Moonlight & Vines (6 page)

“So who asked you to?” she asked.

Jennifer pulled a chair over from one of the other tables and sat down beside her. “You want to talk about it?”

Nita bit back a sharp retort. Jennifer wasn't her friend—she didn't have any friends—but unlike ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the world, Jennifer had always treated her decently. Nita looked away, wishing she hadn't sent her shot of whiskey flying off the table with everything else.

“Last time I was up, my ex's old man was in the audience,” she said.

“So?”

“So the only way I could keep my visitation rights with Amanda was by promising I'd get a straight job.”

Jennifer nodded, understanding. “The old bad influence line.”

“Like she's old enough to know or even care what her old lady does for a living.” Nita was really missing that drink now. “It's so fucking unfair. I mean, it's okay for this freak to come into a strip joint with his buddies and have himself a good time, but my working here's the bad influence. Like we even want to be here.”

“I don't mind that much,” Jennifer said. “It beats hooking.”

“You know what I mean. He's going to run straight to a judge and have them pull my visiting rights.”

“That sucks,” Jennifer agreed. She leaned forward and gave Nita a quick hug. “But you gotta hang in there, Nita. At least we've got jobs.”

“I know.”

“And you'd better go see Eddie or maybe you won't even have that.”

Nita shook her head. “I can't do it. I can't even go out on the stage again tonight.”

“But . . .” Jennifer began, then she sighed. “Never mind. We'll figure out a way to cover for you.”

“And Eddie?”

Jennifer stood up and tugged down on the hem of her miniskirt. “That's one you're going to owe me, girl.”

When Nita stepped out the back door of the Chic Cheeks in her street clothes all that remained of her stage persona was the shock of jet-black hair that fell halfway down her back in a cascade of natural curls. She was wearing faded blue jeans that were tucked into cowboy boots. The jeans had a hole in the left knee through which showed the black fabric of her body stocking. Overtop of it was a checked flannel shirt, buttoned halfway up, the tails hanging loose. Her purse was a small khaki knapsack that she'd picked up at the Army Surplus over on Yoors Street. Her stage makeup was washed off and all she wore now was a hint of eye shadow and a dab of lipstick.

She knew she looked about as different from Lilith in her leathers and lace as could be imagined, so Nita was surprised to be recognized when she stepped out into the alleyway behind the club.

“Lilith?”

Nita paused to light a cigarette, studying the woman through a wreath of blue-grey smoke. The stranger was dressed the way Nita knew the club's customers imagined the dancers dressed offstage: short, spike-heeled boots; black stockings and miniskirt; a jean vest open enough to show more than a hint of a black lace bra. She wore less makeup than Nita had on at the moment, but then her fine-boned features didn't need it. Her hair was so blonde it was almost white. It was cut punky and seemed to glow in the light cast from a nearby streetlamp.

“Who wants to know?” Nita finally asked.

“Does it matter?”

Nita shrugged and took another drag from her cigarette.

“I saw you dancing,” the woman went on. “You're really something.”

Now she got it.

“Look,” Nita said. “I don't date customers and—no offense—but I don't swing your way. You should go back inside and ask for Candy. She's always looking to make a little something on the side and I don't think she much cares what you've got between your legs, just so long as you can pay.”

“I'm not looking for a hooker.”

“So what are you looking for?”

“Someone to talk to. I recognized a kindred soul in you.”

The way she said it made Nita sigh. She'd heard this about a hundred times before.

“Everybody thinks we're dancing just for them,” she said, “but you know, we're not even thinking about you sitting out there. We're just trying to get through the night.”

“So you don't feel a thing?”

“Okay, so maybe I get a little buzz from the attention, but it doesn't mean I want to fuck you.”

