funny. How ’bout a private dance?”
“Tempting, but I have an appointment with Harmony.”
The big brunette leaned in close to Harry’s ear. “You don’t want a dance with her.”
“Why not?”
“She’s all mopey. I’ll do stuff back there that you’ll remember.”
“Why’s she all mopey?”
Cynthia sat up. “Why do you care?”
Harry, with difficulty, reached into his pocket and produced a ten dollar bill while the girl giggled. He looked around her body for a place to put it. When she offered her cleavage, he slipped the money there. “’Cause I do.”
Cynthia leaned in again. “She just lost her boob ticket.”
“Her boob ticket?”
“She had a guy who was gonna buy her new boobs.”
“Lost him how?”
“That’s a weird question. What are you, like, a stalker?”
The sound of a sarcastic throat clearing behind Cynthia stopped him from answering. Harmony had changed out of her school uniform and was now wearing a low-cut white lab coat. “I’m assuming you no longer want that dance.”
“No,” Harry said attempting to stand, “Cynthia and I were just chatting.” He carefully helped Cynthia off his lap.
“I’d keep an eye out for Hammy here,” the skinny girl huffed. “He’s a strange one.”
Harmony ignored her colleague’s advice and took Harry by the hand and led him into the dark back of the establishment.
“Is that your name, Hammy?”
“No, it’s Harry,” he said, finding it difficult to lie to the girl.
She led him to a counter with a middle-aged woman behind it.
“Dances are twenty bucks.”
Harry gave the lady a twenty, and she gave Harmony a little ticket that she stuffed into the pocket of her lab coat.
“Aren’t you going to tip Denise?”
“You want me to tip her?” Harry said, pointing to the lady behind the counter who had just lit a cigarette.
“She works hard,” Harmony said.
Harry gave the woman a couple of bucks that she took without thanks, then Harmony led him to a small alcove with an armless leather chair and a tiny jukebox. She closed the curtain behind her.
“You got a fiver for the box?”
“Huh?”
“The jukebox.”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said, handing over a fiver. “What happened to quarter jukeboxes?”
If she heard the question she didn’t acknowledge it. She punched the buttons that allowed some sort of trance music to escape. “How good your dance is depends on your tip. A twentydollar tip is customary – up front.”
“A one hundred per cent tip?”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Quality costs.”
“Yes, of course,” Harry said, handing her a twenty. “I’m just getting used to this new Pocono economy.”
There was no “stripping” involved. Harmony undid the two buttons on her lab coat and dropped it to the floor. From then on Harry’s imagination went on holiday because there was nothing left for it to do. Harmony turned and touched her toes and then sat on Harry’s lap and grinded in a clockwise motion. Harry put his hands at her sides in an attempt to lift her off his lap, but she grabbed the back of his hands and pulled them up to her breasts while leaning in and blowing into his ear.
He was momentarily distracted but finally said: “Ah, Harmony, could we talk?”
She arched her back and grinded harder into Harry’s, not unresponsive, lap. “I’m a dancer.” She again fell back against Harry’s chest and got so close he could feel her wet lips against his ear, “I don’t talk.”
“Not even about Big Bill?”
The gyration stopped. Harmony reached down, picked up her lab coat and then stood holding it in front of her like it was a towel and she had just stepped from a shower. “What about Bill?”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about him, if I may?”
“You a cop?”
“No, but I’m working with them.”
“Do you have any ID?”
“Not really, I have a driver’s license.”
“Why are you talking to me here?”
“I thought it would be easier, more relaxed.” Harry looked around the tiny cubicle and shrugged. “I think I was wrong.”
A voice came from the other side of the curtain. “You OK in there, Sara?”
Harmony stared at Harry, trying to make up her mind about him. When the guy on the other side of the curtain didn’t hear anything he pushed it open. Harry was expecting one of the neckless bouncers, but instead, standing there, was a man he hadn’t seen before. He was tall and dark, maybe Middle Eastern, with a full moustache circa 1970s porn star.
Harmony spun around and took an involuntary step back, treading on Harry’s foot and almost falling over.
“What’s going on here?” the man asked.
Harmony put on her lab coat. She was obviously intimidated by the man and was struggling to come up with a response.
“I hear you been asking about Big Bill?” the man said, stepping into the alcove that wasn’t really big enough for the three of them. “You a cop? If you’re a cop you have to say you’re a cop.”
“I’m not a cop.”
The man stepped closer and pushed Harmony behind him. “Then what the fuck are you?”
This was a hypothetical question that, at that moment, Harry was unprepared to answer.
“I want you out.”
“If you back up,” Harry said as calmly as he could, “then maybe I could stand.”
“You telling me what to do in my own club?”
There are lots of theories on how to defuse aggressive situations and Harry knew them all. In his experience, predicaments like this usually got defused when the aggressor’s fist made contact with Harry’s nose. After
