Lost Girls

chapter 11

Three days of wading through police notes and warrant documents, of prepackaged ham sandwiches purchased from the corner store beneath Tripp's apartment a couple blocks away, of sleeping in the desk chair and listening to the rain tap-dancing on the eaves. Three days of working alone, and Barth Crane could use a little entertainment.

''Evenin','' the concierge says to me when I reach the bottom of the Grand Staircase.

''Good evening. Any messages?''

He lowers his head either to check for notes that may have fallen to the floor or to give me a better view of his vein-mottled baldness. When he rises again he squints at me through the lobby's gas-lamp gloom.

''Nope. Nothing but--just more of the same.''

''Fine. If I get any serious calls, could you have your staff please refer them to my room?''

''Staff! Ain't no staff but me!''

He makes a clacking sound against the roof of his mouth that one immediately wishes one had never heard.

''Well, I suppose that explains why the phone was left ringing off the goddamn hook the other night.''

''What's that?''

''Nothing. Thanks so much for your help.''

''Not a worry.''

Then he lowers his head once more in what I can only take to be a bow of some kind, but I prevent myself from looking again at his awful scalp. Instead I turn and pull open the door to the Lord Byron Cocktail Lounge, stepping into an even greater darkness than the one I'd come from.

At first the only appreciable light emanates from the small stage at the far end of the room, and even this is of the purple fluorescent kind known only to strip bars and adolescent basement bedrooms. At the moment, however, the stage is empty, and after my eyes adjust I see that most of the bar is empty as well. Four beards in lumber jackets slumped around a table of half-consumed pitchers, three loosened ties with rolled sleeves spotted around the stage, and what I assume to be one of the dancers sitting at the bar in a transparent blouse and bike shorts, her impossibly long blond hair hanging down her back as though the plumage of an extravagant nineteenth-century hat. In the background the muted rumblings of cheesy jazz, a barely recognizable ''Little Girl Blue.''

Acquire a double rye-and-ginger and take a table near the stage but well off to one side against the wall where the darkness is almost complete. For a while nothing happens, and nobody seems to mind, not even the lumber jackets, who look the sort who wouldn't stand for excessive delays in the delivery of entertainment. I finish my drink and raise my arm to the barman for another.

Then, without the usual PA introduction and change in music that signals a new dancer's arrival, a young woman takes the stage and immediately drops her slip to the floor. She's blond as well but unbleached and, judging from the taut smoothness of the flesh at the back of her thighs and under her arms, could be no more than twenty years old. But as she dances it's impossible to get a good look at her because of hair so loosely feathered, it shrouds most of her face. The kind of hair one finds on those embarrassed by a scar or spotty skin, yet the few glimpses she offers suggest she's as likely pretty as not. Moves without interest in her movement, fingertips running down over her ribs and stomach as though checking for dust. Hips swaying a little too slow for the music so that she's always a half beat behind, hands now squeaking up the brass pole at the side of the stage. Raises her arms above her and the whole of her body, slender and pale and high, is clinically displayed.

When she finishes the audience applauds dutifully but without the usual whistles or howls, which I assume is out of either boozy distraction or respect for her tender age. She bends down and picks the gauzy white slip up off the floor, lets it fall over her shoulders. On her way to the bar I wave to her to join me and she brings me another drink as well as one for herself.

''Like the show?'' she asks when she sits, places the fresh drink she's brought for me down beside its two empty friends. Her skin egg-yolk yellow inside the thin fabric.

''I did indeed, thank you. I feel much better now.''

She makes a hollow sound at the back of her throat in place of laughter. Even up close I can gain no better view of her face, and she keeps herself a little turned from me to make sure of it. But her body leans into the table, a leg sliding forward to make contact with mine.

''You want me to dance?''

''In a minute maybe. How about we talk a little first. You live in town?''

''Not exactly. But I know you don't.''

She moves her head so that it's now at a different indirect angle from before, but as she does she exposes a flash of teeth from behind the veil of hair.

''Oh, so you must know me pretty well, do you? Let's see, then. What's my name?''

She laughs, once.

''No? It's Barth.''

I extend my hand to her but she doesn't take it. Instead she pulls her feet up beneath her on the chair and rocks back and forth distractedly to the music, which has now changed to a heavy metal ballad from the seventies that I can't quite place. And then over the girl's shoulder I see the older blonde take the stage and immediately begin to squeeze her pendent breasts together and glower at the four lumber jackets, who respond with a couple beery hoots.

''Don't you have a name?'' I try again.

''Call me whatever you want.''

She leans forward, close enough that her hair brushes against my cheek, and I notice that it has no smell. That she herself gives off no powder or perfume or sweat.

''But I know you,'' she whispers.

Something in her voice moves me back against the wall. Maybe it's only that she doesn't speak like all the other dancers with their little-girl or smoky-madam routines. She's so new at this she's still using her own voice.

''So it's that obvious that I'm from out of town?''

She nods, and her hair shifts like poured honey.

''Is it the clothes? Or wait a second. You saw the story on me in the local paper. There must have been a picture too. That's it, isn't it?''

She says nothing to this but rises, bending down at the waist when she's on her feet. Once more she moves her head in a way that briefly exposes a smile, a narrow row of too-small upper teeth.

''Going already? You haven't even danced for me yet.''

She laughs again, this time cracking out so loudly I expect the whole room to have noticed, but when I glance behind her all eyes remain on the stage. The girl places her hand briefly on top of mine and sends a dull shock up my arm that holds me there, waiting for her to let me go. And when she does she leaves the idea of her touch over my skin--dry as paper, bird bones and muscle strings within --long after she withdraws. Moves to the bar, her spine a slippery semicolon under the cheap lingerie. Says something to the barman and leaves by way of the door marked LADIES' ENTRANCE.

I finish the drink she brought in a swift gulp, pretend to watch the finale of the other blonde's routine. The lumber jackets hollering, then transfixed and silent for the moment of lowered panties, hollering again. Her body a blue-lit phantom, a photograph come to dollish life. The men watch her. Fixed to their seats, eyes held open to the small miracle of remembered desire.

Except for me. Eyes moving between my drink, the glowing bottles behind the bar, the closed door of the LADIES' ENTRANCE. Trying to recall when I'd last been with a woman. Years. Not since university, and God knows even then only rarely and without success. It's hard to discern with any precision when impotence turns from a lack of desire to incapacity. Having consulted neither shrink nor urologist in my own case, I can only guess. For me there was never repugnance, only a flat indifference. Women could still charm and allure, but the third requisite response--the stirring mechanics deep down where it counts--was never forthcoming.

I haven't been with a woman in years because I know that I cannot. Cannot because there would be no rewards for her and I'm too old for new shames. But tonight with this girl there was something. A pooling of warmth in the lower back, neck loose, toes curling up within the leather privacy of shoes. The need to reach out to another met by the discipline to sit still, everything left in an almost painful balance. For the time she sat near me I wanted only to diminish the air between us, pull her hair aside and stroke my knuckles over her face. I wanted only this, but at the same time wanted only for her to leave me and these feelings alone. For with this there came also an apprehension. Not of her exactly, but of seeing and touching more than I could bear.