“You know, Quarry,” Mr. Woody said with a chuckle and a gesture of a gold-ring-laden hand, “they call Biloxi the poor man’s Riviera—only they ain’t necessarily poor when they first get here.”
The man in the pink sportscoat, gray slacks and white shoes was showing me around his casino, which took up the north half of the warehouse-like MR. WOODY’S building. We’d entered from the strip club through an Employees Only door and were now at the rear of the Lucky Seven, as this part of the facility was called.
That this was nothing you’d confuse with the Riviera—whether you meant the French vacation spot or the Nevada hotel—seemed an understatement.
Starting with tacky gold-and-black brocade wallpaper and a wood-pattern linoleum tile floor, the surroundings were less than lavish. The casino, about the same square footage as the strip-club side, was doing a similarly modest off-season business; the main difference was an older crowd with some women mixed in, mostly blue-hair gals seated along the walls at old-fashioned slot machines, metal jobs that looked like Vegas cast-offs.
On either side of the room, seated in elevated chairs, middle-aged hardcases in white shirts with string ties and black trousers were watching everything, like shoeshine-stand customers wondering where the shine boy went.
A roulette wheel, where retirees stood staring into their limited futures, took center stage, with a craps table at one end and several blackjack tables spotted around. The sound level was subdued, with only the calls of the dealers, croupiers and stickmen discernible above the murmur of patrons.
Here at the rear of the room, under conical lamps, were four poker tables, only one of which had a game going. At left were cages for buying and cashing in chips, at right a fully stocked bar similar to the strip club’s, though with a single bartender on duty, male, also in white shirt and string tie. A trio of waitresses in the same white shirt/black mini costumes as on the MR. WOODY’S side were threading through with complimentary drinks. A pair of floor men in suit and tie were on the prowl, while a few girls in skimpy halter tops and hot pants tight enough for a gynecological exam seemed to be shilling for the house, sidling up to unaccompanied men to help them make bad decisions.
Mr. Woody guided me to the far end of the bar. We were barely settled into our high-back stools when the bartender delivered a Scotch straight up to the boss.
I asked for a Coke. Not requesting Barq’s root beer may have been a faux pas, but we would all just have to live with it.
Mr. Woody gave the bartender a glance that said give us plenty of space, and he did. No other stools were taken.
“Don’t get the wrong idea, Quarry,” Mr. Woody said, grinning as he glanced around at the underpopulated casino. “A month and a half from now, the ole Seven’ll be packin’ ’em in like the Kentucky Derby, minus the goddamn hats. And we got plenty more joints, all up and down the Strip, that’ll be doin’ likewise.”
“You have plenty more joints,” I asked, “or Jack Killian has plenty more?”
Barely audible above piped-in Sinatra, my host said, “Killian and me, we own ’em together. Monopolizin’ the Strip ain’t the problem, Quarry. Our group’s held sway over this stretch of Highway 90 since ’fore you were born.”
“Then what is the problem?”
Eyes narrowed behind the big lenses, and all those teeth got swallowed up in a close-mouthed scowl.
“It’s that Jackie’s gettin’ out of hand,” he said, upper lip twitching to let out the bitter words. “Reachin’ too far. Tryin’ to take over the whole damn South, one county at a time. Spreadin’ like a goddamn cancer. You know, there’s powerful people startin’ to take notice, and not in a good way. Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, for two.”
Neither name meant shit to me, but I got his drift.
My Coke arrived in a tall glass with a lemon slice. I had a sip. The bartender had already evaporated.
“There was another man in that green Caddy,” I said. “The driver? Possible he got a glimpse of me. I doubt it, but that’s the biggest risk I face, being here.”
“You don’t face no risk,” he said, shaking his head.
“You sound sure of yourself, Woody.”
I couldn’t quite bring myself to use the “Mister.”
