The Miracle Strip (15 page)

“What'd I tell you, Fluffy?” I asked. “It really is you and me against the world.” Fluffy seemed to scowl. “All right,” I said, sighing, “you're right, I could've played this hand better. I could be more responsible. But Fluff, don't you ever get that deer-in-the-headlights feeling? You know you oughta be doing something, but you can't quite get up the energy to make it happen.”

Fluffy'd had enough of my thought process. She sighed back at me loudly and walked out of the kitchen, headed back to the bedroom and her trusty pillow.

“No matter where you go, Fluff, there you are,” I called after her. She didn't answer. Her sharp nails clicked across the parquet hallway. She was in no mood for my theories.

*   *   *

Detective Nailor waited to make his appearance until I'd arrived at the club and was minutes from doing my act. He could have used the back-door entrance, could have been low-key, but I was learning that wasn't his way. He enjoyed seeing Vincent and Bruno look uncomfortable. He counted on throwing me off stride. Why else stroll in the main entrance, sit down near the front of the house, and ask to see me?

I was ready for him this time. I figured that since the police had gone to enough trouble to put me under surveillance, Nailor would have to show up sooner or later. It was obvious that the cops weren't done with me. So be it, I thought. I sauntered through the back hallway and stepped out into the house.

Nailor had a low tumbler filled with soda sitting in front of him and a slight scowl on his face. He was watching one of the new girls go through her paces. The whole club seemed tense, sensing the presence of law enforcement on the premises. Vincent was particularly bothered by the return of the heat. He slowed as he passed me on his way to his office, where he would watch Nailor through his two-way mirror.

“Lose him, Sierra,” he growled. Easier said than done, I thought. I strolled up to Nailor's table and pulled out a chair. I stared at him, waiting for him to look up. When he did, I sank down slowly, straddling the back of the chair.

“I'm flattered, Detective. If you wanted to make sure you caught my act, you could've called and asked when I went on. You didn't need to send your boys to follow me.”

Nailor stared back. His eyes wandered slowly down my body, taking in the black sequined bustier and the gold glitter I'd sprinkled in my cleavage.

“You're not taking this seriously, Sierra,” he said.

“You're right, John,” I said, deliberately using his first name. Two could play this game. “I can't take it serious when you guys are spending all your time following me around and not listening to me about Denise. I got nothing to hide, John. Look all you want.”

Nailor turned his head and watched Marie lose her bra. His eyes took in every detail, but he watched like a scientist tracking the movements of a brightly colored fish. He wasn't turned on, he was gathering his thoughts.

“Ms. Lavotini, maybe you don't know how the police work a homicide in this town.” He moved slightly closer, his eyes burning into mine. “When a homicide occurs in Panama City, like it does about eight times a year, everything comes to a halt. All available investigators are pulled in. We form a task force. We go to work on every lead, every suspect.”

I tried to look unafraid as he went on.

“You're the key to this investigation right now, Sierra. That means we're going to check out every aspect of your life. We'll talk to your friends, your family, your coworkers. When we're finished we'll know you better than you know yourself, Sierra.” He leaned very close to me, his breath a whisper of mint and Coke. “Are you sure your life can take that kind of scrutiny?”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to lose it and tear his eyes out. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to slap him.

Nailor smiled slightly. “You know how well I know you, Sierra?” he said softly. “I know you well enough to know you want to hit me right now. You can taste it. That's how you handle a tough time. I hear you even bloodied a biker's nose the other week.”

My ears were ringing, and blood was rushing into my head, staining my face and chest.

“Maybe Leon Corvase pushed you over the edge, Sierra. Maybe you took him out. I don't think so, but we'll know for sure in a few hours.” He pushed his chair back slowly and stood up, staring down at me. He leaned over, his knuckles whitening as he rested his weight on his hands.

“Every time you see me, Sierra, I'll know a little bit more about you. If there's anything you want to tell me first, anything about you that you don't want me to find out the hard way, then you'd better hope you find me before I have to come find you.” He flipped his business card on the table. “It's always easier when you do the talking, Sierra.”

He was gone before I could trust myself to look up. Son of a bitch. Who in the hell did he think he was?

I sat motionless for a moment, trying to pull it back together. Come on, I told myself, this was police bullshit. He's not really going to track down your entire life. I moved to Panama City to get away from my past, not to have it dredged up and carried back to Florida. What could they really find out? I didn't have a criminal record. On the other hand, I watched
60 Minutes
and those other news shows. They were always talking about how much people could find out about their fellowman. All you needed these days was a computer and you could know what brand of toilet tissue your subject used in 1968.

“Sierra, you all right?”

A voice crashed in on my thoughts, bringing me back to the Tiffany. Lyle. I looked up and scowled.

“So what happened to you last night, Cowboy? It would've been nice for you to at least stop back by and make sure I hadn't been killed by the same guys that whacked Denise's ex.”

Lyle looked uncomfortable. He squirmed in his snakeskin boots and fiddled with the brim of his hat.

“Well, it's kinda like this,” he said. “I would sorta like to avoid the police.”

“You would sorta like to avoid the police? Now, what in the hell does that mean, Lyle?”

Lyle looked around anxiously, searching the faces at the nearby tables, hoping my voice wasn't carrying. I didn't care who heard us. He'd left me alone with a dead body and the police to deal with. I was going to have an explanation.

“If you don't mind,” he said, “is this something we could discuss later? You're due up in a minute and Mr. Gambuzzo's gonna have my tail if I don't get back to the bar. Besides which, it ain't exactly the time or place for me to be talking about this.”

It was the longest speech I'd heard Lyle make. Of course he wouldn't want to be involved with the cops. Why should I be surprised? Everybody I ran into these days didn't want to be involved with the cops. After my little tête-à-tête with Detective Nailor, I could understand the common reluctance.

“Sure,” I said, “tell me all about it later.” That's what I was, the understanding dancer, always ready to hear somebody's explanation of how whatever'd happened wasn't their fault. They always meant to call, they always wanted to be there for you, but somehow fate intervened and whisked the opportunity to be reliable away. Lyle must've sensed my skepticism.

“Sierra, I'm serious about wanting to talk later. How about after we close?”

I looked up at the big brown cowboy eyes and thought he looked sincere, but what kind of judge am I? Fluffy was sincere. Arlo was sincere. Men are dogs, true, but that don't make them sincere.

“I don't know, Lyle. I gotta get backstage. You gotta bar full of thirsty customers. Let me see how I feel after work, all right?”

I didn't wait for the answer. As far as I was concerned, nothing mattered right now. Humankind was closing in too quickly on me and I needed space. No better way to escape than to dance. At least when I danced, the rest of the world sat below me, looking up, and I was untouchable.

Vincent just had to get in the last word. He waylaid me as I wandered toward the back of the house, stepping outside his office and motioning me into the inner sanctum.

“Sierra,” he growled, “you got a problem.” Damn, did everybody have to crawl my ass at the same time?

“Vincent, I don't got any problems that I can't handle.”

“Be that as it may,” he huffed, “the cops are coming around, there's an unmarked car with two detectives in it sitting in my parking lot, and you're getting your panties in a wad over this Denise deal.” I started to interrupt but he kept going. “I know she's your friend and you can't find her, but Sierra, did you ever think maybe she don't want to be found?” Vincent didn't really ask the question to hear my answer.

“I don't have to tell you how it is in this business. There's lots about that girl you probably didn't know and may never know. The Tiffany can't have cops watching the door. It's bad for business. So bottom line, you get them off you or you gotta go.”

“Vincent, don't blow smoke. I'm your top act. I could go to the Show and Tail tomorrow and you'd be out a headliner.” What was this?

“Sierra, a headliner don't mean squat if the house is empty. You got until the weekend to lose the heat. Much as I don't want to lose you, business is business.” Vincent wasn't going to back down. He stood behind his battered metal desk, his glasses reflecting the sequins in my costume, his jaw twitching, and his mind made up. The cops backed off me or I was out of work and with the cops on my tail, nobody'd hire me.

I was too mad to talk to Vincent, and it wouldn't have done any good, anyway. After all, he was right. Law enforcement and exotic dancing didn't mix, not with customers and not with dancers. I had to get Nailor and his task force of overeager detectives off my back. If I didn't, then Fluffy and I would be out on the streets, unemployed and unemployable. There was only one way to fix the situation. If I couldn't find out where Denise was, I had to find out who killed Leon Corvase.

Twenty

I wasn't really thinking; instead I drifted, flitting from thought to memory. My body was moving, becoming the music and, in the process, twisting the minds and wills of every man in the club. An old Bonnie Raitt tune, “Love Me Like a Man,” boomed through the club. The lights, strobed in reds and blues, pulsated, throbbing along with the tensions of sexually frustrated men.

My old man found out I was dancing shortly after I turned nineteen. I'd moved out of the house that summer, and in with one of the other dancers from this little joint where I worked in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. I'd moved so my parents wouldn't find out what I was doing for a living. I was sure there'd be hell to pay when they found out, and I was trying to postpone the inevitable.

Upper Darby's a close-in suburb of Philadelphia, full of blue-collar workers. I started off dancing there in a club that was only a step up from a biker bar. I figured nobody my parents knew would come in and see me, but of course, I was wrong. Word got back to Pop before I'd been there two months. Thank God, he had the decency not to show up at the club. Instead he arrived, unannounced, at my apartment one afternoon.

I opened the door, saw him standing there, and knew he'd found out. He looked at me like he'd never seen me before, and then he started crying. Silently, tears streamed down his lined cheeks. I'd never seen my pop cry, and it sucked the youthful feeling of invincibility right out of my body.

“Why, Sierra?” he asked. It wasn't anger, just disappointment. That tore at me worse than anything.

“Pop,” I said, drawing him into the apartment and closing the door, “it's not like you think.”

“No, that's not what I'm asking,” he said. “I'm asking why you didn't tell me. Why you thought you needed to sneak off in the dark and hide what you're doing. That's what makes it wrong, honey. That's what says you're ashamed.”

He had me crying then. I sat at my kitchen table with him, the two of us crying, and tried to explain to my pop why I did what I did.

“Pop, you and Ma raised us to do our best, to do what made us feel good inside. Johnny and the others knew, right from the get-go, what they wanted to be when they grew up. They wanted to be firemen, like you, or a cop. I didn't know, Pop. I just knew it couldn't be like anything I'd ever heard about.”

Pop was listening hard, like maybe he thought he should make up for not hearing me before in my life, like maybe he'd gone wrong with me by not listening when I was a kid.

“You know I didn't like school. I did okay, but it didn't come easy. I got more of an education from reading. And none of those jobs I tried after high school lasted. I couldn't hack it, doing the same thing day after day for no money. I needed to do something exciting, where I was in charge.”

Pop was nodding and I knew why: He felt the same way. That's why he fought fires. That's why I started them.

“Then why didn't you tell us, Sierra?”

“One night, me and a bunch of the girls were out at a club, for a bachelorette party. It was one of those clubs where guys and women both strip and they had an amateur night. I'd had a couple of drinks, sure, but they dared me and I thought, Why not?”

Pop chuckled. It was just like me, impulsively answering a dare.

“Pop, I was a little nervous at first, but then when the music started and all those men were staring at me, I felt this energy flowing all through my body. The more I danced, the more I saw what I could do. It was awesome, Pop. All those guys, stuffing money in my garter belt, and I made them do that.”

I looked to see how he was taking it, but his face was neutral and I couldn't tell what he was thinking.

“I won the contest that night, Pop. I came home with two hundred dollars in prize money and one hundred in tips—from one dance. I knew what I wanted to do then, Pop. I wanted to be the best in the business. I wanted to make a bunch of money and then, when it was time to retire from dancing, I'd have a nest egg. I could run my own business if I wanted.”