Live Girls (4 page)

When he got home that Friday, he'd found her dead. She'd choked to death on a bite of steak and died beneath the small table in her dining room.

Davey hadn't thought of her remark for some time, but he thought, as he shuffled down the street,
Maybe she was right
.

Then:
Or maybe I've made her right
.

He passed a tall black man who paced back and forth on the sidewalk as he spoke into his hand-held microphone.

“And you wanna know
why
you's unhappy, brothers and sisters?” the man bellowed. “You is unhappy ‘cause you's livin’ inna worlda
sin,
my friends! And
you
is a
sinner!
"

A wiry man wearing tattered denim strolled toward Davey. His hands were deep in the pockets of his dirty denim jacket, fumbling with something.

“Smokes? Toots? Smokes? Toots?” he muttered as he passed.

Davey turned away from him. The pusher passed and walked on down the sidewalk, his quiet voice quickly swallowed by the sounds of the street.

Davey stopped and the other pedestrians flowed around him like a stream around a fallen tree. He looked around.

He had not been paying attention to where he was going and realized now that he wasn't even on Broadway anymore.

There was a dingy taco stand with a window open to the street. Next to that was an adult bookstore which boasted the largest selection of rubber goods in New York City. In front of that, two old men, both wearing darkly stained clothes, stood against the wall, one chewing on a stubby cigar, the other drinking from an unlabeled bottle, dribbling some of the liquid down his stubbly, deeply wrinkled cheeks.

Times Square.

Davey checked his watch; he still had plenty of time, he hadn't been through Times Square in a while and he'd always been fascinated by the facade of glamour that failed to disguise the squalor beneath. It held a sort of pathetic beauty, like an old, gritty, low-budget movie that tries hard to entertain. Davey continued walking.

He passed a junk shop called N.Y.C. Souvenirs, going slowly by the window to look at some of the cluttered merchandise. There were bongs, rubber gorilla masks, dirty little Cabbage Patch Kids rip-offs that looked well-used, boxes of Ping Pong balls with I LOVE NY stamped on them in black and red. Cobwebs fluttered in the corners of the window and there was a fine coating of dust on the items behind the smudged glass, making them look even more worthless.

After the junk shop, he came to a long rectangular picture of a naked woman with only her nipples and pubis covered, one hand raised, beckoning to passers-by. The picture was surrounded by white lightbulbs that flashed in succession, giving the illusion that a burst of light was shooting around and around the frame of the picture. Written above it in big block letters was: LIVE SEX SHOW Beyond were more flashing lights, more pictures of naked women, and a very skinny young man in a long leather coat smoking a cigarette and waving to the men walking by.

“C'mon in, guys!” he said, his voice happy. “Finest women in this city, lemme tell ya! Beautiful! They're waitin’ for ya in there. Hey, how ‘bout you?” He waved to Davey. “C'mon in, pal, they'll show ya a good time! First drink's on the house. How ‘bout it?"

Davey slowed to a stop in front of the man and stared at one of the pictures. It was of a very tall woman who, in fact, looked a bit like Beth.

Who doesn't these days?
he thought.

A gold chain hung around her waist, her hands were in front of her crotch, and her arms were pressing her bare breasts together, pushing them out, her lower lip tucked under her upper teeth, her eyes half closed.

Davey opened his mouth to ask, “Is she inside?” But he didn't. He closed his mouth, half smiled at the man, turned, and walked away.

“Aw, c'mon, Jack, you gotcherself a good time, here!” the skinny man called. “Jeee-zis!"

Davey continued slowly down the walk, reading the signs in front of each of the strip joints he passed: COUPLES ON STAGE! LESBIAN LOVE SHOWS! N.Y.'S ONLY GAY BUTLESQUE! Something for everyone.

A silver-haired man in a beige overcoat stepped quickly out of the gay burlesque theater, briefcase in hand. He looked around him, glanced at Davey as they passed. His every move seemed to scream, “Wrong door! I just took the wrong door, that's all, I didn't really
mean
to go in there!” It almost made Davey laugh.

“Hey, m'friend,” said a fat man with a toothpick in his mouth, “we got ‘em all right here, best-lookin’ women in town, models is what they are, right here, totally nude, dancing their tits off, waitin’ to get to know ya. How ‘bout it, friend, how ‘bout you?"

Davey found himself slowing again, and stared beyond the fat man to the club's entrance.

“Whatta ya say, fella?” the man asked, smirking.

Davey had never gone into such a place. He thought of the man he'd seen coming out of the gay burlesque theater. The man probably had a wife, grown kids, who had no idea where he went on his lunch hour, and what dark fantasies he fulfilled there.

Davey realized, with a faint pang of disappointment, that he had no dark fantasies. Just a nibbling curiosity stirred, perhaps, by the picture of the girl who resembled Beth, or maybe by the cold, empty hole in his chest.

The drizzle returned and Davey decided it was time to go back. He headed for the end of the block, figuring he'd walk back on the opposite side of the street for a little variety. It was on his way back that he noticed it.

He stopped on the sidewalk and looked up at the sign. In the dim light of the overcast day, the flashing red letters glowed faintly. The black curtain in the doorway was fluttered gently by the wind. The curtains parted occasionally as they shifted and Davey tilted his head to see inside, but there was only darkness. The absence of garish lights and signs, obnoxious hawkers, made it somehow appealing.

