The Venus Fix

Eighty-Eight

“I told Stella that I needed her help with something and she said of course she’d do whatever I needed, but she didn’t sound like herself on the phone. Maybe you should wait for me in the lobby and let me go in first and explain who you are and why you’re here with me. I’m worried. You know, now that I’m thinking about it, she did look stressed at the funeral last week. I should have called then.”

We were stuck in traffic on Forty-ninth Street going west. Somewhere ahead of us, a driver leaned on his horn, adding to the noise pollution. I felt my teeth clench and focused on relaxing. My cold was getting worse and my throat was still sore. I popped a cough drop. “You can’t watch out over everyone.” I smiled at her. If my issue is saving souls, Nina’s is being there for everyone.

“She’s had a hard time. First losing the lawsuit, then Simone’s death. It’s bound to have affected her.”

“The lawsuit, right. Did you know Alan Leightman’s wife was the lawyer who won that case for the pornography company?”

Nina frowned. “Yes. What a mess that was. Stella was devastated when she lost. I had dinner with her about a week later. She told me it was as if everything she had worked to achieve had been wiped out in one afternoon. It was a huge blow. And then only a month later, Simone died.”

“How did she survive it?” I forced myself not to think about Dulcie.

“I don’t know if she did.”

The traffic opened up and our driver sped ahead; five minutes later we pulled up in front of a building that I recognized well.

“What are we doing here?”

This was the abandoned Playpen Theater, near the theater where Dulcie performed. I hadn’t paid much attention to it before Alan had mentioned it, but since then I’d found myself staring at it every time I passed by, wondering why it was still standing, abandoned and forlorn: a memorial to a part of New York that no one wanted to memorialize.

Nina had paid the driver and was waiting for change. “Stella owns this place, along with a group of other feminists she roped into contributing. It was supposed to be turned into a women’s center to aid sex workers. There was a zoning problem, but when she told me to meet her here today, I assumed it had been resolved and she’d had the building renovated. I guess not.”

I stepped out of the cab, navigating the piles of soot-covered snow. That’s when I realized that it hadn’t snowed in more than twelve hours. The sky was still overcast but maybe the siege was over.

Nina joined me on the sidewalk and stood with me, staring up at the marquee and the salacious neon figure of a busty woman, sitting with her legs crossed, forming the P in Playpen. Some of the neon tubes were broken but you could tell she had blond hair, red lips, pink arms and legs and large pink breasts. I could imagine how it once looked, all lit up, its glaring colors shining down at the men walking by, beckoning.

Nina pulled open the front door.

The lobby was dark, and once the door closed behind us it was almost pitch black inside. The air smelled stale and there was a top note of something that I couldn’t quite identify with my stuffed nose.

From somewhere above us, I heard the soft cooing of a pigeon. How many birds had found their way inside over the years? How many rats?

Once my eyes adjusted, I noticed a thin strip of light coming from under double doors, next to what must have originally been the candy and soda concession. That was where Alan had said the X-rated videos and magazines were sold when he’d been here as a teenager. I sensed the ghosts of those men, careful as they walked into the theater, afraid that they might be seen, gulping nervously, feeling the sweat on their palms, wishing they could stay away, already knowing they would be back the next day, or the one after that.

“It will only take a second for me to tell her I brought someone with me. I’ll be right back, okay?”

I nodded.

Nina opened the door. The light that came through was weak and flickering. And then she disappeared inside.