“Where the hell’s Domingo?  He’s the one suppose to be spear-heading this bullshit.”  Antonetti looked pissed.
+++++The boys glanced sideways at each other, mouths clamped shut.
+++++Radonja sighed.  “He’s shaving his balls, boss.”
+++++“What the hell you mean ‘shaving his balls’?”
+++++Metcalf, Koza, and Darth Peter kept their mouths shut, eyes firmly fixated on their shoe tops.
+++++“You know, Mr. Antonetti… manscaping.  The ladies don’t like a lotta pubic hair in their face.  You know?”
+++++“Since when?”
+++++Radonja’s jaw hung open.  Antonetti repeated the question.
+++++“Since the last time Burt Reynolds made Jackie Gleason look like a jackass, I figure,” Darth Peter answered.

“You think we get popped for this, I’d get in extra trouble?” Koza asked.  “For impersonating a police officer and what not?”
+++++Domingo tightened his grip on the steering wheel.  “No one’s getting popped.  Most you need to worry about is impersonating a male stripper.”
+++++“How much stripping I gotta do?” Koza asked.  We gonna rob them bitches, right?  Not earn it in tips stuffed down my man-panties.”
+++++“And thank God for that, we’d be walking outta Scarlett’s empty-handed.  And thanks for telling Antonetti I was shaving my balls, had to hear about that shit all day.  Antonetti asking me I got five o’clock shadow to the nutsack, yet.”
+++++“He asked where you at.  What was I suppose to say?”
+++++“Anything but that, Koza.  Coulda said anything.”

Blanco could see the Scarlett’s sign from the Lansing Boulevard intersection where he waited on the red light to change.  He’d taken the back way as instructed, lighter traffic, less chance of witnesses.  The figure emerging from the shadows beside the corner house came as a relief.
+++++Antonetti opened the passenger side door and pointed the barrel of his .45 directly at Blanco’s face which drained the relief right out of him.
+++++Too much gun, Blanco thought immediately.  The fuck is he doing?  Slightest bump would send Blanco’s brains dancing across the asphalt outside.
+++++“You,” Antonetti snarled.  “Drive.”
+++++Blanco very lightly stepped on the gas turning away from Scarlett’s.  Antonetti turned his attention to the male strippers seated in the back of the shuttle van.
+++++“Christ,” Antonetti said, flipping open his burner phone.  “Looks like Fabio took a shit on Jersey Shore back here.  Probably not a ball hair between the five of you.  Keep your hands away from your smart phones and your crotches the next twenty minutes and you won’t need any arm slings go along with your g-strings, you feel me?”

Koza, the policeman.  His job was to handle the bar area, collect the cash from the register, make sure no one hit any silent alarms.  Radonja, the Indian chief, was tasked with collecting the cash from the ladies in the back half of the club and discouraging smart phone use by whatever means necessary.  Metcalf, the vampire pirate, maintained the club’s front half.  Darth Peter kept the Cadillac running, monitoring any police activity or parking lot shenanagins.
+++++It was up to Domingo to keep the ladies mesmerized with his pelvic thrusts and swinging cock.
+++++Simple.  A club full of horny women waving fistfuls of cash.  All for the taking.
+++++“They didn’t call me Elvis back in the day for nothing,” Domingo said.
+++++“I knew you then,” Metcalf said.  “It was because of your thick ass muttonchops.”
+++++“I’d feel better about this we had masks,” Koza said.
+++++“Masks?  The fuck you talking about, Koza?  That goes against the whole concept of the plan.  All the titty flops you been, describe the face of one stripper you’ve seen,” Domingo challenged.
+++++Koza shrugged.
+++++Domingo’s burner chirped.  He answered.  “Ok, boys, we’re a go.”

They carried small duffel bags.  Man-panties and big bottles of baby oil on top, below the stripper subterfuge were the untraceable .38s, mostly to throw the fear into the ladies.  Antonetti made it clear earlier, pistol-whippings for bad behavior was the only action on the table.
+++++Domingo led the way inside the club.  Girlish squeals of delight welcomed their entrance into the dim, smoky interior.  Techno music like pulsating migraines thumped from the speakers.  Everywhere, there were mustaches.  Rainbow flags adorned the walls.  Domingo tried to blink away the images, yet they remained.
+++++“Abort! Abort!” Metcalf hissed.
+++++“Fuck that,” Koza said.  “Go on, mesmerize them with that big cock of your’s, Domingo.  We gotta make that money.”
+++++Domingo thinned his lips, nodded.  “Keep your heads on a swivel, boys.  Gay money spends just as easily.”

With everyone in place, ignoring the cat calls and butt pinches from their soon-to-be victims, Domingo sashayed between the two pool tables onto the raised platform acting as a paltry stage.
+++++“You mens ready to have a good time?” Domingo lisped, getting into character.
+++++While the audience of men horned up on Viagara party favors and mint juleps were naturally effusive, there remained a bitter undertone of disappointment Domingo found unnerving.
+++++Per Domingo’s request, the DJ played the techno Elvis rendition of “Little Less Conversation”.  Strangely, his hips refused to move with the music.  No matter how much he sucked in his distended gut, he could not replicate the look of six pack abs.  The more spastically his pelvis quavered the louder the dissident voices rose against him.
+++++“I can’t believe I shaved my balls for this,” he muttered.
+++++The first time a dude reached for his crank, a ginger-haired fella with a comical push broom mustache and “My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult” T-shirt, Domingo gave Koza the signal to move.
+++++Koza got as far as hollering “queer” before the gun was knocked out of his hand and his head forcefully knocked against the bar several times.  Shit went south from there real quick.
+++++There was a moment while Domingo was getting his freshly-shaved balls kicked into his abdomen when he wondered why they didn’t wait to highjack the shuttle van after the male strippers did all the heavy lifting.  It was a fleeting thought, not worth pursuing at this point.

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