He wondered how much it would cost, quickly thought about how much cash he had in his wallet, then glanced at his watch. He still had time. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but, Davey supposed, the cat probably died quite satisfied. He smirked at himself as he walked toward the entrance (the closest he'd come to a genuine smile all day) for feeling like a guilty teenager, looking around to see if there were any familiar faces nearby.

An old Sunday school teacher, maybe?
he thought with a chuckle.

Davey stepped through the black curtain.

The I in GIRLS flickered and buzzed.

Inside, Davey had to take a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. The air was damp and had a sort of locker-room smell to it: sweat and stale clothes with a strange sweetness just beneath it all. He blinked several times as the darkness slowly dissolved. A corridor, narrow and low-ceilinged, stretched before him. A few yards down it turned to the right and a very dim glow came from around the corner.

He turned to his right and faced a box office-like cage; there were bars over a square window with a space below. Beyond the bars, which seemed bumpy with rust, was only darkness. Deep, black darkness. Davey peered through the window, but saw no one. He turned to go down the corridor.

“Tokens?"

Davey started and looked through the bars again. He still saw no one.

“Excuse me?” he said uncertainly.

“Tokens?” the voice asked again. It was a woman's voice, soft, almost a whisper, but rich, full, a voice that would carry far if raised. It held within it a great deal of power.

“Uh, yes.” Davey took his wallet from his coat. “Um, how much?"

“One dollar minimum."

He looked once again through the bars, trying to find her, but she was lost in the blackness. Davey had not expected to find a woman in there. Her presence, even though he could not see her face, made him uncomfortable. The what-the-hell attitude that had brought him inside gave way to an almost childish nervousness.

As he opened his wallet, Davey stared through the bars, hoping to get a look at her. He saw nothing. Except, for a moment, something seemed to catch a bit of stray light and reflect it for just an instant: a blinking glimmer of red. He pulled a bill from his wallet, held it up to his face to make sure it was a one, then held it under the bars.

A hand slid from the darkness, a beautiful hand that, despite its delicate appearance, moved with a swiftness, and a certain tenseness that suggested great strength. Long, thin, pale fingers plucked the dollar bill away from Davey and then its unhealthy whiteness was swallowed up by the wall of black behind the bars. An instant later, the hand reappeared. Davey opened his palm and the hand dropped four small coins into it, then pulled away. Davey stood there a moment, waiting for something, although what it was he did not know. Then he turned and started down the corridor.

The smell thickened as Davey neared the corner and the darkness began to give way to soft light. The farther down the corridor Davey went, the colder it got, almost as if he were going into a cave. As he neared the corner, he could hear the soft murmurs and sighs of the others.

He rounded the corner and came into a small room that had only one light in the center of the low ceiling. The bulb was covered well and shed only a minimum of light on the small square room. There were four men. They did not look up when Davey entered. They paced back and forth, hands in pockets, heads bent forward. One stopped pacing and quietly leaned against the wall, looking at nothing.

They all wore dark clothes. One wore a brown hat with fur flaps on the sides which he'd pulled down over his ears. Another wore a fedora pulled forward on his forehead so that it cast a dark shadow over his face. None of them seemed to notice Davey. In fact, they hardly seemed to notice one another.

They were all silent.

The other sounds seemed to come from all around them. Davey took another step into the room and listened. Soft sighs, moans, whispers. They were coming from behind the six doors in the room, a pair on each of the room's three walls.

Across from him on the wall between two of the doors was a sign. He stepped forward and squinted to read it in the poor light:

INSTRUCTIONS

—
ENTER BOOTH (ONE PERSON ONLY PER BOOTH)

—
INSERT TOKENS IN BOX

—
PANEL WILL RAISE

—
INSERT TIP THRU SLOT BELOW WINDOW FOR SEXY SHOW

Davey held in a laugh.
Insert tip of
what
through slot?
he thought. He looked around at the men again. Each of them had chosen a door and was standing by it. Each seemed to think he was the only person in the room.

Davey turned away from them and faced the nearest door. Setting his jaw, he took a step forward.
I'm here, I'll do it and get it over with
. He wrapped a fist around the knob (it was cold and felt a little sticky) and turned it.

The door burst open and Davey jerked back. He was face-to-face with an old man who looked like a walking corpse: his mouth hanging open like a hole between two sunken cheeks, his eyes deep in their sockets, watery, unfocused, his teeth long and yellow, and his breath
—
dear God, his breath
—
hit Davey in a hot, moist wave. Davey had smelled a smell like that once before...

When he was a little boy. His dog, Brat, a scruffy little mut, had disappeared. Davey had gone out hunting for the dog on a hot summer day.

He'd found Brat lying beside a narrow side street, his abdomen split open like a melon, small white worms crawling through the remains. The smell that came from Brat's corpse was exactly like the smell that came from the old man's mouth....

The man brushed past Davey and disappeared down the corridor. Davey stepped into the black hot booth and closed the door behind him.

Something small scuttled around his feet on the floor and Davey stamped a foot around until the sound stopped with a crunch beneath his shoe.

The booth was saved from total darkness only by a tiny, blinking red light on the coin box attached to the wall at Davey's right, and by the soft light that shined through what he decided must be the SLOT BELOW WINDOW to which the sign outside had referred. It was in the wall just below a rectangular panel, waist high. It might have looked like a slot at one time, but not anymore. He bent forward and looked at it closely. It had apparently been sort of like a letter slot in a door, but now it was more a rounded hole in the wall, crudely widened by a knife, perhaps, or a jagged piece of metal. Looking at it a bit more closely, Davey had a silly thought, a thought that, at first, made him smile a slight, nervous little smile: