A/N: The Outsiders and Tim Shepard belong to SE Hinton. The real Petroleum Club is in Oklahoma City. The building I imagine as the Petro Club in Tulsa is the Mayo Hotel.
The Petroleum Club
"I'd never had the opportunity to be the object of hate before. The hard part isn't the hate.
It's the object." - Mike Daisy
One-
Tim Shepard had a business proposition for the Mathews girl, but wasn't the kind of thing he could just spring on her on the street when she was coming off of work at the Petroleum Club. He'd watched her do that for a good week, ever since her brother had mentioned with drunken incredulousness that his little sister was a private dancer in the Club ballroom.
They were playing cards in someone's basement- Two-Bit and Tim and a couple of guys who were making quick work of taking Two-Bit for everything he had.
"Shit, man, she's a stripper? Y'all are lettin' her do that? How old is she anyway?" One of the card players had asked.
That accusation had only got Two-Bit's dander up further. He answered each question, out of order, cursing in between as his hand was called and his money taken.
"Criminy, no, she's not a stripper. She's one of those...like they did for sailors during Korea...she just dances with guys. She doesn't dance for them. She slow dances with guys who don't have dates or something. She's seventeen, but they think she's eighteen, and- shit- I can't make that girl do or not do anything. Stubborn as a mule."
"Does she have to dance with old guys?"
"I guess she has to dance with anyone who asks. I don't know. I try not to know. It sounds creepy, even if she is keeping all her clothes on."
It was generally agreed, around the table, that it was a creepy job.
"You're sure she keeps her clothes on? You're sure she doesn't get picked up on the dance floor, some guy slips her a key, and she meets him in his room?"
"I have never asked. I never thought about it. Damn, man, you sure seem to be thinking about it in vivid detail. Why don't you think about the cards?"
Tim listened without asking a question or adding an accusation. Damn sure, he'd never let his sister work as a dancer in the Petro Club Ballroom, but he could see the potential usefulness of Two-Bit's sister's working there.
He figured she worked on Thursdays because he never saw her around Buck's or anywhere else on Thursday nights. So, the next Thursday night, he found himself a shadow in a doorway across the street from the Petroleum Club with a view of the alley. He smoked and he waited.
Just after eleven, the light from an opened door sprayed across the alley and then shut again. There was the sound of girls voices and Tim could see lighters flickering and cigarettes being lit. Three of them emerged. One was dressed as a housekeeper. The other two wore black brocade dresses like the kind Tim had seen on waitresses in Chinese restaurants: black with gold trim, high at the neck and high on the hemline. One of the dancers was a blonde who wore her dress like she'd been poured into it. The other one- the redhead- was Two-Bit's sister, Donna.
Tim waited for the other two girls to split, and then he stepped away from his shadow and whistled at Donna Mathews. She looked spooked at first, and then her shoulders loosened when she saw it was him, and she just looked annoyed. He jogged across the street to meet her on the curb.
"Funny meeting you here," he said.
"Is it?" She asked. She looked up and down the street like she was expecting someone. Time guessed it was a rouse for his benefit. There was no one coming for her.
"I'd offer you a ride, but my car's dead to the world," Tim told her. That, at least, was the truth. Pepper the bullshit with the truth and it would seem truthful enough. "I can walk with you though. If you want."
"You're going to walk me all the way back up to the Cherokee? That's a little out of your tether range, ain't it?"
"Were you planning on walking on the way back up to Crutchfield, kid? It's Thursday and it's early. How's about we walk over to a ballroom that's having a little more our kind of party?"
"Our kind?" She cracked a little grin and looked away up to street trying to hide it. She was a little afraid of him, Tim guessed. She didn't want him to see her smirking at him, but she wasn't so afraid that she wouldn't smirk.
"Yeah, the kind who have to ask nicely to get a girl to dance rather than payin' 'em for it."
"I'm not really dressed to go out. I don't want to go to a bar wearing this."
"You look like that's exactly where you should be going to me."
She beckoned for his cigarette with two fingers, took a drag, and then looked up at him through the smoke. Her hair wasn't as dark a red as Two-Bit's, more like a strawberry blonde. She had it cut in a bob up to the nape of her neck, the sides pulled back with bobby pins. She was a short girl, but she was wearing platform heels that put her almost eye-level with his wolfish smile.
She looked him over and he knew when she figured she'd made him because she handed the cigarette back and put her hand on her hip.
She said, "What do you want, Shepard?"
"I suppose you won't believe me if I said I just wanted to be sure you got home safe and sound?"
"Not for a damn minute."
"I'm really a very conscientious guy."
"Yeah, that's what I hear from my brother, and I know the kind of conscientious company he keeps. What's the grift?"
"Jesus, there ain't no grift. 'Grift' is a little harsh, honey. More like a favor. I have a favor to ask you."
Donna shook her head. "I've had prettier boys than you asking me for favors since six o'clock, and I haven't gone above and beyond for any of them. What makes you think that I'd give it up for you?"
"Because girls like you don't like pretty boys," Tim said. "And it ain't that kind of favor. Come on."
He reached out and guided her without actually touching her towards the end of the block. From there, he turned north and she kept pace with him because she knew where they were going.
The Brand Ballroom did not have valets or private dancers. It had a bar that subverted the draconian Oklahoma liquor laws and live music on Fridays and Saturdays. On Thursdays, things were a little more tame. Most of the guys were half-tanked by ten, and the girls were dolled up enough that Donna's geisha uniform didn't attract attention.
That wasn't entirely true- it attracted attention. Guys at the bar looked her over when she walked through the door, but quickly averted their eyes when they saw Tim.
"You want a drink?" Tim asked her, raising his voice over the din and the song on the jukebox.
"I want to know what the favor is."
Tim held up two fingers to the bartender. He took his cigarettes out of his inside jacket pocket and then patted himself down looking for his lighter. He was stalling, and it wasn't fooling her for a second. He produced the lighter and stuck two cigarettes between his lips. He lit them both and handed one to Donna.
"Are you a good dancer?" He asked her.
"I should be. It's what they pay me for."
"Really? Guys pay you just to dance? I always thought that was just a gateway to secure more lucrative gigs."
"The hotel pays me by the hour to dance with clients in the ballroom. The clients can tip me, if they want."
"And that's it?"
"What's it?"
"You don't do anything else? You don't go up to the rooms or the bar? You don't dance your way upstairs?"
She shrugged, bored with the question. "I don't, no. I'm sure it happens."
"So, what do I got to do to get in there and dance with you?"
"You have to wear a jacket and a tie, for starters."
"Go figure- I left my tie at home. What if I just ask you to dance here? Are you going to dance with me, just for the hell of it, or do I have to tip you when it's over?"
"Like I said, it's up to the client whether or not to tip."
"I'm not trying to be a client."
He picked up the two bottles of beer when the bartender sat the down on the bar. He offered one to Donna, but she didn't take it. Instead, dropped her cigarette to the floor and stubbed it out with the toe of her shoe.
"What are you trying to be, Shepard? I feel like I'm being interrogated like a spy or something."
"You're not too far off. I want to know some things- things that you might know, or can find out doing your job. The kinds of things that I don't have access to because I'm…me."
"Then why don't you ask me what you want to know instead of asking me whether or not I turn tricks at the Petro Club?"
"Because I need for there to be a relationship, or at least some common ground, before I start asking for information. I need to know you well enough to know you won't feed me a bunch of shit."
"Why would I do that?"
"Maybe you're very loyal to your employer."
The thought amused her. She asked him, "Do you really think that's the case?"
Pepper the bullshit with the truth, and it will seem like truth enough. Lay a little of yourself out there, and don't try to look smart.
"Honey, I have no fucking idea," Tim told her, avoiding her eyes by turning to punch out his own cigarette on the bar. "If someone laid out a jar of tea leaves on the table, I'd have an easier time reading those. You are like a blank page. So, give me a little something…just a clue as to where I stand. Do you want to dance with me?"
