Strip Read online

  He had saved money, but if all five children went to private colleges, the tuition costs would be over a million dollars. Even if he managed to borrow that kind of money, through mortgages and the police credit union, it would only stave off the disaster for a time. And then retirement was looming ahead. When he was no longer working as a detective lieutenant, his income would shrink dramatically. But even worse, he would no longer have a plausible reason to give his wives for spending three or four nights a week away from home.

  Time was tightening its grip on him. Tuition would be due at the end of the summer. The normal retirement age at the LAPD was fifty-five, and he was fifty-two. There had to be more lies, and that meant more chances to be caught. His five kids were all getting older, smarter, and more worldly. At first all he had to worry about were the two women watching him and comparing his words with what they observed. Now it was seven people.

  He had been thinking about this impending disaster for years. It hadn’t taken very long to realize that the only way to avoid the conflagration that would destroy him was to get more money. He had tried to save enough, tried to work extra hours and temporary part-time jobs, and invested the money he made. It was never enough, and could never be enough.

  His wives and children were his share of the best the world had to offer. His job was the best he could do for the world. He was about to lose it all. And as far as he could tell, the only choice he had was to keep his family happy as long as he could. When the secret was revealed, all he could do would be to stand up straight and try to protect them as his life disintegrated around him.

  8

  MANCO KAPAK LISTENED to the music, always heavy on the bass and terribly loud so the girls wouldn’t lose the beat in the noise of the club. Whenever they lost the rhythm, their bodies stopped moving, and they looked like marionettes—not still, but sort of hanging from invisible threads until they caught the beat again and let it animate them.

  Usually he fled the music and kept his eyes off the girls after their first day on the job. The girls were only his way of ensuring that customers came. The men paid the cover charge that didn’t even guarantee them a seat, let alone a table, and they were still forced to buy the minimum two watery drinks. They didn’t have to tip the dancers and the waitresses, but nearly every one did, because denying a partially clothed woman anything was beyond most men’s power of self-control.

  There really was no need for Kapak to personally screen every dancer who worked for him. There were more beautiful young women in Los Angeles than there were in heaven. They came from everywhere in the world looking for something to do that would put them in front of people’s eyes. Siren and Temptress had hundreds of applicants a year. Any of the managers could have chosen well enough.

  And Kapak wasn’t so much interested in operating that part of the business as he was in keeping it credible. A reasonably intelligent observer had to be able to believe that the dance club in Hollywood and the two strip clubs were the main source of his income. That was all he really needed them to accomplish.

  What he was doing was taking the money he made from other enterprises and combining it with the nightly receipts from the clubs. Each night at 2:00 A.M., when the state required him to close, he and his people would go to the clubs, count the night’s receipts, and prepare a bank deposit slip for the money. Added to the money that had come in from each club would be a few dollars that had come in from his short-term loan business. But the rest of the money was cash he was laundering for Manny Rogoso’s drug business.

  He’d had a call from Rogoso on his home phone today while he was out, and it was making him a bit uncomfortable. Rogoso had never called him there before, and it showed a new kind of recklessness. Drug dealers were a volatile, unstable bunch, and Manny Rogoso was worse than most. It seemed to Kapak that he had become more violent and crazy in the past couple of years. Kapak didn’t get involved in any direct way with the world of drugs, but anybody who could read a newspaper knew that the big gangs of drug suppliers just over the border in Tijuana had been fighting among themselves and against the authorities for years. There were assassinations and kidnappings, and big gun battles every week involving dozens of men on a side. Army troops were stationed on the streets to keep order. Rogoso seemed to be taking on the mannerisms and attitudes of the big narcotrafficantes he dealt with. Kapak liked to keep things quiet and peaceful, and, when possible, legal.

  A long time ago Kapak had learned an expensive lesson. The way the government got people they couldn’t catch in the act was catching them with money they couldn’t explain. When he was young he had left Romania for Hungary, and then gotten to Czechoslovakia with his wife, Marija, early in the brief summer of 1968 that ended when the Russian tanks rolled in to remove the liberal government. It had taken them until 1979 to make it to the United States. Then he had gone to work with a group who smuggled stolen cars from the upper Midwest into Mexico to sell them to Central and South Americans. The buyers were supplied with papers saying they had driven into Mexico and were simply returning home with their cars.

  Kapak had started out as a driver for the car thieves, then realized that the Mexican distributor who sold the cars southward was the only irreplaceable person, and made a separate deal with him. Kapak built a second healthy business of his own based on the observation that the one car bringing his four drivers back to the United States was otherwise empty of cargo.

  He never got caught for smuggling or car theft or anything else he’d done. He got caught in a tax audit. One day there was a letter from the government telling him to come to a meeting, and a few weeks later there were treasury agents with guns strapped to them tearing his house apart looking for money and evidence of secret bank accounts. He lost everything to them.

