Strip Search Read Free Page B

of the entry wasn’t only to illuminate the come-on shots; it was to keep exiting customers from being mugged, at least until they stepped off the club’s property. It was also a kind of barrier: the inside was almost black; anyone—customer, cop—had to pause a moment to let his eyes adjust and give the bouncers and B-girls a chance to look them over. Wager’s ears told him that the room was not very crowded tonight, and when his vision cleared, he could pick out empty chairs along the runway where customers sat and drank and watched. Of the faces he could see, most were young; but at least one gray head near the wall caught a remnant of pink light. Here it was, a half-hour before closing—one of the busiest times of the night—and the place was half-empty.
    Voices were muffled by the thudding crescendo of stereo music while, on the runway in a dim glow of red lights, a dancer writhed under the stroke of her hands and snapped her long hair back and forth whip-like across her torso. Her thumb edged under the narrow panties and began to slip them down one pale hip with a slow, pumping motion to show a corner of dark hair to a man who held a bill out and tucked it into the girl’s garter.
    Axton led Wager to the bar dotted with faces that seemed rubbery and smooth in the glow. As he stepped to the serving station to catch the eye of the bartender, a heavyset man in a sport coat materialized from the back and tapped his arm.
    “Not there, friend—that’s the waitresses’ stand.”
    Axton looked down at the bouncer. “Police. Where’s the manager?”
    Hesitating until Axton showed his badge, he said, “Come on, gentlemen.” His tongue had trouble with all those syllables, and it came out “gemmn.”
    He shoved through empty tables and chairs and past the end of the runway, where a man stared with a lax smile at the dancer who had now turned her back and was looking over her shoulder. The music’s volume was lowered. The other side of her panties inched down and she ran her tongue in circles over wet lips as her shiny hips ground in the glow.
    “Just a minute,” said the bouncer. “I’ll see if he’s in.” The man’s hairy knuckles rapped twice on the door and he opened it to peek in. Then he stepped back. “Go ahead, gemmn.”
    The manager was in his fifties and wore a Hawaiian-print sport shirt that bulged out over a stomach as tight and round as a bowling ball. Graying hair tufted above his ears; the rest of his head was shiny. He took off a pair of horn-rimmed bifocals as he stood in the dimly lit office and held out his hand. He had a wide smile and guarded eyes. “Police? What’s the problem, gentlemen?” He waved toward a wide couch that filled one wall. “Sit down. You want some coffee? A drink?”
    Wager folded his badge case; they remained standing. “Did Annette Sheldon work for you?”
    “Shelly?” The man’s baggy eyes blinked. “She’s been found?”
    “She’s a homicide victim,” Wager said.
    “Ah. Well, shit. Well, that’s really bad.”
    “She worked here, is that right?”
    “Yeah—a long time. Longer than me. … How’d it happen? Who did it?”
    “She was shot. We don’t have a suspect yet. What’s your name?” asked Wager.
    “You got to ask me like that? Like I’m a suspect?”
    “That’s not what we meant, sir,” said Max. “We need your name as her employer.”
    “Berg. David Berg.”
    “You’re the manager?”
    “Manager, owner, chief accountant—you name it. I don’t dance. That’s the only thing I don’t do around here.”
    Axton looked up from his notebook. “I thought Irv Sideman owned this place.”
    “He used to. He sold out to Jim Parmelee, what, a year ago. Parmelee couldn’t make it, and I bought it from him six months ago.” He ran a palm across his shiny head. “I should have waited another six months. Parmelee would have paid me to take it.”
    “How long did Mrs. Sheldon work here?”
    “She came when Sideman had the place, I