Timothy Hallinan - Skin Deep

"This is where Nana works?"

"Sure. What did you think she was? A research chemist?"

We passed the Spice Rack and turned right into a little street and then right again into an alley. Toby pulled the Maserati into an empty parking space and leaned back, closing his eyes. "Made it," he said.

A minute loped by. I messed around with my door, looking for anything that resembled a handle. "Are we going to get out, or what?"

He opened his eyes and looked around. "Just hold on. Got to get a little riper." Reaching back into the pocket of his leather jeans, he produced a little jar with a black plastic top, unscrewed it, and poured a little of it onto the back of his left hand. "Want some?" His hands were shaking slightly.

"What is it?"

"Same old pink coke. Best there is, remember?"

"No, thanks," I said.

"More for me, then." He raised the back of his hand to his nose, sniffed sharply, and then repeated the ritual. "10 on the rise," he said.

"Toby," I said, "you do the loads to slow down and the coke to speed up. Why don't you just stay in the middle?"

He regarded me gravely. "That's the first stupid thing I ever heard you say. This stuff is going to make me very popular tonight. Out we go, champ." He opened his door and climbed out. I was still fiddling with my seat belt when he opened my door from the outside and made a courtly bow. "After you, madame," he said.

"How the hell do you get out of this thing?"

"Professional secret," he said. "Comes in handy some- times." I got out and closed the door behind me, and the car barked at me. I jumped.

"What was that?"

"The car. It's half Maserati and half Doberman." He'd almost reached the building's back door. "Remote alarm. I just push a button and the thing's on red alert. Jesus, this is some cocaine."

He went up a couple of steps and knocked heavily, first three times and then, after a beat, two more times. "Private entrance," he said over his shoulder. "Secret code. Real Hardy Boys stuff."

He waited, and I caught up with him. "Why the Spice Rack?"

"Used to be a restaurant, and neon's expensive. Tiny just gave all the girls spice names." As he was speaking the door opened about four inches, and a blast of music shredded the night. "Hey, Tiny," Toby said, producing the magazine-cover grin.

The door opened the rest of the way. The man called Tiny was sallow and coarse-featured, with oily black hair and thick, loose lips. His clothing, a white safari shirt and white pleated slacks, encased a body that must have weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. He ignored me, grimaced in welcome at Toby, and held the door wide. Toby went in. I followed, squeezing past Tiny's barrel of a belly, into a narrow hallway. "How's business?" Toby asked.

Tiny shrugged before I was completely by him. It was like surfing on an ocean of fat. "The recession," he said in a voice that sounded like several tons of gravel rolling downhill inside a steel drum. "Everybody's hurting."

"It'll pick up," Toby said. "Even poor people like girls."

"Go in and tip somebody," Tiny said, ignoring the offer of comfort. "These jack-offs have never heard of money, or if they have, they don't believe in it." He closed the door behind us, and even over the music I could hear the clatter of locks being forced into place.

Entering the Spice Rack through that hallway, I felt like Gepetto sliding down the whale's throat. The walls and ceiling were covered with a thick red paint with flecks of glitter mixed into it, something a serial killer might choose for his Christmas cards. Toby opened the door, and the music, already loud, exploded into the corridor.

Nothing remained to suggest the restaurant the Spice Rack had once been. The linen-clad tables and large bouquets of this month's fashionable flowers had been cleared away to make room for three stages, each raised about a yard off the floor. One of them was dark. Customers sat around the other two, working slowly on their drinks and staring at girls who were writhing around under pink and amber lights. One of the girls was wearing a ragged feather boa and cut-off jeans, and the other was completely naked. The naked one was lying on her back on the floor of the stage, doing gymnastic exercises that consisted mainly of lifting both knees to her chin. As if the girls on the stage weren't enough, nudes painted on black velvet hung in heavy museum frames on the walls.

Toby pulled out two chairs by the side of the other stage and plopped down. The blonde in the feather boa was cradling her breasts in her hand and paying special attention to customers who had put a buck or two onto the stage. She looked bored.

"Toby," I yelled over the music as I sat next to him, "are you sure we want to be here?"

"Of course," Toby said. "Don't you want to see Nana?"

"This is the kind of place I'm supposed to be keeping you out of."

"No prob," Toby said. "That's why the back door and the code. Tiny takes care of me."

A blond girl wearing a transparent, thigh-length negligee, a G-string, and about thirty-seven bracelets, gave Toby a peck on the cheek. "Hi, heartthrob," she said. "The usual?"

"Sure, Pepper. A Seven-Up from my private stock, and the same for my friend here." He winked at her, and she made little kiss lips and headed for the bar. The G-string disappeared completely between her buttocks. They were buttocks to remember.

"Pepper?" I said.

"Like I told you, all the girls are spices. This is Saffron on the stage here. The naked one is Clove." He put a ten on the counter, and Saffron shuffled over and did the breast-cupping act. By now they were tucked under her chin.

"How you doin', Tobe?" she said.

"Holding on. You're looking good."

"I'd better," Saffron said, "or I'll be sitting on the sidewalk. Tiny's got the rag on."

Toby looked nervous. "Does he?"

"And how. Nobody's tipping, and they're making their drinks last until their birthdays. What a bunch of stiffs."

"You wish," Toby said. "Go make them rise to the occasion."

Saffron picked up the ten quickly, as though she were afraid it might disappear, and danced away in a leisurely fashion, focusing her charms on an embarrassed-looking Chicano with two crumpled dollar bills on the counter in front of him.

"This must be someone's idea of fun," I said.

"Loosen up, champ. You want to die before you even get tired? Here's the gorgeous Pepper."

Pepper put a tall glass in front of each of us, her bracelets jangling. Toby gave her a tightly folded twenty and said, "Keep the change. Not much happening, is there?"

"I've had a bigger time in a library," Pepper said, slipping the twenty into the front of her G-string. "Who's your sweet little friend?"

"This is Simeon," Toby said. "He's my baby-sitter."

"He's a baby himself," Pepper said. "Jesus, what'd you do to Nana? Is she ever pissed off."

"Not for long. I've got some pink, Pepper."

"Darling," Pepper said, brightening visibly. "I think I have to go to the little girls' room."

"It's in the twenty," Toby said. "Don't hog it. I see a lot of hungry noses."

"My sisters will get theirs," Pepper said, "don't worry. Nice to meet you, Simeon." Her beautiful bottom twinkled at us as she headed for nostril heaven in the ladies' room. I picked up my 7-Up and took a big swallow. Then I began to cough, and it felt as though several pounds of steam were billowing out of my ears.

"Careful, champ," Toby said. "That's straight vodka."

"Thanks for the warning," I said, my eyes watering. "How come it's disguised as Seven-Up?"

"They can't serve liquor because the girls take their pants off. Go figure. Like I said, private stock for regular customers."

I blinked back tears and became aware that the music had ended. There was a scattering of applause. Saffron climbed down from the stage. The girl who had been dancing on the other stage blew a sarcastic kiss at the customers and then walked across the club, elegantly and carelessly naked, to disappear behind the same crimson curtain that Saffron had lifted only moments before.