The Garden of Last Days (9 page)

“Meese?”

A finger pressed her arm, then pulled away. A short man stood there, the amber light of the stage on his face. Young, her age probably, with deep eyes, and he was smiling at her, nodding his head. She glanced over at Wendy’s regular but he’d forgotten her and she
looked down at this short foreigner, Greek or Italian, and leaned close. “Want a private?”

“Yes, yes.” An accent there, the smell of onions and cigarettes on his breath, and he was wearing a knockoff polo shirt and khakis. She led him through the tables to the VIP, walking fast to catch at least the last half of the number. She smiled at whoever looked up, though she hoped to nail this one for a double. The country singer’s voice sang on and on and over it came the crash of something. It was behind April and she knew what it was and didn’t want to take the time to see and maybe distract her customer, slow his momentum in following her, but in the blue light of the entry to the VIP, she turned and saw Lonnie standing with his back to the stage and the new girl, her legs together now, watching Scaggs and Larry T lift a man up off the floor, his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open.

She turned and led this foreign boy past the bar into the smells of cigar smoke and the dried glass rings on the tables of highballs and blender drinks and bottles of beer. She headed straight for an easy chair, Retro on the other side sitting on the cocktail table listening to her regular talk. Most of the other girls already had their tops off, dancing for their one-on-ones, running their hands over their hips, some turning around and bending over to watch the interruption on the main floor.

At the cocktail table in front of an empty easy chair, April let go of the man’s hand and smiled at him to have a seat, her hips already moving, her fingers on her blouse button.

“No, please.” He shook his head. He nodded in the direction of Little Andy in the corner. Andy hardly ever got off his stool, but right now he was standing there watching the other floor hosts carry the man out of the club.

“It’s all right. He sits there all the time. Have a seat.”

“No.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a thick roll of bills. He held it low in front of him like it was the answer to some kind of question she didn’t need to ask. His eyes passed over her body—her breasts, belly, and hips. “Please, Champagne.”

“The Champagne Room? You want to go to the Champagne?”

He nodded and peeled five hundreds off his roll, pressing two into her hand. Five and a half months at the Puma and only once had she gotten a high roller who wanted to go to the Champagne. She’d be off rotation and could stay back there as long as he wanted. Two hundred to her for just that one hour.

He was walking ahead of her with his cash toward Little Andy in his dark corner on his stool, and she had to follow him.

But Franny. First she had to go back. Check on her. He could wait five minutes, couldn’t he?

But he was handing the three hundred to Little Andy, who stood and held open the black velvet curtain, looking at her, waiting for her. The foreigner, too; he stood there looking eager, his head cocked to the side, his eyes two dark holes. He’d pick another, she knew that. Now was the time he wanted, and if she turned and walked away and made him wait, he’d want his money back to give to Retro or Wendy or Marianne, so she had to, her body already taking her there, her nightsmile too, Franny back behind the narrow walls in Tina’s office. It would only be for an hour anyway.

April stepped by the waiting foreigner and Little Andy. He smelled faintly like aftershave and bacon.

“You’re gonna tell Tina I’m off rotation, right?”

“Yep.” He let the heavy velvet drop behind her, the black-painted door in front of them, the red bulb above, her Champagne customer standing there with his intent eyes and fat roll of cash. She reached by him for the crystal knob and felt herself lift out of her body and back through the curtain to the bright dressing room and Tina’s TV-lit office, her daughter on the couch waiting for her. April there with her now. The two of them snuggled on a single cushion. Only Spring turning the knob and stepping into the Champagne now. Not April. Just Spring.

AT THE CORNER
of the Amazon Bar, Lonnie pressed a dampened bar napkin to the base knuckle of his right middle finger. Dolphins Cap had gone down so easily, but under that thick beard he must have a snaggletooth or maybe his mouth had been open. Nobody touched the girls. Not out in the open anyway. And even the big spenders didn’t get to do what Dolphins Cap did. Lean over the stage and brush his folded dollar along what this new dancer was showing, other men shouting him along, a brushfire that had to be tamped. And when Lonnie got there, the new one, this young skinny redhead with big breasts, didn’t know she could dance away from that, and she just lay there spreading herself open. Dolphins Cap saying
cunt
. Something else and
cunt
. At the apron in the stage light in front of them all, Lonnie tapped the new girl’s ankle and shook his head. At first she didn’t seem to know what he wanted, Dolphins Cap standing there with his dollar. But then she took in
Lonnie’s Puma T-shirt, and her fake smile fell away and she sat up. Dolphins Cap stepped back, his eyes on Lonnie now. He was squinting hard at him and was half a foot taller and much heavier, but it was the hollering customers behind him Lonnie needed to show something. One of them motioned with his arm for Lonnie to move out of the way.

Lonnie pointed at Dolphins Cap’s chest, then the door. He mouthed the word
go
, saw the wedge of pink light as the front curtain parted and Larry T came walking. Scaggs, too.

“Go.”

Dolphins Cap looked back down at the new girl, his silver belt buckle glinting in the stage light. The DJ had lowered the music some, but still the singer sang and Lonnie heard only that, saw the man’s lips beneath his whiskers say
cunt
as he wadded up his bill and flicked it in her direction and the jolt was almost always a surprise, a hard thrust into his shoulder, a sting in his hand, his arm just a conduit between the two as Dolphins Cap fell backward onto the table of the loud boys and it flipped their rum and Cokes, vodka shots, and half-empty beer bottles, their ashtray full of cigar stubs raining down onto Dolphins Cap, though he didn’t seem to notice or care; his eyes were closed and Lonnie watched Larry T and Scaggs haul him up and carry him out.

