Liam Mulligan: Cliff Walk Part 5

"I got caught in the storm last night and didn't dare risk the dike."

"Got an inspection sticker on this heap?" He checked and found it on the windshield. "How much of a bribe did you pay to get that?"

"The going rate is forty bucks."

Five seconds ticked off before he sighed and said, "Yeah, that's what I hear, too."

"If Rhode Islanders would stop killing each other for a week or two," I said, "maybe one of us could look into it."

That five-second delay again. Talking with Parisi was like conversing by radio signal with somebody on the moon.

"If I tell you not to come out here again," he said, "it won't do any good, will it?"

"It won't."

"How 'bout giving me a call if you find them before I do?"

"Sure," I said. "And if you find them first, you'll give me a heads-up, right?"

"I'll think about it. Watch yourself on the way out. The edge of the causeway broke away in a couple of spots last night, and from the skid marks in the mud, it looks like someone d.a.m.n near went into the drink."

8.

I was sitting at the bar nursing a six-dollar can of Bud when a bottle blonde sashayed up in a G-string and stiletto heels, thrust a pair of store-bought t.i.ts in my face, and said, "Want a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b?" Well, sure, but not at these prices. I shook my head, and she stamped her heel in frustration. Then she spun away and scanned the room for another mark. I took a good look at her a.s.s. Some habits are hard to break.

It was a slow Thursday night at the Tongue and Groove. There were no chartered buses in the parking lot, and the twenty hookers taking turns on the stripper poles outnumbered the paying customers. Most of the men looked as if they'd already had their fun. Now short on cash and stamina, they hunched over beers at the c.o.c.ktail tables or slumped on stools by the stage to review the ch.o.r.eography. The girls gyrated in G-strings, but ten dollars would get you into the "all-nude room" upstairs. In the name of research, I pulled a Hamilton out of my pocket. As I handed it to the palooka watching the door, I wondered how I should phrase the entry on my expense account.

The room at the top of the stairs was dark except for the stage, where two naked women, one black and one white, were on their hands and knees, shaking their a.s.ses to the beat of a romantic mood setter by 50 Cent: I'll take you to the candy shop, I'll let you lick the lollipop ...

Their genitals gyrated inches from the noses of two men sitting on barstools in a row of otherwise empty ones at the edge of the stage. One guy thrust a dollar in a garter and reached out to fondle the merchandise.

The Tongue and Groove was my last stop on a three-night tour of Vanessa Maniella's strip clubs. I'd been hoping to find out how they operated-and maybe pick up some gossip about the family's whereabouts. But the main thing I'd discovered was that Vanessa had learned a thing or two about merchandising at URI.

On Tuesday night, I'd hung out at Shakehouse. There, the cover was twenty dollars, which a large gentleman in a Joseph Abboud suit politely requested at the door. A poster-size photo of three naked stunners mugging with a linebacker from the New England Patriots was mounted just inside the entrance. Behind the gleaming granite bar, five mixologists in white shirts and black bow ties whipped up flavored martinis and drew mugs of premium draft beer.

The women, some fresh from appearances in Manhattan and Atlantic City, had spent a lot of time at the gym. They shimmied nude on three stages in a swirl of colored lights, moving as though Shakira had taught them to dance. The customers, most wearing business suits, lined up to tuck ten-dollar bills into garters strapped high on sweat-damp thighs. Now and then, one of the men would toss a fistful of bills in honor of a spirited performance. And I'd thought money showers went out when the recession came in.

After their turns in the spotlight, the women demurely donned lingerie before mingling with the customers. Buy one a twelve-dollar mixed drink and she'd sit with you and place your hand on her thigh. For fifty dollars, she'd lead you to a booth, remove her top, ask you to sit on your hands, and give you a lap dance that would last the length of a single song. Private rooms lined the back wall, and when I poked my head into an empty one, I found it was more enticing than the s.e.m.e.n-stained sewer Whoosh had described.

"Your first time here?" one of the bartenders asked as I settled onto a stool to peruse the beer menu.

"It is."

"Like to know how it works?"

"I would."

"Two hundred gets you a half bottle of champagne and fifteen minutes in a private VIP room with one of the girls. For four hundred, you get a magnum and a half hour. The girls aren't allowed to hustle you. You have to approach them. Don't be offended if one of them turns you down. Not all of them are full-service girls. Some of them just dance for tips."

