by R. A. McGee
Rough Company
A Porter Novel
R.A. McGee
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Catch up with Porter at the end of the story for your chance to grab Subtle Deceit, free.
To GFH
You can do anything… just don’t forget the magic ingredient…
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
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About the Author
One
The wait at the door was ninety minutes. Porter didn’t want to stand around in the brisk autumn air for that long, so he slipped the security guy a twenty. Front-of-the-line access came cheap. When he had worked a door, Porter couldn’t be bought for less than a Benjamin.
Badway needed to hire better help.
After squeezing through the narrow hallway entrance, Porter was surprised that the interior was so large. The club had a massive open area, a stage with a DJ to the right, and a bar taking up the entire left wall. Dotting the concrete floor in between the two were several elevated platforms, with girls selling bottles of beer from large aluminum washtubs filled with ice. They reached down to the patrons, exchanging drinks for money.
The DJ was a pro, with perfectly timed pickups and blends, and the music never missed a beat. Also expertly controlled was the volume knob. The music was loud and driving, and Porter winced as he got close to a large floor woofer.
Porter passed a blonde beer-tub girl up front and snaked his way through the crowded dance floor to a pretty brunette with a low-cut shirt, plenty of cleavage, and a name tag that read Erin.
“How much?” Porter said.
She made a motion with her hands as if she couldn’t hear Porter.
He pointed at the tub and made a rubbing motion with his other hand, the universal sign language for money.
With a practiced move, Erin leaned over and cradled Porter by the back of the head with her left hand, and pressed her other palm flat against his ear, dampening the music and her voice. “Bottles are five, cans are three,” she yelled.
Porter could just make out the words through her hand. He pulled out a ten-dollar bill, handed it to her, and excavated an American brew from the elbow-deep ice. Erin took the ten and dug into her fanny pack for change, but Porter made a motion that said keep it. She kissed him on the cheek, above the coarse hair of his beard.
The scrum of people was as relentless as the beat of the song. The body heat of the crowd made the air as thick as a sauna. Porter pulled at his T-shirt, regretting the button-up he’d slid on over it. He moved toward the stage, trying to find fresh air.
Making his way through a crowd had never been a problem for Porter. It was rare that he wasn’t the tallest person in a club, often a full head over the rest of the crowd. Couple that with broad shoulders and a thick build, and people moved out of the way.
Weaving his way through the crowd, Porter made it to the stage and up three simple steps that led to a large, flat platform. People were paired off together, doing what passed for dancing. In the corner, at a waist-high, wooden table, Porter saw the DJ, orchestrating the action on a tablet, not a record in sight. She wore big headphones and tight jeans, and was focused on her work.
Porter stood at the edge and looked out, surveying the crowd. It was an old habit.
The crowd was mixed, as far as crowds went. There would always be more men than women in a club like this. Men were hunting, looking for new prey. Most women knew that and understandably didn’t come very often, save with large groups of girlfriends. This was the reason ‘Ladies’ Night’ was even a thing—to get more women into a bar or club.
If the women were there, the men would be close behind.
Finally, the man Porter was looking for emerged from a hallway behind the bar. Robert Badway was smaller than Porter, but still a good-sized man. He had brown hair that had decided it was going to be long but wasn’t there yet, and a full mustache with a goatee. Porter thought it was called a Van Dyke, but he wasn’t quite up on the naming conventions of facial hair.
Badway was smiling and clapping patrons on the arm, working the room like a pro.
Porter felt the trouble before he saw it. He wasn’t psychic or a Jedi, but he had experience. Experience watching a room and trying to identify the problem spots.
Crowds of people had energy. It was easy to feel if you watched from a distance. A trained eye could see and feel a disturbance in advance. In this instance, the trouble had black, slicked-back hair and an ugly green tracksuit, Adidas by the look of the stripes.
The man was grabbing at the blonde beer-tub girl, the one near the front of the club that Porter had passed on his way to Erin. She pushed him away but he continued letting his hands wander, obviously enjoying her struggle. Behind him were three other guys dressed in the same manner, the only variations being the colors of their tracksuits. They wore them as if they were uniforms. Porter guessed they probably were. The three men milled around, laughing and joking.
Mr. Green reached up on the platform and grabbed the blonde girl by the crotch. There was a swift motion and the girl delivered her response: a firm slap across the face. This only emboldened her harasser. Now he was up on the platform himself, trying to dance with the girl.
Porter looked around for security. A club this big should have at least four guys in it. One by the back door, one on the stage, where Porter was, and two roving the floor. If you include the door guy, maybe five bouncers. Porter hadn’t seen one since the guy he’d bribed to cut the line.
Badway raised his head and looked toward the beer tub. He weaved his way through the crowd and circled the platform, pushing his way close. Badway tapped the girl, who snapped her head around, ready to fight until she saw who it was. She reached for Badway and he pulled her down, away from the jackass trying to dance next to her.
Mr. Green turned around and, seeing he was by himself, dug through the aluminum tub. He started handing beers out to the crowd, laughing and smiling.
Badway tapped him on the leg and motioned for him to get off the platform.
Porter stepped off the stage and made his way through the crowd, heading toward the beer tub. There were plenty of people in the way, but he could still see over the crowd and take in the action.
