Free Harbor Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh

they wanted people at the tables or lining the stage, which would mean more tip money for the dancers. There were some faux-leather booths along the far walls, and the stage was first-rate, with lighting that followed the blond dancer, who straddled the pole and waved to a hooting male customer seated stageside. Dinko noted that some of the tables could accommodate four and several only a deuce, and he was surprised to see half a dozen youngish couples at the tables for two.
    Then Dinko noticed a waitress bringing a tray of tapas to one of the tables—to be expected, because they had to serve food in these clubs in order to get a liquor license. He was surprised that so many lounge lizards actually brought girlfriends to watch other girls show their tits, but then this was Hollywood, where every kind of freak hung out. In a little room on each side of the main room, a girl was giving a geezer a lap dance. He knew that the seating there faced outward toward the main room per legal requirements, so that any vice cop or ABC agent could see into the room to determine if lewd conduct was occurring. It was the same in the titty bars down in Wilmington.
    He took an empty bar stool and ordered a draft beer, just pointing to the closest of the three beers on tap they offered. When the bartender brought the brew, Dinko said, “Is Samara the name of the owner here, or what?”
    The menacing bartender, with dark hair slicked back and pointing down his forehead in a widow’s peak like Count Dracula, said in heavily accented English and a voice fathoms deep, “Is a great city on the bank of the Volga. Better city than this one.”
    His lip curled as he said it, so Dinko replied, “No offense, man. My geography’s a little rusty.”
    The bartender turned and walked to the other end of the bar, where a customer was holding up two fingers for him and his buddy. No tip for you, Russkie asshole, Dinko thought.
    Other than the ethnicity of the male customers here, most of them being white, he thought they weren’t a lot different from the bar customers he saw around the L.A. harbor. Nobody was dressed upscale except for a few guys in suits, who were probably downtown stockbrokers hoping for a short-lived erection before going home to momma and the kiddies somewhere on the West Side.
    Dinko felt appropriate in his skinny-fit jeans and blue cotton half-zip pullover, the right style, he’d been told by a cute salesgirl at the Gap, for a guy as tall and slim as he was. The deal was sealed when she said the blue pullover enhanced the blue in his eyes, but she’d only given him a noncommittal smile when he’d asked if she’d like to meet him for coffee sometime. The outfit had cost him a Franklin, tax included, and he figured he looked okay anywhere in Hollywood, which itself was looking tackier than he remembered it from when his dad, on special occasions, would drive them up to catch a first-run movie.
    He saw Lita Medina walk into the main room from a corridor leading to the restrooms and a back office. A man was walking beside her, an older man in a double-breasted, pearl-gray business suit who was definitely not a downtown stockbroker. When he got into the light Dinko saw that his dyed black hair was swept up and back like an ancient rocker’s. Christ, it even looked like he combed it in an old-time ducktail.
    Dinko slid off the bar stool and scurried to the door, not wanting Lita to know that he’d come inside. As he was striding briskly along the sidewalk, he wondered why he didn’t want her to know he’d gone in there. Why should he care where this Mexican kid worked, or what she did with her life, or what she thought of him? It was none of his business. He told himself she was nothing to him, nothing at all. L.A. was full of Third World tramps like her. She’d probably be fucking those old communists the first night she showed up for work.
    Dinko was seated in the Jeep by the time she reached the car, and he got out, feigning