Chapter Nine -- The Dog with the Clementine Eyes --

We found the groove straight away. My borrowed bass nearly played itself, and those hep cats and kittens lapped us up like a saucer of warm milk.  Add to that the bottomless Sapphire and Tonics -- Ginger would pucker up and blow me a little angel kiss as she dropped off each round ... I was higher than a kite. 

When we broke after the first set, Ric went off to find Randy the hostess with the incomparable derriere. Harleigh had his eye on Sharon the coat check girl and I went back to the table to wait for pretty Ginger. 

We clicked, just like that, and the night was just beginning. 

Ginger was nowhere to be seen. But the brindle pup with the orange eyes was sitting on my chair. There was a drink with a straw in front of him. Serge Trouserin was propped up in Harleigh's seat, his eyes were closed and his hands were folded across his chest. 

" You can leave -- but you can't take anything with you. " said the brindle dog sipping on his cocktail. 

" Ginger want's to go with you ... but that's the tricky bit ... not impossible ... but difficult. " 

How does he do that? I thought to myself.  The dog is a dummy and Trouserin was the best darn ventriloquist I'd ever seen.  The dog turned to me and enunciated clearly "My named is Choire, I'm not a dummy ... I'll just pretend you didn't think that ...  actually it's Trouserin who's the stiff. I'm the headliner in this dog and pony show." 

Choire cocked his head and stared straight through me with his giant orange eyes. He turned back to his drink and took a long slow sip draining the glass. 

       

 " You need to leave immediately following the last set, after that ... you're here ... and this, my friend is the gig that never ends.  And, make sure that you take nothing from this side with you." 

At that moment Ginger arrived with two drinks, one for the dog and one more for me. 

Dial 'L' for Lounge Chapter 9 The Dog w/ the Clementine Eyes

Chapter Thirteen -- Not One Detail --

Ginger was waiting for me by the coat room.  She had changed from her Modern Lounge uniform, the ice blue satin, skin tight sarong, into what she had been wearing when she died ... a wet floral sun dress accessorized with matching wrist and ankle ligatures. Her feet were bare. 

  Like a pair of proper bridesmaids, Ric's girl (and his attempted murderess), Randy, and Sharon the coat check girl, main squeeze of the recently deceased drummer Harleigh Holmes were busy arranging Ginger's damp clothes and hair. There was discussion of removing the butcher's twine from around her neck. 

The dog insisted that not one thing ... not one detail could be altered from the way Ginger had arrived.

" Nothing added, nothing subtracted that's the way it always been. Plausible deniability and not a shred of evidence that there is and 'after ' " Choire said, studying Ginger for any possible trace of  the Lounge. 

" Did she come with that earring? " the dog inquired. Ginger confirmed that she had only been wearing one when she died ... the other had been torn out in the struggle.

My feelings of tenderness for lovely Ginger were replaced with blind rage for the son of a bitch who had done this to her. Dead was one thing ... this was altogether a different matter. 

" There'll be none of that Mixter " Choire said, never bothering to look at me. " the guy who did this is doing life without the possibility of parole and when he finally arrives I'll assign him 'back of the house' where he'll wash dishes without gloves in bleach water for eternity. " 

Dial 'L' for Lounge Chapter13 'Not One Detail'