Very quietly he said, “That boy whose eyes you dotted last week, Quarry? Turned up dead in a ditch outside town. Jack has been tellin’ all and sundry that one of his enemies done it, and that he was gonna find the guilty party, rip off his head, and fuck his skull in the eye holes.”
The contents of my eye holes widened. “And this is why I don’t face any risk?”
He patted the air reassuringly. “I’m told the late shooter enlisted a cousin of his from the moonshine bidness—as wheelman? And also that that self-same cousin shat hisself. . .whether this is a figurative expression, Quarry, or a literal one I cannot say. . . due to the violent nature by which his late relative passed.”
“Do tell.”
He showed me all those teeth again, and the magnified eyes twinkled. “Seems the moonshiner cuz has gone into hidin’, up in the hills near Hattiesburg, and is not currently on the local scene. So you are quite secure in your anonymity.”
This struck me as thin: the spooked cousin wouldn’t stay holed up forever. And any moonshiner I ever saw had a shotgun. Granted, that was in the movies and on TV.. . .
I said, “Do I have to remind you that you’re recommending as replacement the very guy who created the vacancy on Killian’s staff? If ‘Jackie’ figures out who I am, where does that leave good ole Mr. Woody? Seems to me that shitting ourselves would be the least of it.”
He waved that off. “I am well aware, Quarry, well aware. You must trust my judgment on this. We are within the margin of acceptable risk.”
I shrugged. Let some air out. “Okay. I guess.”
Mr. Woody sipped some Scotch and said, “Why, Quarry, you seem rather tense to me.”
“No. Just by nature cautious. And this is. . .never mind.”
“What, son?”
I let more air out. “This isn’t a part of the country I’ve spent any time in. I feel like that fish out of water everybody talks about.”
He frowned and the big glasses climbed his face a little. “Well, that’s certainly not a good feelin’. Fishies out of water, they go belly up and can’t breathe no more. And I need you breathin’, Quarry. I do indeed. Need you cool and calm and collected.”
I batted all that away. “I’m fine. Just a little jetlagged. Thanks for your concern. When do I meet Killian?”
“Tonight.” He glanced at his watch, a Rolex, or a damn good facsimile. “Nine o’clock sharp at his office at the Tropical Motel. Which is where you are stayin’, by the way.” He leaned across the bar a little. “Fred! Phone!”
Fred the bartender nodded and found a phone under the counter and set it on the bar, half a dozen stools down from us. Mr. Woody went to use it while I watched the gambling action, such as it was. One of the halter-top hot-pants girls was leaving arm-in-arm with a man old enough to be her father, but presumably wasn’t. He didn’t seem to have any chips to cash in. After a losing afternoon, she was the consolation prize, though it would cost him even more at the adjacent motel.
Mr. Woody returned to his stool and was smiling, pleased with himself. “You are about to learn the meanin’ of Southern hospitality, Quarry.”
“That right?”
“I am determined to make you feel at home, son.”
“Really, I’m fine.”
He put his hand on my forearm. His touch was warm. “You are really gonna enjoy this. I’m gonna provide you with some company for the duration. A little tour guide to keep you feelin’ like you know which way is up, and where it’s at.”
And maybe even what’s happening.
“Woody, Mr. Woody, I don’t need a tour guide. Just let me do the job I came to do.”
“Well, of course. But have you ever been in Biloxi before?”
“No.”
“Then trust me on this one, son. Take my word, you will thank me to your dyin’ day.”
Somehow it always came back around to death, didn’t it?
He guided me back through the Employees Only door that connected us to the strip-club side. On stage, three strippers were doing some kind of all-nude finale, a lanky brunette with painfully fake tits, a short plump redhead with nicely real ones, and the little blonde I’d seen earlier, currently swinging around the center stage pole, her little pink pussy blowing everybody a sideways kiss. The song was “War” by Edwin Starr, and as antiwar demonstrations went, this was among the most convincing.
