The Miracle Strip Read online

  It was hard to believe that less than ten miles away, at the Blue Marlin, life had turned ugly just before dawn. Now the sun was sinking and people went on about the business of excess, oblivious to the rest of the world.

  “I got here as soon as I could.” Denise had slipped onto the stool next to me and I hadn’t even heard her coming. She was wearing dark glasses and her thick red hair was pulled into a severe topknot. Her face was pale, despite the makeup she’d carefully applied. The only color on her at all were her huge gold and amethyst earrings.

  “I thought we oughta talk before we go in tonight,” I said.

  I had an agenda. Denise and I had hung around with each other for a year, and what really did I know about her? Everybody got to know Arlo, but who really knew Denise?

  “I thought about it, Sierra. I’m gonna try and reason with them. I don’t have a hundred thousand dollars, anybody oughta know that. Maybe somebody thinks I’m somebody else.” Denise shook her head and shrugged like it was all a mystery, but her hands shook when she reached for an ashtray.

  “Are you?” I asked.

  “Am I what?”

  “Are you somebody else?”

  Denise looked irritated.

  “What the hell kind of question is that?” she asked. She fumbled in her oversized black leather bag for her cigarettes. I signaled the bartender for another piña colada.

  “Well, I see it like this, Denise. I’ve known you since you moved here a year ago, and what do I really know?” I paused as my piña colada appeared. “You’re twenty-eight, grew up in Miami, got divorced about a year ago, and now you got a dead guy lying in your place and your dog’s gone. So I’m thinking: How well do I know you?”

  A cool breeze was blowing in off the Gulf. Denise turned her head away, shielding her face as she tried and failed to light her cigarette. Exasperated, she flung the lighter on the counter and turned back around.

  “Man, you and the cops.” Her tone was bitter. “Everybody wants my fucking history. There’s no way to get a break and start over, is there?”

  “Cops is one thing, Denise, but I thought we were friends.”

  Denise pulled off her dark glasses. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  “We are.” She sighed. “But I don’t know what kind of friends we’ll be when I tell you about me.”

  “Denise, everybody’s got something they don’t want anybody else to see, something they’re ashamed of. You’re not so different from the rest of us.”

  “I know that. It’s just … Well, all right,” she said, apparently making up her mind to get it over with. “Here goes. I was married to this guy, Leon, for five years.” She looked over at me and I nodded. “At first everything was wonderful. He was so good-looking. He always had money and nice things. The part of Miami where I grew up, nobody had nothing. He treated me like I was a queen, for a while. Then I really saw what he was like, how he made his money. That’s when I started getting scared. He was a real bad person, Sierra.”

  “He hit you or what?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah,” she said matter-of-factly, “that was part of it, but he was connected.”

  “Connected—like to the mob, right?”

  “Right,” she said, “and he was kind of on the low end of things.” She stopped, fooling with her cigarette lighter again.

  “And?” I prodded.

  “And well, he was a pretty big dope dealer. He started to make me help him—you know, make connections, hold the money sometimes. He got popped three years ago and that’s when I decided it was safe to leave him.”

  “What do you mean ‘safe to leave him’?” I asked.

  “Well, he would’ve beat the living shit out of me if I’d left and he could get to me, but with him in prison, I could go. He was mad, but at that point he thought he was looking at a lot of time, so he signed the papers. I moved here and decided to start over.”

  Denise sat back and tried to act like that was that. I thought not.

  “What did you mean he thought he was looking at a lot of time? Isn’t he still in prison?” Denise’s lower lip trembled ever so slightly.

  “No,” she whispered. “He got a new attorney and he got some kind of appeal process going. He’s out until the new trial. He’s been out a month.”

  No friggin wonder the girl was scared. Her ex gets out of jail, her dog gets snatched, and a dead guy ends up on her doorstep.

  “So you think Leon’s messing with you?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t you?” She looked at me like I was stupid or something.

  “Did you tell the cops?”