Last night I'd hit the second club, Rogue Island, and found the door blocked by six pickets from the Sword of G.o.d, a local group of right-wing religious zealots. They brandished hand-lettered picket signs proclaiming "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery," "Hades Is for Wh.o.r.emongers," and "G.o.d Hates Fornicators." A pair of bouncers roughly shoved them aside and ushered me in. As the door banged closed behind me, I could hear them out there, howling about h.e.l.lfire and immortal souls.

Inside, I paid the ten-dollar cover charge and took a stool at the bar. A few discreet inquiries determined that most of the girls were locals-single moms trying to make a living and college girls hustling for tuition. The bartenders served a good variety of decent bottled beer. The customers wore Dockers and b.u.t.ton-down shirts, and it was apparent that some were regulars. The girls welcomed them by name, giving them the same greeting Norm used to get when he waddled through the door at Cheers.

The girls performed naked on a single stage, swinging from stripper poles and thrusting their hips in crude imitation of the s.e.x act. The bills tucked into garters here were mostly fives. When their fifteen-minute sets ended, the girls pulled on G-strings and skimpy bras to mingle with the customers. Topless lap dances were thirty dollars, two for the price of one before five P.M. A Franklin bought a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b in a dark booth, or for a hundred and fifty dollars you could take the girl of your choice to one of those private rooms Whoosh described and do whatever you wanted for fifteen minutes.

I was sitting alone at a c.o.c.ktail table with a good view of the stage when a slim brunette beauty approached and said, "Hi, Mulligan. Need another beer?"

"Marie? Don't tell me you're working here."

"Don't go all Oral Roberts on me. I just waitress."

"Nice outfit," I said. Her body stocking fit like a condom.

Marie used to wait tables at Hopes, and last year I took her to bed a couple of times, but it didn't lead anywhere. She was looking for a guy to raise a family. I told her to keep looking.

"Tips good here?"

"Very."

"But not as good as if you were stripping."

"Of course not," she said, and sat down at my table.

"What kind of money do the strippers make?"

"The hookers, you mean?"

"Well, yeah."

"On a good night, the best girls take home a grand or so after expenses."

"Expenses?"

"Yeah."

"What expenses?"

"They have to pay a hundred fifty a night to dance here."

"The girls pay the club? The club doesn't pay them?"

"Uh-huh. Candy, who used to strip at Shakehouse until she put on a few pounds, says it's three hundred a night there, but the hottest girls can make five or six grand on a big weekend."

"Any other expenses?"

"The girls pay the house twenty dollars every time they take a customer into a private room, and they're expected to tip the bouncers at the end of the night. Sometimes the bouncers take it out in trade, if you know what I mean."

"I do."

"On the plus side, the club buys condoms by the gross and provides them to the girls for free."

"Condoms?" I said. "The Maniellas are Catholic. They'll be saying Hail Marys till Easter if Pope Benedict finds out about this."

I had more questions, but the bartender bellowed from behind the bar, "Socialize on your own time, Marie. Orders are stacking up here."

"Gotta go," she said. "I'll bring you back a fresh beer on the house." A few minutes later, she did.

Tonight at the Tongue and Groove, admission was free. A lone bartender served two brands of beer, Bud and Bud Light. The customers wore jeans and T-shirts with Boston Bruins and New England Patriots logos on them. Most of the girls were fresh off the boat from Haiti, Russia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. They wore nothing but G-strings and smiles as they strolled among the c.o.c.ktail tables to tempt the customers.

Garter tips were one-dollar bills here. Lap dances ran twenty bucks a pop, b.l.o.w. .j.o.bs were forty dollars, and for a hundred you could drag a girl into a private booth and make whoopie for twenty minutes. On a slow night like tonight, you could get two girls for the price of one.

Vanessa Maniella had built bordellos to suit every Rhode Island wallet. At each club, I asked for her and was politely informed that she was unavailable. When I asked if anyone had seen Sal lately, I drew icy stares.

I was standing now in the doorway of the Tongue and Groove's "all-nude room," waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. By the time 50 Cent stopped rapping, I could just make out the rows of c.o.c.ktail tables, all of them empty. I chose one by the back wall and took a seat. It was shift-change time onstage. The girl who'd received the dollar tip slid down onto the lap of her benefactor and whispered in his ear. Then she dismounted, took him by the hand, and led him toward a row of private cubicles that lined the wall to my left.

