Death of a Showgirl Read Free Page B

back of the queue.
    It took almost an hour to get in. Two bouncers with transparent plastic earpieces and microphones on the lapels of their jackets clearly enjoyed their power. They unhooked a thick red rope occasionally to let a couple of people in and then hooked it back up for another ten minutes, ignoring the impatient punters. Both had shaved heads like blond sandpaper.
    When I finally got to the front of the queue the two men looked at me with obvious disdain.
    ‘You sure you’re in the right place?’ one of them asked.
    ‘This is Oro, right?’
    He nodded as if it were obvious. The back of his neck created rolls like thick sausages as he rocked his head back and forth.
    ‘Then I’m in the right place.’
    ‘Right place, wrong clothes,’ he said. ‘We can’t let you in dressed like that.’
    I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my badge. It was a licence to practise as a private detective. I put a couple of Biondi’s notes underneath it and passed it over.
    ‘I’m looking for a girl,’ I said as he pocketed the notes and passed back the badge.
    ‘Aren’t we all?’ He smiled.
    ‘Have you seen this one? She’s called Simona.’
    He took the snap out of my hand and shook his head.
    ‘You?’ I said to his uninterested colleague. He reached over, took the snap, and passed it back. He clicked his tongue and put his head to one side as he lifted the twisted red rope and let me in.
    As soon as I went through the double doors the temperature and volume soared. People were checking in their coats and their modesty in a booth to the right. As I went through the next set of doors the music became deafening. I could feel it booming inside my ribcage as I watched random limbs illuminated by strobe lighting. Most of the dancers had their hands in the air and all those arms looked like waving underwater seaweed.
    The girls were dressed for the beach: bikinis with mini sarongs wrapped round their waists. Some had exotic headgear on: feathers or sombreros. One or two of the men had taken their tops off and everywhere I looked I could see skin dripping with oil or sweat. There were vertical poles on plinths where various women were cavorting, wrapping their thighs around the golden metal and grinding to the music.
    I tried to ask a couple of people if they recognised the photograph but no one could hear what I was saying. I showed it to one girl who put her hands straight in the air and danced around me until her elbows were on my shoulders. She moved her arms backwards and forwards so that her bosom bounced against my midriff. I stood there motionless as she started to move up and down me. She shouted something in my ear but I couldn’t understand what she was saying. She turned round, dancing away from me while looking over her shoulder. The few people managing to make conversation were having to shout into each other’s ears so that they almost ended up embracing, touching each other’s bodies to balance themselves.
    There was a slightly quieter side-room behind the pulsating dance floor where people were lounging around on sofas. Behind them a scratchy film of some urban underpass was being projected onto the wall. There was a couple making out on an armchair, their hands exploring each other’s bodies. Everyone seemed to be holding small plastic bottles of water.
    I sat down on a bar stool and watched the strange film being projected onto the opposite wall. The underpass was in shade, but the light beyond it was so bright that the edges of the overhead road were blurred, like the camera was deliberately overexposing. I guessed it was LA or somewhere in California. Nothing much happened. Occasionally some rubbish was thrown from above, or an animal wandered into view trying to find food amongst the detritus. It seemed pointless, but maybe that was the point.
    ‘May I?’ a voice said to my right.
    I looked over and a young girl was standing there asking if she could sit next to me. I gestured to say