Film Strip Read online

  “Well, girl,” I said, turning to Fluffy, “there goes my love life.”

  Fluffy sighed.

  “Yep, some days you get the bear, and some days the bear bites you in the ass.”

  Fluffy moaned and walked off toward the kitchen. It was going to be one of those days.

  Six

  No one expected me to work my regular shift, but I had to get out of the trailer. The longer I lay around watching the backs of my eyelids, the more I knew I needed a distraction. What better one than a murder investigation, and where better to start than the scene of the crime?

  I took my time getting ready, just like I do on any work night, even though I couldn’t dance. See, in my business, it’s all image. I am not the illusion men see onstage and dream about at night. That Sierra is a carefully crafted creation. I never let the customer know the real me. They don’t want to know me anyway. Men come to the Tiffany looking for a passionate promise that their fantasy is out there, just beyond their grasp. That’s what Sierra gives them, a promise. Then I get in my car and drive home, wishing for the same thing.

  Again, I digress. I drove over the Hathaway Bridge that separates Panama City proper from Panama City Beach. Panama City Beach is the illusion, while Panama City proper is the real thing. Panama City Beach is lights and action while the town hangs back on the fringes, hiding its beauty from the strangers who fly past, eager to get to their dream vacation. The tourists never get it. They never stroll along the Art Deco storefronts, sip coffee on the sidewalks, or eat at Ernie’s. They miss the gentle Victorian homes that line St. Andrews Bay and the parks that edge the waterfront.

  The tourists rush to the putt-putt courses or the mega-bars and dance clubs. They honk their horns and ogle the frenzied teenaged flesh that comes to town seeking the illusive best-ever vacation love affair. The older crowd, the men in their thirties to fifties, come to see me. I reassure them. They’re not getting older; they’re getting better. They are powerful. I am their love slave.

  Hey, for twenty bucks in my garter, if you want to think you’re Zorro, well buddy, I’ll give it to you. It’s a human service, costs less than therapy, and probably works better.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Tiffany and backed my Camaro into its space. I stepped out of the car and looked down. There was a pool of dried blood where I’d lain the night before. I shivered and looked diagonally across the lot at the spot where Venus Lovemotion had fallen. Suddenly the familiar seemed sinister. The shadows grew and moved. The customers pulling into the front lot seemed a million miles away.

  The back door flew open, slamming against the brick wall, and I jumped. Bruno the bouncer stepped onto the back dock and peered out into the darkness. His hand rested on the butt of the .45 he carried strapped to his waist.

  “Don’t shoot,” I yelled, half kidding.

  “Don’t give me a reason to,” he growled. “Who’s that?”

  “Who do you think, idiot?”

  Bruno’s face broke into a smile. “Sierra? That you, baby?”

  I let the “baby” remark slide. “Yeah, of course it’s me.”

  He started down the stairs, looking both ways, as if making sure there were no shooters in the bushes this time.

  “You shouldn’t be here. You’re injured. Go home. You know the boss’ll pay you.”

  I walked up to him, wrapping my arm around his thick muscle-bound waist and squeezing. “Yeah, but you don’t see him comping me no tips, do you?”

  Bruno laughed. “Son of a bitch wouldn’t comp a crumb to a cockroach,” he said. “Hey, you’re limping! How you gonna dance with a gimp leg?”

  “Slowly and not tonight.”

  Bruno shrugged. I had exceeded his maximum brain capacity for thought and memory.

  “Who all’s out front tonight?” I asked.

  Bruno thought hard. The fuzz he called hair bristled as he rubbed his hand over it.

  “The regulars. About the same as last night, only more on account of curiosity. And there’s that Italian-Stallion-looking guy, been here the past couple of nights.”

  “With the good suit?”

  “Yeah, him. I noticed that asshole on account of Charlotte telling me he stiffed her for a tip.”

  Charlotte was Bruno’s current girlfriend, a situation that wouldn’t last. Women always left Bruno, and I had no idea why. He was a nice enough guy. Maybe I didn’t want to know why. There’s generally two reasons why women leave nice guys, and only one involves money. I didn’t want to think about Bruno and the other reason.

