St. Agnes' Eve Read online

  She finished out her set with what might best be described as a barefoot and bare-assed clog dance. Her name was Cheryl. She ordered a split of champagne that cost me sixty dollars without the tip and said it tasted like “sody.” She lived in Dupo and worked at the Sphinx Lounge as a waitress three nights a week.

  “Got a car, hon?” Cheryl asked Diaz.

  “No, I hitchhiked.”

  “Lookin’ for a car date?”

  “How much you charge for a car date, Cheryl?” Diaz asked.

  “One at a time or both a yous together?”

  “Let’s say both of us. What’s your businessman’s special?”

  “Buy me a few drinks first, Mr. Businessman. Then maybe we’ll talk a little business. Monkey business, that is.” She winked at me.

  The three of us proceeded to get ripped. With every drink, Cheryl got better and better looking.

  Diaz switched over to bottle beer, trying to taper off. His car keys lay on the cabaret table between us. I waited for the beer to do its work before making my move, meantime talking trash with Cheryl. Twenty minutes later, Diaz left to go to the can.

  “How much do you charge for a car date, Cheryl?” I heard myself asking her. There was so much noise that I had to repeat myself, afraid the next table might overhear.

  Cheryl studied me warily. “You sure you’re a lawyer? I mean, your buddy’s a cop, and shit.”

  “Wanna see my bar card?”

  “I’d rather see a picture of Ben Franklin in my hand.”

  “I was thinking more General Grant.”

  “Meet me in the parking lot out back, big spender. Then we’ll see what you got.”

  I grabbed Diaz’s keys.

  I had no trouble finding Diaz’s cruiser. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the inside of a police car, but this one had a radio, computer console, and enough other equipment to make you claustrophobic just sitting there, let alone what I had in mind. The front seat was out. I keyed open the rear passenger door and held it for her. She looked behind her, then warily scanned the parking lot before climbing in. I followed eagerly. Somebody must have removed the inside door handle. Preoccupied, I pulled the door closed with my fingertips by the molding at the base of the window. It slammed shut like a cell door.

  “Ramses don’t want us girls messing out in the parking lot. Anybody asks, me and you smoked a joint, okay?”

  “Who is this Ramses?”

  “You got any weed on you?” Cheryl asked, ignoring my question. “I could get real friendly behind some jamokie-smoke right now, if you was to offer.”

  “Sorry. Fresh out.”

  She made a face. “We better get busy, then. You got something for me?”

  I began unzipping my fly. She said with contempt, “No. The way it works, first you slip me that fifty you promised.”

  I fumbled for my wallet. It was hard to get at in the close quarters of the back seat. My shoulder bumped against the bullet-proof plexiglas that blocked us off from the front.

  “Whyn’t you start the engine and turn on the heater?” Cheryl shivered, naked under her coat. “It’s freezing in here.”

  I checked my wallet. Thirty-five dollars and a coupon for Red Lobster. Frantic, I checked my door, then hers. No handles. No way out.

  I didn’t tell Cheryl about the locked doors right away. She got angry enough when she found out about the short money.

  “Say again? Thirty-five bucks? You bring me out here to freeze my ass off for thirty-five dollars? Goddamn fucking asshole!” When words failed her at last, she flailed wildly at me with her fists. One caught me on the bridge of the nose. My eyes blurred and teared.

  I’d never hit a woman before in my life. Instead of spoiling a perfect record, I leaned against her with all my weight, struggling to pin her against the door and at the same time trying to clamp my hands around her wrists—trying somehow to force them behind her back. She was a big woman with a lot of fight in her and I’d put it there. She had no reason to pull any punches.

  “I don’t want to fight you, Cheryl,” I said, my voice straining from exertion. “You hear me? I don’t want to fight you. Truth is, we’re locked in here.”

  She broke away with her right hand and clouted me in the center of my forehead. We both yelled “ow” in unison. She held her hand up and inspected the already reddened and swelling knuckle of her pinky just long enough for me to grab that wrist again, whip it behind her back, and jam it securely under the seat cushion where it couldn’t do me any more damage.

  “Now calm down,” I panted.

  Cheryl screamed “Rape!” loud as a police whistle inches from my ear. Frantic, I shoved her harder. Clamping my chin over the nape of her neck, I prayed she wouldn’t come up with the idea of turning her head and biting my ear off. I twisted her other arm behind her, wedging her left hand behind the seat cushion. My thumbs bore down on the pulse-points of both wrists. Soon her hands would be numb and useless. Finally, out of breath, she said, “Okay, okay.”

  “Are you going to behave yourself?” She closed her eyes and nodded rapidly. I eased my grip on her wrists.

  Cheryl looked up—her eyes darting back and forth like she was feeling around for something—and said, “Hold the fuckin’ phone.” She withdrew one hand, shaking the pins and needles out of it. Her other hand came out more gingerly, grasping the tip of something white from under the seat cushion of the cruiser.

  A joint about the size of a tampon. Some prisoner must have stashed it there after getting lucky in a haphazard pat-down. In Cheryl’s hands, it would never see inventory.

  “Got a match?” she asked. Cheryl deep-dragged on the joint. About thirty seconds later, she let out a hysterical, high-pitched laugh—like air squeaking out of an inflated balloon. She smoked the joint down to a tiny roach without another word, then wet her thumb and forefinger, extinguished it with a pinch, and ate it.

  We sat in sullen silence after that for what may have been an hour, watching the windows steam up from our breath. Finally she shifted in her seat. “I’m fittin’ to bust,” she griped. “Your buddy doesn’t get his ass out here soon with a search party, there’s gonna be a little accident. I’m gonna take a major goddamn leak right here in this car.”

  “Don’t let me stop you,” I said under my breath.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she sneered. “Yeah, I just bet you would, pervert.” She brightened. “Cost you thirty-five dollars and that there supper coupon for a box seat. And I do mean a box seat.”

  I figured if I waited much longer, I’d catch the show for free anyway, so I declined. It didn’t make her any happier.

  “I suppose you’re too stupid to bring my fucking cigarettes out here either, aren’t you? Probably left them lying on the table back inside along with your half a brain. Why do I always have to hook up with the dumbest shit in the club?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that one.

  “Matches but no cigarettes. God damn you to hell,” Cheryl muttered. She squatted down on the floor, straddled the hump, and with a heavy-lidded expression, let go.

  I jerked my legs and feet away from her bovine stream. The champagne had certainly lost its sparkle, but what it lacked in bouquet and effervescence, it more than made up for in volume. I thought it would never end, but after a jeroboam or so, it petered out. With remarkable celerity, Cheryl whipped the handkerchief from my breast pocket in a flourish, went between her legs, and sopped up the splashed-on excess.

  “You keep it,” I demurred after she had finished and offered the handkerchief back to me.

  “Whatever trips your trigger,” she shrugged, tossing it in a heap onto the saturated carpet. “Wanna play drop the hanky while we wait for your cop friend?”

  At the word cop, the door flung open on Cheryl’s side; she nearly rolled out of the car. I heard Diaz’s voice say, “Aw, cripe!” Steam still rose off the center hump in the back seat. Cheryl began bitching right away—how she was going to sue the county for false im
prisonment—until she caught the look on Diaz’s face.

  “Get the hell out of here,” he roared at her. “You’re lucky I don’t book you for possession. And public pissing. Hoosier bitch.” She ran, coat flapping, until she had nearly rounded the corner of the building. Then she broke into a self-possessed stroll and gave each of us a dismissive gesture with her middle finger upraised. Diaz, hands on hips, was too distracted with airing out the back seat to notice.

  “Can’t take you anywhere,” Diaz said. “How many times a week I gotta pull you outa cars in compromising circumstances? Hell, it ain’t even ten o’clock yet.”

  I crossed my arms, stared down at his spit-shine, and waited for the lecture. I didn’t have to wait long.

  “You want to know your problem, Counselor? You got no moral compass. You’re one of these guys thinks appearances are everything. It’s like a disease with you lawyers. Well, let me tell you something: Everything’s not always what it appears. Appearances can be deceiving. Now, you take this fat piece of trash—”

  “Nothing happened,” I protested like a schoolboy.

  “That’s not the point, though, is it? You wanted something to happen. What’d you do, run out of cash before it did?”

  My expression must have told him he was right. “That’s what it was, wasn’t it? I thought so. You were spending it like a drunken sailor in there tonight, no disrespect to the Navy.” He shook his head in amazement and looked up at the moon. “Don’t you know that places like this are look-but-don’t-touch? You wanna get Ramses Ware good and pissed at you, just do like you did tonight—make a disturbance with one of his girls right outside his club. That way you’re dissing him personally and fucking with his livelihood at the same time.”

  “Who’s Ramses Ware?”

  “The ruler of all you survey, Counselor. Raymond a.k.a. Ramses Ware. One dude you do not want to cross, trust me on that.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning borrow money from him sometime. Ramses does all his own collections. You think you got credit problems? The first time you come up short with Ramses, you really come up short. Rumor has it he’ll slice your cock clean off for collateral.”

  “Who told you I have credit problems?”

  “You’re not listening, Counselor. Don’t fuck with Ramses. That’s my point. He’s first generation gang-banger off the mean streets of East Saint Louis. You wanna sell ice in Saint Clair County, you gotta go to Ramses to okay the franchise. You wanna run whores? Same thing. Only Ramses is too damn smart to shit in his own mess kit. He wants all his customers inside drinking and buying rounds—paying for conversation and a little fantasy—not out here with the girls in customers’ cars to the point where he could get closed down. No, Ramses runs a strictly clean joint here. That’s why there’s all the off-duty cops here.” He gave a world-weary sigh. “You gonna behave yourself now?” It was the same question I’d posed to Cheryl.

  “If everything you say about this Ramses is true, why don’t you go arrest him?”

