“I’m sure he was working on it,” I say cautiously. It sounds quite like Ben, I think. Promising things he can’t necessarily deliver. “But like I said before, he’s disappeared.”
“What has happened?” she asks. “What do you think has happened to him?”
“We don’t know,” I tell her. “But I found a card for the club in his stuff. Irina, if there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all, it might help us find him.”
She sizes both of us up. She seems confused by being in this unfamiliar position of power. And frightened, too. Glancing over her shoulder every few seconds.
“We can pay you,” I say. I look across at Theo. He rolls his eyes, pulls out his wallet.
When we’ve agreed on an amount of cash Irina is happy with—depressingly small, actually—and after she’s finished the chips and used up both of our pots of garlic sauce, she draws one leg up against the table protectively, the skin of her knee pale and bruised in one spot through the ripped denim. For some reason this makes me think of playground scrapes, the child she was not so long ago.
“You have a cigarette?” she asks Theo. He passes her one and she lights up. Her knee is juddering against the table, so hard that the little salt and pepper shakers are leaping up and down.
“You were really good by the way,” I say, trying to think of something safe to begin with. “Your dancing.”
“I know,” she says, seriously, nodding her head. “I’m very good. The best at La Petite Mort. I trained as a dancer, before, where I come from. When I came for the job, they said it was for dancing.”
“It seemed like the audience really enjoyed it,” I say. “The show. I thought your performance was very . . .” I try and think of the right word. “Sophisticated.”
She raises her eyebrows, then makes a kind of ha sound without any humor in it.
“The show,” she mutters. “That’s what Ben wanted to know about. It seemed like he knew some things already. I think someone told him some of it, maybe.”
“Told him some of what?” I prompt.
She takes a long drag on her cigarette. I notice that her hand is shaking. “That the show, all of it: it’s just—” She seems to be searching for the right words. “Window . . . looking. No. Window shopping. Not what that place is really about. Because afterward they come downstairs. The special guests.”
“What do you mean?” Theo says, sitting forward. “Special guests?”
A nervous glance out through the windows at the street. Then suddenly she’s fumbling the roll of notes Theo gave her back out of her jacket pocket, thrusting it at him.
“I can’t do this—”
“Irina,” I say, quickly, carefully, “we’re not trying to get you in any trouble. Trust me. We won’t go blabbing to anyone. We’re just trying to find out what Ben knew, because I think that might help us find him. Anything you can tell us might be useful in some way. I’m . . . really scared for him.” As I say it my voice breaks: it’s no act. I lean forward, begging her. “Please. Please help us.”
She seems to be absorbing all this, deciding. I watch her take a long breath. Then, in a low voice, she begins to talk.
“The special guests pay for a different kind of ticket. Rich men. Important men. Married men.” She holds up her hand for emphasis, touches her ring finger. “We don’t know names. But we know they are important. With—” she rubs her thumb and forefinger together: money. “They come downstairs. To the other rooms, below. We make them feel good. We tell them how handsome they are, how sexy.”
“And do they,” Theo coughs, “buy . . . anything?”
Irina stares at him blankly.
I think his delicacy might have been lost in translation.
“Do they pay for sex?” I ask, lowering my voice to a murmur—wanting to show we have her back. “That’s what he means.”
Again she glances at the windows, out at the dark street. She’s practically hovering in her seat, looking like she’s ready to leg it at any moment.
“Do you want more money?” I prompt. I kind of want her to ask for more. I’m sure Theo can afford it.
She nods, quickly.
I nudge Theo. “Go on then.”
A little reluctantly he pulls another couple of notes out of his pocket, slides them across the table to her. Then, almost like she’s reading from some sort of script, she says: “No. It is illegal in this country. To pay.”