Live Girls by Ray Garton Page A

the music that had sounded so distant a second before suddenly pounded from beyond the doorway.

    Following her out of the foyer and into the club, Davey glanced back to see the door shut smoothly behind them.

    The club was dark inside; smoke, diffused with dim light, writhed above bobbing heads. She led him around a crowded, U-shaped bar and through the crowd.

    Overhead lights with purple shades gave everything in the room a bruised look, relieved only by small white lamps on the center of each of the round tables. The walls were black and covered with a white grating on which were mounted geometrically shaped neon tube lights; the lights flashed red and purple, blue and white.

    A Hispanic man with close-cropped hair and a mustache approached them. Like Malcolm he wore a tuxedo, but filled it with a much more impressive physique. He had a hard street face, knowing and sly.

    “Cedric,” she said loudly. She lightly touched Davey's arm as she spoke. “Could you show my guest to table twelve?"

    Cedric turned to Davey.

    “This way, sir,” he said with a heavy accent.

    “Wait!” Davey called to her as she began to walk away.

    She stopped and turned.

    “Your name!” Davey said. “I don't even know your name."

    That half smile again: “Anya.” She was swallowed by the crowd.

    “Sir?” Cedric said. “This way, please."

    Reluctantly, Davey followed him through the crowd toward the source of the music.

    Davey saw middle-aged couples, some in formal attire and jewels, others casually dressed, mixing with younger people wearing the most current fashions and sporting extravagant hairstyles. Ice clinked and smoke swirled.

    Cedric led him around the crowded dance floor just below the stage to one of the front tables. “Here you are, sir,” he said. His hard-edged voice and steely eyes clashed with his formal manner.

    Davey seated himself and looked up at Cedric, who was watching him carefully. His eyes moved from Davey's face, down his chest and stomach to his lap, then back up again.

    “A cocktail waitress will be with you in a moment,” he said.

    As the man walked away, Davey noticed a scar just below his left ear; it was perhaps two inches long and had apparently been a very deep cut. Cedric wound his way through the crowd until he was out of sight.

    Davey looked up at the perfectly dark stage and blinked several times in disbelief. White disembodied hands were playing white instruments: drums, guitars, a saxophone, a keyboard. The instruments shone like polished ivory in the darkness of the stage. They moved and bobbed and swayed; the white hands glided over the keyboard gracefully. The effect was hypnotic.

    The beat of the music was heavy but not unpleasant. It seemed to move the bodies on the dance floor as strings move a puppet.

    “Something to drink, sir?” a waitress asked. She had short red hair; gold eyeshadow sparkled beneath her brows. She wore the top half of a tuxedo with tails and, from the waist down, only black panties and black stockings.

    “Uh, vodka gimlet, please,” Davey said. “No ice."

    As she walked away, Davey watched the tails flap against her legs.

    Davey spotted a table of three women, all in their forties, each immaculately dressed. They were laughing raucously. One of them, a plump black woman, gracefully lifted a hand above her head and waggled her fingers, not unlike a schoolgirl asking a question in class. Light glinted on her handsome diamond wedding ring; the spot of light was filtered through the hovering smoke and shined, for an instant, like a star. Cedric went to her side, joined his hands behind his back, and leaned toward her, smiling. She lightly placed her fingers on his elbow and said something in his ear. Cedric nodded and stepped behind her, pulled her chair back as she stood. He took her arm and led her through the crowd.

    Davey watched them as they stepped around tables and shouldered their way between the other patrons. Cedric led the woman to