Roxy pulled the trigger five minutes before she needed to step on-stage.
The bullet hit Mr. Natz in the center of his chest. Gorgeous and Thompson caught the well-dressed Natz as he fell, pushing him backwards into the open trunk of the Lincoln, already lined with plastic. Gorgeous had to give Natz’s inflexible legs a shove to double them back onto his chest. A gurgle came from inside the trunk as Roxy tucked the revolver into the waistband of her swing costume. With the gun tight against the small of her back, she stepped forward to slam the trunk closed, giving its shiny metal surface an affectionate pat before turning on her heels.
Gorgeous slid behind the wheel. In the gleam of the car’s domelight, his face looked like a misshapen winter squash.
“Break a leg.” Thompson opened the passenger door.
Roxy ignored him, walking down the dark alley and through the backdoor into the kitchen of the Old San Francisco Steakhouse.
The new fry cook hauled a basket of wedge fries, skins still on them, out of the hot grease.
Roxy grabbed one as she passed.
“Careful,” the fry cook said, looking after her.
But Roxy had already taken a hot bite.
Roxy stepped through the slender door, her heels clacking on the hardwood. For a moment she couldn’t see past the stage’s edge. She existed as the center of a small bright world. And then her eyes adjusted and the restaurant patrons came into view. Japanese men barely hanging on to international accounts. Gambling gangsters with a greasy shine to the knees and elbows of their suits. A lone married couple, the woman’s face turning sour as she realized why her husband had selected this particular establishment. All of them sipping blood red wine from faux crystal.
They stopped speaking, stopped eating. With Roxy on-stage before them, cheese and crackers lost their appeal; the men could only anticipate rare steaks to come. Only the disgruntled wife hacked at the block of Kefaloturi with the heavy silver slicer.
Roxy knew about smoke and mirrors. Her hair piled on her head in 19th century curls, her eyes lined and lips red, a dust of sparkle on her décolletage. The skirt of her swing costume short. Fishnet hose, tall square heels, her calves strong. Turning so that her profile faced the diners below, she reached behind and above to grab the twin ropes hanging from the thirty-foot ceiling, pulling herself up and resting her supple ass on the swing. She leaned back, her arms taut, her legs extended. Then forward, her chest pushing out between her bent elbows, her legs bending back at the knee. And she began to swing. She moved higher and higher. And higher.
With an expert shift of weight, she changed her trajectory, sailing out diagonally above the stage, the arch of the swing terrifying and huge. A gaping maw of flight.
The diners’ gaze rose with Roxy. As she swung forward, the line of her strong legs pointed to the shiny brass bell hanging from the ceiling beyond the edge of the stage, above the first table. None of men—even the ones who had seen the show before—believed that the diva on the swing would be able to propel herself high enough to kick the bell, but on one great arch she swung her leg out hard, and the brash bell sounded as she nailed it with her foot. She swung back and then forward and then kicked the bell again.
On that next backswing she threw her weight forward, rotating in a full flip, nothing but the tiny strap around her waist tying her to the swing. The breath of every man in the audience caught in his throat. And they each felt the strange tension of knowing that every cock under every table had turned hard at the sight of her weightlessness; at her ability to fly when all any of them wanted was to crush her flesh beneath them.
Forward the swing went and on the next backswing she threw her weight sideways so that the rope twisted and twisted as it arched and then she spun wildly as the rope unwound and the great pendulum of her swing decreased and her spinning slowed.
When the swing finally came to rest above the stage, Roxy daintily unbuckled the belt and flipped backwards off of the swing, her square heels sailing over her head and landing with a solid sound on the hardwood.
Steve, the pianist, was already walking towards her, the mic in his hand. She put the black microphone to her pursed lips and began to sing.
“Falling in love again/Never wanted to/What am I to do?/Can’t help it
The sound of her sweet voice allowed diners to breathe again and their cigarette smoke rose and curled in the air around her, as if even the floating tendrils longed to touch her.
Steve ran his hands over the piano keys; Roxy climbed kittenishly up onto piano’s top, tucking her legs beneath her as she belted out the song, which let all the men feel as if they had not been born decades too late.
“Men cluster to me/Like moths around a flame/And if their wings burn/I know I’m not to blame”
The men forgot their new wives and their alimony. Forgot their business woes. Forgot that despite the prices, the Old San Francisco Steakhouse had seen better days. That without Roxy, it would only be an overpriced restaurant staging as a Wild West brothel, hunkered down alongside I-35—a sad, angry road to nothing but Dallas.
Miguel checked his watch. 10:52 p.m. Eight minutes before his model-de-jour’s scheduled arrival. The models always showed up at least ten minutes late. Always. Some combination of trepidation and an underestimation of time allotted for whatever magic they worked before the mirror, illusions aided by hot rollers and lip liner, flatirons and eyeshadow. He wondered why the photoshoot had been requested for such an unusually late hour. But Mr. Natz didn’t pay Miguel to ask questions.
He glanced around Room 129 of the Motel Six. Two double beds turned upright and stuck into the far corner by the bathroom. Flooring clean and bare. Back wall cream-colored and plain. Lighting set up. Westcott halo light modifier in place. Extension cords plugged in and working. Texas playing Nebraska on the television. Heater blasting. He’d learned the hard way that unless he was roasting, the models would be cold.
Miguel only photographed women. But it wasn’t the dames themselves that did it for him. It was the pictures. The flesh and blood complained of an offending fat roll or—unsolicited—they told Miguel where they’d purchased their shoes and that they’d gotten them on sale. Often they looked so melancholy it changed the whole tone of the photographs. The women were posing balls of woe and trite facts nervously blurted. But the photographs were something else. Unlike a woman, a black and white didn’t change its mind or mood. The shots were timeless and still and beautiful; he created them and then fell into them and they saved him.
He liked women fine, but they went by his lens in a parade. The photos remained—the love of his life. It wasn’t tits and ass that turned him on. The art was his ultimate fuck.
He’d been shooting in anonymous Motel 6 rooms ever since their remodel, in which every DNA-riddled carpet in the national chain had been ripped out and replaced with fake hardwoods. In minutes, he could make a Motel 6 room look as classy, clean and bare as any studio.
The effect achieved, and nothing left to do, he dialed the phone on the bedside table.
His bookie in Alabama answered on the first ring.
“Hello.”
“Hey, Linda,” Miguel said. “814 here.”
“814! How’s it goin?”
“Good.”
“How’s 813?”
“Saw him yesterday.”
“And 812?”
“He’s got a cold, but it won’t do him in. I’m calling about the check you sent.”
“Yeah?”
“I talked to 813. How about I tear up the check and he gives me in cash the straight five he owes you and we’re all even?”
“Long as you’re happy and 812’s happy, it’s fine by me. I’ll keep with the cash from now on.”
“Thanks, Linda. You’re a sweetheart.
He hung up as the knock came at the door. The digital clock read 10:59 p.m.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of “No Innocent Man.”
I'm afraid of you.