Cliff Walk: A Liam Mulligan Novel by Bruce DeSilva Read Free Book Online Page A

the New England Patriots was mounted just inside the entrance. Behind the gleaming granite bar, five mixologists in white shirts and black bow ties whipped up flavored martinis and drew mugs of premium draft beer.
    The women, some fresh from appearances in Manhattan and Atlantic City, had spent a lot of time at the gym. They shimmied nude on three stages in a swirl of colored lights, moving as though Shakira had taught them to dance. The customers, most wearing business suits, lined up to tuck ten-dollar bills into garters strapped high on sweat-damp thighs. Now and then, one of the men would toss a fistful of bills in honor of a spirited performance. And I’d thought money showers went out when the recession came in.
    After their turns in the spotlight, the women demurely donned lingerie before mingling with the customers. Buy one a twelve-dollar mixed drink and she’d sit with you and place your hand on her thigh. For fifty dollars, she’d lead you to a booth, remove her top, ask you to sit on your hands, and give you a lap dance that would last the length of a single song. Private rooms lined the back wall, and when I poked my head into an empty one, I found it was more enticing than the semen-stained sewer Whoosh had described.
    “Your first time here?” one of the bartenders asked as I settled onto a stool to peruse the beer menu.
    “It is.”
    “Like to know how it works?”
    “I would.”
    “Two hundred gets you a half bottle of champagne and fifteen minutes in a private VIP room with one of the girls. For four hundred, you get a magnum and a half hour. The girls aren’t allowed to hustle you. You have to approach them. Don’t be offended if one of them turns you down. Not all of them are full-service girls. Some of them just dance for tips.”
    Last night I’d hit the second club, Rogue Island, and found the door blocked by six pickets from the Sword of God, a local group of right-wing religious zealots. They brandished hand-lettered picket signs proclaiming “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,” “Hades Is for Whoremongers,” and “God Hates Fornicators.” A pair of bouncers roughly shoved them aside and ushered me in. As the door banged closed behind me, I could hear them out there, howling about hellfire and immortal souls.
    Inside, I paid the ten-dollar cover charge and took a stool at the bar. A few discreet inquiries determined that most of the girls were locals—single moms trying to make a living and college girls hustling for tuition. The bartenders served a good variety of decent bottled beer. The customers wore Dockers and button-down shirts, and it was apparent that some were regulars. The girls welcomed them by name, giving them the same greeting Norm used to get when he waddled through the door at Cheers.
    The girls performed naked on a single stage, swinging from stripper poles and thrusting their hips in crude imitation of the sex act. The bills tucked into garters here were mostly fives. When their fifteen-minute sets ended, the girls pulled on G-strings and skimpy bras to mingle with the customers. Topless lap dances were thirty dollars, two for the price of one before five P.M . A Franklin bought a blow job in a dark booth, or for a hundred and fifty dollars you could take the girl of your choice to one of those private rooms Whoosh described and do whatever you wanted for fifteen minutes.
    I was sitting alone at a cocktail table with a good view of the stage when a slim brunette beauty approached and said, “Hi, Mulligan. Need another beer?”
    “Marie? Don’t tell me you’re working here.”
    “Don’t go all Oral Roberts on me. I just waitress.”
    “Nice outfit,” I said. Her body stocking fit like a condom.
    Marie used to wait tables at Hopes, and last year I took her to bed a couple of times, but it didn’t lead anywhere. She was looking for a guy to raise a family. I told her to keep looking.
    “Tips good here?”
    “Very.”
    “But not as good as if you were