Page 12

The sun was just beginning to set as I drove out of Wahredua. The first few miles felt like one long, extended heart attack. If he put me on leave again. Had Eddie Wheeler called and complained? Peterson hadn’t said anything about that, so maybe not. If he hadn’t, it was even worse. What had put me on Peterson’s radar? I’d slipped up before. Gotten careless. Forgotten. Do this, and do this, and do this, and everybody will still think you’re human. Darnell and that fucking sticker chart. But I’d showered. My clothes were presentable. Hell, I was drinking less.

Maybe, I considered, it really was what Peterson had said: he’d meant to say something about Tip earlier, that was all. I mean, Tip had gotten a face full of glass. He’d almost lost an eye. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

As I drove, the tightness in my ribcage eased. It was that time of year, the days still getting longer and longer, the evenings stretched out and golden. Once I left the city, I drove past fields and farms. The pastures were still a rich green, and the new corn was just breaking through the soil. The ground rolled here, the road cutting over and around and through limestone bluffs, and when I crested a rise, I could see for miles. The air was hazy with humidity, but the low, oblique light made it feel like I could pick out everything, every detail rendered with perfect clarity.

The Beaver Trap was like all the other little sex shops and strip joints that studded I-70: it had corrugated panels for walls and a sheet metal roof, and when it rained, it must have sounded like you were getting a lap dance inside a maraca. The building had been painted a dusty pink, but along the base, you could see where it had once been tan, the color of an off-brand Fleshlight. The parking lot was gravel, and a billboard near the highway depicted female silhouettes—although no woman, ever,had possessed that tits-to-hips ratio. The background of the sign was the same faded pink as the building, and in swooping black letters that someone had probably thought looked elegant, it said, THE BEAVER TRAP – GENTLEMEN’S CLUB – FREE ENTRY – FREE FOOD – GET LUCKY TONIGHT! If you ate at the Beaver Trap, I thought, you’d be lucky if all you took away from the evening was chlamydia of the stomach.

In true Missouri fashion, about two hundred yards past the Beaver Trap was another billboard. This one said REPENT AND BELIEVE – JESUS IS COMING SOON. Some wiseacre had struck through COMING with spray paint and, below it, corrected the spelling to CUMMING. Below was printed KINGDOM CITY BIBLE CHURCH, and then a big arrow pointed to another post-frame building down the highway that had, until about six months ago, been a discount flooring warehouse. You saw stuff like that all over the place out here.About twenty miles outside Jeff City, there was a big sign that said something about tolerance, and then some jackass had put up aConfederate flag next to it.

When I got out of the car, the sun was touching down between the trees, and the shadows raced past me so long and deep that it was almost night. Music pounded inside the building, the steady rhythm of the bass vibrating on blown speakers. A single door—steel, and looking more like a fire door than the entrance to a classy gentlemen’s club—had a small window reinforced with wire, and behind the glass hung a neon XXX sign.

I stepped into a vestibule. It was cramped—a coat rack, an umbrella holder, and one of those free newspaper stands had been crammed in there. The newspapers were all gone; I figured a lot of guys came for the reading material. Two doors led off the vestibule. One had a sign that had clearly been printed in a home office, and in black and white, it said bluntly, SEX SHOP. The door was glass, but blackout film made it impossible to see inside. You know, to preserve the innocence of youth. The other door didn’t have a sign. I guess they figured if you didn’t know why you were here, at this point, they couldn’t help you.

Inside, the thud of the music—and the buzz of the blown speaker—met me like a wall. It was a large, dark room, and I’d been right about the corrugated metal walls—I felt like I was standing inside a tin can with some asshole playing his boom box next to my ear. The stage took up one side of the room. At some point, the stage floor had been meant to look like a mirror, but they’d done it with some cheap application, apparently, because the reflective covering was chipped and peeling. A girl who might have been twenty, in nothing but a G-string, stood at the edge of the stage, leaning out to talk to a heavyset, bearded man who looked old enough to be her grandfather. From what I could pick up over the music, she was asking about his wife’s gout.

