It was a little after four. He would nap until dark, then set out to find the girl.
Just as she’d promised, Loretta was waiting at the curb when Earl and his dog came out of the hotel. It was a little after eight.
She drove them north into midtown, telling Earl a little about the place they were headed. “Bo Peep’s Corral, mostly just topless lap dancin’ and all. But they’s a VIP room where you can get just about anything you want, you got enough money. You best watch yourself, though. This place,” she warned, “no place for a black man. This is still the South, sugar. And Peep’s is filled with rednecks.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Earl said. “I just want to see if she’s there and know she’s all right.”
“Just the same,” Loretta said.
They arrived at the gentlemen’s club, which was in the trendier part of the city. A beefy young bouncer in a tuxedo that was tight across his chest stood, arms folded, at the entrance.
“Maybe I better wait,” Loretta said.
“I’m not planning on any personal services. I won’t be long.”
“You want to leave your little buddy with me?”
“No,” Earl said. “I almost lost him in a fire once. Now he goes where I go.”
Earl slipped his dark glasses on and adjusted the camera around his neck. He withdrew a retractable white cane from his belt for good measure and extended it, then stepped out. “Jump!” he called. And Melon followed.
At the entrance, the bouncer stopped him with a hand on his chest. He lifted Earl’s camera and looked at it; studied the dog at Earl’s side a minute. “Okay,” the bouncer said, and let them pass.
The place was dark and smoke filled. Heavy-metal music blared from loudspeakers. A tall brunette, undressed down to her G-string and high heels, was on the runway, grinding her pelvis provocatively against a brass pole mounted center stage. Young women paraded past in scanty attire. Waitresses — Bo Peeps, one and all — moved about the room in exaggeratedly short blue-and-white-gingham skirts and belly-tied blouses. Young white boys lined the runway, mesmerized by the woman above them on the stage. Others sat brooding at tables in the dark, beyond the lights.
Earl was the only black man in the place, he noticed. He tapped his way with the cane to the back. Melon followed at his cuff until Earl found a seat, then he curled up beneath his chair.
“What can I get you?” a waitress said, appearing almost magically and before Earl’s butt had even adjusted to the hard chair. She was bent toward him, her tail jacked high by her spiked heels, showing lots of cleavage. A routine.
“Glass of water,” he said, staying with his own routine, eyes off and distantly focused.
“There’s a two-drink minimum. I’ll have to get you two and charge them like they’re beers,” she said.
Earl nodded.
The waitress went off to get his order.
Earl sat, eyes skyward, pretending to use his ears to draw life from the sound-filled room. From time to time he would sneak glances at the faces of the young dancers who passed. There were two black girls among the exotic mix of women. One was just mounting the stage as the music shifted to a sultry beat, replacing the brunette who gathered up the tossed dollar bills on her hands and knees before slinking off, liquid-hipped, toward the back. The other black girl was just starting a lap dance for a table full of young professionals in suits and ties. The group cheered her on as she lavished attention on one of their comrades. Neither of these two women was his granddaughter, and neither was half as pretty.
Earl considered the possibility that there were other young women offstage, in the dressing rooms or someplace. And from where he was sitting, he could see through parted curtains into the VIP room. It was currently unoccupied. It occurred to him that maybe it was India’s night off. But it was a Friday and more likely that all of the staff would be on duty. He waited. The waitress brought him his two glasses of water and Earl gave her a twenty without looking up.
Earl sipped his water.
“You want a dance?” a young blond woman asked, appearing over his shoulder. She was dressed in a sheer camisole and white lace panties. Earl waved her off without looking directly at her.
He sipped some more water and watched the room for signs of India.
Only minutes had passed when Earl noticed a man at the corner of the bar looking at him with interest. He was barrel-chested, balding, midsixties maybe, with a mass of dark chest hair showing through the open front of his Hawaiian shirt. Earl had the impression the man had been observing him for some time.
He pretended not to see. He sipped his water, eyes turned skyward.