Under Bonnie’s name he wrote don’t trust her.
And under Huston’s name why Shadytown at dawn? missed one Thursday at Whispers why? told Danni out of town on business. Bonnie failed to mention the missing night.
But Bonnie hadn’t failed to mention Danni. She could have given him the names of any two dancers. Instead, one of them just happened to be Huston’s connection. Why had Bonnie done that? She could have protected Danni, provided another’s name. Was it a gift? Or was it a diversion?
He stared at the paper. There was more to the situation than what he had written, he knew there was. But what was he missing? His brain wasn’t working right, wasn’t seeing the connections. He got out his cell phone, called Danni’s number. This time he didn’t bother to block his own.
“Two questions,” he said after her hello. “Who’s the bouncer at the club?”
“You mean Tex?” she said.
“Kind of scrawny, mouthful of crooked teeth. Collects the money at the entrance.”
“That’s Moby,” she said.
“So who’s Tex?”
“He’s kind of big? Not tall but beefy, you know? Shaved head, looks like a butcher?”
“There wasn’t anybody like that around when I was there.”
“You might not have seen him, I guess. He spends most of his time upstairs, watching everything through the one-way glass.”
“You know his last name? Where he lives maybe?”
“No, but Bonnie would. I’m pretty sure there’s something going on between them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just a feeling, I guess. The way they stand when they’re talking to each other, you know? The way he looks at her.”
DeMarco wrote Tex on his tablet. Then Moby. “And Moby?” he said. “What can you tell me about him?”
“Just that he’s a sweetheart. Oh, and that he’s Bonnie’s brother.”
“So what makes him such a sweetheart?”
“He just is. I mean it used to worry some of the girls, him being so scrawny and sweet and all.”
“Why would that worry them?”
“Until Tex came, I mean. Everybody feels safer now with him upstairs this past couple of months. Moby couldn’t hurt a fly, but Tex…”
“Tex is new?”
“I don’t know the exact date when he started, but it wasn’t more than two, at most three, months ago.”
“Okay, good. Thank you for this. One last thing.”
“Am I going to get in trouble with Bonnie for talking to you?”
“Are you going to tell her you’ve been talking to me?”
“No way.”
“No way will I either, Danni.”
“You promise?”
“You have my word.”
“Because I need this job. Just a little while longer. Just until I start my student teaching. Then I’m going to have to quit anyway. I mean I can just imagine what could happen. Parent-teacher conference in the afternoon…”
“Champagne room conference with the father that night.”
“There you go.”
“So listen,” he said. “Final question. The night Huston didn’t show up as usual.”
“Two Thursdays ago.”
“Right. Did all of the other regular girls work that night?”
“Geez, I don’t know. They sort of come and go, you know?”
“Try to remember, okay? Was there anybody missing the same night as Thomas? Anybody who is usually there when he is?”
Silence for fifteen seconds. Then, “I’m pretty sure that was the night Bonnie missed too.”
DeMarco felt something slam into place. A piece of the puzzle. “Bonnie didn’t show up that night?”
“I’m pretty sure it was that night, yeah.”
“Any chance you’d know why she wasn’t there?”
“According to Wendy, her grandmother was really sick and she had to take care of her. Bonnie’s grandmother.”
“And Wendy is…?”
“One of the dancers. She’s like forty or something. Three kids. I guess Bonnie had asked her to watch the bar that night. And it’s not like Wendy brings in the big tips anyway. She said later she’d tend the bar every night if Bonnie would let her.”
“And that same night. Was Tex at the club?”
“Yes, he was.”
“And Moby?”
“Yep. Moby’s always there.”
“So the only two regulars who weren’t there were Thomas Huston and Bonnie.”
“As far as I can remember, yes.”
DeMarco pursed his lips, nodded, and filed that information away. “The next Thursday,” he said, “the last time you saw Thomas. When he told you he’d missed a night because of business out of town. Did he get any more specific than that?”
“I remember I teased him a little. I asked if it was monkey business. I thought it was kind of strange that he didn’t laugh at that, you know? I mean he was always a very upbeat kind of guy.”
“But not that night?”
“Usually he came with a question or two he wanted to ask me. Like, did the girls talk about sex much? Did they like men? Did they hate men? Did their boyfriends and husbands know what they were doing? Trying to understand our psychology, you know? All of our messed up psychologies.” She delivered the last line with a tone that smacked of self-contempt. DeMarco knew the sound well.
He said, “Yours doesn’t seem so messed up to me, Danni.”
“Sometimes I wonder.”