  “Sierra, he’d kill me if I did that!” Denise was gathering up her things.

  “Denise, I hate to break it to you, but isn’t that what he’s leading up to here?”

  Denise slapped a five-dollar bill down on the bar and anchored it with her empty glass. “I can’t think about this anymore, Sierra,” she said. “I’m tired and I’ve gotta go to work. For all I know, Leon’s got a new squeeze and doesn’t even know where I live. Frankie’ll look out for me. He hates Leon.”

  “Frankie knows Leon?” I could imagine that relationship.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Only by reputation. Look, I gotta go. I’ll see you at the club later. I’ve gotta get changed and get over there.”

  “What about Arlo?” I protested.

  Denise’s eyes welled up with tears. “I don’t know, honey. Frankie said he’d nose around, see if he heard anything.” She smiled. “He told me he met your neighbor.”

  “He don’t know how close he came to meeting Jesus, too,” I said.

  Six

  I wasn’t in a Little Bo Peep kind of mood. As an exotic dancer, I am a creative artist. If doing a particular act doesn’t feel right, I do not invalidate my inner child. Never force art. So I was rummaging through my old metal locker, looking for a costume that suited my mood, when Bruno poked his head in the dressing room.

  “Hey, Sierra,” he rumbled like a pit bull, “some guy’s out here, says he’s looking for you.” What could I expect from a steroid-impaired bouncer?

  “Of course some guy’s looking for me.” I sighed. “Some guy is always looking for me, Bruno. It’s your job to make sure they don’t find me.”

  Bruno favored me with his wounded-dog look. “No, Sierra, what I’m saying is, I think he’s the heat and he wants to talk to you, professional-like.” Bruno watched too many cop shows on TV.

  I straightened up from the wardrobe and glanced at myself in the wall-length dressing-room mirror. Everything was in order.

  “All right, Bruno, here’s the deal. Lead the gentleman to a table, pat him down, tell him sit, and I’ll be along presently.”

  Bruno looked shocked. “Sierra,” he said, “you can’t pat down a cop.”

  “Jesus, Bruno,” I said, “I know that. I was being sarcastic. Tell him take a load off and I’ll be there in a minute.” Bruno withdrew and went off to deal with the visitor. I took a moment to figure out what I wanted to say.

  I was leaning in close to the mirror, wearing my naughty French maid costume and carefully applying lipstick, when Marla walked in. Marla is the other headliner at the Tiffany. She is not what I would describe as an artist. I would, instead, say that she is a prima donna, or your basic pain in the ass. Marla is about six feet tall in her stocking feet, and stacked. Vincent Gambuzzo is particularly fond of her because she kisses up to him and doesn’t give him any crap when he pulls his power trips. She makes up for it by torturing the rest of us.

  “Vincent isn’t gonna like it, you having an officer of the law pay you a visit at the club. It doesn’t look right.” She was standing in front of the mirror at the other end of the room, adjusting her bra straps and peering at a spec of green that was stuck between her two front teeth.

  I turned and walked toward her. Marla didn’t like that. She was afraid of me, on account of a few other little occurrences in which things didn’t work out so well for her.

  “Mar
la,” I said pleasantly, “what wouldn’t look right would be if your teeth was to be so far down your throat, you’d have to fart to talk.” I smiled.

  Marla tossed her long black hair over her shoulders and tried to look bold. It didn’t work.

  “Don’t touch me,” she cautioned. “I’ll tell Vincent.”

  “Telling Vincent could be difficult if you wasn’t able to speak clearly,” I said. I sailed past her and out of the dressing room.

  * * *

  Detective John Nailor was not uncomfortable. I was trying my best to rattle him, but it wasn’t working. Bruno had placed him at one of the tables in the back and was hovering nervously, gesturing and making strange facial movements to indicate that this was the man who had asked to see me.

