Just inside the door, I paid the five-dollar cover charge and had the back of my hand stamped in purple with a USD A designation of “choice.” The Meat Locker looked like it had been designed originally for industrial purposes and converted to commercial use without much concession to aesthetics. The room was cavernous and drab, with a concrete floor and metal beams showing high up in the shadowy reaches of the ceiling. A nineteen-foot bar ran along the wall to the right, packed three deep with guys whose faces looked like they belonged on the post office wall. The place smelled of beer and cigarette smoke, corn tortillas fried in lard, with an occasional whiff of dope wafting through the side door from the alleyway. All the houselights were blue. There was a live band, five guys who looked like junior high school thugs and sounded like they should still be practicing in someone’s garage. The music was a raunchy blend of thumping bass, pulsing synthesizers, relentlessly repeated chords, and lyrics that were vile if you managed to discern the words above the piercing electronic howls. The dance floor was a portable wooden pallet, maybe twenty feet on a side, jammed with bouncing bodies, faces lathered in sweat. This was where the C – singles came to hunt. There were no yuppies, no preppies, no slumming execs, no middle-class, white-bread college types. This was a hard-core pickup place for bikers and hamburger hookers, who’d screw anyone for a meal. Bar fights and knifings were taken as a matter of course, uniformed beat cops strolling through so often they were assumed to be customers. The noise level was intolerable, punctuated by an intermittent bam! and bursts of raucous laughter. The bar was famous for a drink called a “slammer”: tequila and 7-Up in an old-fashioned glass. When the drink was served, a cloth napkin was placed across the mouth of the glass, which was then slammed down on a wooden board the waitress carried. The blow forced the tequila and 7-Up together in a high-test infusion, which the patron was expected to toss down in one gulp. Usually the limit was two slammers per customer. After two, most women had to be helped, toes dragging, to the car. After three, men had the urge to break wooden chairs or bash a hand through glass.
As I inched my way across the bar, I murmured, “Pardon me,”, “Excuse me,” and “Oops, sorry,” as I progressed, sensing an occasional anonymous hand on my ass. I found an unoccupied spot and claimed temporary ownership, leaning against the wall like everybody else. I ordered a beer from a passing barmaid who was decked out in an orange Day-Glo leotard that was cut straight up her crack in the rear. Her buns were hanging out like water-filled balloons. There was no place to sit, so I stood where I was, wedged in against a beam, while I surveyed the crowd.
I spotted Bibianna on the dance floor, undulating with remarkable energy and grace to some grinding sex tune. Men’s eyes seemed to follow every shimmy, every bump. The blue lights reacted with the olive tones of her skin to create an unearthly radiance that emphasized the smooth oval of her face above the bulging breasts in the low-cut chemise. The dress seemed to glow more purple than red, pulled taut across the flat belly, slim hips, and trim thighs. When the music ended, she gave her dark hair a toss and moved away from the dance floor without a backward glance. Her partner, visibly winded, looked after her with admiration.
She began to make the rounds. She was apparently well known, pausing to exchange laughing comments with a number of guys. I made myself conspicuous, pretending to be oblivious when, by my calculations, her path would soon be intersecting mine. Foiled. Before she reached me, she changed directions, and I could see her inching toward the short corridor where the restrooms were located. I headed in that direction, risking rude remarks as I pushed my way through.
By the time I reached the ladies’ room, she had entered one of the stalls. I stood at the mirror, fussing with my topknot until the toilet flushed and Bibianna emerged. She moved to the sink beside mine, glancing at me idly in the mirror. I sensed more than saw the little jolt of recognition. She said, “Hey.”
I gave her a blank look.
“Didn’t you stop by this afternoon to ask about my place?”
I looked over at her politely and then allowed myself the same double take. “Oh, hi! I didn’t realize it was you. What a coincidence. That’s amazing. How are you?”
“I’m fine. How’d the house hunting go? Did you find anything?”
