Dirty South

16

Pinky’s specialized in kick-ass punk music, explosive drinks, and a Tuesday-night bondage show, or so I heard from Curtis. I’d left my leather mask back home and I never owned a whip in my life but decided I’d be safe. I told ALIAS he could wait in the truck, but he said he wanted to see this place. He said freaks were interesting and wanted to know if it was like that shit in Pulp Fiction. I’d parked off Elysian Fields and Chartres by a methadone clinic and a vegetarian restaurant that offered discounts to same-sex couples. A few years back, I wouldn’t have even driven through this neighborhood; the gunshots and violence were constant. But a few years ago, the homosexual community had taken over the Marigny, cleaning it up and making it their own. But now the historic district right by the Quarter was going through another change. Gentrification. Now it was hipper than Uptown and way too cool for the Quarter.

And Pinky’s, I think, was supposed to be too cool for anyone.

A nice neon sign of a forties pinup in a pink nightgown hung over the vinyl padded door with a diamond glass for a window. Nice curvy butt and shoulders and blond hair on top of her head in ribbons. She winked at you, holding a hand of cards. Pink neon surrounding her body. From inside, Johnny Cash was singing “That Lucky Old Sun,” the Ray Charles number.

A grizzled white dude with multiple piercings and a shaved head smoked a clove cigarette behind the bar and flipped through a copy of Newsweek. A photo of George W. Bush on the cover looking intense. He nodded along with the article as I waited for a little service.

“What’ll it be?” he asked. He was British.

“Two Cokes.”

“I want a beer,” ALIAS said.

“One Coke and a Barq’s.”

“Man, that’s root beer.”

“No shit.”

ALIAS walked off to the jukebox.

“I’m also looking for a guy named Fred Moore,” I said.

“She’s not in.”

“She?”

“She’ll be back in a minute,” he said. “She had to pick up the band.”

We waited as the bar really opened up. The lights dimmed. More pink neon. Black-and-white photos of forties B actors and movie posters for these noir films that I didn’t even know lined the walls. A few Bettie Page flicks. Some sixties Roger Corman stuff. ALIAS loaded up the jukebox with some rap music I’d never heard.

The waitresses walked in and started getting ready for the night. Brunette and blond. They were all beautiful and young and hard as hell. Their pasty white faces never saw the sun. Deep red lips outlined in black and hair up in Andrews Sisters configurations. Tight black Ts with glitter sayings: BITCH and HOT STUFF and double dice on snake eyes. They all wore combat boots and black socks.

ALIAS gave me a wild stare over the back of one of the girls and mouthed the word “Freak.”

A few minutes later, an older woman with hair so blond I wasn’t too sure it wasn’t white walked in the door with a group of tired kids hauling guitars and pieces of a drum kit. She pointed out the stage cast in a red light, walked over to the bar, and asked the pierced Brit for the mail.

He handed some stuff to her but didn’t mention me. She had on large black sunglasses in the darkened bar. Long black shirt, tight black pants.

I introduced myself and said I’d like to talk to her about some business in private. Johnny Cash came back on in the shuffle and sang about God havin’ a heaven for country trash.

“I do my business here. You don’t like, then fuck off. This is my place.”

She sat at the bar stool next to me. She was in her late forties or early fifties. She reminded me of Deborah Harry if Deborah Harry lived an even tougher life. She lit a long cigarette.

“Who was Pinky?”

“My mother.”

“No shit.”

“No shit,” she said. “I’ve heard that more GIs jacked off to her than Betty Grable.”

“You must be proud.”

“Fuckin’ A.”

“I had one of those posters of Farrah Fawcett. Got me through puberty.”

“You must be proud too.”

“I have guilt.”

She took a long draw of cigarette and nodded about ten times, letting the smoke just float out of the corner of her mouth. Her mouth looked like a shrunken, dead rose. She kept looking over my shoulder at ALIAS. She watched him as she played with her cigarette.

Fred motioned for the bartender. “Watch that kid.”

The bartender nodded.

“The kid’s with me.”

“What are you, into some kind of Big Brother program?” she said. “Get rid of that guilt you got.”

“I heard you could lead me to someone who conned a friend of mine.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Great question,” I said. “I can arrange money.”

“Who sent you?”

“Curtis Lee.”

“Thought he was on the Farm.”

“Got out.”

“I would’ve stayed if I was married to that wretched woman.”

“He loves her.”

“Curtis has problems.”

“Maybe.”

She walked off, spoke to the band for a few minutes, and then returned to the bar. Punks began to fill up the place, all black-T-shirted and pierced, tattoos muraling their arms. Heads shaved. Hair moussed up in impossible directions.

“What do you want to know?”

I repeated the story about Teddy, the kid, and the con. The man with cauliflower ears. She listened.

“How much money did he lose?”

“That’s for you to find out and then tell me who I need to find.”

She shrugged. “How much?”

“Has to come through first.”

“I haven’t run a game in five years.”

I ordered another Coke. She paid for it and I appreciated that.

“Anyone run the big games around here?”

“Used to be this cocksucker named Fourtnot but he died in the eighties. I don’t know. Mostly freelance. Lots of Lotto games. Big cons on old women down at the lake-front. But what you’re talking about is impressive. Good imagination.”

“Not bad.”

She reached out with her long fingers and slowly raked her red nails across my arm.

“Tell your boy to get lost and come with me,” she said.

“Where would you start?”

She flipped her hair back and lit another cigarette. She looked at herself in the mirror, not finding what she was looking for, and mussed her hair with her fingers. “I will. You won’t.”

Her fingers were stained with nicotine and her breath smelled of garlic and mint. She looked at me and sighed. “I want five thousand.”

“Has to come through tonight,” I said.

“I’ll work on it.”

“I need it within a couple of hours.”

She nodded.

“What happened to Pinky?”

“She jumped off the balcony of the Fountainebleau in Miami.”

She stubbed her cigarette into an ashtray filled with peanut shells and walked away.