Blackjack (31 page)

“Come on, Rhino. It’d be fun,” Princess had begged.

The giant reluctantly agreed, shaking his head at what he was sure was his own stupidity.

But after a rocky start, the joint was
coining
money. It always attracted the best girls, but not necessarily the most accommodating ones; its furnishings were decent, but hardly worthy of a sultan; and its cover charge was a ridiculously high fifty bucks. But what the club
did
have was some features not offered anywhere else in Chicago.

Word got around fast—if you danced at the Double-X, you never had to worry about the patrons getting out of hand. You didn’t have to put out for the “manager,” and if you didn’t want to turn tricks—just strip and “dance”—that was okay, too.

Best of all, if you were having trouble with your boyfriend, the club instantly transformed itself into the world’s only domestic-violence shelter for strippers.

“He started it!” Princess once said, explaining to the others why he had fatally fractured the skull of a low-level pimp who had slapped his one-girl stable. “He slapped Marisa, so I just slapped him back.”

The pimp had noted Princess’s hyper-muscled body—it was impossible to ignore—but had overlooked the physique because of its packaging: Princess had been wearing his usual
rouge, eyeliner, and lipstick, highlighting his chartreuse tank top. In fact, he had been discussing makeup complexities with two of the dancers when the pimp had just walked into the dressing room.

Why Princess dressed so outrageously—and camped it up at every opportunity—was known only to a few. In his deranged mind, he could only act when another individual “started it.” This brain-wave malfunction developed from his teen years, spent as a cage fighter in the headquarters of a Central American drug lord. Because he had been taken as a child, and fought so viciously that even his captors had been impressed, he was trained as a modern-day gladiator. After that training, he was kept for the amusement of those who enjoyed watching two men go at each other like bull elephants in mating season.

But Princess never wanted to fight—he wanted to make friends. Each and every time his opponent was led into the cage, Princess would ask if they couldn’t be friends instead of fighting. When his offer was sneered at—and followed by an attack of some kind—Princess absorbed disappointment after disappointment until his mind finally developed the “He started it!” implant.

After he was pulled from the jungle by Rhino—who never explained why, and was never asked—Princess quickly realized that getting into fights was a lot more difficult when his opponent actually had a choice. Thus, the outrageously overdone presentation evolved. Another thing Princess had learned was that far too many tough guys actually believed homosexuals wouldn’t fight.

The other man—or men; it made no difference to the muscle-armored terror—had to “start it.” But once that fuse was lit, Princess could pull any adversary apart as easily as a loaf of fresh-baked bread.

RHINO ALSO
worked the floor sporadically—protecting his investment, he claimed. But it was an open secret that he stayed close in case Princess’s protective instincts went too far.

Bruno, the man who worked the door, had a reputation of his own. He was a notorious life-taker who’d already served two terms: one for grievous bodily harm, the other for manslaughter. But compared with the Rhino-Princess combo, he was considered a mild-mannered gentleman.

None of the girls were paid for working the club. They rented “stage time” from the management, split their nightly take, and got to keep all their “tips.” The cover charge and the insanely priced champagne and cigars kept management deeply in the black, to say nothing of its piece of any “special services” the girls chose to provide in the VIP Room.

As in all upscale strip clubs, the booze and cigars were a major source of untaxed revenue. The bartender was a short, thick-set Mexican, improbably known as “Gringo.” An exboxer, he was still quick with his hands. He was quicker still with the .357 Magnum he kept under the bar, as two would-be holdup men had discovered the year before. The club’s basement didn’t just store stock, it doubled as a body-disposal system.

Everybody knew the deal: You get to the Double-X any way you can, and at your own risk. But once inside its parking area, you were as safe as in church. Safer, if the stories about the local archdiocese were to be believed.

BUDDHA FOUND
Cross at his private table that had been built into a triangulated corner of the joint. The unremarkable-looking man was watching a naked redhead
table-dance for three guys in business suits, his face as expressionless as usual.

“What’s happening, boss?”

“No incoming, either direction,” Cross replied. “No business, no hostiles.”

“Rhino says Princess hasn’t been around. He’s worried out of his mind about that looney-tune—wanted to speak to you. He’s on duty, so I volunteered. Uh … you seen him around anywhere?”

“No,” Cross said, stubbing out a cigarette in a black glass ashtray. The smoky light in the bar was just bright enough to illuminate the bull’s-eye tattoo on the back of his hand.

“Yeah. Well, that guy’s a stone head-case anyway. I mean, I don’t see why you—”

“That’s enough, Buddha. Princess is one of us. And that means”—Cross paused to look directly at the pudgy man—“he brought some baggage with him when he signed on. But he’s stand-up to the max. Everybody in this crew has a reason to be here, right? The same reason.”

“Right,” Buddha admitted, as
Do you hate them? Do you hate them all?
flashed across the screen of his mind. “But he’s been with us for years and we still don’t know his MOS?”

“That, I haven’t figured yet,” the man called Cross acknowledged. He lit another cigarette, took a deep drag, and placed it in the ashtray. “There’s a new girl working—she goes on soon. I’ll be back to the joint in an hour or so.”

SIX HOURS
later. An elderly man was semi-reclining behind the battered steel counter standing at the basement entrance to the Red 71 poolroom. He was watching a small black-and-white TV from under a green eyeshade.

A tall, handsome Latino entered, dressed in a full-drape
pink mohair jacket over a silky black shirt. He tapped on the counter with the underside of a heavy gold ring. After a long minute, the elderly man swiveled around to have a look.

“What?” he said, his voice a model of neutrality.

“I got a message for Cross,” the Latino replied.

“Who?” the elderly man asked, a puzzled look on his face.

“Cross. You know.
El jefe
.”

“I don’t speak no Italian.”

“Hey, old man, I don’t have time for your little jokes—you just give this to him,” the Latino said, sliding a folded square of white paper across the counter.

The elderly man made no move to pick it up. He readjusted his eyeshade and turned his attention back to the TV. The Latino waited and waited, but the elderly man never moved. Angrily, the Latino spun on his heel and walked out.

CROSS UNFOLDED
the square of white paper in the back room. He looked at the writing for a minute, shaking his head.

“Buddha, take a look at this.”

The handwritten note was on heavy, watermarked paper. The script was flowery, ostentatiously serifed, obviously written with a calligraphic fountain pen.

“They got Princess,” Cross said, his voice barely audible.

“It don’t sound like they know what they’re doing, whoever they are,” Buddha reflected. “I mean, Princess plays the role and all, but that’s just to get into fights—he’s about as gay as a damn tomcat on Viagra.”

“If it’s the people I think it was, they do. I saw the light was on,” Cross said, nodding his head in the direction of a red bulb hanging from an exposed wire. “So Rhino took off. Maybe he’ll be able to tell us something when he comes back.”

“What do you think they want, boss?”

“Money or blood,” Cross answered, closing his eyes. “There’s nothing else people like them
could
want.”

“
HE JUST
rode around,” Rhino reported an hour later. “Fancy car. Red Ferrari—I couldn’t have lost him if I tried. But all he did was drive. Finally, he pulled into an underground garage, a high-rise on the lakefront. No way to tell if he lives there—the garage was open to the public, too.”

“How come you came back?”

“Tracker’s on him now. I reached out on the cellular while I was still rolling. You were right to pull him away from those government guys. Tracker, he’s one of us, no question.”