The bar—if you could still call it that—took up another large portion of the room. A few years back, the upstanding citizens of Missouri had finally scored a victory for morality, including new regulations for exotic dance parlors, strip joints, and your all-purpose titty bars. Among other things, these new regulations prohibited full nudity, the sale of alcohol, and touching—or even close proximity—between the dancers and the patrons. A lot of people thought that might kill off the industry, since the whole reason guys went to a place like the Beaver Trap was to see titties, get hammered, and hopefully have some fleeting moment of human contact. But it hadn’t. Behind the bar, neon signs for different beers hung dark and dusty, but the Beaver Trap was still open for business, and they even had a guy working the bar—white, in his thirties, his long dark hair slicked back and a silver chain glinting around his neck. He must have felt me watching him because he raised his head and caught my eye. The smell of pancake syrup and fried food made me glance around until I saw the buffet table set up under the red glow of warming lamps—fried chicken, it looked like, and French toast sticks. When I looked back, the guy behind the bar was still staring at me.

I made my way over to him. The music changed. Overhead, a disco ball began to spin. Snowflake light whirled and spun across the room. At one of the tables I passed, a man in overalls, who was tearing strips of meat off a chicken thigh with his teeth, wiped at the dancing flecks on his shirt until he realized what they were.

When I took a stool, the bartender gave me one of those sup nods. He was bigger than he’d looked—part of that had been the distance, and part of it was the fact that he was dressed all in black. Big arms. Big hands.

“Lola Wheeler,” I said.

He shrugged.

“Lola Wheeler,” I shouted over the music. “She dances here.”

He shook his head.

“I need to talk to her.”

“Don’t know her,” he shouted back. “Sorry, buddy.”

The twentysomething girl on the stage had climbed down and was sitting on Granddad’s lap now, riding him like he was a rented mule. Her tits bounced in his face. No pasties, I noticed. Strikes one and two for the Beaver Trap. Of course, this wasn’t my jurisdiction, and even if it had been, coming in here like a swinging dick probably wasn’t the right move. I wondered who was supposed to be regulating a place like this.

“Beer?” I called to the bartender.

“Bud, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra.”

“Bud Light,” I said.

He waited, so I dug out cash, and then he handed over the bottle. His fingers bumped mine, and it might have been an accident, but he looked me in the eye again, and I knew it wasn’t.

The beer was strike three.

I took out my badge. “You’re not supposed to be selling alcohol.”

His look turned sullen. He shrugged again.

“Lola Wheeler.”

After a long moment, he crossed the room to talk to a bouncer-type who was standing near the stage door. When he came back, he was giving me more looks. Wounded. Even a little pouty. It shouldn’t have looked good on a guy his size, but it was kind of working for him.

The music changed again. The guy in overalls went back to the buffet for the French toast sticks. The disco ball stopped spinning, and multicolored lights began to strobe and swivel across the stage. The girl finished her ride, and Granddad put on a pair of cheaters so he could count out her tip.

I didn’t spot Tip’s mom until she was halfway across the room, and it took me a moment to recognize her as the woman from the hospital. The Barbie hair was the same, although more teased and styled and sprayed. And those tiddies were definitely the same. But tonight, Lola Wheeler had given herself the works with the makeup—smoky eyes and contouring and all that shit—and she was wrapped up in a thing that probably wasn’t silk but I was sure she called a kimono. She could have passed for twenty years younger if you didn’t look at her neck or her hands.

She stopped next to my stool, her arms folded under her breasts, her chin raised. “What?” she said. And then she looked more closely at me and said, “I know you.”

“Hello, Mrs. Wheeler.”

“You’re the cop.”

“Detective Gray Dulac, Wahredua PD. I was hoping you had a few minutes to talk.” I glanced around. “Somewhere private.”

“I’m not on for twenty minutes. Can’t we just sit here?” Before I could argue, she plopped down on the stool next to me. In the process—by some massive coincidence—the kimono-type-thing rode up her thighs several inches, and also managed to come apart at the top, so that her breasts were about ninety percent exposed. She arched her back to make sure I had a good look and said, “Ricky, be a sweetheart and get me a Bud Light.”