“I told you. That's not what I'm looking for.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Nita ground her cigarette out under the heel of her boot. “You just want to talk. Well, you picked the wrong person. I'm not having a good night and to tell you the truth, I'm not all that interesting anyway. All the guys figure women with my job are going to be special—you know, real exotic or something—but as soon as we go out on a date with somebody they figure out pretty quick that we're just as boring and fucked up as anybody else.”

“But when you're on the stage,” the woman said, “it's different then, isn't it? You feed on what they give you.”

Nita gave her an odd look. “What're you getting at?”

“Why don't we go for a drink somewhere and talk about it?” the woman said. She looked around the alleyway. “There's got to be better places than this to have a conversation.”

Nita hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It's not like I've got anything else to do. Where'd you have in mind?”

“Why don't we simply walk until we happen upon a place that appeals to us?”

Nita lit another cigarette before she fell in step with the woman.

“My name's not Lilith,” she said.

“I know.” The woman stopped and turned to face her. “That's my grandmother's name.”

Like people couldn't share the same name, Nita thought. Weird.

“She used to call me Imogen,” the woman added.

She offered her hand, so Nita shook it and introduced herself. Imogen's grip was strong, her skin surprisingly cool and smooth to the touch. Shaking hands with her was like holding onto a hand made of porcelain. Imogen switched her grip on Nita's hand, shifting from her right to her left, and set off down the alleyway again. Nita started to pull free, but then decided she liked the feel of that smooth cool skin against her own and let it slide.

“What does ‘Nita' mean?” Imogen asked.

“I don't know. Who says it's supposed to mean anything?”

“All names mean something.”

“So what does your name mean?”

“ ‘Granddaughter.' ”

Nita laughed.

“What do you find so humorous?”

Nita flicked her cigarette against the nearest wall which it struck in a shower of sparks. “Sounds to me like your grandmother just found a fancy way of not giving you a name.”

“Perhaps she had to,” Imogen said. “After all, names have power.”

“Now what's that supposed to mean?” Nita asked.

Imogen didn't answer. She came to an abrupt halt and then Nita saw what had distracted her. They'd been walking toward the far entrance of the alley and were now only a half-dozen yards from its mouth. Just ahead lay the bright lights of Palm Street. Unfortunately, blocking their way were three men. Two Anglos and a Hispanic. Not yet falling-down drunk, but well on the way. Palm Street was as busy as ever but Nita knew that in this part of the city, at this time of night, she and Imogen might as well have been on the other side of the world for all the help they could expect to get from the steady stream of pedestrians by the mouth of the alley.

“Mmm-mmm. Looking good,” one of the three men said.

“But the thing is,” added one of his companions, “I've just got to know. When you're fucking each other, which one's pretending to be the guy?”

Drunken laughter erupted from all three of them.

Imogen let go of Nita's hand. She was probably scared, Nita thought. Nita didn't blame her. She'd be scared herself if it wasn't for the fact that she'd come to a point in her life where she just didn't give a shit anymore.
Reaching into one of the front pockets of her jeans, she pulled out a switchblade. When she thumbed the button on the side of the handle, it opened with an evil-sounding
snick
.

“Oh,
conchita
,” the Hispanic said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “We were just going to have some fun with you, but now there's got to be some pain.”

He stepped forward, the Anglos flanking him, one on either side. Before Nita could decide which of them was going to get the knife, Imogen moved to meet them. What happened next didn't seem to make any sense at all. It looked to Nita that Imogen picked up the first by his face, thumb on one temple, fingers on the other, and simply pitched him over her shoulder, back behind them, deeper into the alley. The second she took out with a blow to the throat that dropped him on the spot. The third tried to bolt, but she grabbed his arm and wrenched it up behind his back until Nita heard the bone snap. He was still screaming from the pain when Imogen grabbed his head and snapped his neck with a sudden twist.

Imogen held the dead man for a long moment, staring into his face as though she wanted to memorize his features, then she let him fall to the pavement. Nita stared at the body, at the way it lay so still on the ground in front of them. Her gaze went to the other two assailants. They lay just as unmoving. One moment there had been three half-drunk men about to assault them and in the next they were all dead.

