I preceded Wesley into the building and noticed that no music was playing. There was a lull between dancers. That meant I wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of Wesley-and he wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of me. Also, I could make myself heard by the ticket-taker-the same one as the other time I had been there-as I told him that we had an appointment to see Lefty.
He picked up a phone beside him and pressed a button. After a very brief conversation he motioned for us to follow him and led the way across the room to the hallway where the restrooms were. The few patrons nursed their beers and didn’t look interested in us. Then he went through the doorway to the lap-dance area. I would have really been embarrassed if anything had been going on there, but thank goodness the place was quiet.
We passed the dressing room; a couple of girls were sitting in front of the mirrors. I didn’t look at Wesley so I didn’t know whether he saw the girls. We came to a closed door. Our guide knocked and we heard “Yeah” from behind it. He opened the door and stood aside for us to enter.
I went in first. The room was cramped because it contained two gray metal desks at right angles to one another that took up most of the room. At one desk sat a woman not much younger than I was, I would be willing to bet from her wrinkles, but with bleached blond hair. I had stopped applying any color to my hair and had reconciled myself to its natural gray. Her off-the-shoulder top let me see more of her wrinkled skin than I wanted to.
The occupant of the other desk must be Lefty. He wasn’t as big as the ticket-taker, but almost as heavy, with more fat than muscle. He had a big nose and a wide mouth. He wore a white shirt and a smashing, multi-colored tie. I wondered who bought his ties. He also wore cufflinks. His slicked-back, black hair was neatly trimmed and combed, and made him look like an old-time Italian movie star.
He stood up and said, “Hello, I’m Lefty,” extending a beefy hand across the desk.
“I’m Lillian,” I said, shaking his hand. “This is Wesley.”
He shook hands with Wesley, gave him a quick once-over, apparently dismissed him and turned back to me. “Have a seat.”
Two wooden chairs were crowded into the space between the desk and the wall. I sat in one and Wesley in the other. The woman was working with a calculator and rows of what must be figures on bookkeeping paper. She ignored us.
Lefty sat down and said to me, “So you’re a friend of the Shooting Star.”
I hesitated, not wanting to overplay my hand. “I’ve met her.”
“Perhaps you can tell me why she didn’t show up last night,” he said, issuing a challenge with the tone of his voice.
“Did you try to call her?”
He looked at me, appraisingly. He said, “You don’t look like a cop, unless the police are recruiting from old folks’ homes these days. I know all the local cops, anyway. Here’s the deal; I don’t know anything about her, including her name. She gave me a false ID when I interviewed her.”
“Her name is Elise Hoffman,” I said, “and she’d dead.”
“Dead?” Lefty’s eyes drilled into me. “You’re making fun, right?”
“No. She was murdered Wednesday night.”
“Murdered? You mean she’s the babe from the college who got herself knifed? Maud, where’s yesterday’s paper?”
Maud, who had finally looked up when I said Elise had been killed, swiveled her chair around and produced a newspaper from a pile of papers and magazines on the floor. She handed it to Lefty and said, “I told you that girl was bad news. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”
This must be the local paper. The story was on the front page, complete with a picture of Elise.
Lefty skimmed the story, nervously drumming his fingers on the desk. He said, “She was killed not that long after she left here, if it’s really her.” He looked at the picture for a few seconds. “Yeah, that could be her. The mouth looks familiar. I never saw her without a mask and a wig. I wouldn’t forget those eyes if I saw them, but the Star’s eyes were always covered. When she came in here I told her to go play dress-up someplace else because she looked ridiculous. But she bugged me to give her a chance. I usually have the girls strip for me so I can see what kind of bodies they have, but I could see there wasn’t any point with her. She didn’t have anything up here.”
He cupped his hands over imaginary breasts. “I let her go on during the afternoon when the place was empty so she wouldn’t get stage fright. I figured she’d chicken out, anyway, either before or after. But she had the moves and she exuded such charisma that the few guys who were here loved her immediately. She had ‘em inside her g-string right from the start. So of course she was hooked. No girl can resist that kind of power.”
“So she packed them in,” Wesley said.
“Yeah, word got around. Look, I’m in this to make a buck, so what am I supposed to do, show her the door just because she’s got idiosyncrasies? She wanted to be paid in cash, she wouldn’t give me her phone number, but she always showed up when she said she would-until last night. So what’s your connection to her?”
Lefty looked at me. I decided to be partially honest. “She was taking a class from my granddaughter’s boyfriend. He teaches at Crescent Heights. It’s a long story, but he’s a suspect in her murder and I’m trying to clear him.”
“Did he do it?”
“No.”
“That’s tough. What can I do to help?”
“First, I suspect the police are going to want to talk to you. A Detective Johnson is handling this case.”
“Johnson. I think I know him. He must have got promoted. He used to drive a patrol car. All right, I can handle him.”
“Did she have any enemies here?”
“No. But she didn’t have any friends, either. Never stuck around long enough for anybody to get to know her. She always came in costume, wearing that damned mask. And she’d leave after each show, even if she was going on again the same night.”
“How about the patrons? Do you think anyone might have been stalking her?”
“Not as far as I know. She never complained. Like I said, after each show she’d charge out of here like she had to catch a plane. I guess she had a car down the street. At least, she never parked in the lot.”
Speaking of the parking lot rang a bell. “Are you familiar with a website on the Internet that posts the license plate numbers of patrons of the clubs here in Bethany?”
A broad grin lit up Lefty’s face, making his mouth wider than ever. “You mean the site that old guy Hoffman maintains? That guy is a piece of work. But he’s good for business. The young dudes brag about getting their plates on his site.”
Talk about unintended consequences.
“He’s the father of Elise.”
“No.” Lefty looked dumbfounded. “You’re shittin’ me. If he knew about her dancing here…”
“He would have killed her? I’m going to look into that possibility.”
“Look, if there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know. I’m sorry the Shooting Star bought it. I liked that girl, in spite of her idiosyncrasies. She had guts.”
Chapter 13
“How long did you wait the other day?”
Wesley was clearly getting restless, and because he had insisted on driving I couldn’t hold him here against his will. We were sitting in his car across the street from Elise’s apartment, waiting for Donna Somerset. I wanted to express my condolences to her. “Let’s wait ten more minutes and then we’ll go.”
We only had to wait five more minutes. Donna’s car pulled to a stop directly in front of the apartment. I was thankful we were in Wesley’s car because she wouldn’t recognize it, and I was on the passenger side, where she couldn’t see me. I decided not to accost her in the middle of the street, but waited until she had entered the apartment. Then I followed her to the door, telling Wesley to wait for me. The broken front window was covered by a brown packing box that had been flattened out.