John A Lenahan - Ice Lake

“But you didn’t answer the question.”

“Hey, just because I tell the truth doesn’t mean I go up to people and say, ‘I see you are forty pounds overweight and you buy your clothes at Kmart’.”

“But if I pressed you on it?”

“If you really want my opinion on the girth of your backside I’d tell you. I wouldn’t be doing you any favours if I said you had a nice ass when the whole world could see you looked like the back of a bus.”

MK stood, turned and then craned to see her posterior. “You think my ass looks like the back of a bus?”

“I was being hypothetical. But if you like I will give you a review of your south-facing view. Since you have pointed out that I am not going to be having any intimate knowledge of any of your body parts, you can be assured the critique will be honest.”

“No. If you’re not going to lie, I don’t want to know.”

“You sure? I can tell you now it’ll probably be quite favourable.”

“But that seems to me to be a tough code to live by. I don’t think I could do it.”

“Yes,” Harry said, “it’s not easy being me.”

“But you lie to strangers on weekends?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“As I told you, truth and lies are my job. If I know I’ll never see a person again and it won’t do any harm, I like to tell whoppers to strangers just to see how far I can push it.”

“Like what?”

“Let me see, I’ve told people that I’m a Puerto Rican Major League baseball player.”

MK laughed. “And they bought it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“So it’s Friday night and you and Ed are going out. Are we going to be telling some porkies tonight?”

“I suspect so.”

“And where are you two going?”

“Just because I told you I won’t lie doesn’t mean I’m going to answer your questions.”

As if the invocation of his name made him appear, Ed, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt, hollered a hello from the back deck and bounded down to the picnic table.

“Well, well,” MK purred, “lookie at Trooper Cirba in his civvies. What are you two up to tonight? Ohhh, I get it. It’s a boy’s trip to the strip club.”

“Did you tell her?” Cirba said.

“No,” Harry replied, “but you did just now.”

“It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “Everybody knows Big Bill was a regular. You boys just be careful, I get a bad feeling from that place.”

“You’ve been there?”

“No, but about three months ago, one of the girls that works there ploughed into my mailbox so hard the pole got stuck under her car and lifted one of the front wheels off the ground. She was stuck up there at three in the morning, gunning her engine and going nowhere. When I came out it was obvious she was high on something, and then some guy came round and told me to go back to bed. When I said I should call the police, he got all huffy and said he already did. Then that idiot Oaktree cop Barowski showed up.”

“Ice Lake is out of Barowski’s jurisdiction. What was he doing here?” Cirba said.

“I don’t know but it was late and he said he’d take care of it. Next day when I came home from work there was a lovely new mailbox with a bottle of champagne in it, so no harm no foul. It’s just that the man who showed up was… creepy, and Barowski acted – I don’t know – weird around him.”

“So that means you’re not coming with us?” Harry asked.

“Tempting but no. My butt is probably too big to be a stripper anyway.”

“Who said you had a big butt?” Cirba asked as MK walked up the lawn and into her house.

“Your friend, Harry. Behave yourselves in the Dew Drop, boys.”

“You told MK she had a big butt?” Cirba asked.

Harry didn’t answer right away. He was too busy squealing like a little girl. It wasn’t until after the terrifying G-forces of the Drunken Indians abated that Harry said: “No, well, I might have said her ass looked like the back of a bus but that was hypothetical.”

“’Cause if you told MK she has a big ass I’m gonna have to fire yours.”

“You’d fire me for insulting your friend?”

“No, just for poor judgement. MK’s ass is fine.”

“Shall I add that to the list of things I’m not to tell Mrs Cirba?”

“I’ve decided you’re never going to meet Mrs Cirba.”

“Wise.”

Cirba pulled his unmarked car into the parking lot of a run-down tavern and went in. He arrived back in the car with two six-packs of beer.

Harry took the beer as Cirba put the car into gear. “My place or yours, officer?”

“They’re for the strip club.”

“They don’t sell beer there?”

“No, it’s BYOB.”

“What? Why?”

“That way they don’t have to bother with a liquor license and the girls can be 18 as opposed to 21.”

“How do they make money if they’re not foisting overpriced champagne?”

“That’s a good question. The general consensus is that they don’t make as much money as they claim.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Money laundering.”

“Oh. Mob?”

“Don’t know, it’s just a theory. Places like these seem to make a lot more money than the traffic should allow. It grossed over two mill last year.”

“That’s a lot of lap dances.”

“Yeah.” Cirba pulled over. “Right, you get out here.”

“Say what?”

“Out – here – you. There’s a good chance somebody in there is going to recognize me. We can’t go in together, and when you’re in there, pretend you don’t know me.”

“That seems kinda lonely.”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone to talk to.”

* * *

A few cars passed Harry as he trudged the quarter of a mile down the side road to the club. None of them stopped. Apparently, a guy walking alone with a six-pack under his arm wasn’t an unusual sight on this country road.

About five minutes later Harry saw the lone floodlit establishment glowing off the road like a campfire. The club was an architecturally challenged white cement box with a huge furling American flag painted on the side. Along the top was the message, “GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS”. Underneath in smaller letters it read: “God Bless the First Amendment”. The entrance was below a fancy out-of-place canopy. Above the canopy a red neon sign read, “Dew Drop Inn – A Gentlemen’s Club”.

Harry opened the door and was ignored by a bored bouncer who in a previous life ate his woolly mammoth raw. A voice to his left said, “fifteen bucks.” Harry fished out a twenty and a little guy sporting a goatee with a bald spot in the middle of it handed Harry his change in ones.

He held up a stack of singles and said: “Want anymore?”

“Why?”

He leaned in and examined Harry closely. “I would’a thought that a guy who walked to a strip club would know what singles were for.”

“For tips… yeah I knew that. And I didn’t walk here. I got a lift; she dropped me off up the road. I didn’t think it was appropriate to make my mother bring me all the way to the door.”

The little guy snorted but Harry kept a straight face. It was Friday night and that meant that a weekend of fibbing had begun. Harry gave him another twenty and received a stack of bills. He resisted the temptation to count them and turned the corner into the club.

Cirba had been right – Vegas this was not – it wasn’t even Scranton. If this place had really made two million dollars last year they certainly hadn’t wasted it on décor. There were two stages with poles reaching up to a high ceiling. The small one in the centre of the room was currently unoccupied. The larger was on a catwalk that stretched into a backstage area. To the left of the catwalk, behind glass, was a bearded DJ in a shiny jacket. He was enthusiastically introducing music, encouraging the crowd to applaud and tip the dancer on stage. He was the only enthusiastic thing in the place.