  “Who else is here?”

  Bruno growled. “That fuck, Little Ricky. Wiseass told me tonight he was gonna wrestle pro. I told him he couldn’t pin his own salami. He actually said that wrestling was all fake and all you had to do was have a good act.” Bruno shook his head, like Little Ricky had really lost his mind. “Fake. Don’t that guy know anything? That ain’t fake, Sierra. Wrestling is America’s oldest sport. He’s defaming our country if he thinks wrestlers are putting on a show. They wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “Little Ricky’s got the brains of a fish.”

  “Yeah, and the dick to match.” Apparently Bruno had heard the rumor, too.

  “This something you know firsthand?” I asked.

  “What, Sierra, you don’t read? I used to use that shit myself, but I got educated in the nick of time. Carl Hiaasen, investigative reporter, in his book Tourist Season. Documented fact: use steroids, and your dick shrinks like a cotton sweater. Batta-bing, batta-boom, Buttafuoco.”

  I wasn’t so sure Bruno had quit using steroids, and even if he had, I doubted it had been in the nick of time. There was too much cranial impairment. Still, there was no arguing with logic, not bouncer logic anyway. And it gave me an idea about Little Ricky and Venus Lovemotion. Maybe Venus had heard about Little Ricky. Maybe she had insulted him with her rejection.

  When the girls caught sight of me limping into the club on Bruno’s beefy arm, all hell broke loose, the good kind of hell. Half-naked women were running up and hugging me, some of them crying. Others were disappointed that I was back and spoiling their shot at greatness, but trying to hide it. None of them seemed more disingenuously happy to see me than Marla.

  Marla was angling for the top slot. I could see this because she was sitting in my makeup chair when I walked in. She narrowly missed skinning her own ass jumping out of the seat when she saw me heading for her.

  “Grabbing for all the gusto you can get, eh, Marla?”

  Marla blushed an angry red and tossed her hair. “Why, Sierra, whatever do you mean? I was checking an eyelash in your magnifying mirror. I would never try to assume—”

  “Can the crap. I bet you already got Vincent switching your name to the big letters on the marquee out front. Do I look like an idiot to you?”

  I was right, of course. The room fell silent as the other dancers waited for the inevitable and predictable fight. But this time it didn’t come. Marla, sensing herself jeopardizing her freedom from a life lived behind bars, stopped. With great effort she looked at me, and only me.

  “Well, I must’ve been overcome. I wanted to do what was best for the Tiffany. We need leadership in this time of crisis. I was only trying to help. After all,” she said, “I figured you’d be busy trying to catch Venus Lovemotion’s real killer. With you working to save me, it was the least I could do to try and keep up morale around here.”

  “Oh, give me a break!”

  Marla swallowed hard. “Forgive me, Sierra. We are so relieved to have you back. But surely you won’t be performing?”

  “Hide and watch, big girl, the show is about to go on.”

  I hadn’t been planning to dance, but Marla had called my bluff and who was I to run from a challenge?

  Seven

  Just before I went on I took a peek through the curtains, out into the house. I make a practice of eyeing the customers before I start into a routine, figuring who the big tippers are, who’s a regular, and who
’s new and needs a little special attention to feel comfortable. Tonight I had an added edge to my curiosity. I was looking to get a bead on Little Ricky so I could warm him up for the interrogation that would come later, and I was looking for the Italian Stallion.

  I found Little Ricky right away, in his usual spot two tables back, center. The Italian Stallion was harder to find. He didn’t sit where the regulars congregated, back by the bar. He wasn’t up front where the tourists and the businessmen sat. He was in a darkened corner booth, sitting so he could eye both the door and the stage.

  A man who watches his back and the door is a particular breed. He is either a cop or a man used to fighting his way out of a situation. I fingered him for the latter. He was too immaculately groomed to be a cop. His hands were manicured. He had slicked-back black hair, a gold nugget pinkie ring, and a familiar bulge under his suit jacket. This surprised me, as Bruno usually caught that sort of thing and kept it out of the club.

