July 1984

During her interview, DB had asked whether I’d overheard anything that could be significant—calls or discussions about threats. I’d told her no, but that wasn’t true. What else is new?

Two weeks before the murders, Khalika was at the Westchester house. She showed up one afternoon, told me to lay low, suggested I tack up Merc and go for a ride. This time, she said, she wasn’t there just to see me; she planned on lifting some cash from Dick’s wallet. He never missed a couple of hundreds, she said.

Dick was infuriated whenever she blew in. He showed it by clamming up, his jaw muscles bunching, tanned face going livid with rage. He hated her way more than he did me.

There was no way around her.

Dick decided to come home for dinner that night and soon enough, the phone rang. Khalika listened in. She didn’t have to listen very long to know it was about another late payment to his partners. Lately, they were getting more and more in arrears, but this time it was over two months overdue. The caller said he needed to talk to him and to meet him at the Naked Envy—the den of iniquity I mentioned somewhere back there—at 9:30 p.m. Before Dick could ask who to look for, the caller slammed the receiver down. After that, Dick was in a fouler mood than usual, and Bianca started needling him. She knew how to get under his thin skin. She had worked him into a frenzy before he summoned the chauffeur and stomped out again, snarling, around 8:30.

Naked Envy is a strip bar and smurfing front on 53rd and Lexington. Dick owned part of it, and it was one of his favorite hangouts. He loved the player image, but that night he was having trouble pulling it off—the Don Johnson vibe, I mean. I know this, because—not for the first time—Khalika got to the Envy before Dick and waited for him to show. Dick might have been pretty dumb and totally lacking in imagination, but his instincts were as savage as one of Anne Rice’s lower-IQ blood drinkers. One such as Khalika—or me, for that matter—could never have shot out of that ball sac.

When I asked Khalika once why she’d want to go there so often, all she told me was that she was just “getting the lay of the land and picking up some good dialogue.” And that was it. As usual, I would be enlightened further when she was damn good and ready.

Khalika—of the platinum-blond cornrow wig, huge sunglasses, and wide-brimmed hat—wandered through the doors of the Envy after Dick and sat down to his right. Once he noticed her, he swiveled around and tried to strike up a conversation, even though Khalika, being pretty tall and well built, looked way older than twelve, Dick’s preferred age group. Khalika, under her hat, didn’t look at him.

Anybody who frequents these places knows the dancers aren’t permitted to sit and chat with customers—and that goes for any woman who wanders in too. Vice might show up at any time. Nobody wanted them to get the idea that prostitution might be going on in there.

Insert eye roll.

Khalika cut him off quickly. “I’m here for a job, not a date.”

But Dick, being Dick, tried again.

“I don’t want one. I own the place.” He thought a moment, then: “You’re not even my type. Can you dance? And what’s with the sunglasses and the hat? Afraid somebody’s gonna ask for your autograph?”

Khalika, without looking up, told him to please go beat off somewhere, as she had just had a miscarriage on the bathroom floor at a convenience store. He made a gagging noise, but that shut him up. He hated to hear of pussy being utilized for purposes other than those he had in mind, and he swiveled away from her in disgust, turning his attention back to the six-foot, trans stripper on the platform above the bar—Sue Nami—Amazon queen and comedian.

Nobody knew that Suzi once had a dick of her own. The customers were crazy about her. I knew she was once a he, because she told me one day in the back after I started dancing there—whoops, “spoiler alert!”—like it was the best joke ever. In her off hours, Suzi specialized in sadism. You might be surprised how many men pay big bucks to wind up in the ER. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Suzi didn’t do anything for free though, even if she enjoyed it. Nobody cared what the girls did outside the bar, except that they couldn’t let it show on their faces or bodies. Then they’d dump you like a bad habit.

Next thing, the hulk Dick was talking to on the phone—presumably—materialized and sat down on Dick’s left and ordered a top-shelf scotch and soda, watching the barmaid to make sure she didn’t stint. Suzi punched in the songs she liked and walked down the bar to start her set, hung her kimono on a hook and walked up the steps. Her spangled G-string, silver and black, matched her pasties.

Khalika watched as Suzi started her set. First up was “Those Shoes” by the Eagles. Suzi climbed up and pretended to inspect her own sky-high shoes, smiling, shaking her head, shrugging her shoulders, palms up. Like I said, she was quite a comedian—all six-and-a-half feet of her. She told me once she only danced to add new clients to her roster. She couldn’t get enough of hurting them, claimed she’d be able to retire before forty and move to someplace tropical. Lots of her clients were the movers and shakers you’d read about in the society pages, Wall Streeters flush with insider trading loot, underworld goons, even a cop or two. These places are just microcosms, after all, like Genet’s universal brothel. The French word for brothel is “house of illusion.” Nobody says it like the French, which is why Khalika and I have practically OD’d on French nouvelle vague films.

Anyway, Suzi didn’t seem fazed by anything, and she was flexible too. She could stand on one foot in those shoes and pull the other leg over her head and do a stomach flutter. After the first number ended, Suzi turned to the mirrored wall, bent over until her hair mopped the stage and stuck her tongue out from between her calves. She turned around, sat back on her elbows, and scissored her legs open and closed. A thin, neat line of pubic hair was visible on either side of her G-string.

Dick took it all in, kind of bored, not noticing the time. Her big, high silicone fun bags were anything but pre-pubescent. Suzi licked her lips and flicked her tongue like a venomous snake before sticking her index finger in her glossy mouth and sucking on it.

Dick fiddled with his drink, flicked his ash, and continued to stare dully at Suzi until finally the hulk leaned in and said, all casual, “Hey Dickie boy, sorry to sneak up on you like this, but you looked like you were deep in thought, or deep in something. Thanks for being on time though. I hate to be kept waiting, even with entertainment.”

Dick turned to him, startled. He didn’t seem to recognize the guy, so Khalika figured he was expecting someone else. This one looked serious as a stroke, yet also kind of affable—in an amiable lunatic kind of way.

“I’m Ryker.”

He offered his hand, but Dick declined, sneered. That was Dick’s first mistake. Ryker gazed into Suzi’s open thighs and gave a review: “Sometimes I like to see little muff, ya know? Give me a landing strip. These bald ones—I dunno—they make me think I’m fuckin’ a mannequin, or maybe an android? And give me real tits every time—that jiggle, that sway. This one hasn’t got any cellulite though. Real dancers, the ones from ballet or Broadway, hardly ever do. Anyway, that’s a big girl there. She must have eaten her Wheaties.”

The guy did a whole monologue, Khalika said, before Dick could manage a response.

“I do fine, thanks, but whatever stiffens your resolve, buddy.”

Khalika said she could tell that Dick was starting to sweat a little.

Ryker flicked up his genial mask, revealing his business one, his expression hardening to granite.

“Personally, I like to cut all the lights and pretend I’m puttin’ the stones to your bony-ass wife. You know, Dicky, you should shake hands when a guy offers. Bad manners don’t get you very far in life. Any sleazy salesman knows that much.”

Ryker sipped his scotch, debated with himself for a moment.

“Wait, I take that back. It’s not that bony, considering she sits on it all day—except when she, uh, goes to lunch with the girls. I’m not telling you anything new, am I Dicky?”

Under her big hat, Khalika lit a cigarette and pretended to check out Sue Nami. Khalika had one thing in common with Dick: her smile never reached her eyes.