There were a few more chords left in the new girl’s song, but she was on her knees gathering the curled bills on the dusty stage around her, her breasts swaying heavily. Louis sent over two waitresses to clean up the mess and bring a free round to the young men with no drinks. Some stood to the side to make room for Larry T, Scaggs, and what they carried. A couple of them looked Lonnie up and down and when their eyes met his they looked away and Lonnie turned and waited for the new girl to leave the stage. She held her outfit under one arm. In the shifting light—pink and white now for the next act—she paused at the curtain and glanced at him. A strand of hair hung in her face, and she looked embarrassed, relieved, and a little scared. The DJ skipped the pause between numbers and cranked the system
higher, a lot of bass for “You’re as Cold as Ice,” Renée rushing out in her ice queen costume, her big fake breasts and white eyeliner. Nobody hollered out to her. It would take a few minutes for the party to get revved back up again the way it should, and Lonnie stepped by the loud boys, who were quiet now, sitting at their clean table.

His knuckle stung. He found himself thinking of bacteria and tetanus shots and what a strange night it was becoming. Earlier he’d known he’d have to confront Dolphins Cap again but not so soon, and as he dipped a new bar napkin into his ice water and pressed it back on his hand, he did what he often did after dropping one of them—he went over it in his mind, asking himself if he’d done it because he had to or just wanted to, and with this one it was both; he’d shut his filthy mouth for him; he’d shut up the table behind him too.

His heart was just beginning to slow back to normal. Out in the VIP the girls were doing a good night’s business, naked and half-naked bodies writhing in the dimmed lights at the easy chairs. Little Andy held open the curtain to the Champagne Room for Spring and a small man in a polo shirt. Lonnie watched them. Something began to tick deep behind his ribs. He looked away, saw Paco in the blue light of the VIP raise his Coke glass to him, his dark Asian face smiling wide. Lonnie nodded and scanned the main floor for more pockets. He’d have to keep his eye on the front entrance now. He opened and closed his hand. Sometimes, especially when they were as drunk as Dolphins Cap, he’d start to feel some remorse for hurting them but not much. The truth is, he enjoyed doing it. Maybe it was how other people felt swinging a bat and watching the baseball fly far out over the field, or with a basketball, springing off the court, flicking the wrist, and hearing the swish of net. For him, it was putting a bigger man to the ground, his chin and shoulders dropping as he pivoted off his back foot, his torso following through, his fist just the messenger boy.

Renée was swinging round and round on the pole. On her nipples she’d stuck white pasties with foot-long silver threads. Nobody did that anymore. Lonnie looked back at Little Andy sitting on his stool,
the curtain to the Champagne Room hanging still. He scanned the girls working the floor. Then he glanced back at Renée and for just a moment he watched her pasties sway and rotate and glitter. Spring was really no different from the rest of them, so why did it pain him to know she was alone in there with some little shit with cash to burn?

OUT HERE IT
was quiet. He could only hear the club noise when somebody walked in or out. He sat behind the wheel of his pickup, his wrist hot and swollen, and she kept saying she wanted to but she was obviously lying and that big motherfucker may have broken his goddamned arm.

He kept seeing Marianne’s face, those round blue eyes, her smile that at first tonight was warm and friendly like always. Then it got fake and she kept looking back for her bouncer when all he did was hold her goddamned hand. She’d let him hold it a bunch of times before, so why not now?

Nobody had to tell him. She’d been lying since day one, since his second week blowing a hundred bucks a night on just
her
. He knew. She didn’t want to hear his plan because she’d been lying all along. Never once meant it when she said she’d meet him somewhere else. Never once meant it when she said she liked him and thought he was
nice and nice-looking with nice manners when none of the others are ever that
nice
. She said she had to dance for them all, but he was the only one she’d like to sit down and talk to ’cause he was so nice, and oh yes, let’s go someplace
nice
sometime.

Lying piece of trash.

And so he wouldn’t let go of her. Couldn’t. Then he must’ve started to squeeze. But did she give a good god
damn
how much money he’d wasted on her? Money he’d
bled
for?
She
could just try sitting in the cab of an open CAT eight, nine hours a day—the mosquitoes and diesel exhaust, no Walkman allowed so he had nine hours of hearing nothing but vibrating steel and the moaning gears of the arm and bucket, the rattling of the engine pan and all the useless shit in his head: bad tunes from high school ten years ago, his wife’s nonstop whining as she lay there on the couch not doing a thing, her restraining order she thought could actually stop him from coming over whenever he goddamned
felt
like it. And little Cole. His baby Cole. Too young to even know his daddy’s gone when he’s good and well gone. Her idea, not his. Though he’ll get him someday. He’ll goddamn well pull up to his house in a thirty-five-ton CAT and
take
him, and that piece of paper won’t do shit to keep him from it either.

Working along and thinking like that, sometimes the CAT’s treads would sheer off on rock or a rusted chunk of iron from the old days when Florida was crawling with pirates and whores and Creole kings and naked slaves and everybody knew their place. Didn’t do shit without knowing the sword, always thinking of the sword and the man big enough for him to reach for it and goddamn use it.