She spotted Greer immediately, but she wasn’t done working the geek yet. She held his hand that extra split second, like she just couldn’t bear to let go, then smiled and sauntered away, letting him work himself up for another lap dance later.
“Hi,” she said to Greer, sliding onto the stool next to his. “If you’re looking for Stan, he’s not here.”
“Why would I be looking for Stan when you’re right here?”
She raised a finger to Zeke, who brought her that green drink she favored. “Why’s he so mad at you, anyway?”
“He’s mad at me?” Greer asked.
“You cheat him?”
Greer wondered just how much she knew about their past activities — most notably, the home burglaries her boyfriend had helped set up. Knowing how bright Sadowski was, probably everything. But then Greer could kick himself for ever having told him about the zoo on al-Kalli’s estate; that wasn’t very bright, either. Yeah, he’d sort of been in shock when he first saw it, but that was no excuse. Information was power; never share it unless you have to. Greer knew that he needed to start following his own advice more closely.
“What is that stuff, anyway?” he asked, just to change the subject.
She took the glass away from her lips. “Crème de men-the,” she said. Her lips were still frosted with it. “Want a taste?”
Greer didn’t move, but Ginger leaned in and brushed his lips with her own. He’d tasted it once before, and that time, too, it had been on her lips. It was the last time she’d given him a lap dance. Maybe she remembered, too. Maybe that’s why she’d just done it again.
“Zeke tells me Stan’s got something big going down.”
She made a fake frown, balled up a wet cocktail napkin, and tossed it at Zeke, who was standing down the bar.
“What’d I do?” he said.
“Tattletale.” But she didn’t look as though she really cared. “All I know is, he’s too busy to pick me up after work anymore. He’s too busy to fix the muffler on my car — he’s been saying he’ll do it for me all month. He comes over to my place at around four in the morning most nights, expects me to service him — I told him, there are plenty of girls out there who get paid for that — and he stinks.” She made a face and said, “Phew!”
“He’s been working out at a gym?”
“He’s been working out his trigger finger.” She sipped from her drink while scanning the two new customers who had just let a bolt of late-day sunlight stream into the club. One of them was black; Greer wondered if she’d still risk violating Sadowski’s code and give the guy a lap dance. “All his clothes,” she went on, idly, “smell like gunpowder and that other stuff — what is it?”
“You mean cordite?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Just hunting wouldn’t do that. A couple of shots popped off in the great outdoors was nothing. If your clothes reeked of smoke and cordite, then you had to be in a firing range. And Greer knew which one it would be.
“I told him,” Ginger said, “that a bunch of my girl-friends were going to Las Vegas for the Fourth of July weekend and I told him we should go, too. Elton John’s doing a show there, and I was thinking of using some of his songs in my act; it would be really great for me professionally.”
Greer had to remind himself that Ginger did not consider herself a stripper: she was a dancer and performance artist (who just happened to take off most of her clothes). “You want to go to Vegas,” Greer said, “I’ll take you to Vegas.” What might yank Sadowski’s crank more than that?
“You will?” Ginger said, quickly calculating all the angles. “This weekend?”
“That’s a little short notice.”
“But that’s when Elton John’s going to be there. And Stan said there was no way he could go this weekend. The Sons of Liberty — I call ’em the Sons of Bitches,” she said, with a laugh, “but he hates that. Anyway, he says the Sons of Liberty are staging their big operation, whatever that means. I asked if he meant a circle jerk, and he almost took a swing at me.” She got serious. “I told him, if he ever did hit me, that was it. I’ve been hit before, and I never wait around for the second punch.”
The two new customers had taken a table by the runway and were waiting for the next dancer to come out. Greer could see that Ginger was sizing them up and anxious to get back into action.
“Am I keeping you?”
“Huh?” She turned her face to him. “Oh, yeah, well, the manager gets pissed at me if I sit around too long.”
Greer knew what she was getting at.
“You want to go back to the Blue Room?” she asked with a sly smile. “I could give you my pre-Vegas special.”
“Save it for the Bellagio,” he said, sliding off his stool and giving his left leg that extra second or two to kick back into gear. “I’ve got to be somewhere.”
The Liberty Firing Range. Suddenly he had an overwhelming urge to do some target practice.
“You mean it about Las Vegas?” she said. “Because Stan and me, we’re not exactly married, if you know what I’m saying.”
Greer had to think about it for a moment but then he realized that, yes, he was serious. “Yeah. Let’s do it in a couple of weeks.”
“But what about Elton John?”
“He can come, too,” Greer said, grazing her cheek with one finger and then heading for the door. He tried his best not to limp; he always hated the thought that somebody would be watching him walk away and thinking about his damn limp.
On the way to the Liberty Range, he had to stop and get gas. He never could do that without thinking about Iraq — about the towering oil derricks and the burning oil fields. Twenty dollars. Twenty-five. Thirty. The pump just kept on ringing. Christ, what was the point of going over there if they didn’t just take all the goddamn oil that they wanted? The army should have just come in and put up a nice big—very big — electrified fence around all the drilling and processing plants, and left a battalion of soldiers to guard each one. Who cared what happened to the rest of the country? The Iraqis didn’t seem to give a shit, and they sure as hell didn’t want the Americans around anymore. Greer never could understand exactly what the point of that whole exercise had been, and when his leg acted up, as it was doing now, he understood even less.
Going to the firing range wasn’t exactly as easy, or as safe, as heading into neutral territory like the Bayou. Here, if he found Sadowski, he’d find him armed, and surrounded by his fellow Sons of Liberty. One thing made sense now that Greer thought about it — if you’re a Son of Liberty, wouldn’t the Fourth of July be the perfect time to pull off your grand patriotic demonstration?
In the parking lot, he wasn’t sure if he could spot Sadowski’s car — there were half a dozen black SUVs, some Harleys, and a new Hummer 3—just like the one Tate and Florio had been driving. He felt like he’d just hit a trifecta. He drove down the block, turned around so that his car would be heading toward the nearest freeway entrance, then parked under a burned-out street lamp. There was no point in trying to bring his piece inside; there were metal detectors on the way in, and you had to surrender any firearms at the front counter — before you even got inside the security door. If you wanted to shoot some practice rounds with your gun, they’d give it back to you once you were inside, but Greer wasn’t shelling out any money to step onto the range today.
At the front desk, there was no sign of Burt Pitt. An old man with a glass eye was running the place, and through the tinted bulletproof glass Greer could see only one guy on the range. So what accounted for all the cars outside? Greer could guess.