Quarry's Choice Read Online Free PDF Page B

more like a warehouse than a nightclub, which wasn’t surprising because it had probably started out that way. A black sign on a rooftop pole said MR. WOODY’S in white letters with red polka dots in the OO ’s. I’ll let you work out the symbolism of that. A white plastic marquee with black plastic letters above blacked-out double doors said:
    TOPLESS
    BOTTOMLESS
    DRINKS
    which struck me as ambiguous, and
    PRIVATE DANCES
    NO COVER
    and that was ambiguous, too, don’t you think?
    I went inside and a big guy on the door looked me over, decided not to card me, and as my eyes adjusted to the smoky dusk of the place, I said, “Appointment with Mr. Colton. Never been here before. Point the way?”
    He was maybe six three and pushing three hundred pounds in a black t-shirt and black jeans, which weren’t all that slimming. Trimly brown-bearded with bored dark eyes that had seen everything twice, he had a couple of gold chains around the fat folds of his neck and his features had the blunt look of too much football.
    “Stay put,” he said, higher-pitched than you’d think. Behind him on the wall was a house phone and he used it, saying, “Guy here, Mr. Woody. Appointment, he says.” He glanced at me. “Name?”
    “Quarry,” I said.
    He repeated it into the phone, hung up and pointed a thick finger into the darkness, where way across the cavernous red-carpeted room a black door could be made out with white letters saying PRIVATE—NO ENTRY . Another big guy in black was standing next to it, arms folded like a bored genie.
    It was 4:35 in the afternoon but not really—I’d entered into the Vegas-like endless midnight of the strip-club world. Big as it was, Mr. Woody’s seemed bigger because of mirrored walls, which bounced around flashing blue and red lights from above, a pair of unblinking klieg lights at left and right crossing each other to hit the stage like a prison escape was in progress. The tables (black) were small but the chairs (red) were good-size with curving cushioned backs. A full bar at right sported several cute young female bartenders in tuxedo shirts and string ties and too much make-up, and weaving through the room were a couple of fetching waitresses in the same uniform, which included a black mini and black nylons.
    Backed by a black curtain with the MR. WOODY’S logo, the main stage was just deep enough for a dancer to work the stripper pole, with a wide center runway into the audience, seating on either side, edged with flashing lights and a ledge for drinks. A smaller secondary stage, really just a platform with a stripper pole, was tucked away at left, not currently in use. The audience was entirely male, stopping off after work, both blue- and white-collar, and some young enlisted men from the Air Force base, still in uniform. The atmosphere could only have been smokier if the place was on fire. Gray and white tobacco-bred tendrils floated across the red and blue and white lighting like sleepy ghosts.
    On stage was a small girl—and she was a girl, not a woman yet, possibly eighteen, though her hour-glass figure was timeless—with straight honey-blonde hair center-parted and cut off at her shoulders. Not really dancing, she was strutting around in clear plastic heels and moving her hands to “Fortunate Son” as it blared from high-mounted speakers. Out of the heels, she was probably five one or two at most, and her expression included a glazed smile and big glazed light-blue eyes as she gazed past her admirers into God knew what.
    She was naked as the day she was born, but she hadn’t been born with those perfect tip-tilted handfuls or that generous golden-brown tuft. She did not seem at all self-conscious, though it was still somehow surprising when she began to sit in front of each ringside-seater to smile and spread her legs like “make a wish” and use plenty of fingers to show off the pink place where life begins.
    The little blonde had gathered some wadded-up green and moved on