Ricky the bartender gave me a dirty look.

“Don’t worry about him,” Lola said, and she laughed and put her hand on my leg. “He’s all bark, and I bet the only biting he does is real fun.” She had long nails, and she scratched my knee as she spoke.

Ricky gave her a Bud Light, did a little more pouting for my benefit, and then moved off down the bar. The guy who’d been ripping into that chicken thigh was beckoning to him. He needed a napkin, it looked like.

Lola took a sip of her beer. Her nails moved restlessly against my knee, and she watched me from under that smoky makeup.

“Mrs. Wheeler, I’m trying to find Tip. Do you have any idea where he is?”

The only sign of confusion was that her hand stopped moving for a moment. Then she said, “What do you mean?”

I filled her in.

When I finished, she reached into the kimono and took out a phone. She unlocked it, placed a call, and listened to what I guessed was a recorded message. Then she said, “This is your mother. Call me back right now.”

She set the phone on the bar and took a longer drink. Her eyes never left the phone. But Tip didn’t call back, and after a couple of minutes, the screen went black. She picked it up again and pecked out a message. She forgot all about my knee, thank God. This time, when the screen dimmed, she woke it again and sent a second message. And a third.

“Where is he?” she asked me. “What happened to him?”

“Tip didn’t mention anything to you about leaving town or taking a trip?”

“No!” She stretched across the bar. The kimono slid up to expose most of her ass and a pink polka-dot thong. One of the guys watching the show caught a glance and forgot all about the girl on stage. When Lola settled back into her seat, she was holding a pack of Marlboro Reds. She tapped one out with a practiced hand, lit up, and stared hard into the middle distance as she puffed.

“Smoking indoors is illegal,” I said. “As is the sale of alcohol at a strip club. As is the touching, the full nudity—”

She flicked a look at me, and all the playfulness flaked away. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Maybe I’m going to arrest you.”

With a disgusted look, she blew out a stream of smoke. “Tip wouldn’t have gone anywhere without telling me.”

I didn’t say anything.

“He wouldn’t! We tell each other everything!”

“You and Tip are close?”

“He’s my son. I’m his mother.”

“I understand Tip has disappeared before.”

The music changed again. A voice came scratchily over the speakers as someone announced, “You know what time it is: the Velvet Hour!” The lights changed to pink and purple, leaving deep pockets of shadow. I felt like I’d fallen inside Alice in Wonderland’s vagina.

In a low voice, she said, “That son of a bitch.”

“Has—”

“Eddie told you that? For fuck’s sake.” She took a long drag on the cigarette, and the ember brightened. “He’s his father,” she said, coughing on the words. “You think he’d have a little fucking compassion.”

“Did Tip tell you when he disappeared the last time?”

She didn’t answer at first. She smoked, giving me snake eyes. And then she leaned forward on the stool, grabbing at the kimono with one hand as it slipped again, the other hand drilling the cigarette toward me like she was emphasizing points in a list. “He was a child. He was hurt. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was still figuring himself out. When he came back, I told him I didn’t care who he wanted to fuck. His mother loved him, that’s all that mattered. After that, he knew he could tell me anything.”

The cigarette put a period at the end of that sentence, and her look dared me to contradict her.

“Tip’s lucky to have a mom like you,” I said.

She sank back onto the stool slowly, her gaze still wary, as she fixed the kimono again.

“What’s his relationship like with his father?”

“You talked to Eddie. What kind of relationship is he supposed to have with a sack of shit?”

“How does Eddie feel about Tip being gay?”

She gave a short, scornful laugh and took another drink of her beer. “You know, it actually brought us closer together? Tip and me, I mean. When he came out.” She turned the bottle in her hand. Something about the way she held it reminded me of her husband. “You never saw Tip before—before that happened to him, did you?”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

She shook her head. “He was beautiful. My God. So handsome. He came up here a few months ago. He did that sometimes, just to talk to me, so we could spend time together. He was wearing shorts, and Marla—she’s the woman who owns this place—she told himif he’d had tits, he could have made a fortune dancing. He didn’t stop smiling the rest of the day. But it’s his personality, too. He’s funny. He’s sweet. I remember one day, he was thirteen or fourteen, we were in Macy’s, and I’d sent him to look at shoes while I returned something.” She stopped. A wisp of smoke rose from the forgotten cigarette. “I saw him from the side. In profile, you know. And I thought, ‘Who is that man?’” Her voice thinned. “Do you know what every mother’s worst fear is?”