  He looked at me like I’d just asked him to dance. “Why don’t I go arrest him? Why don’t I go arrest you? You, I caught in fragrant delight. Twice, as a matter of fact. Ramses, on the other hand, nobody’s ever caught. It’s all what you lawyers like to call guess, speculation, and conjecture.” He laughed. “Come on back inside, Elliott Ness. We could both use a drink right about now.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Showboy

  When Diaz went to the can again, an East St. Louis geisha with spider dreadlocks sat down at our table, took my hand in hers, and chafed it, her fingers scaly as a lizard’s skin.

  “You up next?” I asked her. My mouth and tongue were getting in the way of my words.

  She nodded her head slowly. “Sure wish I could make me some money.” She caught me staring at her breasts and said, “You like these?” A metallic, nasal laugh. She rubbed my tab-signing hand like it was a magic lamp.

  I was about to ask her for her number when, over her shoulder, I saw an imposing black man seated ringside, wearing what could have been a twelve-hundred-dollar, athletic-cut blue suit. His shaved head gleamed in the dim, smoke-blue houselights. He wore wraparound shades and a buccaneer’s earring. His hands looked like they could crush a walnut or a throat with equal ease.

  My companion moved her business hand to my knee, rubbed it, and repeated, “Sure wish I could make me some money.” Diaz picked that exact moment to return.

  “Shine on outa here,” he told her. “Kwanzaa’s over.”

  “Who you callin’ a shine, motherfucker?” the woman snarled. Diaz flipped his badge flat on the table, not even looking at her. She dragged her chair loud enough to be heard over the music and taunt-walked slowly past the runway until she reached the bald man with the shades. She leaned and whispered something angry to him, jabbing an index finger back in our direction.

  The bald man never took his eyes off the stage. By way of an answer, he reached with proprietary familiarity between the woman’s thighs. I saw him seize and twist muscle like turning a doorknob. Her face contorted in silent agony, but she had to stand there and take it—and it lasted a while. Finally, he let go of her with a rough shove that sent her stumbling for a couple of steps. She managed to regain her balance as well as her sang-froid before disappearing into the crowd.

  “Who is that guy?” I asked Diaz, even though I knew the answer.

  “That, my friend, is Ramses Ware, and this is you coming on to whores in his club, which is one of the things I distinctly remember warning you not to do.”

  “How did I know she was a whore?” I said. It sounded weak and plaintive.

  He snorted. “Right. That was a tough call to make, what with her dressed like a secretary and going for your balls under the table and all. And what was that tribal styling gel she had in her hair? Cow flop? Smelled even worse.”

  I pulled at my drink. It was nearly two A.M. The invisible emcee introduced a new amateur named Juno. The slender young thing with the blond bob who’d come around and collected a ten in “jukebox” money from me was now onstage. She had dancer’s legs and knew how to use them. Diaz, perhaps bored with the parade of recycled cocktail waitresses, applauded and cheered above the crowd. Juno danced to a pop medley, really shaking everything. I thought Diaz was going to go nuts when Juno bent over toward our table—her smallish breasts tortured and teased upward by a ribbed bustier—carelessly giving us a generous glimpse of her nipples peeking out over lacy meringue. Two songs later she had discarded the thong and skirt. She jumped first one cheek of that beautiful bare ass, then the other. Diaz hooted for more. He took out his wallet and waved a bill at Juno.

  For the big finale, the cross-dressing twink spun around and displayed it all for Diaz’s benefit. Juno’s big cock looked like an oversized rubber chicken dangling an arm’s length from Diaz’s face.

  The roar of the crowd became laughter, derisive and jeering. Diaz, his head lolling back on the runway with a ten-spot folded lengthwise clamped between his teeth, sprang to attention at the sight of Juno’s meat swinging overhead. Juno laughed open-mouthed at him in at loud, testosterone-laced natural voice and gave Diaz a personalized pelvic thrust, a bump-and-grind that got the whole weight of his equipment spinning around in a circle. The crowd groaned like a surfeited vaudeville audience calling for the hook.

  Diaz grabbed his keys, shouted, “Fuck this,” and stalked out. I chased after him up the aisle; after all, he was my ride. But as we left, I caught sight of Ramses’ impassive visage turning slowly toward us—eyes hidden behind the shades—with an almost imperceptible smile as if to say, Gotcha, motherfucker! Then my alcohol-flooded synapses made the connection. The face hadn’t been the focus, but I’d seen that face before.

  Ramses had played the male lead in Sandra Pulls the Train.

  The moment I made the connection, Ramses seemed to nod, confirming everything I already knew as if by telepathy.

  It was cold in the car. Even after the heater kicke
d in, my teeth kept chattering like a gibbering death’s head.

  “Boy, some amateur night, huh?” Diaz was saying. “How do you like that fucking Ramses, though, playing me with a ringer like that? Guess I’ll be catching a ration of shit come Monday.”

  I fought the drunk-sick urgency to vomit.

  “I sure hope Janis don’t get wind of it, you know?” Diaz went on.

  “I won’t tell Janis anything,” I said, “as long as you don’t tell Diane.” I didn’t feel like laughing, but Diaz chortled and punched me playfully in the meat of the shoulder.

  “Yeah, that Janis,” he mused a moment later, “that’s one fine-lookin’ lady.”

  “No argument there.”

  “Wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers, know what I mean?”