As a DJ in a booth stirred up some collective applause “for the vixenish Veronica, the gorgeous Ginger and the luscious Lolita,” the girls collected their wadded-up dollars and gathered the wisps that were their discarded costumes. Then they exited down side steps, but not before they had taken time to swathe themselves in sheer negligee-style robes to preserve their modesty.
We took a little table well away from the stage, close to the unused secondary stage, in fact. Mr. Woody had brought his Scotch along.
Nodding toward my t-shirt and jeans ensemble, he said, “Before you meet with Jack Killian, do spruce yourself up some. Did you bring any suits along?”
“Yeah. Couple.”
“What color?”
“Well, I guess one’s tan and another is blue, navy blue.”
“No black?”
“No. Should I have?”
“Wear the navy number. D’you bring some ties along?”
“Yeah.”
“Patterned or solid color?”
“Well, one’s kind of floral, the other’s, what-you-call-it, paisley.”
He thought that over, shrugged. “Well, that’s okay. It’ll make Jackie feel important.”
“What will?”
“Sendin’ you out to buy the right clothes. Makes him feel like a big shot.. . . Well, will you look at this little vision of loveliness!”
The little blonde stripper was walking over toward us. She had on a hot-pink halter top and matching hot pants, similar to the girls shilling in the Lucky Seven. Had a smile going but her eyes were cold.
“You wanted me, Mr. Woody?” She had a breathy little-girl voice that didn’t appear to be a put-on. Goldie Hawn without the irony.
“Yes, Lo. Sit, honey, sit yourself.”
She sat herself. Glancing at me, she nodded but otherwise I didn’t register with her any more than the dust motes floating in the stripper-stage lighting.
“This is my friend Mr. Quarry,” he said to her. “John Quarry. He’s in town to work for Mr. Killian for a while.”
Her smile was sweet as she nodded to me. “Pleased,” she said.
“Lo honey, Mr. Quarry needs some special attention. He’s new to our fair city, doesn’t know his way around at all, far from home. That can make a fella kinda lonely.”
She nodded. “Okay. But I have three more sets.”
“No, Lo, I’ve taken care of that. You’re off the stage for a while.”
“How long?”
“A while. Few days at least. You’ll make double for this, even accountin’ for tips.”
She shrugged and nodded, her chin crinkling in doesn’t-sound-so-bad acceptance.
Cute as she was, I was not liking the direction this was going.
“Uh, Mr. Woody,” I said, “I appreciate the sentiment, but I can take care of myself.”
He gave me a smile that had some smartass in it. “Do you know where the Tropical Motel is?”
“It’s not that place next door is it?”
“Oh, my, hell no!” That gave him a good laugh. “Lo will show you.”
Judging by what the DJ had said, “Lo” would seem to be short for Lolita. They had genuine (pronounced gen-you-wine) literary sensibilities down South, it would appear. Must have been the Faulkner influence.
“Now, honey,” Mr. Woody said, putting a hand on a nearby knee of hers, “I will make the usual arrangements. Just be a good girl and be useful and never in the way.”
She nodded, like a high school girl dutifully assuring daddy she’d be in before midnight.
“Quarry,” he said, “they will be expectin’ you at the front desk. All expenses taken care of, no credit card required, and they have a decent little restaurant there, too. Just sign everythin’ to your room. Enjoy yourself, son.. . .Don’t be late for Mr. Killian, now. Nine sharp!”
There was no getting around it. Little Lolita would be my Biloxi tour guide, for now anyway, and that was all there was to it. Somehow I’d handle this, but not with Mr. Woody around.
I shook hands with my host and he made his brisk way back toward his office, in a blur of eyes, teeth, gold rings, and hideous apparel.
I got up and so did she. I looked at her. She looked at me. I smiled. She smiled. I stopped smiling. She stopped smiling. I sighed (this, at least, she didn’t echo) and took her gently by the arm and led her out into the parking lot, just as another stripper was coming on stage to “American Woman.”
