The Sound of Many Waters (22 page)

A rain of fire…

Chapter Twenty Two

“Fake titties,” as Shady called them, swung to and fro. Zane covered his eyes by pulling the bandana down over the mirrored wraparound sunglasses that Shady had given him to wear. Looking at a naked woman he had never met before—or in this case two of them—felt like a crime.

Shady punched him in the arm. “You some kinda queer?”

Zane pulled the bandana up and pretended to be interested. “They’re just not my type,” he said. In truth, he only felt pity for the two girls. Their song cut off early and, confused, they danced to silence before scuttling off the stage.

“Please welcome Destiny, our next lovely lady about to take the stage,” crooned the DJ in an impossibly deep voice. “Destiny loves foreign films, poetry, and red wine. She gets weak in the knees when she reads about the mysteries of the universe and she’s studying to be a cosmetologist. No, sorry, a
cosmologist
. Ain’t that the same thing? Well, whatever. Destiny got her name from a quote by—do I really have to read this?—a quote by some French dude whose name I won’t even try to pronounce which says, ‘
A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it
.’ Okaaay, whatever that means. Note to management… it’s time to stop letting the dancers write their own bios. Anyway, come on out, Destiny, but leave your brain in the back… We just wanna see your body!”

Tom Petty’s
American Girl
bellowed out of the tired, muffled speakers and Destiny flounced onto stage wearing a short negligee dress and stiletto heels. Shady leaned forward in his chair, his eyes wide and eager as if looking at a shiny new m
o
torcycle or a chargrilled steak. “Check this one out,” he said.

With curly, rust-colored tresses and creamy skin, Destiny would have looked far more attractive had she been in regular clothes and not dressed like the hookers Zane sometimes saw lurking on
A1A
. When he was a child, his mother told him they were real-life witches in search of young boys to mutilate and eat. Even though he had long ago realized that was not true, prostitutes—or anything resembling them—still made him uneasy.

Destiny leaned off the chrome pole with one hand and rolled her hips in a circular motion. Zane tried to keep his eyes on her face—above her neck at least—and as she swung closer to him he noticed a tear on her cheek. Their eyes met.

“Take it off!” yelled Shady, holding up a $1 bill.

Destiny wrapped her legs around the pole, arched her back, and lowered herself to the ground. Lifting herself up, she let go of the pole and tore off her dress, revealing a black lace bra and G-string panties. She took the pin out of her hair and shook her head from side to side as if auditioning for a shampoo commercial.

“Yeah, baby!” shouted a gray-haired trucker in the back row. He looked old enough to be her grandfather.

Destiny unfastened her bra and held it over her chest for a moment, and then she let it fall away. She grabbed an
Everlasting Springs
water bottle off the edge of the stage and poured it over herself. Her body glistened in the red floodlights.

When she crouched down on all fours, Zane smiled—it reminded him of Mama Ethel doing her bear impression—and Destiny must have seen his smile because she zeroed in on him. But then Zane remembered Mama Ethel’s big body floating in the river and sadness swept over him. “Mama,” he said.

“That’s the spirit, Fishy!” hollered Shady. “Hot mama!”

Men held dollar bills out to Destiny like kids trying to feed a zoo animal, but she paid them no attention. Instead, she gazed at Zane and crawled toward him. He wanted to look away but was afraid that anything resembling disinterest might embarrass her. Her face within inches of his, she stopped, stared into his eyes, and mouthed the last verse of the song. Suddenly Zane could not take it anymore—he broke eye contact and looked at the ground. Destiny danced to the back of the stage and disappeared through the red velvet curtains.

“Oh, she’s got it bad for you,” said Shady. “I’m gonna buy you a lap dance!”

Zane shook his head. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t tell me
she’s
not your type. I saw the way you was lookin at her.”

Without waiting for a response, Shady jumped up and hurried to the bar. Zane cringed when he saw him hand over a hundred dollar bill. Moments later, Destiny walked into the crowd and took Zane by the hand.

“Come with me,” she said.

“Where?” asked Zane.

She smiled. “In the back, silly. Don’t be scared. I don’t bite.” She bent down and whispered in his ear. “Unless you want me to.”

…………………………

Zane and Shady had spent that entire day on the road, stopping only at a Daytona pawn shop,
Hock Your Socks Off
, to sell one of the doubloons. Shady said he wanted to be sure that the coins were worth something before he continued transporting a fugitive in his sidecar. Zane did not object; he was eager to know their value, too.

“Three hundred,” said the bearded man behind the pawn shop counter.

“Three thousand,” said Zane.

The man rolled the coin in his hand. “Fine, three thousand.” He counted out the money in hundreds, fifties and twenties.

Shady gazed at the cash as they left the shop. “He didn’t even counter offer.”

“Which means he would have paid a lot more,” said Zane.

Cruising west on
Highway 40
, they came to a pack of other bikers. Shady gave them a hand signal that, in road code, must have indicated he was on the run because the bikers encircled him and Zane. They escorted them through the Ocala National Forest up until Shady left the pack to head north on
I-75
. For the next thirty miles, Shady kept the bike just above the speed limit and stayed between two semi-trucks. They passed a rancid landfill obscured by seagulls and smoke, but otherwise all Zane saw were billboards and woods.

Twenty minutes outside of Gainesville, Shady spotted a billboard for
Café Risque
with its tagline
We Bare All
and insisted that it was “bad mojo” for bikers to pass by such a legen
d
ary establishment without stopping. Zane protested, but he changed his mind when Shady told him that the
Café
had free trucker showers they could use. Despite his initial trep
i
dation about bathing in something prefaced with the word
trucker
, Zane could not remember ever enjoying—or needing—a shower so much.

