that way. It felt cold and vast and empty. Like some kind of a
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factory. Without a press of bodies the music was louder and
tinnier than ever. There were whole expanses of vacant floor.
Whole acres. Hundreds of unoccupied chairs. There was only
one girl performing. She was on the main stage. She was bathed
in warm red light, but she looked cold and listless. I saw
Summer watching her. Saw her shudder. I had said: So what are
you going to do? Go work up at the strip club with Sin? Face to
face, it wasn’t a very appealing option.
‘Why are we here?’ she asked.
‘For the key to everything,’ I said. ‘My biggest mistake.’
‘Which was?’
‘Watch,’ I said.
I walked around to the dressing-room door. Knocked twice. A
girl I didn’t know opened up. She kept the door close to her
body and stuck her head around. Maybe she was naked.
‘I need to see Sin,’ I said.
‘She’s not here.’
‘She is,’ I said. ‘She’s got Christmas to pay for.’
‘She’s busy.’
‘Ten dollars,’ I said. ‘Ten dollars to talk. No touching.’
The girl disappeared and the door swung shut behind her. I
stood out of the way, so the first person Sin would see would be
Summer. We waited. And waited. Then the door opened up
again and Sin stepped out. She was in a tight sheath dress. It
was pink. It sparkled. She was tall on clear plastic heels. I
stepped behind her. Got between her and the dressing-room
door. She turned and saw me. Trapped.
‘Couple of questions,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’
She looked better than the last time I had seen her. The
bruises on her face were ten days old and were more or less
healed up. Her make-up was maybe a little thicker than before.
But that was the only sign of her troubles. Her eyes looked
vacant. I guessed she had just shot up. Right between her toes.
Whatever gets you through the night. ‘Ten dollars,’ she said.
‘Let’s sit,’! said.
We found a table far from a speaker. It was relatively quiet
there. I took a ten-spot out of my pocket and held it out. Didn’t
let go of it.
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‘You remember me?’I said.
She nodded.
‘Remember that night?’ I said.
She nodded again.
‘OK, here’s the thing. Who hit you?’
‘That soldier,’ she said. ‘The one you were talking to just
before.’
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TWENTY-ONE
I
KEPT TIGHT HOLD OF THE TEN-DOLLAR BILL AND TOOK HER THROUGH
it, step by step. She told us that after I slid her off my knee
she had gone around looking for girls to check with. She
had managed whispered conversations with most of them. But
none of them knew anything. None of them had any information
at all, either first-hand or second-hand. There were no rumours
going around. No stories about a co-worker having a problem in
the motel. She had checked back in the private room and heard
nothing there either. Then she had gone to the dressing room.
There was nobody in there. Business was good. Everybody else
was either up on the stage or across the street. She knew she
should have kept on asking. But there was no gossip. She felt
sure someone would have heard something, if anything bad had
actually happened. So she figured she would just give up on it
and blow me off. Then the soldier I had been talking to stepped
into the dressing room. She gave us a pretty good description
of Carbone. Like most hookers she had trained herself to
remember faces. Repeat customers like to be recognized. It
makes them feel special. Makes them tip better. She told us
Carbone had warned her not to tell any MP anything. She put
emphasis in her voice, echoing his own from ten days before.
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Any MP anything. Then to make sure she took him seriously he
had slapped her twice, hard, fast, forehand, backhand. She had
been stunned by the blows. She hadn’t seen them coming. She
sounded impressed by them. It was like she was ranking them
against other blows she had received. Like a connoisseur. And