  I sauntered up in my black silk maid costume, with the flouncy white apron and the tiny lace cap. I towered over him in my black patent-leather stilettos and fishnet stockings. Then I pulled out a chair and straddled it backward, leaned my arms over the back, and waited to see what he was going do.

  He did nothing for a full minute. He carefully placed his drink back on the table and then casually inspected the merchandise, like he did it every day of his life. For all I knew, this could be standard operating procedure for him. He didn’t wear a wedding band. In fact, he was so slow and methodical in his inspection that my plan backfired and I felt myself getting nervous.

  “Time is money, Detective,” I said. “My boss, Mr. Gambuzzo, don’t like the help sitting around shooting the shit with the customers. If you don’t get down to brass tacks quick, I’m gonna end up having to do a table dance and charging you for it.”

  He smiled, but it was an I-dare-you. Without breaking eye contact, he reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a small notepad. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Denise wiping down the bar and watching us.

  “Why were you and Ms. Curtis going back to her apartment at three-thirty in the morning?” The old double check, I thought.

  “Detective, in this business, three-thirty is not late; it’s quitting time. You gotta unwind before you can sleep. We were just going back for some girl talk.”

  Nailor looked over at Denise for a moment, then turned back to his notepad.

  “There was no sign of forced entry into Ms. Curtis’s apartment, Ms. Lavotini. Now, what do you make of that?” He looked puzzled and earnest, like I should believe he cared what a stripper thought about a crime.

  “Jeez, Detective, I don’t know. Maybe I should come clean with you and tell you that me and Denise were really coming back to her place to leave a dead body, then call you so you’d think we were innocent. Whoops,” I said sarcastically, “our little ruse failed.” I leaned back and stared at him. Behind us, Denise, Bruno, and Vincent were huddled together.

  “How well do you know Ms. Curtis?” he asked. The guy wouldn’t rattle.

  “Well enough,” I answered.

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Vincent Gambuzzo was making his way toward our table. Detective Nailor folded his notepad shut and put it back inside his jacket pocket.

  “Then you know she spent the two years before she moved here doing time in a federal correctional institution.”

  I didn’t have time to answer, which was good since I couldn’t. Vincent Gambuzzo took that moment to step up to the table.

  “Sierra,” he said, all swagger, “you’re on in five minutes. That is,” he said, turning toward Nailor, “unless you have further business with this gentleman?” Vincent did not like having a cop in the house because it made the customers nervous.

  “No,” I answered, “I’m guessing we’re through.”

  Detective Nailor smiled his I-dare-you and reached for his empty Coke glass.

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” he said, holding the glass out toward Vincent, “I’ll take another one of these.”

  Vincent’s face turned a lovely shade of scarlet, and he looked like he wanted to choke John Nailor, but he didn’t.

  “Of course, Detective,” he answered, stressing the word Detective so nobody would doubt that Vincent Gambuzzo knew the heat was in the house. “Why don’t you stick around and watch Sierra. She’s got a hell of an act.”

  “Oh, I know that already,” Nailor answered.

  I stood up and propped one of my legs on the chair.

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Detective,” I said.

  I left him there. This was going to be quite an evening.

  * * *

  The house lights went down. The music started and I was ready. If John Nailor wanted to dare Sierra Lavotini, I’d give him something to remember. I strutted out onto the stage and walked right down front.

  I reached behind my back and started slowly undoing my apron strings. As I did, I looked out into the audience, looking at John Nailor’s table. It was empty. The Coke glass sat waiting for the barmaid to collect it. The detective was walking away, his back to me and his hand lightly resting on the shoulder of a woman. She turned once and glanced back as they were leaving. She was a knockout—chestnut-brown skin, huge dark eyes, and a figure that would have given any girl at the club a run for her money. Who the hell was that? I wondered.