  I saw Marla crossing the floor to Little Ricky, accompanied by her entourage. Marla, fresh off her encounter with me, would be putting the spin on things so she came out the winner. She’d be talking long and loud about how the cops were looking to frame her, but I was going to do the right thing and set them straight. She’d probably tell them that my cop boyfriend was too dumb to know the truth when he heard it. Well, I couldn’t worry about that; I had a show to put on.

  I looked over at Rusty, the young redheaded stage manager, and gave him the nod. He signaled the disc jockey to cue the music and dimmed the lights. This was going to be some act to pull off.

  As the curtain began to rise, Rusty hit the button on the smoke machine. I limped out and took my place, waiting for the smoke to clear and the spot to hit me. I was dressed in a sheer white, gauze-layered gown, with my hair pinned up. I made sure that the pole was only a foot away, just in case my leg gave out at a crucial moment. True, my wound was superficial, with only a stitch or two required to close it, but it hurt like hell and I didn’t want to take any more chances than necessary.

  Sheryl Crow started singing “There Goes the Neighborhood” and I began to move with the music. It wasn’t as hard as I’d figured. I scanned the audience. Little Ricky was drooling, so I winked at him. The tourists were slowly wandering toward the runway, drinks in hand and dazed looks on their faces, just the way I like ’em.

  I ran my hands slowly down the length of my torso, licked my lips, and leaned back against the pole. I was the enchantress, the seductress of all their fantasies. I reached up and unhooked the front of my bikini top. It popped and I held it between my fingers. I controlled when it came off and it wasn’t going to until the wallets opened.

  When the first guy wandered to the edge of the runway and held out a twenty, I realized I had a problem: I couldn’t stoop down for him to stuff the money into my garter. There was a frozen moment as I locked eyes with him and smiled very slowly. Then I bent over from the waist, my 38 double D’s about to knock his eyes out, and said: “Go ahead, sweetie, reach up and stuff ’em where you think it’ll do the most good.”

  His eyes widened like I’d opened the floodgates to heaven, and with trembling fingers he stuffed the bill right into my tight cleavage. Bruno, sensing a fine walk with the law on public indecency, moved up behind the dazzled patron and led him away. I straightened, quickly took the twenty and stuffed it in my garter. Then, as the next awestruck customer moved up to make his deposit, I slid slowly back against the pole, using it for support as I toyed with my bikini top.

  “Slip it in my garter, sweetie, and I’ll give you a big surprise.”

  The man, pudgy and sweating in anticipation, stuffed his bill into my garter. With that, my bra fell away, and the customer started stammering, “Oh God, oh God!”

  I swung around the pole and moved off. Now the men couldn’t work fast enough to help me. I shrugged out of the white gauze, leaving it to fall behind me on the stage. I was wearing a thin white G-string, carefully embroidered with translucent sequins. Men squirmed in their seats as I slid my thumbs under the thin strings that crossed my hips. They rushed forward, stuffing bills in my garter.

  With one fast, painful move, I bent forward from the waist, pulling the pin from my hair and letting it fall down to brush the floor. There was a collective sigh as I straightened, pulled the tear-away on my G-string, and was enveloped in the thick smoke of the fog machine.

  Rusty dashed out onstage, accompanied by Gordon the doorman, and helped me off as the curtains closed behind us. The crowd was wild and the music loud as the next girl got ready to strut on and do her thing.

  “Tough act to follow, Sierra,” Rusty said.

  “Damn,” Gordon said, and sighed. “You’re the best. Can’t nobody top you!”

  “Well, you never know, Gordon,” I said. “The competition’s always breathing down my neck, wanting to topple me.”

  “Never!” he said.

  “No way!” cried Rusty.

  “Just let ’em try!” Gordon said. He was developing a crush. The new ones always did that with us dancers. I mean, after all, we create quite an aura. And unlike the strippers, we are not available for a quick tryout or bought for the price of a line of cocaine. No, we have mystique.

  “All right, fellas,” I said, shrugging into my purple silk kimono, “enough with the kind words. Thank you for helping me out.”

  “Well, I, for one, meant everything I said,” Gordon murmured.

