Little Girl Lost by Aleas Richard

Author:Aleas, Richard [Aleas, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hard Case Crime
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Published: 2011-04-20T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

The Wildman was about as different from the Sin Factory as two places could get. The building was only one story tall but it sprawled over what in Manhattan would have been the footprint of a skyscraper. The parking lot out back could have fit four brownstones.

The walls looked like they’d been made from stacked cinderblocks and the roof was just slanted enough to let the snow slide off in the winter. There was a lighted billboard out front, but no doorman or bouncer, and even standing right under the front awning you couldn’t hear a thing from inside.

Down the block and across the avenue were car lots and a mini-mall featuring a food court, a karate studio, and a combination Carvel ice cream store and video rental place. None of these establishments seemed to be doing much business.

Neither was the Wildman, but that wasn’t a surprise given that it wasn’t even noon yet. Only hardcore alcoholics crack their first pint in the morning, and the same was true of strip club devotees. At noon or one you might see some local businessmen taking in the sights over lunch, but in the morning the clientele was limited to the addicted, the unemployed, and a few bleary-eyed night shift workers just getting off the job.

But “24-Hour Action!” was one of the things the Wildman advertised on its sign, so it had to be open for business. I pushed through the door, paid the twentydollar cover to the man behind the barred bank teller window, and stepped through the curtain of heavy plastic strips that separated the front room from the back.

My eyes took a moment to adjust. This room took up most of the rest of the building’s space, with five platform stages and a long wooden walkway snaking from one to the next. At the far end there was a full-sized stage with a red curtain and no one in front of it. Two of the five platforms were occupied, one by a tall woman with a Grace Jones flattop and small, natural breasts, the other by a woman closer to my height, chunkier, wearing silver hoops through her nipples and an ankh tattoo at the base of her throat. Her breasts looked natural, too. I hadn’t realized you could still find strippers with natural breasts in New York, even if you went to the Bronx at eleven in the morning.

A few of the stools were occupied, though most were still stacked upside down on their tables. In one corner of the room a bartender was setting up, ripping open boxes of beer bottles and packing them into a cooler. There was a wooden bowl full of nuts and pretzels, and I grabbed a handful, popped them one by one while I waited for the bartender to come over.

“Not open yet, champ,” he said. “Another half hour.”

“Danny Matin around?”

“This early? You’re joking, man.”

“So who’s here?”

“You and me, man.” He finished the box of Budweiser, started in on a box of Coors.

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