Solitary Dancer by John Lawrence Reynolds

he turned the gun on the girl and shot her too. Twice.
    â€œShe shoulda left,” Grizzly said when he told a friend about it the next day. “She shouldn’ta been there so long.”
    No one in the bar could identify Grizzly. None of the investigating police officers felt the incident was worth more than a day’s investigation.
    Only fools challenged Grizzly again. And they only challenged him once.
    Grizzly finished his whispered conversation behind the bar with Dewey and returned to the table where Django and the Gypsy waited.
    Dewey was more than the Flamingo’s bouncer. He was also assistant manager, talent scout and Grizzly’s bouquet man. Bouquet men profited from drug sales but never carried, never used, never sold the product themselves. They functioned as conduits of information and directors of traffic. When sweeps occurred and arrests were made, Dewey and the handful of other bouquet men would be questioned and released for lack of sufficient evidence. “Come out smelling like a bouquet of roses,” one of them had boasted, and he and others were dubbed bouquet men from that day forward.
    Now Grizzly settled his massive black bulk in the chair between Django and the Gypsy. “Heat’s on,” he said, watching the tiny stage set against the far wall of the room. He extended an arm to the Gypsy, his index and middle fingers spread in a V sign. His lidded eyes remained on the small brown girl who was prancing back and forth across the stage, strutting her stuff in a long green satin skirt open on one side all the way up to her tiny waist. The Gypsy quickly pulled a pack of Camel Lights from a pocket of her red and black plaid woollen shirt.
    â€œHeat?” Even when sitting, Django moved with the music, his shoulders swinging, his head bobbing, like a featherweight boxer watching for a jab, waiting for an opening. “Hell, ain’t no heat,” Django laughed. “World’s colder’n a witch’s tit. No heat at all. Put your peeker out the door, Grizz, it be a chocolate popsicle faster’n Sienna up there can aim her money-maker at you.”
    The Gypsy placed a Camel Light between Grizzly’s waiting fingers and he transferred the cigarette to his mouth. “That her name?” he asked, still watching the stage. “Sienna?” He leaned toward the Gypsy who had the match already lit and was applying it to the end of the cigarette. “Nice name for a little gal like that.”
    Sienna whirled once and dropped the satin skirt to the floor of the stage revealing a gold G-string and slim legs.
    Grizzly drew in a deep breath of cigarette smoke and nodded.
    Beside him the Gypsy studied her glass of beer, her face a mask.
    â€œWho feelin’ heat?” Django asked. His eyes darted from Grizzly to the stage and back again.
    â€œPeople I know.”
    â€œSame people I know.”
    â€œNot the same. Special people. People you don’t know ’bout, you don’t
wanna
know ’bout, hear me?” His voice softened. “You know this little girl, this, what’d you call her?”
    â€œSienna. From the islands. One a them itty-bitty places named after them saints down there. Thomas or John or Ralph.”
    â€œRalph? There a St. Ralph?” Grizzly looked at Django with interest.
    â€œSure. Church gotta name saints just like you and me get named. What, Grizz, you think the pope, he gonna pick a new saint and he say, ‘We callin’ this next sucker number two-five-eight’? They name ’em, the saints.”
    â€œAfter who?”
    Django shrugged.
    â€œTell you one thing,” Grizzly said, shifting the cigarette to a corner of his wide mouth. “They ain’t never gonna be no St. Django.”
    Django erupted in laughter. “Whoa, darlin’!” He slapped his thighs and bent from the waist. “I’m doin’ my part to make it a fact, I surely am.” The small brown girl