  I couldn’t keep my mind on my work, and that was a first. Usually I take the time to center myself by meditating before I go on, but in my rush to show up Panama City’s finest, I’d forgotten. Now I was caught in the middle of a routine, unfocused and unable to concentrate. I remembered what Nailor said before he left. Why hadn’t Denise told me she’d done time? I looked over at her, but her back was turned. She was avoiding me. I peeled down a stocking and twirled it over my head mechanically. Denise wasn’t going to get off so easy when I got ahold of her.

  Seven

  Denise had the key in her car door when I stepped up behind her.

  “I would like to think that you were an honest person,” I began, “but in the past twenty-four hours, I am not so sure.”

  When she turned around, I could see she was crying.

  “That idiot cop told you about me, didn’t he?” she said, sobbing.

  “Well, didn’t you think he would?” I asked. She hung her head, big fat tears dropped like rain. The parking lot was dark and almost empty. The customers had all left and only the cleanup crew remained inside.

  “I don’t know what I thought,” she sniffed. “I guess I wasn’t thinking. I needed help and I didn’t think you’d help me if you knew.”

  “That is lame,” I said. “You know me better than that. Now, what gives?”

  Denise sagged against her car. A week ago I would’ve told you she was a great kid, fun to be around, a real hell-raiser. Sure, she had her walls, those places where you just didn’t go with her. You could see it in her. Her eyes would kind of glaze over when you asked a question, and she’d switch the subject or call Arlo over to be a distraction. But hell, we work in a strip club. Even though the Tiffany is the top of the line, we’re still life’s outcasts. We all have walls. We’ve all got secrets. You think I tell people I read books and wish I could maybe be a writer or an artist? No way. They’d eat me alive. So I talk tough and I don’t take nothing off nobody. Everybody works the Tiffany for a reason. It ain’t like being a nun. No higher power called us. We needed money, we saw the way, and we grabbed it like an uptown bus.

  “I don’t tell anybody I did time,” Denise said. “What if Vincent found out and fired me? You don’t think I held my breath every time he wanted to talk to me? I know sooner or later he’ll find out and that will be that. But I needed a job.”

  “Get real, Denise,” I said. “Half the girls at the Tiffany have been arrested for one thing or another. It comes with the life.”

  Denise shook her head. “The Tiffany is a nice place. Vincent pays good. He don’t do trash; he’s trying to have a classy place. I knew he wouldn’t hire me if he knew.” She shook her head in disgust. “Don’t you think that I applied at a hundred other places first? I was honest with t
hem, and what did it get me? Not a job, that’s for sure.”

  I let it go. For all I knew, she was right. Vincent Gambuzzo didn’t have to hire a bartender with a record. Dancers were another story. If they were talented, you didn’t ask too many questions. After all, good T and A brings in the money, pure character ain’t worth shit.

  “So, what’d you do time for?” I asked.

  “Possession with intent to distribute,” she answered softly.

  I was puzzled. “Why’d you pull time for that? You’re a first offender.”

  Denise laughed bitterly. “Yeah, but I was married to Leon Corvase. They made such a big deal of who I was married to at the trial that I didn’t stand a chance. Leon got twenty-five years for trafficking and it was his first offense.” She rolled her eyes.

  I couldn’t figure it. To my way of thinking, Denise was a victim here. Obviously, the courts thought otherwise.

  Denise was rummaging through the backseat of her car.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Looking for this,” she said, her voice muffled by the car’s interior. She backed out, holding a bottle of tequila. “Want some?”

  “When have I ever turned down tequila?” I answered. Denise knew me too well. She hunkered down on the bumper of her old VW and twisted off the cap. I walked over and sat down next to her. It’d been a long night.

  “Hey,” I asked, taking a big swig off the bottle, “who was the looker who left with Nailor?”

  Denise took too big a swallow and choked. I leaned over and clapped her on the back a couple of times. I know they say it doesn’t help, but it helped me to beat on her a little.

  “Ease up,” she sputtered, regaining her composure and handing me the bottle. “You don’t know?”

  “Would I be asking you if I did?” I was feeling warm and relaxed. Maybe the evening had some promise after all.