At eight-thirty, I found a parking place, and walked up Burgundy Street. The Quarter was fairly empty. The Mardi Gras tourists were long gone and the vast majority of New Orleanians were honoring Lent. It was a two-week season of rest for the city until the NBA All-Star game would bring more hordes of tourists and their money into town like the plague. I hadn’t heard from Paige. I’d spent the rest of the day after getting home from the gym doing more on-line research on Karen Zorn, to no avail. There just wasn’t much about her to find out. She’d vanished off the face of the earth. Her mother still hadn’t e-mailed or faxed the photograph, either.
It probably didn’t matter, anyway. Most likely, she was dead and her body would never be found.
I had also thought about calling Venus and telling her about Joey, but what could I really tell her? That I was now convinced he was the guy I’d seen coming out of Glynis’s house? I’d also been pretty convinced it was Freddy Bliss, and without proof, my word meant nothing. I needed something a little more concrete than that to take to Venus and Blaine. And it did occur to me he might be more willing to tell what he knew to another gay man than to a police officer.
The cops probably weren’t very welcome at the Brass Rail.
I paid my five-dollar cover to the big tattooed guy working the door, and walked into the bar. It consisted of two rooms-the big main room with the rectangular bar, and the seedy, dark, smaller back room where the dancers took their patrons. There were only about ten customers, all looking to be over fifty, seated on stools around the bar. Two young men with that scrawny underfed look the Rail patrons liked were walking around in boots and white underwear. As I watched, one of them stopped by one of the customers, who put a hand on his ass. The older man put his hand down the front of the dancer’s underwear, and the dancer looked over to me with a bored expression on his face. Finally, the patron tired of groping him, handed him a five, and turned back to his drink. I took a seat at the bar and ordered a bottle of Bud Lite from the bartender. “What time does the show start?” I asked as I passed him a ten.
“Supposed to start around ten.” He replied, sliding my change across the bar. He was in his early thirties, I judged, and a Cajun, with bluish black hair, blue eyes, and tattoos running up and down his bare arms. “But Floretta’s not even here yet.” He rolled his eyes. “Probably can’t find her coke dealer. And you know no drag queen can go on without her nose full of candy.”
I laughed and watched the young man who’d been groped jump up on the bar and start dancing. He was short, maybe about five-six on a good day, and had one of those silly looking hair-styles called a ‘faux hawk’, where the hair is gelled to stand up in the middle of his head like a Mohawk. It was a look I hated, which also made me feel like I was a hundred years old-one step away from saying Kids these days! He had some acne scattered over his face, and despite the big smile plastered on his face he moved his hands up and down his torso. He couldn’t quite hide the sadness on his face. He was cute in a boyish kind of way, with thick red lips, a prominent nose and big brown eyes.
He saw me looking at him and licked his lips, tilting his head down in what was probably supposed to be a seductive pose, pinched both of his dime-sized nipples and then made his way over to where I was seated. He squatted down in front of me, his crotch about six inches from my face. I wondered if he had stuffed his crotch, but then realized if patrons put their hands down there, he couldn’t. He leaned his head down to me, and said, “Hi. I’m Adonis.” He touched his forehead to mine.
That was another thing I hated about the Rail. I don’t like being touched unless I invite it. At the other bars, the strippers didn’t touch you until you lured them in with a dollar bill in your hand-which was how I liked it. At the Rail, the dancers felt free to touch you at any time. But I needed information, so I was going to have to put up with it. And I was going to have to tip big. There might be some kind of dancer’s code barring them from talking about each other. If that was the case, I’d have to find one with a grudge against Joey.
“Chanse,” I replied as he brushed his lips against my cheek. Somehow, I doubted his parents had named him Adonis. He had a thick Mississippi accent, crooked teeth, and reeked of cigaretttes and vodka. He actually pronounced it Uh-DAWN-ees. But he was cute-if not the kind of looker a goddess from Mount Olympus would fall in love with. I doubted he even knew who the original Adonis was.
“Nice to meet you,” he replied in what I assume was meant to be a coy voice. “You out looking for a good time, tonight? You want me to show you one?” He tilted his head down to one side. He was definitely trying for coy and shy. The effect was spoiled by his tired, sad eyes.
I shifted on my stool, pulling out my wallet and slipping out a twenty. “No, not really, although I’m sure you could definitely show me one.”
His eyes lit up at the sight of the bill. “You want a lap dance, sexy?” He moved his hips a little bit.
“No, what I want is some information.”
His eyes narrowed a bit. “You undercover vice?”
“No.” I took the twenty and rubbed the edge of it over his right nipple. “No, I’m just looking for some information. I can get it from you-“ I gestured to the other end of the bar, where a young Hispanic guy was dancing in red Unico briefs, “or I’ll get it from him or one of the other guys. It’s up to you. What do you say?” I felt a little nauseous about what I was doing. How much money did these kids make if a twenty got one of them so damned excited? And a lap dance for twenty dollars?
Maybe I was crazy, but that didn’t seem like very much for what you got.
“What kind of information?” He licked his lips. “I know all kinds of things.”
“I want to know about one of the other dancers. A guy named Joey.” I brushed the twenty against his nipple again. “You know him?”
“Oh, her.” He hissed the words. “What do you want to know about that bitch?” He scooted closer to me. Now his crotch was so close to my face I could smell his sweat. “I’m a lot more fun than she is.”
“Whatever you can tell me.” I tried not to recoil from him. I hated when gay men referred to other gay men with feminine pronouns. But I’d hoped to find one with a grudge, and I’d hit pay dirt.
“She’s a bitch.” He shrugged. “Says she’s from a Garden District family that threw her out when she came out. Bullshit is what that is. I might be just a small-town boy from Mississippi, but I know a yat accent when I hear one. She’s from da parish. Acts likes she’s better than all of us. Thinks her shit don’t stink.” He smiled at me. “We call her Hollywood, because she always says she looks like a movie star, and she’s going to go out there and be a big star.” He spat the words out. “She ain’t going to be no movie star. She ain’t that pretty.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “I’m just as pretty as she is.” He gave me another lewd smile.
“Does he do drugs?”
“Honey, we all do drugs.” He reached into his sock and pulled out a crumpled cigarette. He lit it with a match from the bar. “That one-she’ll do pretty much anything for money, I can guarantee you that. And she don’t discriminate. You name it, she’ll do it. Me, I’ve got standards.” He pinched one of his nostrils closed and made an exaggerated sniff. “If it goes up your nose, Joey will do it. Coke, crystal, K, she does it all.”
I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask. “You have standards?”
“I only do pot. And just because I let these dirty old men touch me for money doesn’t mean I’m a whore.” He gestured with his cigarette. “I ain’t no whore, like Joey. I only do lap dances for guys I’m into. Like you.” He leered at me. “You sure you don’t want one? I can make you come in your pants.”