Solitary Dancer by John Lawrence Reynolds Page A

was prancing in long strides around the perimeter of the stage. Her hands were busy at one hip, unfastening her G-string. “I surely am.”
    Grizzly held his breath until the stripper removed the last piece of fabric covering her body. Then he exhaled slowly and spoke softly, watching the girl promenade in her nakedness. “Wait out the heat. Gotta wait out the heat, monkey.”
    â€œHear you, Grizz,” Django nodded.
    â€œWe be like that little gal up there, you know. What her name again?”
    â€œSienna, darlin’. She Lady Sienna.”
    Grizzly grunted and took his eyes from the woman to inspect the tip of his cigarette. “Not as pretty, understand. Not as pretty as that little thing. But we be as naked, you hear me talkin’?”
    Django nodded, his face clouded.
    â€œWe don’t carry nothin’ for nobody ’til it cool again, understand?” Grizzly swung his massive body to Django and leaned to look directly into the small man’s eyes. “Special not for that cop friend of yours, hear me?” His breath smelled like a musty room and Django sat back in his chair. “Tell me you hear me talkin’ to you.”
    â€œThe Jolt, he all right,” Django said. He avoided Grizzly’s eyes. “Don’t be askin’ me to leave the Jolt dry. . . .”
    â€œI be talkin’ to you all this time and you ain’t started listenin’ yet,” Grizzly said. “I ain’t axin’ you to dry the man up. I
tell
in’ you, you hear me?”
    Django watched Sienna doing knee-bends at the edge of the stage where men gripped long-necked bottles of beer and stared back at her with open smiles. “I hear you, Grizz,” he said. “Hear you.” He bit his lip, looked around, tried to stay cool, then he said, “Other guys, Garce ’n’ Drew, them guys, they dry too?”
    â€œWhat you wanta know for?” Grizzly shot back. “None a your damn business. I say you dry, you dry.”
    Django sat back in his chair. Garce and Drew, he only met them a couple, maybe three times, they were dealers for Grizzly, Grizz liked to keep everybody separate, nobody get together on a conspiracy against Grizzly, no sir.
    â€œYou do like I tell you?” Grizzly said.
    â€œNo question, Grizz,” Django said. “Never any question ’bout it.”
    Grizzly grunted and sat back in the chair, his eyes on Sienna again. “Little brown girl nice,” he said to no one in particular. “But Billie, she still the best ’cause she
like
it up there, you know? Don’t she like it up there?”
    â€œOh, she do,” Django agreed. “She like to show her jewels all right.” He was no longer moving in his chair and his face was glum. “Can see she like it.”
    The Gypsy played with her fingers, her eyes downcast.
    The sports channel was running a replay of last night’s hockey game and the Bruins were again getting their asses kicked; this time by the hated Rangers, a reprise of organized chaos traced on the screen of the television set above the noisy, smoky bar. The inept play and repeated miscues of the hometown team generated shouts of derision, cries of anguish and peels of sardonic laughter from the patrons, nearly all men, virtually all of them out of work and low on hope.
    McGuire slouched at a table in a rear corner next to the washroom door, a half-finished glass of beer in front of him. The rim of the glass was chipped and the beer was flat. Men in soiled caps passed McGuire on their way to the urinals and many offered him a curt nod, acknowledging him not as a friend but as a regular patron of Chet’s, almost the same thing. Two weeks earlier one of the regulars recognized McGuire and had spread the word that he was an ex-cop, and for a few days the patrons withheld their greetings. But it soon became evident that ex-cops have every bit as much to lose as ex-truck drivers,