Chapter 30

“No, it wasn’t, but about seven years ago I got tired of playing games, so I went to my captain, he went along with the idea, and I went public.”

“That took balls,” he said, “especially here in the South.”

“Yeah,” Carl said, “and that goes double for Jacksonville. Did you know that Jacksonville is the only city in the country where the Chippendales were required to show less skin when they were in town?”

“You’re kidding?”

“Not at all.”

“What do you know about this bar?” I said, changing the subject.

“The Basement,” he said, “was the name of a popular gay bar back in the early seventies. It lasted quite a few years but finally closed. The owner of the present bar decided to revive the name, but in a different location.”

We arrived at the bar and found a detective waiting for us. He and Gary conferred for a minute, and the detective went inside the bar by himself. He emerged a long five minutes later and reported that he had a name and an address.