“What—” Nita had to clear her throat. “What the fuck did you do to them?”

Imogen didn't even seem to be breathing hard. “It's a . . . a kind of judo,” she said.

Nita looked at her companion, but it was hard to make out her features in the poor light. She seemed to be smiling, her teeth flashing as white as did her hair. Nita slowly closed up her knife and stowed it back in her jeans.

“Judo,” Nita repeated slowly.

Imogen nodded. “Come on,” she said, offering Nita her hand again.

Nita hesitated. She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers and took a long drag before she eased her way around the dead man at her feet to take Imogen's hand. The porcelain coolness calmed her, quieting the rapid drum of her pulse.

“Let's get that drink,” Imogen said.

“Yeah,” Nita said. “I think I could really use a shot right about now.”

They ended up in Fajita Joe's, a Mexican bar on Palm Street with a terrace overlooking Fitzhenry Park. The place catered primarily to yuppies and normally Nita wouldn't have been caught dead in it, but by the time they were walking by its front door she would have gone in anywhere just to get a drink to steady her jangled nerves. They took a table on the terrace at Imogen's insistence—”I like to feel the night air,” she explained. Nita gulped her first shot and immediately ordered a second whiskey, double, on the rocks. With another cigarette lit and the whiskey to sip, she finally started to relax.

“So tell me about yourself,” Imogen said.

Nita shook her head. “There's nothing to tell. I'm just a loser—same as you've got to be if the only way you can find someone to have a drink with you is by hanging out around back of a strip club.” Then she thought of the three men in the alley. “ 'Course, the way you took out those freaks . . . those moves weren't the moves of any loser.”

“Forget about them,” Imogen said. “Tell me why you're so sad.”

Nita shook her head. “I'm not sad,” she said, lighting up another cigarette. “I'm just fucked up. The only thing I'm good at is running away. When the going gets tough, I'm gone. My whole life, that's the way I deal with the shit.”

“And the dancing doesn't help?”

“Give me a break. That's not dancing—it's shaking your ass in a meat market. Maybe some of the girls've convinced themselves they're in show business, but I'm not that far out of touch with reality.”

“But you still get something from it, don't you?”

Nita butted out her cigarette. “I'll tell you the truth, I always wanted to be up on a stage, but I can't sing and I can't play a guitar and the only way I can dance is doing a bump 'n' grind. When you've got no talent, your options get limited real fast.”

“Everyone has a talent.”

“Yeah, well, mine's for fucking up. I work with women who are dancing to put themselves through college, single mothers who're feeding
their families, a writer who's supporting herself until she can sell her first book. The only reason I'm dancing is that I couldn't make that kind of money doing anything else except hooking and I'm not that hard up yet.”

“Perhaps you've set your sights too high,” Imogen said. “It's hard to attain goals when they seem utterly beyond your reach. You might consider concentrating on smaller successes and then work your way up from them.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Imogen shrugged. “Breathing's a talent.”

“Oh, right. And so's waking up in the morning.”

“Feel this,” Imogen said.

She caught Nita's wrist and started to bring it toward her chest.

“Hey!” Nita said, embarrassed. “I told you I'm not like that.”

She was sure everybody on the terrace was staring at them, but when she tried to pull free, she couldn't move her hand. She might as well have been trying to move the building under them. Imogen brought Nita's palm through the open front of her jean vest and laid it against the cool smooth skin between her breasts. In the light cast from the terrace lanterns, her eyes gleamed like a cat's caught in a car's headbeams.

“What do you feel?” Imogen asked.

“Look, why don't you . . .”

Just get out of my face, was what Nita was going to say, except as her palm remained on Imogen's skin, she suddenly realized—

“You . . . you're not breathing,” she said.

Imogen released Nita's wrist. Nita rubbed at the welt that the grip of Imogen's fingers had left on her skin.