Andrew Klavan - Damnation Street

The light changed, turned green. The Taurus edged forward. I followed. Weiss drove slowly. I could make out the shape of him through his rear window. He was scoping the buildings left and right, glancing down the side streets left and right. It was hard to see anything much in the rain.

Finally, he pulled into a Mobil station. I pulled in behind him, although the Hyundai's tank was more than half-full. A leathery local in a straw cowboy hat was pumping gas into his pickup. Weiss buzzed down his window.

"I'm looking for the House of Dreams," he said.

The local smiled and pulled a toothpick from the side of his mouth. Pointed with it. "Over on River Lane." He winked. "They call it Damnation Street."

Damnation Street. I've never forgotten it. It was a little lane around the corner from the last motel on the drag, at the edge of town. It was a stretch of broken pavement going nowhere. It was lined with brothels on either side.

The brothels were shabby clapboards, with white walls and bright trim, bright red or bright blue. Most of them were built like houses. They had pitched roofs and covered porches outside the front doors. One was more in the style of a Western saloon, brown, long, flat, and low. Each had a neon sign of some sort, fizzing under the ridge of the roof or blinking in the window. Jenny's Place. The Pussycat Lounge. Isabelle de Paris… I remember I snorted when I saw that one. Isabelle de Paris.

It was early yet. A little after seven. But the slanted parking spaces at the curbsides were nearly full. There were all kinds of vehicles slotted in them. A Jeep, an SUV, a Corvette, a luxury-model Ford, a clutch of Harleys. There was a separate fenced-in parking area at the end of the lane set aside for tractor trailers. That was crowded too.

I was still looking the place over when I was startled by a knock on my window. Weiss. Standing in the rain, wearing his trench coat, the water running down the crags in his face. I opened the window.

"I'm going into that one," he said. He stuck his thumb at one of the white clapboards with red trim. Its name was written in a window in pink neon script: The House of Dreams and Joy.

I reached for the door handle.

"No," he said, "you stay here. I gotta see a girl and she may not want to see me. These places share muscle. If there's trouble, reinforcements'll come in from one of the others. Stay in the car. I'll take care of things inside. You watch for any tough guys moving in on me."

I nodded. I knew I was supposed to be grim and determined, but I was secretly thrilled. This was great. This was exactly what I was looking for. The real deal. Adventure. Experience. The sort of thing you could make a story out of at dinner parties.

I said, "You want me to give you the heads-up when they come?"

"No," he said. "I want you to stop them. Keep them out here till I'm finished."

I meant to reply but somehow I didn't. I think I was going to say What? Or How? Or maybe just Huh? But somehow I didn't say any of those things. I just sat there, looking at him, with my lips parted.

"I'll need about five minutes once the shit starts flying. Keep them out here as long as you can."

"Uh…," I finally said.

But by that time, Weiss was already moving across the pavement to the whorehouse door.

Weiss stepped up onto the porch and pushed into the brothel.

The House of Dreams and Joy was a dark tavern. Cheap paneling on the walls, a string or two of Christmas lights hanging from the ceiling. Horseshoes and metal cowboy cutouts hung here and there. There was a poster of a woman's lips. There was a painting of a naked woman on the bathroom door.

In front of him, two steps down, there was a sort of lounge, sunk deep in shadow. He could make out a tattered green sofa, some stuffed chairs, a pool table in an island of light. There were a couple of bikers playing pool.

There was a bar to his right. A hardcase cowboy was dealing beer from bottle to glass. A TV on the shelf behind him played Monster Garage, no sound. The mirror was rimmed with more Christmas lights.

By the jukebox nearby, there were a couple of high round tables. Three ass-crack truckers, maybe four hundred pounds apiece, were sitting on stools at one of these tables, surrounding a pitcher of beer, clutching mugs. There was a small dance floor just beyond them, a raised platform with a metal pole for strippers. There was a whore there now, moving sleepily to the country music. She wore jeans cut off just under the crotch and a sparkly halter top. She was blond and not half bad looking, but no one paid any attention to her. She kept her clothes on. She kept her face expressionless.

A woman approached Weiss as he let the screen door slip shut behind him. She was in her fifties, short, with a pinched, gnarled, and pleasantly vicious face under a curling red wig. She was wearing a colorless skirt and a dull brown cardigan. She had implants that made her breasts jut out from her like a pair of footballs.

"Wow, you're a big one," she said. "All right, let's line up for the gentleman, girls."

She gestured, and from the shadows in the lounge, the figures of women began to emerge, began to come forward toward the light where Weiss was standing. He caught the glinting of their eyes. He saw the drifting filmy fabric of their robes.

He didn't like the setup.

"If you don't mind, I'll have a drink first," he said. "I'll be at the bar." "Sure. Suit yourself." The woman gestured again, and the girls sank back into the dark corners.

Weiss sat at the bar. The cowboy slapped a Rock in front of him. Almost at once, one of the girls appeared on the next stool over. That was more like it, one on one.

She was a little creature, with mouse-brown hair and the pale, eager face of a vampire. She was wearing a sheer nightgown with a black bra and panties underneath. She was trim but flabby around the middle, he noticed. She'd had a kid at some point, maybe a couple of them.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Eden."

"I bet you are," Weiss said pleasantly. He raised his glass, smiled down at her, going through the motions.

Eden went through the motions too, leaning forward, moving her hand onto his thigh. But now that she saw him up close, she caught sight of the cop in him. He could tell from her eyes. Their expression changed. They grew watchful.

"I'm looking for Kristy," he told her. "I was here awhile back and we had a real nice party."

Eden pretended to believe him. "Kristy's partying with a guest right now," she said.

Weiss shrugged. "No hurry. I can wait."

She lifted her chin. "Let me see if I can find out when she'll be ready for you."

She slipped off the stool. Holding his beer, he looked over his shoulder, watched her black panties move as she receded into the shadows of the lounge. Something was wrong, he could feel it. The girl was too smooth, as if she'd been waiting for him, as if she'd been told what to say.

Weiss sat at the bar, on edge. His eyes moved, taking in the lounge, the dancing girl by the table, the ass-crack truckers knocking back their mugs of beer. He didn't know what he was looking out for, but he was looking out for something. Everything seemed okay, though.

Slowly, he faced front.

The cowboy barkeep brought a broken pool cue whipping around at his head.

The cowboy was tall and lean. He was wearing jeans and a white shirt with buttons the color of pearl. The sleeves were rolled up high. He had ropy muscles in his forearms. He had meanness carved deep into the lines of his face. He struck with sinuous speed.

But Weiss was keyed up, ready. He saw the blow coming. He moved fast too, dodging back on his stool, his hands flying up at his sides. The pool cue hissed past his nose. It hit the glass in his hand and shattered it, sending a spray of yellow beer into the dim bar light.