I made a face. “Not really. I got a line on an apartment about a block away from yours, but it isn’t half as nice.” Bibianna took out her lipstick. She applied an arc of red to her lower lip, rubbing it against the upper lip until the color had spread uniformly across her mouth. I made a few little gestures of my own, imitating hers.
She capped the lipstick. “You ever been here before?”
I shrugged. “Couple of times. Before this new management. It’s kind of unnerving, isn’t it? I don’t appreciate guys grabbing my butt every time I make a move.”
She studied me briefly. “Depends on what you’re used to, I guess. Doesn’t bother me.” She turned her attention from my reflection to hers, leaning forward to adjust the wisps of hair around her face. She checked her eye makeup for flaws, staring at herself gravely before she glanced back at me. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but that hair and the getup are completely wrong.”
“They are?” I looked down at myself, a feeling of despair washing over me. What is it about me that invites this kind of comment? Here I think of myself as a kick-ass private eye when other people apparently see me as a waif in need of mothering.
“Mind if I make a suggestion?” she asked.
“Fine with me,” I said.
The next thing I knew, she’d whipped the rubber band out of my hair. She reached in her purse and took out some kind of bottled hair snot which she rubbed between her palms and then massaged through my hair. I felt like a dog being groomed, but I liked the effect. My tresses looked faintly wet now with just the suggestion of curl. The two of us checked my reflection in the mirror.
Bibianna’s mouth pulled down judiciously. “Better,” she said. “You got a scarf on you anywhere?”
I shook my head.
“Let me see what I got.” She began to root around in her handbag, pulling out a joint in the process. “You want a smoke?” she asked idly.
I shook my head. “I already toked up out in the parking lot before I came in.”
She tucked the dope away without further comment, intent on her search through the various compartments of her voluminous bag. “Here we go. How’s this?” She pulled up a square of lime green silk and then made a face. “Eh, no good. Color’s not right for you. Dump the earrings. That’ll help.”
How do women know these things? More important, how come I don’t? I removed the gaudy baubles from my ears and massaged my lobes with relief.
Meanwhile, she’d managed to unearth a second scarf, this one hot pink. She held it near my face, squinting at it critically. I thought she was going to make me dampen it with spit so she could wash my face, but she did some kind of tricky fold and tied the thing around my neck. Immediately, my color seemed to improve.
“That looks great. Now what?”
“You come on with me. I’ll keep the worst of these shitheads away from you.”
6
I FOLLOWED HER into the crowd like a rookie soldier into battle. Male eyes surveyed us from head to toe, grading us according to the size of our tits, how much butt we had hanging out, and how available we seemed. Bibianna netted a lot of mouth noises, a hand gesture, and some disgusting propositions which she seemed to find amusing, tossing casual insults at the guys most vocal in their appreciation. She was easygoing, good-natured, with a quick, infectious laugh.
The music started up again and she began to dance as she walked, snapping her fingers, working her way through the crowd with an occasional crotch-activating bump and grind. She was scanning faces and I wondered who she was looking for. It didn’t take long to find out. Her animation kicked up a notch, like the sudden surge in electric current preceding a blackout. Her body seemed to suffuse with a palpable heat.
“Stick around,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
A blond guy separated himself from the pack of studs at the bar. He was curly haired, with wire-rimmed glasses, a mustache, strong chin, a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth. I found myself making note of his physical characteristics like a beat cop on patrol at the sight of a suspect. I knew the guy. He was of medium height, broad shoulders, narrow hips, dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting black Polo shut with short sleeves pushed up by well-developed biceps. Tate. Crazy Jimmy. How many years had it been since I’d seen him? He looked at Bibianna possessively, his thumbs tucked into his belt loops so that his hands seemed to bracket the bulge in the front of his pants. His manner was tempered with self-mocking, an irresistible blend of humor and awareness. I watched, as he moved in her direction, already engaging her in some kind of wordless foreplay. No one else seemed to be aware of them. They approached the dance floor from adjacent sides, meeting somewhere in the middle as if every move were choreographed. This was mating behavior.