John A Lenahan - Ice Lake

There were about a dozen customers in the room. Half were sitting around the catwalk watching a remarkably straight-figured skinny girl doing a move that Harry decided should be called the “Wish I Was Elsewhere” dance. The rest of the customers were dotted around the room. Most of them were chatting intimately with a girl wearing – not much. Another bouncer, obviously a distant relative of the guy on the door, pointed to a corridor on his left and said: “The beer room is back there.” Harry didn’t know what a beer room was but did as he was told and hoped there wasn’t a third cousin lurking in there with a blackjack.

He found a room with a supermarket-style glass-fronted refrigerator. He pried one can from his six-pack and left the rest with the other gentlemen’s beer. He wondered if beer was often stolen. Is there honour among perverts?

Harry walked back into the main room and took a seat at the catwalk across from Cirba. He wanted to give the trooper one of those secret nose-touching signals like they used in the movie The Sting but Cirba never took his eyes off the naked woman before him. Harry pondered if he was staying in character or was truly enthralled. After having a long look around at the crop of girls working here at the Dew Drop he deduced that it probably wasn’t enthralment. He didn’t have a lot of experience with strip clubs. Usually it happened at a conference in Vegas and always with a bunch of guys where the emphasis was on a bit of fun and not serious sexcapades. When Harry had entered one of those other clubs he had always been struck by how outstandingly beautiful the women had been. Here… not so much. This group of women made Harry want to sit down and ask them what they really wanted to do with their lives.

The music ended as the DJ failed to get the handful of customers in the room to applaud the dancer. She made one last round of the men sitting at the catwalk and picked up the dollar bills left for her. She smiled as she bent to retrieve Harry’s tip. It didn’t require any expertise on his part to recognize the smile as not quite genuine. The DJ gave an exuberant introduction for the next dancer that ended with, “Let’s give it up big time for – Harmony.”

Cirba and Harry shot each other a furtive look when they heard the name that Feather had said was the nom de plume of Big Bill’s girlfriend. She was an attractive girl, Harry thought, or would be if she didn’t look so… hollow. She sported bleached blonde hair cut short and wore a tiny plaid skirt, a white shirt and a tie. If she was going for the whole schoolgirl look it was ruined by the clear plastic platform shoes. Whereas the previous dancer had looked as if she wanted to be somewhere else, Harmony actually was somewhere else – at least in her mind.

Although she was dancing on autopilot it wasn’t without exuberance. A running start launched her at the chrome pole in the centre of the stage. She caught it and while twirling around she spun herself upside down clinging onto the pole with only her entwined calves. Then she spread her arms out to the side in a pose that reminded Harry of the upside-down crucified St Peter, and loosened the grip of her ankles. She dropped headfirst so fast that Harry was on his feet when she stopped, her head inches from the hardwood floor.

In that upside-down state she noticed Harry and gave him an almost genuine smile before returning to her auto-dance. As she untied the knot at the front of her white Oxford shirt, Harry found himself wishing something he had never wished before while watching a stripper. He wished she would leave her clothes on. The more naked Harmony got the less erotic the dance became. She danced close to each customer at the bar who, in turn, slipped tips into a red garter on her thigh. She moved the right moves and said the right things but behind the blue eyes was a vacancy and not just the vacancy of a bored stripper but the look of someone who had lost the will to be. In some respects Harry thought it was the most honest dance he had ever seen.

Her turn ended and over the amplified whoops made by the DJ in a futile attempt to whip up enthusiasm for Harmony’s performance, Harry called her name and held up a ten dollar bill. She returned and crouched at the edge of the stage, once again offering Harry her money garter.

“Do you do private dances?”

“Sure,” she said with an automatic smile. “Have a seat in one of the chairs against the wall and I’ll be out when I freshen up.”

The rule in the club was that girls couldn’t solicit dances from customers that were sitting along the catwalk but as soon as Harry moved to a chair against the wall the spiders were drawn to the fly.

A long-haired brunette wearing a full-length sheer orange chiffon robe over a G-string walked towards Harry. Even in this era of anorexic supermodels she was painfully skinny. Harry instantly spotted the redness around her nostrils and the closed lipped smile that hid her teeth. All of it added up to substance abuse. She pointed at Harry’s crotch.

“Hi, I’m Cynthia,” she said emphasising the “sin”. “Is this lap taken?” Before Harry could answer she sat in it. “Hiya, you got a name?”

“Hamlet,” Harry said.

“Ooh, I never heard that name before.”

“You never heard of Hamlet?”

“No, funny name.”

“If you think that’s funny you should meet my sister Iago.”

“Like the bird in Aladdin ?”

“There is a bird in Aladdin named Iago?”

“Yeah, in the Disney cartoon. Where have you been?”

“Obviously, watching too much Hamlet .”

“You’re funny. How ’bout a private dance?”

“Tempting, but I have an appointment with Harmony.”

The big brunette leaned in close to Harry’s ear. “You don’t want a dance with her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s all mopey. I’ll do stuff back there that you’ll remember.”

“Why’s she all mopey?”

Cynthia sat up. “Why do you care?”

Harry, with difficulty, reached into his pocket and produced a ten dollar bill while the girl giggled. He looked around her body for a place to put it. When she offered her cleavage, he slipped the money there. “’Cause I do.”

Cynthia leaned in again. “She just lost her boob ticket.”

“Her boob ticket?”

“She had a guy who was gonna buy her new boobs.”

“Lost him how?”

“That’s a weird question. What are you, like, a stalker?”

The sound of a sarcastic throat clearing behind Cynthia stopped him from answering. Harmony had changed out of her school uniform and was now wearing a low-cut white lab coat. “I’m assuming you no longer want that dance.”

“No,” Harry said attempting to stand, “Cynthia and I were just chatting.” He carefully helped Cynthia off his lap.

“I’d keep an eye out for Hammy here,” the skinny girl huffed. “He’s a strange one.”

Harmony ignored her colleague’s advice and took Harry by the hand and led him into the dark back of the establishment.

“Is that your name, Hammy?”

“No, it’s Harry,” he said, finding it difficult to lie to the girl.

She led him to a counter with a middle-aged woman behind it.

“Dances are twenty bucks.”

Harry gave the lady a twenty, and she gave Harmony a little ticket that she stuffed into the pocket of her lab coat.

“Aren’t you going to tip Denise?”

“You want me to tip her?” Harry said, pointing to the lady behind the counter who had just lit a cigarette.

“She works hard,” Harmony said.

Harry gave the woman a couple of bucks that she took without thanks, then Harmony led him to a small alcove with an armless leather chair and a tiny jukebox. She closed the curtain behind her.