Dark Places

to reveal a tanned face with eyes that were set slightly close together. Cute but canine. Lyle nudged me, gave me a searching look to see if I recognized her. I didn’t but I gave a quick wave just in case and she stopped jerkily. I asked if she was Krissi Cates.
    “I am,” she said, her vulpine face surprisingly eager, helpful, like she thought something good might be about to happen. It was a strange expression to see, considering the direction she’d come from.
    “I was hoping to talk to you.”
    “OK.” She shrugged. “About what?” She couldn’t figure me out: not a cop, not a social worker, not a stripper, not her kid’s teacher, assuming she had a kid. Lyle she only glanced at, since he was taking turns gaping at her or turning almost entirely away from us. “About working here? You a reporter?”
    “Well, to be frank, it’s about Ben Day.”
    “Oh. OK. We can go inside Mike’s, you can buy me a drink?”
    “Are you married? Is your name still Cates?” Lyle blurted.
    Krissi frowned at him, then looked at me for explanation. I widened my eyes, grimaced: the look women give each other when they’re embarrassed of the men they’re with. “I got married, once,” she said. “Last name’s Quanto now. Only because I been too lazy to change it back. You know what a pain in the ass that is?”
    I smiled as if I did, and then suddenly I was following her across the parking lot, trying to keep out of the way of the giant leather purse that bounced against her hip, giving Lyle a look to pull it together. Just before we got to the door, she ducked against the side of the club, murmuring,
you mind?
and snuffed something from a packet of foil she pulled from her rear pocket. Then she turned her back entirely to me and made a gargling sound that must have hurt.
    Krissi turned back, a broad smile on. “Whatever gets you through the night …” she sang, waggling the foil packet, but partway through the verse she seemed to forget the tune. She snuffed her nose, which was so compact it reminded me of an outie belly button, the kind pregnant women get. “Mike’s a Nazi about this stuff,” she said, and flung the door open.
    I’d been to strip clubs before—back in the ’90s when it was considered brazen, back when women were dumb enough to think it wassexy, standing around pretending to be hot for women because men thought it was hot if you were hot for women. I guess I hadn’t been to one this low-rent though. It was small and filmy, the walls and floors seemed to have an extra wax coating. A young girl was dancing gracelessly on a low stage. She marched in place, actually, her waist rolling over a thong two sizes too small, pasties waffling over nipples that pointed outward, walleyed. Every few beats she would turn her back to the men, then bend over and peer at them through her spread legs, her face going quickly red from the flood of blood to her head. In response, the men—there were only three of them, all in flannel, hunched over beers at separate tables—would grunt or nod. A massive bouncer studied himself in the wall mirror, bored. We sat down, three in a row at the bar, me in the middle. Lyle had his arms folded, his hands in his armpits, trying not to touch anything, trying to look like he was looking at the dancer without really looking at her. I turned away from the stage, wrinkled my nose.
    “I know, right?” Krissi said. “Goddam armpit of a place. This is on you, right? Because I have no cash.” Before I even nodded she was ordering herself a vodka and cranberry, and I just asked for the same. Lyle got carded, and as he was showing the bartender his ID, he started doing some uncomfortable impersonation, his voice going even more ducklike, a weird smile pasted to his face. He made no eye contact, and gave no real signal that he was doing an impersonation. The bartender stared at him, and Lyle said,
The Graduate. You seen it?
And the guy just turned away.
    So did I.
    “So, what do you want to know?” Krissi smiled, leaned toward me. I debated whether to tell her who I was, but she seemed so disinterested I decided to save myself the trouble. Here was a woman who just wanted company. I kept glancing at her breasts, which were even bigger than mine, tightly packed and well trussed so they poked straight out. I pictured them under there, shiny and globular like cellophaned chicken.
    “You like ’em?” Krissi chirped, giving them a bounce. “They’re semi-new. Well, I guess