argue," Morelli said. "Bob's probably eaten through a wall by now. Come over when you're done at the Pit." He grabbed me and kissed me and ran down the hall.
"Okay," I said, but Morelli was already gone.
I wasn't sure what one wore to the Pit, but slut hair seemed like a good idea, so I did the hot roller and teasing thing. This increased my height from five foot seven inches to five foot ten. I tarted myself up with a lot of makeup, added a short black spandex skirt and four-inch heels, and I felt very kick-ass. I grabbed my leather jacket and took the car keys from the kitchen counter. Hold on. These weren't car keys. These were motorcycle keys. Shit! I'd never get my hair in the helmet.
Don't panic, I told myself. Just think about this a minute. Where can you get a car? Valerie. Valerie has the Buick. I'll call her up and tell her I'm going out to a place where there are half-naked women. I mean, that's what lesbians want to see, right?
Ten minutes later, Valerie picked me up in the lot. She still had her hair slicked back behind her ears and was devoid of makeup with the exception of blood-red lipstick. She was wearing men's black wing tips, a charcoal pinstripe suit with slacks, and a white shirt that was open at the neck. I resisted the urge to check to see if there was chest hair sprouting from the open neck.
"How'd it go today?" I asked her.
"I got new shoes! Look at them. Aren't they excellent? I think they're perfect lesbian shoes."
You have to give Valerie credit. She never did anything halfway. "I mean about the job."
"The job didn't work out. I guess that's to be expected. If at first you don't succeed . . ." She put her weight behind the wheel and managed to get the Buick to take a corner. "I got the girls enrolled in school, though. I guess that's something positive."
Lula was waiting on the curb when we got to her house.
"This is my sister, Valerie," I told Lula. "She's coming along because she has the car."
"Looks like she shops in the men's department."
"She's taking it for a test drive."
"Hey, whatever," Lula said.
The parking lot to The Snake Pit was jammed, so we parked a half mile down on the street. By the time we got to the door my feet were killing me, and I was thinking there were advantages to being a lesbian. Valerie's shoes looked nice and comfy.
We got a table in the back and ordered drinks.
"How are we going to get to talk to Mary Maggie?" Lula wanted to know. "We can't hardly see from here."
"I checked this place out. There are only two doors, so after Mary Maggie does the mud thing we'll each take a door and catch her leaving."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Lula said, belting back her drink and ordering another.
There were a few women with dates, but mostly the room was filled with men, looking serious, hoping a G-string would get ripped off in the mud, which I assume is the equivalent to sacking the quarterback.
Valerie's eyes were wide. Hard to tell if they were reflecting excitement or hysteria.
"Are you sure I'll meet lesbians here?" she shouted above the noise.
Lula and I looked around. We didn't see any lesbians. At least not any who looked like Valerie.
"You never know when lesbians are gonna show up," Lula said. "Probably you should have another drink. You look kind of pale."
I sent the note to Mary Maggie on the next drink order. I told her my table and told her I had a message I wanted passed on to Eddie DeChooch.
A half hour later I still hadn't heard from Mary Maggie. Lula had put away four Cosmopolitans and was looking stone-cold sober, and Valerie had chugged two glasses of Chablis and was looking very happy.
Women were whaling away at each other in the pit. Once in a while a hapless drunken male would get pulled into the ooze and flail around until he swallowed a gallon of muck and was expelled by the bouncer. There was a lot of hair pulling and bitch slapping and sliding around. I guess mud is slippery. So far no one got their G-string removed, but there was a bunch of mud-slicked bare breasts that were bloated to the bursting point with implants. All in all, the whole thing didn't look too appealing, and