The other girl pranced naked down the stage stairs and scanned the room for prey. I could barely see her when she moved out of the light, but I sensed she was heading my way. Two new girls strutted onto the stage on long legs made longer by f.u.c.k-me heels. You couldn't call them strippers because they didn't have anything to peel off.

"Bonsoir, beebe. Waz you name?"

"Mulligan. What's yours?"

"Destiny," she said, but it came out more like "DEZ-tin-ee."

"Sure it is," I said. "That's what all the Haitian mamas are naming their babies these days."

That made her giggle, and I noticed for the first time how young and pretty she was. She was still giggling when she wrapped her arms around my neck.

"Buy me a drink and mebbe I tell you my real name."

I pulled a twenty off the small roll of bills in my jeans, handed it to her, and asked her to bring me back a Bud. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it and swung her hips as she walked to a little bar that I hadn't realized was there. When she returned with our drinks, she didn't give me change. I used my foot to push a chair away from the table for her, but she straddled my lap and pressed her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s against my neck.

"Marical," she said. "My name ees Marical."

"How old are you, Marical?"

"Ay-teen."

The same age as Teresa, the clerk at Zerilli's store, if she was telling the truth. I'd been trying to figure out what to do with my hands. I placed them now around her narrow waist.

"I show you a good time, beebe. Eef you get wit me, I make you world go round like craysee."

She moved her crotch in a circle against the front of my jeans, and I felt myself stiffen. Paul Simon's line from "The Boxer" popped into my head: "There were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there." But I'd never paid for something I could get for free, and I was too poor to start now.

"I got big love for you, beebe. I do you half price."

I shook my head no, and her shoulders slumped.

"Tonight I make no moany."

"Slow night."

"Slow, yes. The weekend be better, I hope so."

She twisted away from me, and I thought she was getting up to go. Instead, she reached behind her, plucked our drinks from the table, and handed me my bottle of Bud.

"How long have you been in Providence, Marical?"

"Tree muntz."

"Do you like it here?"

"Better than Haiti. I have no work dere."

"What do you have to pay to dance here?"

"I pay one hundred dollas a night. Tonight so far I loose moany."

Marical set her drink back on the table and ran her fingers through my hair, working on my sales resistance. She flicked open the b.u.t.tons of my Dustin Pedroia Red Sox game jersey. Then she draped her arms around my neck, pressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against my bare chest, and humped the front of my jeans. That had to be worth something. I peeled off a five and slipped it in her garter. My hand had a mind of its own. It lingered on her inner thigh.

"I know you want me, beebe." And that was no lie.

She took my hands in hers, placed them on her a.s.s, and humped some more.

That's when two guys shouldered through the door. I pegged them for college students-Providence College, maybe, or URI. They stood there until their eyes adjusted to the dark and then took seats at a table near the stage to study the action. Marical twisted around in my lap to look them over, then turned back to me.

"Love you, beebe, but I go to work now. Come see DEZ-tin-ee again when you have some moany, okay?"

She got up from my lap and walked toward the college boys, swinging her hips again as she went. She sat down at their table, and for a minute or two I listened to them laugh. Then I watched her bounce up, take them both by their hands, and lead them into one of the private rooms.

I wanted to kick the door in, pull her out of there, and take her away from all this. But I didn't.

Later I was sitting on a barstool downstairs, sipping another Bud and feeling vaguely guilty, when the bartender turned up the house lights and announced closing time with a twist on an old familiar refrain: "Time to go, dudes. You don't have to f.u.c.k at home, but you can't f.u.c.k here."

That's when I got a good look at one of the bouncers. His eyes were small and pale blue. His hair was the color of wet sand. At six feet three, he was my height but wider at his bulging shoulders, his torso tapering to a slightly pudgy waist. He looked familiar, but I couldn't come up with a name. He saw me, too, and headed my way as I drained my bottle and clunked it on the bar.

"Hey, Mulligan. Ain't seen you in a while."

The high, gravelly voice gave him away.

"Hi, Joseph." I hadn't seen Joseph DeLucca since his house burned down during the arson spree in Mount Hope last year. "How'd you lose all the weight?"