…………………………

“Relax,” whispered Destiny. She led him into the dim, cavernous
Paradise Room
and pushed him down on the couch. Putting her hands on his shoulders, she straddled him and pressed her chest against his face. It felt nice, and, for a moment, he closed his eyes, but then he thought about Lucia.

“Destiny,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Can I pay you
not
to do this?”

Destiny leaned back and looked at him. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I have a girlfriend.”

Destiny’s eyes swelled with tears. She lifted herself off and sat beside him on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” said Zane. “It’s not that I don’t like you. I think you’re real pretty—”

“That’s not why I’m crying, baby.” She took his hand in hers. “It’s just that after working here for a few years, I was starting to think there were no good men left in the world. I’m happy there’s still one.”

Zane shook his head and looked down. “I’m not a good man.”

“Yes you are. And your girlfriend, whoever she is, is a lucky girl. I bet the two of you were high school sweethearts.”

“We were.”

“I knew it. That’s so cute. Will you get married?”

“No.” His voice became raspy. “She’s…”

Destiny looked at him with angelic compassion. “She’s what, baby?”

“She’s…”

Loud yelling erupted from the main room of the strip club. Destiny jumped up and peered through the curtain. “It’s the cops,” she whispered, wrapping a silk robe around her body.

Zane went cold with fear. He peeked through the curtain and saw Shady struggling beneath several police officers. The Law and The Taxman walked through the front door, scanning the crowd as they approached Shady.

“I thought you’d outgrown your penchant for crime, Shady,” said The Law. “Where’s Fisher?”

Shady strained to break free of the cuffs. “Where’s who?”

The Taxman stomped his boot on Shady’s neck and said, “He killed my partner. Tell me where he is, or I will break your spine, right here, right now.”

Zane picked up the duffel bag and retreated to the far corner of the Paradise Room. He looked at Destiny. “How can I get out of here?”

“Why, are they looking for
you
?”

“Yes.”

Destiny backed away from him. “Tell me you’re not the guy they were talking about on the news.”

“Yes, I mean no, but—”

Destiny pulled the robe tight around her body. “You stay back!”

“
Shhhh!
I mean yes I’m the guy they’re after, but it wasn’t me. I didn’t hurt anyone. I swear it. They think I did, though, and if they catch me, they’ll kill me.”

Destiny scrutinized his face. “You promise?”

“I won’t tell you I’m a good person. I’m not. But I’m no murderer.”

She grabbed his hand and led him through a hidden door on the far side of the room which looked like part of the wall. “Our escape hatch from perverts.”

They entered a long hallway lit by buzzing fluorescent bulbs and then burst into a dressing room packed with lingerie, wigs and skimpy costumes.

Destiny cracked open a door in the back of the room. Afternoon light shone in as blindingly as a searchlight. She peeked out but shut the door quickly.

“Cops’re outside, too,” she said, and then she looked around the room. “I have an idea. Blonde or brunette?”

“What?” asked Zane.

“I think blonde.” She grabbed a wig off the rack and put it on his head.

“What are you doing?”

“Take off your clothes.”

“No!”

“I’m trying to help you! Take them off.”

Zane pulled off his jacket and pants and stood there holding himself. She looked at him and smiled. “See how
we
feel?”

Next, Destiny dug through a bin and pulled out a padded bra. “Hold still,” she said, and she moved behind him and put it over his chest and fastened the clip. Then she hunted through the rack of dresses until she found a long sequin gown. “Marilyn Monroe was blonde,” she said, and she yanked out the dress and pulled it over him.

She pushed him to a lighted makeup mirror and opened a box filled with brushes, pencils, creams, and all sorts of womanly things he had seen many times but could not name. “Be still,” she said, and she swept his face with a soft brush.

“This is the police,” said a voice from the other side of the door.

“Hold on!” yelled Destiny. “I don’t have any clothes on!”

“Please get dressed, ma’am. We have to come in.”

Destiny applied mascara to Zane’s eyelashes. With his face only inches from hers, he looked at her autumn eyes and watched her pupils track the mascara wand. He felt an intimate, electrifying sensation—one he hadn’t felt since Lucia. Sure, Destiny was a stripper and there were cops lurking outside the door and he was wearing women’s clothes, but, in that moment, none of that mattered. He leaned toward her. Lost in her work, however, she turned and plucked a lipstick tube from the makeup box without noticing.

“Wait a minute,” said the voice on the other side of the door. “She’s a stripper. Who cares if she’s dressed?”

And then another voice, “Ma’am, we’re coming in now.”

The door cracked open just as Destiny finished applying Zane’s lipstick. “You look beautiful,” she whispered. Then, turning to face the door, she ripped open her robe. The Law stepped into the doorway with two police officers behind him. Their eyes locked onto Destiny’s breasts which shone pink under the fluorescent lights.

“Pardon me, ladies,” said The Law. “But we’re looking for someone. Have you seen a young man round here?”

Destiny crossed her arms over her chest. “Men aren’t allowed back here. Just me and Marilyn in here.”

Zane trembled with fear. Destiny took his hand and, whether she knew it or not, stroked the back of it with her thumb. A soothing warmness came over him. The Law glanced at Zane but his eyes went back to Destiny. She pulled her robe around herself and said, “Seriously, do you guys mind? Like I said, men aren’t allowed back here.”

“We’re sorry, ladies. Pardon our intrusion.” They backed into the hallway and shut the door.

Destiny’s face filled with excitement. “It worked!” she exclaimed in a loud whisper, jumping up and down and wrapping her arms around Zane in a hug he hoped would never end. She released him and grabbed a set of car keys out of a drawer. “We’ve gotta go before the other dancers see you. Come on.” She led him through the back door and out into the sticky Florida heat.