"Here? Right now?"
"Y'all have someplace else you need to be?"
And he had her. Trouble was he didn't entirely know what he had. That part hadn't been a lie.
"Can I pick the song? I never get to pick the song."
"Go ahead. I'll even front you the nickel. Pick your song."
He dug a nickel of the pocket that had produced the lighter. She shook her head a little and rolled her eyes when he dropped it in her palm. Tim watched her walk across the floor. She had to know he was doing it because guys watched her walk all the time. When she reached the jukebox, she leaned in to read the names of the songs, and turned her ankle back and forth like she was working out a kink. Or flirting.
Donna chose her song and walked back to Tim at the bar. They drank their beers and waited out the faster-tempoed selections before hers.
Tim told her: "All's I want from you is to be a good listener. I'd guess that you hear things. Maybe guys even tell you things sometimes."
"You don't know the half of it. I hear all sorts of things. What kinds of things should I be giving my attention to?"
"Things related to alcohol, namely. Who has it, where they get it, where they keep it hid before it gets to a place like this or the Petro Club. I'd guess the juice at the Petro Club is a little more top shelf than what you got in your hand there."
"A lot of wine," she said. "Wine with food, then cocktails for dessert."
"So plenty of liquor flowing too?"
"You could about swim in it."
Tim set his bottle down, and leaned in closer to her. He already had his arm around her, but resting on the bar- still not touching her. It made him seem respectful, he figured. He told her:
"I don't want you to ask any questions, and I don't want you to do anything with a client that you wouldn't normally do. Don't do anything to arouse suspicion, and don't get yourself hurt. Just listen good, and tell me what you hear."
"Why me?" She asked. Maybe she was thinking why me and not the blonde from the alley. She fills up that dress like it was a sausage casing.
"Because you're one of us, or your brother is. We come from the same places. You know the score."
She laughed at that, and cocked her eyebrow at him- just the way her brother did. "But I shouldn't let on to Two-Bit that you and I have this arrangement?"
"Christ, no. He'd beat me to shit."
And that was the truth. Saying it out loud, Tim figured, belied vulnerability.
Donna seemed to agree with that. There was no oh no, Tim, surely you could take Two-Bit.
She cut to the chase:"What is our arrangement then, exactly? Since I'm performing a service, I assume you're going to compensate me."
"Yeah, although not up front. All's I can offer you is a cut if I can make a score out of whatever you tell me. It's a risk. It might come to nothing."
"That is a risk, and I'd guess you're going to take up some of my precious time as well."
"How about we call that 'protection'? Do you like walking by yourself to the bus stop after dark? You ever find yourself wondering if one of those rich, untouchable oil money boys is going to follow you out to the street?"
"Actually, they do." Her shoulders tensed up some when she said it. "Sometimes. They pull up to the curb and offer me rides."
"What do you tell them?"
"That my brother's on his way."
"Is he?"
"If he was, he'd take the long way 'round and show up in his own sweet time." She tightened her lips, and Tim could tell that it wasn't conjecture. Two-Bit had left her in the lurch a time or two. So, he offered her what he figured she would value the most:
"Well, now you can tell them that I'm coming to get you. In fact, you won't have to tell them because I'll already be there. I'll be waiting across the street when you get off work."
"How long is this going to go on? I can't see you dropping everything every Thursday and Friday night at eleven for the rest of our lives."
"Couple of weeks, for starters. If it ain't producing anything, we'll knock it off. If I start getting something from you that I can use, then we'll play it out. So, we're back to where we were…do you want to dance with me? Seal the deal?"
What he guessed was her song had begun to play: Irma Thomas singing "Time Is On My Side". She bent down and pulled her shoes off. Without them, the top of her head grazed Tim's chin. She wasn't any taller than his own sister, and it made Tim think that he'd kill the son of a bitch who tried to pull with Angela what he was pulling on Donna Mathews. He let the thought go and instead concentrated on the curve of her back and how her hair smelled, and tried not to step on her bare toes.
