow him again, but somebody put a hand on my sleeve.
“Baby please don’t go,” Marguerite sang, doing Cher. She had the same kind of low, throaty voice, not at all like Susie’s chirp but at least as appealing. And she was just enough older than Susie to make me not feel immediately guilty.
I asked, “Did you have something in mind?”
Marguerite was in a sleeveless white top and a black-and-white checked miniskirt and white vinyl go-go boots with a matching white purse on a chain strap slung over her shoulder. She was probably twenty-one, twenty-two — in this day and age that was the equivalent of forty.
“I thought we made a connection,” she said archly. “You looked at me, I looked at you. Remember?”
“I remember,” I said. “Very ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’”
“I don’t know what that is,” she admitted and sat.
“An old guy reference,” I said and sat. “You don’t look like you’re getting ready to go back on stage.”
“No. I was just filling in for somebody. I’m done for the day.”
“I’m Nate, by the way. Or Nathan. Want a drink before you head home?”
“Why not?”
I motioned my wait-for-her-wedding-night waitress over and ordered up a Harvey Wallbanger for Marguerite and a second rum and Coke for me.
She put her hands together piously; she had very long, very red, very pointed fingernails. “I saw you talking to Susie.”
“Nice kid.”
“Little young for you.”
“So are you.”
Her shrug was ageless. “But not jailbait young. The management pretends not to know she’s on fake I.D. I’ve never seen Susie talk to a man for so long a time. You must be quite the conversationalist.”
“I’m fucking articulate, haven’t you noticed?”
Her dusty-rose lipsticked lips puckered into a nice smile. “You do have a way with words.”
She had Cher eye makeup on to go with her voice, but it gave me a pang — she looked uncomfortably like Nita on our first meeting in the Senator’s suite at the Ambassador.
“What on earth,” Marguerite asked, leaning in, “was there to talk about with that airhead? I mean, she’s sweet, and probably a fun little piece of tail. But she makes Goldie Hawn look like a rocket scientist.”
“That’s just an act. Goldie Hawn is very smart.”
“Susie isn’t. You can’t have taken that much time negotiating your way into her panties. What’s your game?”
“You seem to want to know a lot about me.”
She lifted her chin and looked down at me; she had a cute pug nose. “You do interest me. Most men in the afternoon sit close to the stage. You were halfway out the door. You ashamed to be looking at naked young women, Nathan?”
“Utterly.”
“Do you spell that with two d’s?”
We both laughed. I was liking her. She was smart, maybe not Goldie Hawn smart, but not bad for a place like this.
“Actually... to borrow Susie’s word,” I said, “I was inquiring about your next door neighbor — Dr. Bryant?”
Her eyebrows went up but her eyelids didn’t. “Ah. Our friendly neighborhood shrink. What about him?”
“Ask me what I do for a living first.”
“What do you do for a living first?”
Goldie Hawn had nothing on her.
“I’m a detective. Private. Just checking up on him for a client.”
She poked a long red nail at me, like she was about to tickle the tip of my nose. “So that’s why you’re here. Not to look at naked girls. To find out about Dr. Bryant. And here I thought I was the one you were interested in!”
Our drinks arrived.
“If I were interested in you,” I said, “how much might it run? If you have a college fund or something.”