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

stripping.”
    “Of course not,” she said, and sat down at my table.
    “What kind of money do the strippers make?”
    “The hookers, you mean?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “On a good night, the best girls take home a grand or so after expenses.”
    “Expenses?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What expenses?”
    “They have to pay a hundred fifty a night to dance here.”
    “The girls pay the club? The club doesn’t pay them?”
    “Uh-huh. Candy, who used to strip at Shakehouse until she put on a few pounds, says it’s three hundred a night there, but the hottest girls can make five or six grand on a big weekend.”
    “Any other expenses?”
    “The girls pay the house twenty dollars every time they take a customer into a private room, and they’re expected to tip the bouncers at the end of the night. Sometimes the bouncers take it out in trade, if you know what I mean.”
    “I do.”
    “On the plus side, the club buys condoms by the gross and provides them to the girls for free.”
    “Condoms?” I said. “The Maniellas are Catholic. They’ll be saying Hail Marys till Easter if Pope Benedict finds out about this.”
    I had more questions, but the bartender bellowed from behind the bar, “Socialize on your own time, Marie. Orders are stacking up here.”
    “Gotta go,” she said. “I’ll bring you back a fresh beer on the house.” A few minutes later, she did.
    Tonight at the Tongue and Groove, admission was free. A lone bartender served two brands of beer, Bud and Bud Light. The customers wore jeans and T-shirts with Boston Bruins and New England Patriots logos on them. Most of the girls were fresh off the boat from Haiti, Russia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. They wore nothing but G-strings and smiles as they strolled among the cocktail tables to tempt the customers.
    Garter tips were one-dollar bills here. Lap dances ran twenty bucks a pop, blow jobs were forty dollars, and for a hundred you could drag a girl into a private booth and make whoopie for twenty minutes. On a slow night like tonight, you could get two girls for the price of one.
    Vanessa Maniella had built bordellos to suit every Rhode Island wallet. At each club, I asked for her and was politely informed that she was unavailable. When I asked if anyone had seen Sal lately, I drew icy stares.
    I was standing now in the doorway of the Tongue and Groove’s “all-nude room,” waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark. By the time 50 Cent stopped rapping, I could just make out the rows of cocktail tables, all of them empty. I chose one by the back wall and took a seat. It was shift-change time onstage. The girl who’d received the dollar tip slid down onto the lap of her benefactor and whispered in his ear. Then she dismounted, took him by the hand, and led him toward a row of private cubicles that lined the wall to my left.
    The other girl pranced naked down the stage stairs and scanned the room for prey. I could barely see her when she moved out of the light, but I sensed she was heading my way. Two new girls strutted onto the stage on long legs made longer by fuck-me heels. You couldn’t call them strippers because they didn’t have anything to peel off.
    “Bonsoir, beebe. Waz you name?”
    “Mulligan. What’s yours?”
    “Destiny,” she said, but it came out more like “DEZ-tin-ee.”
    “Sure it is,” I said. “That’s what all the Haitian mamas are naming their babies these days.”
    That made her giggle, and I noticed for the first time how young and pretty she was. She was still giggling when she wrapped her arms around my neck.
    “Buy me a drink and mebbe I tell you my real name.”
    I pulled a twenty off the small roll of bills in my jeans, handed it to her, and asked her to bring me back a Bud. She snatched it and swung her hips as she walked to a little bar that I hadn’t realized was there. When she returned with our drinks, she didn’t give me change. I used my foot to push a chair away from the table for her, but she