R.T.’s uniform drew the attention of a squat hunched man with a battered fleshy face and false black hair, who slipped off the bar and waddled toward us. “Ain’t no cover this afternoon, gentlemen. You want a table close to the action?”
“There’s action?” I said. “Where?”
“We’re looking for a Derek Manley,” said R.T. “You seen him today?”
“Don’t know him. But I’m just a greeter here. Greetings. You want me to shake your hand, I will. You want me to get you a seat close enough to Wanda over there what you can smell her, I can do that too.”
“I can smell her from here,” I said.
“If Mr. Manley’s not around,” said R.T., “we’ll talk to Mr. Rothstein.”
“Rothstein?” The greeter scratched his head. “Don’t know him neither. Maybe he’s coming in for lunch.”
“Cut with the act,” I said, “and tell him he has visitors.”
“He ain’t in,” said the man. “He don’t come in much no more, what with his tax problems.”
“You mind if we go through there?” I said, pointing to an open doorway loosely shielded by a curtain of beads.
He held out his hand. “Patrons ain’t allowed in the back.”
“We’re not patrons,” said R.T., taking a paper out of the file, handing it to the greeter. “Step aside, pilgrim, we got a right to be here. We’re looking for a 2002 Cadillac Eldorado.”
The man laughed. “An Eldorado, huh? Well, if you want, you can look under them tables, behind the bar, wherever, but I don’t see no Eldorado. Who did you say you was again?”
“I’m a lawyer,” I said, pulling a card out of my pocket.
Without so much as a glance, he dropped it to the floor, ground it with his shoe.
“Nice manners,” I said. “In Japan they’d behead you for that. Just be advised I represent Jacopo Financing, which is owed a hundred thousand dollars by Derek Manley.”
“A hundred thousand dollars? That’s a lot of money. And you think it’s here? Hey, Wanda,” he called out to the girl on the stage.
She was bending over now, bending away from us, her legs straight, hands on her ankles, jiggling. With her head upside down between her knees she screeched, “What do you want?”
“This guy’s looking for some money. You got a hundred thousand dollars maybe stuffed in your top?”
Wanda straightened up, turned toward us, pulled her straps forward so she could look down. “I don’t think so,” she said, and then she lowered the straps so that her breasts tumbled out like two soft, red-eyed bunnies. “But my boyfriend says these are worth a million.”
“Can we seize those, R.T.?” I said.
“Sorry, Victor,” said R.T., shaking his head. “Appealing as it sounds, I don’t reckon we can.”
“That’s a shame,” I said. “According to Mr. Manley, he owns a third of this club.”
“I ain’t no corporate lawyer,” said the greeter, “so I can’t tell you who owns what. But there’s no car and the club’s worth squat. You ain’t going to find a dime. Sorry, gentlemen, but it looks like you wasted your time.”
Just then a dark-haired woman in a sheer robe and high heels stepped through the beaded curtain and came up to the greeter. With her hand on her hip and a strong accent she said, “We out of ice in back, Ike. Chou mind? And get the air conditioner fixed, why don’t chou?” The woman looked at us, gave us a smile as quick as a wink, spun around and walked back through the beads.
The greeter raised his eyebrows at us. “Bunch of spoiled brats, all of them.”
“Ike,” I said. “She called you Ike.”
“No she didn’t,” said the man.
“You’re Ike Rothstein.”
“No I’m not. I told you, I just work here.”
“You know what the penalty is for lying to a public official?” said R.T.
“Is that what you are?” said Rothstein. “A public official? I thought you was one of the Village People. Why don’t you both just park your asses here while I call my lawyer.”
He turned and disappeared through the curtain.
R.T., standing beside me, looked around the empty, dreary club. “You sure the car’s here?”
“My man says it’s here, so it’s here. Somewhere. Let’s go in the back.”
We headed toward the doorway where Rothstein had disappeared and pushed through the beaded curtain, walking smack into the woman with the sheer robe.
“What chou want?” she said.
“We’re looking for a car.”
“Not back here chou not. This is private. Does Ike know chou back here?”
“He told us to follow him.”
“Cherk.”
“Who, me?”
“Ike. He knows he’s not supposed to send no one back here. There’s rules. And what about the damn air conditioner. It’s been broke for two week. You can’t dance when it’s hot like this. Everything, it rides up.”
“Tell me about it. And the chafing.”
“Chou got that right.”
“Does a guy named Derek Manley, who owns part of the club, come here much?”
“Asshole.”
“Who, me?”
“Him. Manley. Every time he walk by he think he entitled to squeeze.”
“I guess he’s a hands-on owner. I’m looking for his car.”
“What are you, repo?”
“Of a sort.”
“Well, if it’s that asshole’s car chou looking for, there’s a bunch of locked up sheds in the back.”
“Keys?”
“Hanging in the office.”
“And the back door.”
“Through the office.”
“Thanks. You don’t happen to be Esmerelda, do you?”
“That’s me.”
“The Brazilian Firecracker.”
“Chou know my work?”
“Absolutely. By the way, nice shoes.”
“Really?”
It didn’t take long to find the office, a cheesy little place with thin wood paneling and a cat calendar. What kind of strip joint owner has a cat calendar hanging on his wall? Made me wonder what was hanging at the SPCA. Rothstein was on the phone and he stood up and waved his arms like a traffic cop when we entered, but we ignored him. I walked past Rothstein to the back door, popped a jumble of keys off a hook, tossed them once in my hand, and headed outside.
There was an alleyway behind the club with a bunch of sagging garage sheds on either side. Beth and the tow truck were there, waiting.
Rothstein followed us out. “I’m getting my lawyer on the phone,” he said. “He’s in a meeting right now.”
“You owe him money, right?” I said.
“How’d you know?”
“And you got tax problems?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then take my word, it’s going to be a long meeting.”
I stepped to the shed closest to the club, fiddled with the keys, found one finally that fit, turned the lock. I reached down and pulled up the door: a bunch of old tables, a couple of sagging, stained couches, dented metal beer kegs, a pile of trashed speakers, mops. I didn’t even want to imagine what the mops had mopped. I pulled the door closed.
I strode over to the shed next to the first and fiddled again with the keys. I reached down, pulled open the door: a busted-up motorcycle, cardboard boxes with water damage, four decrepit mattresses leaning one against the next. It was amazing how much junk people saved for that one time when they might just have four moldy guests who needed four moldy mattresses.
“The club rents these out,” said Rothstein. “We only use the first one you opened. There’s nothing in the rest but crap. It’s a nation of crap. You’re welcome to it, but it ain’t what the paper says you can take and it ain’t worth a hundred thousand dollars, no way no how. All together it ain’t worth six bucks.”
I turned another lock, reached down, pulled up another door: mannequins, naked mannequins piled high in the middle of the space, arms and legs in a strange geometric confusion like a plastic orgy without genitalia. And on the side, neatly stacked, dozens of boxes with advertising printed on their sides. I looked closer. VCRs. Camcorders. DVD players. Stereos. Computer monitors. Not so kosher, whatever it was, but not a clue who they belonged to and not a car. I yanked the door down. It slid closed with a roar.
I took two steps toward the next shed and stopped. Something Earl Dante had said sparked in my memory. Manley sent his trucks all over the northeast, said Dante, delivering to department stores. Department stores. And what do they have in department stores but mannequins and DVD players. It wouldn’t be out of character for Derek to boost what he could from the shipments. I turned back and lifted that door once again.