Chapter 6 - The O

An art student joins the veiled culture of San Francisco's Street Artists Program, only to later obsess over a coworker's death while conducting his own murder investigation.

Suzanne Davis had just finished performing her two-song set upon the stage of a strip club. She casually picked up a sheer dress that lay in a tiny pile at her feet, elegantly draped it over her forearm, and stepped down from the stage's two-foot-high platform. Then she slowly walked past the men in the front row, making eye contact with each one, asking if they'd like to buy a lapdance or private show.

 

Being a Wednesday night, business was slow. And though her youthful body was completely naked, no one accepted her offers as she slowly walked the circumference of the thirty-foot square stage.

 

After a brief final inspection of the audience from the rear of the club, Suzanne began to climb the stairs that would take her past the DJ's booth, on her way to the dancers' dressing room. Dennis was the current DJ and also worked the spotlight while the dancers performed their striptease acts upon the main stage, here at the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre. The establishment was an industry legend, the strip club that had invented the lapdance some four decades ago.

"Tough night. Huh, Suz?" said Dennis.

 

Not upset, Suzanne only shrugged. "No big deal. My job as a street artist is still paying the bills, and this is just a little icing on the cake. On weekends it's usually good here, but on weekdays it can be hit or miss."

"Why do you work here at The O, anyway, if you don't really need the money?"

"I love all the drama and dialog that goes on in this place. Gives me something to write about in my journal. The guys and dancers will say things here you'd never hear anywhere else. It's funny... even if a patron might be a conservative office-type, once he's got a topless girl sitting on his lap, he'll start sharing his innermost thoughts."

 

Dennis laughed. "Well, Suz, maybe you've invented a new kind of lie detector? You could work for the police department -- just sit on a suspect's lap in the interrogation room, take off your top, and wait for the guy to confess."

"Very funny, Dennis. Kind of a new variation of the police interrogation technique, good cop - bad cop? Maybe we could call it good cop - naughty girl?"

Dennis chuckled as Suzanne continued her way to the strippers' dressing room, just behind his booth, there on the second floor. As she entered the dressing room, a handful of dancers were chatting with each other, sitting on benches between the lockers. Still naked, Suzanne casually stepped over to her locker, entered the lock's combination, and gradually began to put on her street clothes.

 

"Going home, Suz? Still more than an hour until closing time", said a slender dancer with light brown hair, a cover-girl face, and freakishly long legs. Her prominent forehead made her look even younger than her twenty-two years.

 

Suzanne said, "Well, Tracy, sometimes you need to know when to fish, and when to cut bait. It's already three in the morning, and none of my regulars have shown up by now. Don't think they're really gonna come. Besides, I need to get up tomorrow for the street artists' lottery, so I can get a selling-space on Beach Street."

Tracy Burke shook her head. "Suz, just don't see how you do it. Two jobs, and these late hours. Don't you ever get tired?"

"Not really. I love to talk to people."

 

"Oh right," said Tracy, "you're always mining this place for dialog, to write in your little journal. Do you think you'll ever put it all together, and maybe write your book?"

 

"Ooh... a book. I love it! With lots of sex, and maybe a little murder?" said a teenage dancer, her dark brown hair cascading down her back.

Suzanne laughed. "Sorry Lindsey, no pulp novels -- only do nonfiction. But I like the way you think!"

 

Lindsey Sloan was the youngest member of the O'Farrell Theatre's sorority; however her wit and amiable personality were quickly making her a favorite among the club's regular patrons. Idolizing her older sister, one of The O's most successful strippers, Lindsey could hardly wait for her eighteenth birthday to pass, so she too could begin to build her financial nest egg.

Tracey continued, "Suzanne, between your experiences at The O'Farrell and the Street Artists Program -- there must be lots of juicy stuff for that book?"

Suzanne snickered as she slipped on her jeans. "Oh, you've no idea how juicy! Remember, I also do volunteer work at city hall, at the Arts Commission's meetings for the Street Artists Program. Under the law, the Arts Commission is supposed to run that program and hold meetings every month to deal with the program's ongoing issues. Except the Arts Commission members are a bunch of snobs who look down on the program, and would rather spend their time scheduling art shows for the museum and symphony concerts in the park. The members resent dealing with the Street Artists Program, but they have to put up with it if they want the prestige of sitting on the Arts Commission."

 

Increasingly curious, Ellen Whitman stepped over and sat down on the bench next to Tracy. An attractive brunette with large attentive eyes, Ellen was in her thirties, but her warm smile still presented the youth of a college girl. Currently enrolled at Cal Berkeley's School of Journalism, it was her nights at Mitchell Brothers that paid her tuition.

