"How ya doin' back there?"
How was she doing? The question was as dumb as everything else that had happened to her so far this evening.
She was half naked; she was freezing. Goose bumps covered her skin as she sat there in the cold back seat of the patrol car. The smoke from the cigarette she was holding in the corner of her mouth was curling upwards into her eyes and making them tear. Her hands were handcuffed behind her, and she didn't know what to do with the burning cigarette, spit it from between her lips and mash it out on the floor? That would only piss the cops off.
The cop, the one who had just asked her how she was doing, was busy staring into the rear view mirror. What was he doing? He was trying to see into the crack between the parted knees of her legs. Such things Lucy understood.
So she spread her knees another couple of inches. Give 'em what they want --- that was her motto.
She looked out through the side window of the car. Where in the hell was she anyway? What city was this? A frigid layer of snow glazed the empty downtown streets an icy blue. Not Denver. Chicago? Indianapolis, Buffalo? Oh yeah, Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio, that was where she was.
A movement from the front seat caught her eye. The cop was swiveling his fat body around, the better to look at her. The fold of flesh at the back of his neck squeezed out over his collar.
Oh shit, she thought; here it comes. She could see it in his pig eyes. The question. Why was it, it was always a cop who asked the question?
"Tell me, Miss Klintt, my buddy here was wonderin'," he was pointing to the other cop, the one who was driving, "Did you really fuck a dog?"
It was always their buddy who wanted to know.
"Ask my lawyer," she said. She ground the cigarette out on the floor of the car.
Lucy Klintt, 'Juicy Lucy' to her fans around the country, again looked out the window at the cold and empty streets of Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio. She uncrossed her legs and closed her knees together. She didn't owe the fucking cop anything.
Lucy Klintt thought about her life.
Shit, she thought.
The trip had been screwed up from its very beginning. First Peter Plowman had taken off in New Orleans. Then that fucker in Miami had stiffed her, and Steve had given her all kinds of shit as if it had been her fault that the check had bounced.
This trip was all Steve's idea anyhow. He had made the bookings. He'd booked her into those sleaze joints. He had booked her here into Cleveland.
Her career was slowing down. Money wasn't coming in liked it used to. Personal appearances were what she needed. All the rock stars did it although she wasn't no rock star. Shit, even book writers did it. And she wasn't no writer. They made personal appearances when they wanted to sell records, peddle their books. That was what she needed to do if she wanted to sell her movies. So Steve told her. And Steve knew what was best for her.
So far, as far as she was concerned, the trip, sorry, 'The Tour,' was one big mess. Maybe Steve was unloading some more videos. Maybe he was setting up some R-rated soft porn movie like he had hinted. But she didn't know for sure. What she did know was that there had been precious little publicity, and the crowds that had come out to see her had not been exactly overwhelming. Maybe she was getting too old for this racket. Maybe? Maybe wasn't the word. She was thirty-one years old. She went to the gym three times a week. Hard ass, ribbed abs, taut tits. But, twelve years into the game, she was too old. Shit.
And now she was arrested.
She doubted that her replacement bodyguard, Dick Righteous, had called Steve. Good old Dick. Wasn't smart enough to lace up his shoes. Only thing he was good at was at raising a hard on. Anything more complicated, making a long distance phone call, for instance, was beyond his meager capabilities. She would have to make the call to Steve in Los Angeles herself, She'd make the call after they booked her.
"Hey, officer?"
He didn't answer.
"Hey, Officer Hammond," she resurrected his name from the back of her brain where she kept her memory, "When do I get to make a telephone call? I do get to make a phone call, don't I?"
"Yeah, you get to make a telephone call." He sounded as if he regretted the fact. "You'll get your chance after we get finished booking you."
It had to be around 12:30 by now, Lucy thought. They had stopped the show, raided it just a few minutes after she had started her performance. That had been an hour ago, roughly. It had been sort of funny for the first few minutes after the raid had started. The geeks in the crowd had started scurrying this way and that, scared that their wives or, better, their boyfriends would find out where they had been ---watching Juicy Lucy Klintt. Oh yeah. Those ass holes had really been scared. Hey, but it wasn't ever them that caught the shitty end of the stick when it was over (no pun intended). No, that was her job.
And now she was going to have to call Steve in L.A. Steve was going to be pissed. He would do what he did when he got pissed. He would scream. Then he would blame her. Then he would curse. Then, maybe he would listen to what she had to say. She wished she had some other way of getting help. But she didn't. She hoped Steve would be there to take her call. It was 9:30 back home. He would probably be at the studio.
So Lucy relaxed in the back of the patrol car for the rest of the trip to the station house. She kept her legs tightly crossed.
**********
RICHARD ROTH, on the phone, couldn't believe that this was happening. The dispatcher couldn't be as incompetent as she was acting. "Where is the sergeant on duty?" he repeated.
"Who is this?"
He was going to lose it. He was going to lose it. "I already told you who this is." Richard counted to ten. "This is Richard Roth. I'm calling from the County prosecutor's office."
"You don't have to scream," said the voice on the other end of the phone.
Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten Richard counted quickly to himself. "I am NOT screaming," he said,
"Well you were."
He fought to keep his voice even. "Look, all I would like to know is where the Duty Sergeant is."
"And I told you. I don't know."