  To this day, he was sure that some of the cash he had hidden in his house had probably ended up in the pockets of treasury agents. Why should government agents suddenly behave differently than they had for five thousand years just because they were in a new country? He had never counted all the money he had been stuffing behind the insulation in the attic. The agents had taken it to their office to count it and had given him a receipt to sign with a number on it. Of course he had signed. Government agents were all the same, no matter where they lived. If you didn’t sign, more of them came the next time.

  So he had lost all his money, his house, his cars. Going to jail for thirteen months had also lost him Marija and the children, John and Sara. Marija had used the time while he was in prison to take up with their neighbor the periodontist, and to write letters to everyone back in Hungary and Romania to tell them he was a criminal and in jail. It was accurate enough and had not startled anybody on his side of the family, but a cousin of hers had written to him to say it had been a shock to some of the people who didn’t know him well.

  He had been in love with Marija, a beautiful woman who had put up with quite a bit in private, but who could not stand public embarrassment. He was lucky that he wasn’t deported to Hungary, or Spain, his last stop before America, or even all the way back to his birthplace, Bucharest. He probably would have been, except that the hard-line Communists in charge in those days would have made some kind of political point about the people who left home being degenerates. The American authorities didn’t want that.

  Since then he had paid his taxes, tried to comply with all of the small laws, and reserved his risks for the big, profitable infractions. It had worked for a long time, and he didn’t miss the money he had paid for taxes, permits, licenses, and assessments. A government that left people alone most of the time was worth a lot of money.

  His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he stepped into the back hallway outside the office to answer it. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Kapak?” It was the voice of Morgan, the manager at Siren. “I thought I should let you know that one of Mr. Rogoso’s people called a minute ago. They said he’s coming here.”

  “To Siren?”

  “That’s what the
guy said. He was conveying the message that Rogoso was on the way.”

  “Thanks, Morgan. He probably just wants somebody to know he’s coming so they’ll pay attention to him. I’ll drive over and meet him.”

  “Should I get one of the girls to keep him distracted until you’re here? Maybe give him a lap dance and so on?”

  “No. Give him what he pays for and nothing else. Which of my guys is there right now?”

  “Jerry Gaffney. Guzman and Corona.”

  “Good. Can you reach any of them?”

  “Jerry’s right in the office.”

  “Put him on.”

  After a bit of shuffling, Kapak heard Jerry Gaffney come on. “Mr. Kapak.”

  “Jerry, I want you to handle Rogoso until I get there. He’s apparently coming to deliver the cash himself.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Keep a gun on you, and maybe a second one he won’t see. Meet him outside the door. Smile and be friendly, and take him right into the back office. Make him feel important, but get him out of sight so we don’t have him drinking and scaring people and attracting attention.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I hear Guzman and Corona are there.”

  “They’re out in the club.”

  “Tell them to stick close to you. Rogoso hardly ever goes anywhere without Alvin and Chuy, and they talk to each other in Spanish. Corona and Guzman will pick it up first if what they’re saying isn’t good. Rogoso will give you some cash. He’ll tell you how much it is, but count it. Then get him out of the club. Be friendly, but don’t show any weakness. He’s always looking for it.”

  “Are you coming?”

  “I’m leaving Temptress now. I should be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. You’d better get ready for him.”

  “Right. See you.”

  Manuel Rogoso arrived at the door of Siren a few minutes later in a black four-door Maserati. The driver sat in front of the entrance for a few seconds, goading the engine into a grumble a couple of times while the three men in the car studied the building and the parking lot. Then the car glided forward and made a wide turn into a space in the middle of the lot. Two men got out of the front seat and stepped to the right rear door. They were both big men who had obviously lifted a great deal of iron to get that way. Both wore lightly tinted glasses, leather jackets, boots, and black jeans. One of them opened the door and Manuel Rogoso swung his legs out and stood.

  Rogoso was only five feet seven, but he too was a body builder. The impression he gave was not of a small man: with his wide shoulders and thick limbs he seemed to be a creature designed for fighting. As the three men walked away from the car, they moved stiffly, listing a bit from side to side.

  Jerry Gaffney was leaning against the front of the building smoking a cigarette a few feet from the door. As Rogoso and his men approached the door, he pushed off the wall and stepped in front of them as he flicked his cigarette away. He held out his hand, smiled, and said, “Mr. Rogoso. I’m Jerry Gaffney. Mr. Kapak asked me to welcome you to Siren.”

  Rogoso’s eyebrows pinched together in a scowl. “Where is he?”

  “He’ll be here in a few minutes. He was over at Temptress when he got the call that you were coming here. Come with me, and we’ll go inside where we’ll be comfortable.”

  Jerry Gaffney stepped in and nodded to the bouncer, who stepped back to let the four men pass him. Gaffney led them along the front of the bar past the gaggle of customers three-deep waiting for drinks.

  Rogoso stopped for a second. “How about getting us a drink?”

  “I’ll have drinks sent in, so we can hear ourselves talk.”

  Rogoso didn’t look happy. He glanced up at the face of his driver and bodyguard, Alvin, then at Chuy and conveyed irritation, but he went with Jerry Gaffney to the hallway that led to the back room.

  Gaffney stopped, reached out to detain a passing waitress, and said, “Honey, we’d like some drinks in the office, please. Gentlemen, what would you like?”

