Bruce DeSilva - Cliff Walk

When I pulled into the crushed-shell drive, the house looked dark and empty. I tugged the hood of my rain slicker over my head, sprinted through the storm, and climbed the stairs to the wide front porch. The doorbell chimed like Big Ben. No one answered. To be thorough, I sloshed around the house and peeked in the windows. Through a pane in the side door to the three-car garage, I could just make out the silhouettes of the year-old Maybach and the 2009 Hummer registered to Sal Maniella. Made me wonder how he’d gotten to Newport if he hadn’t driven either of his cars. The stall reserved for Vanessa’s Lexus was empty. Maybe he’d taken hers.

My jeans were soaked through with rain now, and the temperature was falling. I dashed for the Bronco, cranked the ignition, turned on the headlights and wipers, and could barely see the house through the windshield. Risking the dike again would be pushing my luck. I turned off the engine, opened my thermos, and sipped coffee for the warmth. It worked. It also triggered a gnawing pain just below my breastbone. I popped the glove box, cracked open a fresh bottle of Maalox, and took two big gulps. Then I let the seat down to catch a nap and wait for the rain to let up.

I’d just dozed off when Mick Jagger started growling the lyrics to “Bitch,” a ringtone that alerted me to the frequent late-night calls from that special someone.

“Hello,” I said, and received the usual salutation.

“You… fucking… bastard!”

“Good evening, Dorcas.”

“Who are you out screwing tonight, you prick?”

“Five of the six Pussycat Dolls. Nicole Scherzinger couldn’t make it.”

“Always with the fucking jokes.”

“Okay, you’re on to me. Truth is, Melody Thornton couldn’t make it, either.”

“My lawyer call you today?”

“He did.”

“And?”

“And I’m still not agreeing to lifetime alimony, Dorcas.”

“You are such a prick.”

“I did offer all the child support you could possibly want. He thought that was generous until he remembered we never had any kids.”

“You think you’re funny? Because you’re not.”

“I keep telling you, Dorcas, things are going downhill at the paper. Chances are I’m gonna get laid off. Even if I don’t, the Dispatch is likely to close down in a few years, and I have no idea what I’ll do then.”

“Not my problem, asshole.”

“Being a reporter is all I know, Dorcas. I’ve never been any good at anything else.”

“You got that right.”

“Do I need to point out again that you make twice as much money as I do?”

“Go to hell!”

“Sleep tight, Dorcas,” I said, but she’d already hung up.

The rapping on the car window startled me. I opened my eyes to see Captain Parisi knocking on the glass with his knife-scarred knuckles. Across the lake, the sun had crept over the horizon and was peeking through the pines.

“Mulligan?” he said as I rolled down the window. “The hell you doing here?”

“Same thing you are.”

I’d known Steve Parisi for years. Despite Fiona’s grousing about the lack of results, he was a damned fine detective, although he did tend to be tight-lipped with the press. There was often a five-second delay before anything he said to me, as if he were afraid some juicy official secret would slip.

“House still empty?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Doesn’t explain why you’re sleeping in a junk car in our favorite pornographer’s driveway.”

“I got caught in the storm last night and didn’t dare risk the dike.”

“Got an inspection sticker on this heap?” He checked and found it on the windshield. “How much of a bribe did you pay to get that?”

“The going rate is forty bucks.”

Five seconds ticked off before he sighed and said, “Yeah, that’s what I hear, too.”

“If Rhode Islanders would stop killing each other for a week or two,” I said, “maybe one of us could look into it.”

That five-second delay again. Talking with Parisi was like conversing by radio signal with somebody on the moon.

“If I tell you not to come out here again,” he said, “it won’t do any good, will it?”

“It won’t.”

“How ’bout giving me a call if you find them before I do?”

“Sure,” I said. “And if you find them first, you’ll give me a heads-up, right?”

“I’ll think about it. Watch yourself on the way out. The edge of the causeway broke away in a couple of spots last night, and from the skid marks in the mud, it looks like someone damn near went into the drink.”

I was sitting at the bar nursing a six-dollar can of Bud when a bottle blonde sashayed up in a G-string and stiletto heels, thrust a pair of store-bought tits in my face, and said, “Want a blow job?” Well, sure, but not at these prices. I shook my head, and she stamped her heel in frustration. Then she spun away and scanned the room for another mark. I took a good look at her ass. Some habits are hard to break.

It was a slow Thursday night at the Tongue and Groove. There were no chartered buses in the parking lot, and the twenty hookers taking turns on the stripper poles outnumbered the paying customers. Most of the men looked as if they’d already had their fun. Now short on cash and stamina, they hunched over beers at the cocktail tables or slumped on stools by the stage to review the choreography. The girls gyrated in G-strings, but ten dollars would get you into the “all-nude room” upstairs. In the name of research, I pulled a Hamilton out of my pocket. As I handed it to the palooka watching the door, I wondered how I should phrase the entry on my expense account.

The room at the top of the stairs was dark except for the stage, where two naked women, one black and one white, were on their hands and knees, shaking their asses to the beat of a romantic mood setter by 50 Cent:

I’ll take you to the candy shop,

I’ll let you lick the lollipop…

Their genitals gyrated inches from the noses of two men sitting on barstools in a row of otherwise empty ones at the edge of the stage. One guy thrust a dollar in a garter and reached out to fondle the merchandise.

The Tongue and Groove was my last stop on a three-night tour of Vanessa Maniella’s strip clubs. I’d been hoping to find out how they operated-and maybe pick up some gossip about the family’s whereabouts. But the main thing I’d discovered was that Vanessa had learned a thing or two about merchandising at URI.

On Tuesday night, I’d hung out at Shakehouse. There, the cover was twenty dollars, which a large gentleman in a Joseph Abboud suit politely requested at the door. A poster-size photo of three naked stunners mugging with a linebacker from the New England Patriots was mounted just inside the entrance. Behind the gleaming granite bar, five mixologists in white shirts and black bow ties whipped up flavored martinis and drew mugs of premium draft beer.

The women, some fresh from appearances in Manhattan and Atlantic City, had spent a lot of time at the gym. They shimmied nude on three stages in a swirl of colored lights, moving as though Shakira had taught them to dance. The customers, most wearing business suits, lined up to tuck ten-dollar bills into garters strapped high on sweat-damp thighs. Now and then, one of the men would toss a fistful of bills in honor of a spirited performance. And I’d thought money showers went out when the recession came in.

After their turns in the spotlight, the women demurely donned lingerie before mingling with the customers. Buy one a twelve-dollar mixed drink and she’d sit with you and place your hand on her thigh. For fifty dollars, she’d lead you to a booth, remove her top, ask you to sit on your hands, and give you a lap dance that would last the length of a single song. Private rooms lined the back wall, and when I poked my head into an empty one, I found it was more enticing than the semen-stained sewer Whoosh had described.