Part 27 (1/2)
”I don't believe this s.h.i.+t, man,” Eagle complained, coming up from behind. ”The f.u.c.ker ain't here.”
”Yes, he is,” Phil croaked.
Then he pointed down to the fly-covered corpse sprawled across the kitchen floor.
”Dream On” by Aerosmith ended Vicki's set amid a rowdy cannonade of applause. Sure, dream on, she thought beneath her best ”dance-face.” Dream forever- Dream till you're dead.
She could swear Sallee's walls actually shook, they were clapping so hard. It sounded like a storm. And when she stepped down through the stagelights and endless, moving sheets of cigarette smoke, she always felt the notion that she was stepping down into h.e.l.l.
Maybe I really am, she considered.
She took a final bow, then left the stage and the noise and the crowd behind her, perhaps in the same way she'd left her dignity and self-worth behind her so many years ago-with a cold turn of her shoulder.
Druck stood at the entrance to the back room, a deformed sentinel in overalls. Vicki could feel his warped gaze sliding down her naked back as she quickly pa.s.sed and slipped into the dressing room. She noted a trickling sound the moment she entered; it was coming from one of the toilet stalls. Someone douching, she guessed at once. One of the Creekers. Cody forbade the Creeker girls from using condoms-hence the necessity to douche. The rednecks paid more to forego protection. What did they care? Men couldn't get pregnant, and were at much less risk of contracting diseases. There'd only been a few occasions when, servicing a special client, Cody had ordered her to not use condoms, but on those nights she'd been too c.o.ked up to really care. She got tested every two months at the county clinic and had so far tested negative. It seemed a miracle, considering the extent of her prost.i.tution before she'd married Natter. Anything for a line, she thought in utter grimness. She'd done things she couldn't believe...
The stall door opened and, as predicted, one of the Creeker girls emerged, immediately looking down when noticing Vicki there. The Creekers treated Vicki with an almost queenly respect; they were afraid of her. After all, she was the king's wife now. The girl, who only had one arm, limped past and out the door, her black hair lifting in her wake.
Jesus...
Vicki knew the Creekers were powerless against Cody's exploitation of them. Still, she subtly despised them. The Creeker girls were an ultimate reminder of the depraved backwoods underworld that Vicki's life now tightly revolved around.
They reminded her of her own powerlessness against Cody Natter. They're r.e.t.a.r.ded and deformed and terrorized, she thought. At least they have an excuse.
But what's mine?
She knew there were no excuses. She had no one to blame for the wreckage of her life but herself.
Dozens of one-dollar bills stuffed her tip garter, along with a few tens and twenties. It all went to Cody, just like her trick money. She knew he made a fortune off her, and G.o.d knew how much he made off the Creekers. She transferred the cash to her purse, then, as she did every night after her last set, turned to face herself in the mirror.
It was an accuser's face that peered back, or a ragged Doppelganger's. Her red hair didn't s.h.i.+ne like it used to, and her green eyes had lost some of their emerald l.u.s.ter. Crow's feet encroached, and the tiniest threadlike lines. At least my t.i.ts aren't sagging yet, she indelicately noted of her bare, thrusting bosom.
But what of the rest of her?
The truth compiled every day. Her lean, nimble physique was a little too lean now, and beginning to show signs of depletion. Sometimes, when she woke up, she looked absolutely emaciated. The c.o.ke stole not only her vitality but also the simple common sense that she should eat better. Each day of her life took another little fleck away.
And the flecks were adding up.
Yeah, I'm starting to really look beat, her thoughts informed her reflection. Pretty soon I'll be lucky to pull a couple five-dollar b.l.o.w.j.o.bs per night.
Not much of a destiny.
And what would Cody do then? There was so much she had seen, so much she knew...
She tried to think of a time when her life hadn't been in so many pieces. She knew when it was: during her engagement to Phil. She'd been a different person then; she'd had a real future, and real ambitions. Where had it all gone? To h.e.l.l, she thought. To h.e.l.l in a handbasket and straight up my nose. The diamond pendant glittered between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s-Phil had given it to her a decade ago. For the past few nights she'd been wearing it again, but-Why? she wondered. Did she think that he would notice? And so what if he did? Phil's own life, it seemed, had taken the same fall as hers; he was hanging out with Eagle Peters now, a known dope runner. He said he was doing dust. And the other night? I was just another f.u.c.k, like I always am. She must be out of her mind thinking that he could somehow save her from Natter. Why would he even want to? she asked herself in steepening self-hatred. My whole life is in the pits...
She'd never even bothered telling Phil the real reason she'd married Natter. He'd never believe it; it would just sound like the typical self-pitying bulls.h.i.+t of any wh.o.r.e. It was best to simply let him think what anyone else would would think: that she'd married Natter for convenience, for free c.o.ke and fewer tricks. Those were parts of the reason, but the main reason was that Natter, in exchange, agreed to pay for her father's heart-valve operation. She'd bartered her flesh, and now Cody had his prize. It was almost medieval.
Her father had died a few years later, but at least her effort had given him some extra life.
No, Phil's necklace was nothing more than a dead icon, another reminder as to how flagrantly she'd let her whole life slip away from her.
Then another reminder reared.
”d.a.m.n it!” she whispered aloud when she reached into her purse and withdrew the tiny vial. It was empty.
The vial was an icon too, a perverted censer by which she wors.h.i.+pped her own demon. She was enslaved, and it was hard to clearly remember back to the time when she wasn't...
Rap-rap-rap! the hard knocks resounded on the door. Oh, G.o.d d.a.m.n it, she thought. She knew who it was; it was Druck. And just when things were looking like she wouldn't have to turn any tricks tonight. At least being married to Natter had one benefit: he only reserved her now for higher-paying clients, which amounted to two or three tricks per week instead of five to ten per night. Having as his wife the highest-priced hooker in the club was Cody's prestige, like a pimp's ”top-drawer” girl. The other girls provided the standard grist for Natter's mill, and the Creeker girls, of course, catered to the kinkier clientele. Vicki was on a pedestal in a sense. The Queen of Sallee's, she thought. Cody Natter's f.u.c.k trophy, the grade-A prime of the redneck underground...
Rap-rap-rap-RAP!
”What, Druck?” she nearly screamed through the door.
”'Scuse me, Miss Vicki,” the halfwit voice came back. ”But ya about done in there?”
”Yeah. Why?”
”Cody wants to see ya.”
”What for, for G.o.d's sake?”
The slow voice behind the door paused. ”Don't rightly know, Miss Vicki. But ya best git finished up 'cos he been waitin' on ya fer awhile's now.”
”I'll be out in a minute,” she replied, all the bite gone from her words. Yes, she knew. One last glance in the mirror, and she nearly broke out into tears.
Who did she hate more? Natter, or herself?
She swiftly put on her jeans and blouse, and left.
Druck waited outside, cracking his strange doublethumbs. ”Yessir, yer sh.o.r.e lookin' mighty perdy tonight, Miss Vicki.”
”Where's Cody?”
The smile on the warped face looked like two fat worms lain together. ”He's on back in the office.”
Druck's uneven red eyes gazed at her bosom. The smile squirmed. His gaze felt like a molestor's hands freely kneading her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Sc.u.mbag.
She went down the hall, her stiletto heels ticking, and entered the back office. At once she noticed two of the less-defected Creeker dancers, nude save for their g-strings, standing against the wall. Their ebon-haired heads were bowed as if in the presence of a deity.
Which, in a sense, they were.
Cody Natter sat at the desk.
”So lovely, so beautiful,” came his familiar, creaking voice. ”And how was your night, my love?”
”Peachy. Druck said you wanted me for something.”