The Silencers Read Online Free

before we said the word.
    “All the way!” the M.C. was shouting. “Take it off! All the way, Corinne!”
    The girl was still dancing barefoot around the stage— if you could call it dancing. She was a well-built kid, I had to admit, and she seemed to be enjoying herself, which was nice.
    My lady, Dolores, stroking the back of my neck affectionately, was watching the show. “She is India — Indian. You do not have to hurry with your drink, honee. I will not hurry with mine. You will see. This is a friendly place, not a robbery like some of those others.”
    The dusky young girl on the stage unhooked her red brassiere, snatched it off and ducked behind the curtains, waving it and laughing.
    “A child,” Dolores said scornfully. “She cannot dance; she cannot sing; all she can do is walk around and take off the clothes. When I was of that age—”
    “Where are you from, Dolores?” I asked.
    “Chihuahua City, but there is no money there. Here I can still make thirty-five cents a drink. It is a living...”
    Busy making conversation, I’d missed the M.C. introducing the next performer. I’d been listening for the name, of course, but he threw me off momentarily by pronouncing it Leela in the Spanish way. Suddenly she was there, the curtains stirring behind her then becoming still.
    After the solidly built young Indian girl who’d preceded her, she looked seven feet tall. She wore a yellow satin dress that left her shoulders bare but encased her smoothly from breasts to knees, flaring below to give her a little room to move. Her hair had been dyed black since I’d last seen her. It made her look harder and older than I remembered her.
    “All the way, Lila!” the M.C. shouted. “Take it off! All the way!”
    She saw us at once, even though our table was at the back of the floor, and almost broke step. I saw the quick apprehension in her eyes. She might not recognize LeBaron, if he’d been careful, but she’d seen me before, and she’d know I wasn’t here with help just to take in her act.
    I saw her recognize me, and I saw her remember the time I’d made her remove her clothes in a different place, for a different purpose, embarrassing her terribly. A funny little rueful look came to her face at the memory; she might have been regretting a lost innocence. Then she was at the corner, making her turn gracefully along the edge of the floor, using that trained walk I’d noticed— the walk of a high-fashion model, just a little exaggerated and done in time to the music. It was funny to see it in a dive like this.
    “Jeez,” LeBaron said loudly, “that’s a lot of mouse, man. There’s six feet of her, if there’s an inch.” His elbow nudged me. “Identification okay?” he whispered.
    “Okay.”
    “I wasn’t quite sure,” he whispered, “from the pix. She was the right height and all that, in the right place, but I wasn’t, you know, positive with that hair, and I wasn’t supposed to risk trying for fingerprints or anything. Washington said you’d confirm. We don’t want to get the wrong one. Jeez, that would be something, wouldn’t it? Hauling a kicking, spitting Mex dancer across the international border!” He laughed at the thought then and stopped. “Okay, so all we have to do is wrap her up and take her home. The loving husband claiming his errant wife; get ready to make with the dialogue. She’ll come out and mingle with the customers as soon as she’s finished her act—that is, unless she panics and beats it.”
    “Do we have any orders in that case?”
    “Jesus will try to pick her up outside and see where she comes to rest.” He nudged again. “Behind you, when you get the chance. Company... What is it, Elena?”
    The fat woman jerked her head towards the tall slender girl on the stage. “Americano,” she said scornfully. “No tetas. American women have no tetas.”
    “Tetas?” I said, puzzled. Mr. Helm from California wouldn’t speak much Spanish. “What’s