Inside the atmosphere is buzzing with anticipation. The lights are low and Mike and his guys are seated in a little semicircle in front of a makeshift stage with a screen rigged behind it. I can tell Mike is all amped up by the way he’s slapping his thighs and if the lights were any lower I swear he’d have his dick out. I need to get my spiel in now or I could be here all day.
“Mr. Madden. Hey, Mike, we need to talk.”
Mike barely spares me a glance. “Yeah, McEvoy. Gimme a minute, laddie. Maybe two. Sit your ass down.”
I seriously consider going operational right there. Technically I’m unarmed, but I can do a lot of damage without a gun. And these buckhawks virtually got their tongues hanging out for Christ’s sake. I could make a decent amount of bones go crack before Mike knew what was happening.
Attractive as this idea is, it would be suicide. They can take a dozen casualties, I can only take one. So I sit my ass down and run through the speech I gotta make to this bunch o’ perverts.
Mike’s number two, Calvin, hops up on the stage and pats the air for silence.
“Okay, guys. Mr. Madden. I got something a little different here but give it a chance. This gal is a money machine.”
“She better be,” says Mike, tugging the crotch of his trousers. “The last gal you brought in danced like she was being electrocuted. I was paying that donkey money to keep her clothes on.”
Everyone laughs, but it is good-humored stuff. Mike does not seem to be suffering any negative aftereffects from the shootings at his home. Why would he? He’s alive and several grand richer, all for the price of two windows that probably needed replacing with bulletproof panes anyway. And today is another day in paradise for Mike: ogle a dancer, take a few minutes in the back room, shoot me in the face.
It’s all good.
A girl steps from behind a curtain and mounts the stage. She’s something, no doubt about it: long gymnast’s legs, shimmering belly-dancing rigout and a face too pretty for these animals.
“Okay, Cal,” says Mike. “She’s a looker, I’ll give you that, laddie. But I got plenty of lookers.”
“Wait, Mr. Madden, you need the light show for the full effect.”
Calvin hops down from the stage and taps a few keys on his laptop. Psychedelic spirals swirl on the screen and one of Sadé’s better pop jazz classics fills the room.
Sadé. There ain’t a hetero alive who doesn’t drift off into a soft-focus scenario when that lady sings.
The girl’s movements match the mood perfectly. None of the usual bump and grind, this dancer is all about the slow seduction. Her arms do something a little Indian and her pelvis moves like there’s a coupla extra joints in there.
It’s very distracting.
Calvin knows he’s brought in a winner.
“I told you she was a mover, Mr. Madden,” he says.
Here we go. Three two one . . .
“I got something moving right here, laddie,” says Mike, right on cue, then: “Come on, darlin’, enough of the tease, let’s see the merchandise.”
The dancer undulates down from the stage like a human Slinky. She knows who butters the bread around here and zeroes in on Mike like he’s some kind of demi-god. She’s got eyes on her too, big brown numbers that could fool a guy into believing that this ain’t a professional relationship. Just like every man Jack in the room, I forget all my troubles and I know in my heart of hearts that if this girl asked me to leave with her right now I would give it serious consideration.
I never understood the Salomé thing until this instant.
The dancer is up on Mike and he’s trying to play it casual like this kind of thing happens every day. I notice Calvin is a little jittery, like he’s nervous about something, and then I notice something else. There ain’t nobody without an Adam’s apple in this room.
Holy shit. Brave move, Calvin.
I lean forward in my seat and wait for the explosion.
The dancer shucks off her sequined top and there ain’t any boobs underneath. The gal is a guy and I think Calvin may have overestimated his boss’s tolerance levels.
It takes Irish Mike a moment to get it, but when he does his reaction is comical. Mike executes a move that I can only describe as a reverse lunge, which I would not even have believed was possible for a portly geezer had I not seen it with my own eyes. He pulls out his gun and waggles it a little, giving genuine thought to killing everyone in the room.
“It’s a male . . . guy,” he finally blurts.
I cannot stop myself and I know Zeb would be proud. “A mail guy? Like a postman?”
Mike swings his gun toward Calvin, who may be the favorite but he’s overstepped the mark this time.
“What kind of crying, Brokeback, queen-of-the-birdcage bullshit is this, Calvin?”
“I thought you knew right off, Mr. Madden,” says Calvin and I swear he executes a craven little bow.
Mike breathes through his nose furiously, reining himself in. “Yeah, I knew. ’Course I knew. Who wouldn’t know? I screwed enough broads to know when someone ain’t a broad.”
“Yeah. Of course. You’re like a broad guru, Mr. Madden.”
No one kisses ass less subtly than Calvin, but Mike’s been getting his ass kissed for so long that he can’t see the truth anymore.
“That’s right. A broad guru. You ask any woman in this town.” He sneaks a glance at the dancer, who is huddling behind Calvin.
“People pay for this?”
“Are you kidding? Big money. Mona was pulling in five grand in the Corral. Five grand per week.”
Money talks as they say. “Five grand? In one week.”
“Six days to be precise. She’s off on Wednesdays.”
> Mike snorts. “She’s a he is what she is. And she’s on seven days from now on. Get her started in the Parlor tonight.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Madden. She’s grateful for the chance.”
Mike frowns, which he does when he’s thinking. “Yeah, but put up a sign or something. You know, some of the clientele ain’t as perceptive as me. I don’t want any of our counselors getting a heart attack.”
Calvin is open to all suggestions. “Yeah, a sign. Saying ladyboy or something like that.”
“How about mailman?” I say innocently.
Mike’s brain is grinding through his options here, eventually he arrives at the conclusion that finding the whole episode hilarious is the best move for him.
“Mailman,” he says, slapping the thigh that was recently adjacent to a visible erection. “That’s a good one. You crack me up, laddie.” He drops Calvin a loaded wink that says it’s time for serious business, and his number two hustles Mona out the side door.
“I like to make people laugh,” I say. “When I get the opera-toonity.”
Mike squints. “Hey, watch your mouth. Just cause we’re laughing don’t mean I’ve gone soft.”
Please Jesus, shut my stupid coping-mechanism mouth.
Mike sits up straight, composing himself for the serious speech. Enough joking around with the strippers, etc.
“You signed your death warrant last night, laddie,” he says, getting straight to it.
I reckon it was signed long before then, maybe I hurried on the execution a little, but I recently got beat on with a dildo so my judgment is a little out of whack.
Also I got a card to play. The Tommy video.
“Okay, Mike. Why don’t you give me a chance to make my case?”
“You nervous, Danny?” Mike asks, rolling an empty whiskey glass on the table. It click-clacks on each facet, which is really annoying and I have to grind my teeth to stop myself slapping Mike’s hand.