She did a snaky belly dance to a top-ten pop song. Little by little she unfastened parts of her pajamas and they fell around her ankles. She was young and didn’t look real used. Her skin was clean and flushed, as if she had just stepped out of a hot bath.
She opened the ivory box and one by one removed long silver-colored needles and pushed them into her skin.
Foy knew of acupuncture, but he didn’t believe what he was seeing. Soon Wanda was stuck with dozens of metallic quills that shimmered in the spotlight.
The men in the audience filled the room with a collective energy that made Foy again feel that he was running across the wet grass. When the tape finished, Wanda started pulling the needles out with smooth precision. Foy left.
Outside, the sunlight was a blunt glare. A number of beefy men with tattoos were hanging around. Foy rolled up his sleeves.
“The freak show over?” one of the guy’s asked him.
Foy shrugged. “Almost, I think.”
Foy stood at the edge of the crowd next to a sausage stand. Eavesdropping, he found out that after Wanda’s human-pincushion act there was a more conventional bump-and-grind show. The air smelled like frying grease, and listening to the sausage sizzle was as soothing as the sound of rain.
Soon after, Rocky filed out of the building in a group of men in rumpled sports jackets. They all looked glazed and sweaty. Foy trailed behind as they left the adult section of the amusement park. Rocky Jay headed for the parking lot.
Foy’s car was an oven full of flies. As he cranked down the windows, he realized he’d left the windowing open. He started his car and followed Rocky back to the city.
On Wednesday morning, Mrs. Rhine appeared at his office door with the dog. He grabbed the dog’s collar as it trotted into the office. The dog twisted its neck and put Foy’s wrist into its mouth, holding it as gently as would a bird dog. The dog’s snoot was the size of a loaf of bread. Foy let go of the collar.
“Buster is high strung,” Mrs. Rhine said, as the dog flopped to the floor.
Foy shut the door. He sat at his desk and told Mrs. Rhine what he had observed on Tuesday. As he spoke, she couldn’t take her eyes off the ink stamps on his hand. At the point he described Wanda’s act, Mrs. Rhine started to bleat, “She sticks herself with needles? You are telling me sickness!”
Foy heard a sound like fish being beaten against a rock. He leaned over his desk and saw Mrs. Rhine pounding her fists against her thighs. As she jerked her head back and forth, she said, “I know she does the thing with him. You follow him and get me photographs. You do that tomorrow.”
Foy tried to explain that all Rocky Jay did was watch. Mrs. Rhine sank down into the chair and balled up her face like she was crying. She didn’t make a sound, and no tears fell.
Foy wanted to say, “There, there...,” but didn’t have the energy. The Great Dane got up from the middle of the floor and trotted to the window. He stood up, put his front paws on the sill, and looked outside.
The next morning, Foy was parked near the dog-food company watching the drizzle. His tape player was fixed and he sang along with Crystal Gayle. She was singing a song about a lighthouse.
Rocky Jay left work in his car at 10:05 with Foy tailing him. They drove to Tornado County Amusement Park and ran across the parking lot in the rain to get their hands stamped.
In the cinder-block bunker, Rocky and Foy caught the tail end of an uninspired strip performed by a woman who looked like she had lived the wrong way for quite some time.
Foy saw some trucker types in the audience, but most of the men were the same ones who had been there on Tuesday. He had a hunch Wanda Laneer was going to stick needles into herself again.
Wanda hopped onto the stage dressed in a scarlet kimono. She held the gown closed as she bent over to drop a cassette in the tape player. The rock song sounded like something rolling around inside a cement mixer.
Wanda revealed herself quickly and shuffled geisha-like while flailing her arms in heavy-metal abandon. She gave a sly smile as she removed the first silver needle from the box.
Foy’s pulse started to race, and his spine felt like a carrot that had just been pulled out of the dirt. He had to stand up and wait outside.
That night, Foy climbed up to the attic crawl space in his house. He searched with a flashlight and found a box of old books. He spent a few hours reading the Bible his mother had given him. He thought he remembered something about silver needles in the Old Testament. He paged through the Bible but had no luck. Two nights later he awoke thinking he heard an animal panting in the middle of his bedroom. He snapped on the light, but the room was empty.
On Monday he drove out to Tornado County by himself, playing his Crystal Gayle tape. When he stepped into the Pussykat Klub, he sat closer to the stage. He looked at the back of his hand and it resembled a passport. He heard the regulars sitting down behind him but didn’t turn around.
For the Monday performance, Wanda wore an Egyptian robe of purple silk and a headdress like Nefertiti’s. She had a thick gold band around her neck and wore several rings that looked like bits of jeweled seashells. She had black designs painted around her eyes. Wanda popped a cassette into the boom box and Foy’s mouth dropped open when Crystal Gayle started singing the same song she had sung with him that morning.
As Wanda danced like an Egyptian princess, Foy sang along very quietly. Wanda looked him square in the eyes and he knew she was performing for him. When her robe fell, he saw how creamy her skin was. There were no pock marks or scars from the needles. A drunk in the back of the bunker, started clapping, and yelled, “Come on, baby! Get hot!”
Five men quickly stood up and faced him. The drunk looked them over; when his eyes landed on Foy, he staggered up and left.
Wanda used twenty-three needles. Each one went through her skin as smoothly as if her flesh was butter. She held her head very erect. Foy thought she looked regal. The spotlight caused the needles to cast geometric shadows across her flesh. As she danced, the patterns moved like the spokes of a bicycle.
When Wanda removed the needles, Foy felt he had never seen a woman look as naked — not because of her physical nudity, but because the needles were no longer a part of her skin. Foy’s tongue was raw from rubbing it against his front teeth. It felt like he’d been breathing through a spout at the top of his head.
As he left the bunker, the four other men who had stood up to the drunk each gave Foy a nod.
He leaned against the building for a moment to get his breath back. Then he snuck around to the back of the bunker. He saw Wanda getting into the cab of a pickup truck. Her hair was piled up on her head, and she would have looked like a Gibson girl except for the Cleopatra eye makeup. She started the truck and drove away.
Foy sprinted to the parking lot. If he was lucky, the pickup would have to leave through the parking lot. He started up his car and waited. Just when he had given up hope, the pickup drove by. He backed out of his space and followed.
They drove down the interstate for about five miles until the truck pulled into the parking lot of a Red Rooster Motor Lodge. Wanda rolled up both windows before she got out. Foy pulled into the motel parking lot just as Wanda danced up the steps to the second landing and entered a room. Foy parked next to the fence that surrounded the swimming pool. He got out of the car and strolled to the soda machine, casing the motel.
Before he could return to his car, Wanda skipped back down the steps. She’d cleaned her face. She was wearing a low-back, one-piece bathing suit that was royal blue. Unlatching the fence gate, she walked across the sidewalk that surrounded the small rectangular pool. The cement must have been hot, because she started running on tiptoe to the edge of the water and dove in. From his angle, Foy couldn’t see her and assumed she was swimming underwater. He tried to make it back to his car, but suddenly she surfaced in the shallow end and waved at him, yelling, “Hey, you there! Hey, shy boy!”