“My mom’s is sun damage.”

I could have said anything; she wasn’t listening. “Watching their son grow up, raising him, caring for him, loving him, only for some other woman to take him away. When Tip came out, Eddie lost his mind. He started shouting. He was saying the most awful things. I knew I needed to say something. But all I could think was ‘Thank God, thank God.’” She took a deep breath, put on a smile she must have kept in her front pocket, and slouched against the bar. She put her hand on my leg again, and then she drew it up my thigh, applying just enough pressure with her nails to scratch me through my trousers. “Just look at you. How pretty you are. I bet you broke your mother’s heart.”

I took her hand and moved it off my leg. The scratches on my legfelt hot. There were times when my mind played tricks on me. When I thought I could feel the scars on my face, feel each one throbbing like a pulse point.

She drew herself up, her mouth tight. And then she looked me over, relaxed into a smirk, and said, “Ah.”

“How has Tip been lately?” I asked. “His mood, I mean.”

She opened her mouth to answer. I saw her change whatever she’d been about to say. “He wouldn’t do that.”

I took a drink of my beer.

“He wouldn’t hurt himself.”

“Did he say that?”

“He would have told me. We tell each other everything. He tells me about the boys he meets. I told him—” She changed what she’d been about to say again. “I tell him everything too.”

“Has Tip said anything about problems in his life? Recent conflicts? Disagreements? Even something that might have sounded minor at the time.”

“No.”

“You mentioned his personal life. Has he told you about anyone he met recently who worried him? Maybe even made him afraid?”

Lola shook her head. “He’s hurt. He’s recovering. I keep telling him he needs to give himself some time before he gets back out there. He listens to me; he knows I’m right.”

“Mrs. Wheeler, I understand Tip was involved in an altercation here.”

Her grip loosened, and the cigarette drooped in her hand.

“Could you tell me about that?”

“That? That was months ago.”

“When?”

“April? March? March. He was on spring break. Butthat didn’t have—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“What happened?”

A sheen of pink and purple light made her eyes look like glass. “He came up here. He was angry. I told him not to, but it was like—it was like it had been with Eddie, at the end, before Tip moved out. When they were both crazy, couldn’t keep their hands off each other. He was only here a couple of months, that guy. He doesn’t even work here anymore. He didn’t like Tip shouting at Marla. Marla said Tip got in his face, and it wouldn’t have been so bad if Tip had kept his mouth shut.”

“Tip came here,” I said. “He was angry. He got in an argument with Marla. And he fought with one of the staff.”

“It was—Marla said Brock had a temper. His name was Brock. He hit one of the girls, too. That’s why Marla got rid of him.”

“Why did Tip come here?” I asked. “What did he argue with Marla about?”

She was still speaking in that tone of disbelief, still in those fragments, like she was putting together pieces of a puzzle. “A party. Marla hires us out for parties sometimes. The guy liked to use his hands. Marla made him pay extra, and he was always good for it. But Tip came by when I was doing laundry, and he saw the bruises.” She seemed to remember me. Her eyes were liquid behind the lights. “We tell each other everything.”

It happens like that sometimes when you’re working a case. Someone says one thing, and it’s like a key turning in a lock.

“What was his name?” I asked. My heart was suddenly beating too fast. Mixed in with the smell of pancake syrup and fried foods and flushed bodies and baby oil now came a hint of something too sweet, something artificially floral. The pink and purple lights swiveled, and a wave of vertigo washed over me. “The guy who likes to hit. What was his name?”

She was holding the cigarette so tightly now that she was almost pinching it in half. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. What was his name?”

“I don’t know!” But the fire went out of her in the next moment, and she slumped, the kimono sliding off one shoulder again. She caught it blindly, not looking at me. And then she said, “He told us to call him Sunny.”