Outside I asked her, “Do you have a car here?”
A little pink purse was fig-leafed before her. She shook her head and the golden hair flicked bare shoulders, catching dying sunlight. “I don’t have a car. I never learned to drive. Girlfriends I live with get me places. They work here, too.”
I had the sense that I’d just heard about one-third of her life story.
“Okay, then,” I said. “I’ll drive and you navigate.”
“What, you got a boat?”
“No. I mean, you’ll point the way. To the Tropical?”
Her tone turned defensive: “I know.”
We got into the Chevelle. The rock station came on and she seemed to like it, bobbing her head to “Bang a Gong.” She told me to turn right out of the lot and we’d gone only half a block when I said, “You really don’t need to do this.”
She stopped bobbing and glanced at me with the slightest frown. “Do what?”
If her eyes had been any lighter blue, they would have been transparent.
“Show me around,” I said. “I can take of myself. I’m a big boy.”
“Are you really?”
“You bet. Took my training wheels off a long time ago.”
“That’s a silly thing to say.”
“Is it?”
“Grown men don’t need no training wheels. On their bikes. I bet you don’t even have a bike. Less maybe a Harley.”
I glanced at her to see if she was fucking with me. She didn’t appear to be. She reminded me of that actress in The Time Machine—both her looks and her intellect.
I said, “It was just an expression.”
We were at a light, a trashy row of bars and strip joints to our right, white beach and the blue expanse of the Gulf of Mexico to our left. The entire span of human existence seemed to take place between those two points.
“Keep goin’,” she said, nodding at the intersection.
I did so.
After another block, I asked, “How old are you, Lo?”
“Twenty-one.”
“No you aren’t.”
The blue eyes flashed at me. “Callin’ me a liar?”
“I’m calling you. . .seventeen years old.”
“Nineteen.”
“If you’re nineteen, why lie about it?”
“I don’t lie. I fib sometimes.”
“Why fib about it?”
“Got to be twenty-one to get a card in Biloxi.”
“What kind of card?”
“Card that lets you work where they sell liquor.”
“Oh.”
“See it?”
“What?”
“The Tropical sign. See it?”
I saw it.
“Pull in there.” I did.
The motel wasn’t something you’d encounter on the Riviera, either, nor was it much of a match for the Vegas version. But it was nicer than I’d figured, a pale pink brick eight-story with a vertical sign with a green neon palm tree at right and at left, in pink:
T
R
O
P
I
C
A
L
M
O
T
E
L
After I signed in at the desk in a pastel lobby with potted mini-palms and overstuffed wicker furniture, a guy about my age in a light-blue blazer and yellow tie gave me a smirky smile as he handed me two keys. He was blond, slender and weak-chinned, but the light-blue eyes probably got him laid.
He said, “You’re on ground level with parking and entry from the outside. Drive around back of the building.”
“I don’t need two keys,” I said.
“Two rooms, two keys,” he said, smirking again.
I was just thinking about pasting him one when the girl tugged on my elbow and gave me a mildly impatient look, nodding toward the outside.
We went out and drove around to 117 and 118, parking in the space of the former.
As I got my suitcase from the Chevelle trunk, I said, “One of these rooms is yours, right?”
She gave me a pixie smile, the first real smile I’d seen from her. “Quicker than you look.”
“And I suppose Mr. Woody is sending your things over.”
“Uh-huh. I’m next door, kinda. . .on call. Only in your room when you want me in your room. Only around when you want me around. When you need me for somethin’.”
I gestured to the world around us. “Like showing me around Biloxi. Maybe taking me to see where Jefferson Davis lived.”
“I been there. It’s nothin’. Don’t bother.”
I stared at her. She stared at me. We lived on the same planet. That was about the extent of what we had in common.
“You’re in 117,” she said.
“How do you know I’m not in 118?”