"Now this is interesting," said Ellen. "Once a month, rich socialites of the Arts Commission come face-to-face with some wild-a*s street artists. Is there much drama at these meetings?"

"You bet," said Suzanne. "Actually, during one meeting, back in the 1970s, the street artists were so frustrated they hit Supervisor Dianne Feinstein in the face with a pie. You've got to remember that almost anyone can become a street artist. Some of the older craftsmen are from San Francisco's hippie era, and they just love to scream and rant about issues they disagree with. Those monthly meetings are probably the only place that snobs on the Arts Commission might ever have to put up with criticism and foul language. You know, there's even one wealthy woman on the Arts Commission who keeps trying to have the Street Artists Program discontinued, she's completely obsessed. She'll do lots of wheeling and dealing behind the scenes, trying to dump the program. But because the voters approved it, the program can't be removed -- not even by the mayor or the city's full Board of Supervisors."

 

Leaning forward, Ellen laughed. "Wish I could have seen Feinstein get hit in the face with a pie. That must've been before she became mayor and eventually a U.S. senator. Even though she's a Democrat, she's not much of a liberal. During the Iraq War, she even praised George Bush's speeches."

Now fully dressed, Suzanne closed the door to her locker. Turning toward the rest of the dancers, she waved goodbye. "Happy hunting, you guys. Look's like I'll be back for Saturday night."

Suzanne stepped through the front door of the dressing room and walked past the office of the club's manager. It was the same office where the club's founders, Jim and Artie Mitchell, had grown their porn empire -- back in the late 1960s when the O'Farrell Theatre was initially an adult-film house, before transitioning into a cutting-edge strip club. Artwork by the legendary underground cartoonist, R. Crumb, still remained upon the office walls, drawn during the Vietnam War when the Mitchell brothers were part of the local antiwar culture.

 

Ralph Wilkes was now the current manager, a person Suzanne could not see eye to eye with. Many times she had been drawn into abrasive conversations with Ralph concerning the company's policy about stage fees.

Since exotic dancers at the O'Farrell were classified as independent contractors and not employees, they did not receive a salary but were allowed to keep all the money they collected from lapdances and private shows. But as independent contractors, they were, however, required to pay a hefty fee every night -- the stage fee -- for the right to work in the club. Years ago, the stage fees were small but had now escalated to over $200 a night. Suzanne thought that amount was unreasonable, often debated its validity with management, and derisively referred to it as the club's skim. While some strippers were shrewd enough to make a handsome profit over the cost of stage fees, others floundered and had to leave the club.

But Suzanne's ongoing debate about stage fees would not continue tonight. She quickly stepped past the office door without looking in, continuing on her way to the club's exit.

 

At the main entrance to the strip club now, Suzanne pushed a large brass door forward, exited the club, and walked a block south to where her car was parked near the end of Olive Street. Though late and the tiny alley dark, she never feared walking this neighborhood -- but then Suzanne rarely ever felt afraid. Some years earlier, before becoming a stripper, she had worked inside Soledad Prison as an English teacher.

 

As she unlocked the door to her car, a figure stepped forward from a darkened doorway.

 

"Oh, it's you!" said Suzanne. "What are you doing here?"

"Look, Suzanne, we need to talk. Come on, let me in the car -- this will only take a minute."

"Really? Do we have to do this now? It's three in the morning, and I need some sleep. Oh well -- lets get this over with."

Suzanne unlocked the door to the passenger side, and the two continued their conversation while inside the car.

"Suzanne, word is going round that you have some very personal details in that little journal of yours, you know, the one you always carry around in your purse."

 

"What I write in my journal is my own decision. Look, I think you ought to get out of the car if that's all you want to talk about. You know, I've had it with your s**t."

But the passenger did not get out of the car and instead raised a small-caliber pistol.

"Suzanne, I'm not f*****g around. Just give me the damn journal, and you can go home. It's that easy."

Suzanne laughed. "Oh, so am I really supposed to think you're going to use that thing?"

 

Suzanne attempted to push the gun aside, but the pistol went off. Grabbing the side of her abdomen now, Suzanne looked downward as blood began to seep between her fingers. As Suzanne began to lose consciousness, the shooter snatched the purse from her hands, now searching its contents. In another minute, the journal had been found.

 

Yeah, here it is. Great that Suzanne didn't like to work on computers -- this is probably the only copy of the thing.

Then a small brown paper bag was stuffed into Suzanne's purse. Since Olive Street was isolated, no one saw anything. The shooter quietly walked away from the car while Suzanne, now unconscious, was slowly bleeding out to her death.

*************  NOTICE:  **********

The complete 28 chapters of Death of a Street Artist will soon available upon Amazon dotcom. 

www.amazon.com/James-M.-Carroll/e/B07LDHJVKP  

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