  “Thank you, sweetie,” I said, stroking his fuzzy chin with my fingertips. I limped off to the dressing room, counting my money as I went. As new acts go, this one had certainly brought in the cash. Just goes to show, it ain’t always about how much you move, but more how simply you move. I was moving slow tonight, slow and savory.

  By the time I’d slipped into my naughty French maid outfit and walked the distance out into the house, the Italian Stallion had left. Charlotte saw me eyeing his table and walked over.

  “Didn’t tip me tonight, either!” she huffed. “Just sat there, nursing a B&B, and making notes on little index cards. I’d think he was ATF, but they tip.”

  “When did he leave?”

  Charlotte shifted her tray to one hip. “Right after you finished. He didn’t look happy, but then, I have yet to see that guy crack a smile.”

  Vincent came up and stood right behind her, like he was applying pressure on account of her not doing her job. Charlotte saw him, sniffed, and walked away, her nose in the air and a definite attitude brewing. I felt sorry for Bruno.

  “Sierra,” Vincent groused, “I’m personally grateful that you took it into your head to show up and perform, but really, you shouldn’t have worried. Barry Sanduski’s sending in another girl tomorrow to help out, another one of the circuit girls. You know, that was a brilliant idea of yours, having them visiting artists. I got Gordon outside right now, sticking her name up on the marquee.”

  We wandered outside the front door and looked up. Sure enough, there was Gordon, a panicked look on his face, teetering on Vincent’s old wooden ladder and sticking up big black letters: COMING TOMORROW NIGHT—FROSTY LICKS.

  I looked from Gordon to Vincent and frowned. “Hey, I don’t need no replacement. Venus was fine for a night. On occasion, a visiting artist has a place at the Tiffany, but don’t go getting ideas that it should be a regular occurrence.”

  Gordon looked down at us, a huge letter K slipping from his grasp. “Yeah, Sierra’s the queen of the Tiffany. One doesn’t send in a scullery maid to be queen for a day.” Gordon clearly missed his calling as a third-rate Shakespearean actor.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Vincent grumbled. Turning back to me, he started with his minor-league charm act. “Sierra, honey, sweetie, baby, it ain’t nothin’ to do with you. We need to pull them Atlanta tourists in here. They’ll come when they see a name they recognize. And the locals will get to see the big-town movie-star talent. See, babe, it’s pure financials.”

  “Vincent,” I said, “bite me. I know financial
s and I know when I’m getting squeezed. You go pulling porn stars in here to do what trained dancers do, and the quality of your life here at the Tiffany will disintegrate. Your dancers are what make the Tiffany. Circuit girls are all right every now and then, but they got no class and no talent. They’re a novelty act, like looking at a two-headed chicken. Your dancers—now, they’re your center-ring attraction.”

  Vincent’s jaw was twitching. Behind us, out on the strip, cars drove by, slowing down when they saw me in my French maid outfit and honking their horns.

  “See what I mean, Vincent? Quality. You mess with talent and it’ll bite you in the ass every time.”

  I spun around and limped off, fuming. Venus Lovemotion was one thing, but a parade of B-grade bubble brains was quite another. Vincent was bucking for trouble, I could just feel it.

  Eight

  I can never seem to get enough sleep. I got home, fell into bed, slept for what felt like seconds, and look what happened. Someone was pounding on my door again. I woke up to Fluffy’s shrill yapping. She was standing at the edge of the bed, doing her very best to ward off intruders. What was it with people? Did they not get it that I work nights? Why did all my visitors seem to invade my sanctuary in broad daylight? To further complicate matters, the phone started ringing.

  I grabbed it and my robe, forgetting about my impairment as I jumped out of bed and felt a sharp stab run up my leg.

  “Hello—ouch!”

  “Sierra.” Raydean’s hushed voice rasped over the phone line. “You got company and it don’t look like it appears.”

  “What?”

  Usually the Prolixin shot kicked in as soon as they gave it to her, but it didn’t sound like Raydean was too firmly grounded this morning.

  “Approach cautiously. Examine for bugs or other alien subterfuge. It don’t look right to me. Maybe it’s a bomb!” The line went dead as the pounding continued at the kitchen door.