Strip Search by Rex Burns

birdbath; beside it a pink plaster flamingo stood on one leg and curled its neck toward the water. Around the base of the pedestal, a froth of bright petunias caught the morning light. At the far end of the yard, the white stucco wall of the house held metal awnings that shadowed the windows. The distance of that sunny yard from the little shrine behind Wager stretched far more than time or space could measure; it was a distance that made heavier the weariness of a long tour of duty, and now he felt the added drain of groping his way through this man’s defenses, one question at a time.
    He took a deep breath and pushed back at the surge of weariness. “She worked at the Cinnamon Club a long time. Didn’t she ever talk of finding a dancing job somewhere else?”
    “Sure. We talked a lot about moving to Vegas or L.A. There’s not much going on in Denver for dancers, and what there is, is pretty amateur.”
    “But you stayed here.”
    “You mean why? Like I said: the money.” Sheldon started wiping the bits and pieces of a vending machine drive. “She made good money at the Cinnamon Club and she was still learning more about dancing. We figured one, two more years at the most, and then we’d have enough saved up to try somewhere big.”
    “You were working somewhere else when you met her? Precision Metals?”
    “Did I say that? Yeah, right. We bought this place maybe a year ago. Annette invested a lot of her money in it—she said she wanted me to have a place of my own.” He looked around and sighed. “We figured we’d sell this place and go wherever.”
    “The shop makes a good living?”
    “Yeah. Annette did all the bookkeeping. She was real good with numbers and paperwork—she liked it. I really don’t know how much this place made last year. I haven’t felt like going over the books yet.”
    Good money dancing, good money from the shop. They lived at a very good address, too—a condominium in a new tower near City Park. “We haven’t found any trace of her car yet.”
    “I figured I’d hear from you if you did. It’s probably in Mexico by now.”
    “Mr. Sheldon, what we think is that somebody in the club followed her out to her car and pulled a gun on her. Then forced her to go with him.”
    He wiped again at the drive shaft. “I think so, too. The bastard. The dirty bastard!”
    “Did she ever say anything about anyone at all who might have been after her? A regular customer? A stranger? Anyone at all?”
    The anger drained away. “No … I mean, she had her regulars; all the dancers got fan clubs, you know? That’s show business. But they tip good and they mind their manners. She’d tell me about them and we’d sometimes laugh at them and even feel sorry for them. In bed, we’d talk about them and—ah—feel sorry for them, like.”
    “You don’t know much about any of them, though?”
    “No. Mr. Berg didn’t like me to go there too much—the customers don’t tip as much if they know the girls got husbands or boyfriends in the audience. But Annette never told me about anybody who was after her that way.” He looked up as if begging to be believed. “And she’d have told me. If anything like that happened, she’d have told me, so I could take care of it, you know?”
    Just like she’d told him about Berg’s hiring interview, Wager guessed. “How, take care of it?”
    His thin shoulders pulled back slightly. “Well, I’d tell them first, ‘Leave my wife alone.’ I mean, most people go there to enjoy the dancing, not to hassle the girls. If that didn’t work, I’d tell Mr. Berg. He don’t put up with stuff like that. He’d heave that dude out on his tail.”
    “And you never had to do that to anyone?”
    “No! Annette said she could take care of anything like that.” His eyes turned back to the picture of the girl standing with arms upraised and smile frozen. “She told me never to worry about anything like that, and I didn’t.”
    Wager said carefully, “The