“ ’Cause I been in these rooms before, and 117 is nicer. Bigger. Got a hot tub.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I carried my bag over to the door marked 117 and used the key. She was right behind me. Well, not right behind. Not crowding me or anything.
I held the door open for her and she went in. You couldn’t find a speck of cellulite on the back of those legs if you used a high-power microscope. I closed the door behind us. She was already sitting on the double bed, on the foot, staring at the big 24-inch portable TV on the dresser opposite. Nothing was on, but she seemed to be contemplating watching something, sometime. She was rocking a little.
The room included a mirrored area with the hot tub. There was a full bathroom as well. A few touches said “tropical,” like a framed Hawaiian landscape screwed onto the wall over the bed, and the pastel pink-and-green wallpaper, and the green padded bedspread with pink pillows. Otherwise this could be a room at a Holiday Inn.
I sat next to her on the edge of the bed. “What’s your name?”
She was still looking at the blank TV screen. “You know what it is. Lolita.”
“I’m not calling you Lolita.”
“Nobody does. Everybody says Lo.”
“But that’s still not your name. What’s your name?”
She looked at me as if for the first time, frowning just a little, noticing I was a human being. “You mean my real name?”
“No, the one you use on the Mickey Mouse Club.”
“The what club?”
“Yes, your real name.”
“Luann.”
“Luann what?”
“Luann Lloyd.”
“Okay, Luann Lloyd. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. You just go next door and mind your business. Have yourself a little paid vacation. Maybe we’ll go out and have a bite to eat now and then.”
She was frowning at me like a slow student at a calculus problem on a blackboard. “I don’t get you. Somethin’ wrong with me?”
I thought for a moment. I put a hand on her shoulder, like a brother might. “I’m here on business. I understand, I think, that Mr. Woody wants you to. . .entertain me. Keep me company. But I don’t. . .I don’t mean to insult you. But I don’t, uh. . .”
The little-girl voice mingled boredom with patience: “You don’t never pay for it. You don’t never go out with hookers. No sweat. This ain’t costin’ you anythin’.”
She undid the halter top and let loose the breasts. I’d seen breasts before. I’d seen these breasts before, on stage back at the strip club. But they were right here and right now and they were perfect. Plump little handfuls, B cups crowding C, perfectly shaped and with slightly puffy aureoles and pert eraser-tip tips.
I didn’t remember ever being erect and throbbing so fast. This vapid little hooker should have turned me off. She was obviously an ignorant dope. She had likely fucked hundreds of men in her young life and the inside of her was probably diseased like a decayed piece of fruit. The thought of her should sicken me, and maybe the thought did.
But the sight didn’t.
She smiled and cocked her head, the light-blue eyes hooded. “Why, honey, don’t tell me. You got to be in love a little before you can do it, that it? You just an old-fashion boy?”
“I don’t have to be in love forever,” I said. “But it helps to be in love at the moment.”
She laughed a little. First time I heard her do that. “You should tell your pecker, pal.”
She gave the tent pole in my pants a little spring action with a finger. This is where the b-o-i-n-g sound effect goes.
She bounced off the bed and grabbed a pink pillow and tossed it at my feet and knelt on it. Small deft hands wearing pink fingernail polish undid my pants and tugged them around my ankles.
“Stop,” I said. Or maybe I just thought it.
She had me in her mouth and she was goddamn good at it, lots of saliva, sliding, gliding up and down the shaft, using mostly her mouth, but occasionally her hand when she was catching a breath. She suckled, she licked, she fucked with her mouth, rarely looking up at me. When she did, her expression wasn’t bored exactly, more that of a skilled craftsmen using a lathe.
When I got very close, I put my hand on her shoulder, not like a brother (well, maybe like a brother—this was Mississippi) and then she paused, knowing I was seconds away, and said, “You want me to swallow, honey? I don’t mind. Some guys like to see it all over my pretty little face. What’s your pleasure?”
“Dealer’s choice,” I managed.
Just that much of a gentleman.