  “Three zombies,” Rogoso said. “With 151 rum.”

  “Got it,” the woman said, and walked off toward the bar.

  Gaffney opened the office door and the three men entered. Sitting in chairs on either side of the door were Guzman and Corona. It was not lost on Rogoso that there were now three men from each side in this one relatively small room, all of them armed.

  Rogoso spoke to Guzman and Corona in Spanish. “I remember you two. If you want to make some real money you can come work for me.”

  Guzman said, “No, thanks. I don’t want to be a drug dealer.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t offering anything like that. You’d need some balls to deal. I just figured two matching Honduran boys could shine both my shoes alike.”

  Alvin and Chuy and Rogoso laughed, but Guzman and Corona stared at them, their faces unreadable. Gaffney said, “What’s that all about?”

  “Nothing,” said Corona. “He’s just telling jokes.”

  Rogoso seemed frustrated. “How long is this going to take?”

  “I don’t know,” said Gaffney. “Mr. Kapak said he would be around twenty minutes.”

  Rogoso took off his raincoat and set it on the table along the wall. He unzipped the lining and revealed a row of pockets full of money, and began taking the stacks of cash out of it and tossing them on the table with an audible flap. When he was finished, he said, “This is eighteen thousand five hundred dollars. I don’t have time for him to drive over here at ten miles an hour like an old lady.”

  Gaffney took the money and began counting rapidly, laying each thousand to the side as he finished counting. Alvin and Chuy, Guzman and Corona stared into each other’s eyes and occasionally touched the pocket of a coat or behind their backs, the places where they had hidden their weapons.

  There was a knock on the door, and Guzman backed to the door and opened it. The waitress tried to come in, but Corona stood and said, “I’ll take the tray.”

  She looked unwilling, because she could probably see at least some of the money, and she wanted her tip. She caught sight of Rogoso and his men, and seemed to reconsider. “All right.”

  “Bring her in,” Rogoso said.

  “No, that’s okay,” she said, and started down the hall.

  Alvin and Chuy brushed past Guzman, ran three steps, and caught up with her. They seemed to lift her by her elbows, then turned around, walked back with her, and shut the door.

  Rogoso came close, smiling. “Are the zombies any good?”

  “Sure. But I just deliver them. I don’t make them.”

  He took one from the tray and held it up to her lips. “Taste it for me.”

  “I’m not supposed to drink when I’m working.”

  “Sip it or I’ll think you put something in it.” He pushed it against her mouth and began to pour.

  The waitress looked at Gaffney for help, but he was still counting rapidly, unaware of her, so she took some in and gulped. She started to cough, and Rogoso put his hand on her back and patted it, hard. “Here. You’d better finish it and bring me another one.”

  Gaffney said, “You made a mistake. It’s not eighteen five. It’s only seventeen thousand.”

  Rogoso put the glass down and glared at Gaffney. “I think you’re wrong.”

  “No, I’m not. I put each thousand in a stack on the table as I went along. You can count it for yourself. Did you forget some, leave it in the car by mistake?”

  Rogoso looked at Alvin and Chuy, then saw they were staring at Guzman and Corona. While he was teasing the waitress, Guzman and Corona’s guns had somehow found their way into their hands. The two men still sat where they’d been, but each of them had a gun resting on his lap.

  The stillness lasted for a few seconds without anyone lowering his eyes or moving. Then Rogoso said, “I’ll take a look.” He released the waitress, who hurried out the door to return to the club.

  He went to the table, picked up a thousand-dollar stack, riffled through it, and
set it aside, then another. Next he counted the stacks. “I guess you were right. I counted wrong. Only seventeen thousand here.” He shrugged. “I probably left the rest on my desk.” He glanced at his watch. “Now we’ve got to move on. Tell Kapak I’m sorry I missed him”

  “Sure,” said Gaffney. “Want me to ask him to call you?”

  “No,” said Rogoso. “This eighteen thousand was the only business we had with him tonight”

  “Seventeen thousand”

  “Right.” He smiled. “See you around” The three men went out the door toward the club. Gaffney and Guzman and Corona followed them to the parking lot, and then watched them drive away.

  Later, when closing time had come, Manco Kapak looked at the ranks of tall stacks of bills on the counting table in the back office at Siren. He was momentarily tempted to do some skimming—just fold a few hundreds into his pocket. It would be stealing from nobody. But by now his attitude toward the Internal Revenue Service had become a superstitious dread. He put both of his hands in his pockets and watched his three men putting the money into the maroon canvas deposit bag.

  When they were finished he knelt by the wall and opened the locked desk drawer where Gaffney had stored the seventeen thousand dollars in cash that had come from Rogoso’s drug business. He added it to the twenty-one thousand that had come from the food, liquor, and cover charges, and the house’s rental fees for private lap-dancing rooms.

  Kapak put the money together, wrote in the total on the deposit slip, and handed the canvas bag to Jerry Gaffney. Corona and Guzman slowly tugged on their sport coats over their thick arms.