Mr. Green walked to the edge of the platform and glared down at Badway. Badway again beckoned him off the platform, and Mr. Green’s answer was two middle fingers, stuck in Badway’s face.
Almost before Porter could register it, Badway swung a short punch at the leg of the man on the platform, knocking his knee sideways. Porter couldn’t hear it, but saw a roar of pain on Mr. Green’s face. Badway grabbed the man’s ankles and, with a hard yank, pu
lled Mr. Green’s feet out from underneath him. Mr. Green landed flat on his back, kicking to free his legs.
A roar went up as the crowd morphed, clearing space around the beer tub. Badway pulled Mr. Green off the beer-tub platform and he again landed on his back, this time on the concrete floor. One of the other men—this one in a red velour tracksuit—was moving to help his friend. He collided with Badway, and Badway released Mr. Green’s ankles, turning on the new threat.
Velour threw a wild overhand right. Badway blocked it with the outside of his left arm and then fired off a crisp boxing combination, right cross then left hook. The left snapped Velour’s head to the side, and he stumbled and dropped to his ass on the concrete floor.
Porter was close now but stopped to watch rather than intervene. Badway seemed to have things handled.
Turning his attention to the other two track-suited men, Badway pointed toward the door. The larger one on the right, a ball of muscle in a black suit, bull-rushed Badway. The club owner pivoted, letting Muscle miss him to the right, peppering him with short punches as the man ran by.
The man on the left, in a dark shade of yellow, saw an opening and went for Badway while he had his back turned dealing with Muscle. Porter closed the distance and wrapped Mustard in a choke. Efficient and easy, with no punches thrown. Porter pulled the man backward, away from the rest of the fight. Several seconds later, he dropped the unconscious man’s body in a heap on the floor.
At some point, the music had stopped playing—standard during a fight in a bar or club. If the security staff had trained the DJ right, they would stop the music to help simmer the crowd down while the fight was stomped out.
There were grunts from Badway as he flung several punches in quick succession at Muscle, a right straight finishing the flurry. Muscle had no answer to the barrage of blows and fell limply to the floor.
Mr. Green made it to his feet and moved toward Badway’s exposed back. Porter was quicker, and hit Mr. Green near his kidney, doubling him over. Then he clinched the man in a front headlock, slipping his forearm under the man’s chin and squeezing.
“Walk or I’ll put you to sleep,” Porter said.
Mr. Green struggled against Porter’s headlock. Porter’s reply was to raise his arms ever so slightly. Porter’s forearm pushed up into his opponent’s throat, and the man’s own body weight pulling him down caused him to choke. Mr. Green stopped struggling as he coughed and sputtered underneath Porter.
“I told you. Walk out or I’ll carry your fat ass out of here,” Porter said.
Mr. Green inched his way toward the front door, shuffling his feet as Porter steered him. When they neared the front, the door guy must have finally noticed the action inside and rushed to get a piece for himself.
Porter walked him through the entrance, then several steps down the sidewalk.
“Let me go, you prick,” Mr. Green said. There was a hint of an accent that Porter tried to place.
“I don’t think so,” Porter said. “Call it an asshole tax.”
Porter elevated his forearm again and the man choked. “But I… walk out… like you say…” The man coughed and struggled against Porter’s arms, but they were a vise on his neck. His arms went limp, and Porter dropped the unconscious man on the dirty sidewalk.
Porter turned to re-enter the club, but there was no need. Badway had Muscle outside. The doorman was wrangling Mustard, who was just waking up from Porter’s rear naked choke, and two guys dressed like bartenders had Velour underneath the arms. His feet dragged behind him as the men pulled.
Badway looked at Porter. “I saw you on the stage when I came in from the beer cooler. What took you so long, dick?”
“I thought you could handle it,” Porter said. “Guess growing that adorable little mustache didn’t make you any tougher.”
Porter and Badway embraced in a big bear hug that was part genuine affection and part a contest of wills. Porter won.
Two
The police response to the fight at the club was cursory, at best. A squad car at another bar down the block rolled down when it saw unconscious people being dragged from the club. The cops shooed away the men in the tracksuits, telling them they were taking up space on a public sidewalk.
Badway gave the two officers each a bottle of water and a coupon for half-off drinks. They accepted both.
By that point, the music had been off for fifteen minutes and people had trickled out of the club as a result. No music, no dancing. No dancing, no reason to stay. It was close enough to the end of the night that Badway told the DJ to pack things up.
Porter worked with the door guy to round up any stragglers and herd them to the front door. Then, he made a sweep through the bar, pulling the empty beer bottles from the counters and beer tubs. More evidence of poor security training.
A good bouncer would throw away beer bottles as the night went. Not only did it make the end-of-the-night cleanup easier, more importantly, it lowered the number of weapons within reach of a combative patron.
Now that the house lights were up, Porter took a better look around. The walls of the club were old bricks, replete with off-color mortar from past spackling jobs. The club felt small and cold without a crowd of people warming it.
Porter helped the barbacks pull the trash and take it to a huge dumpster outside. It was like every other dumpster he’d ever seen, with an unmistakable odor of disgustingness and a pool of unidentifiable liquid draining out of it. Porter stepped gingerly, not willing to transfer the full funk to his Chuck Taylors. He went to the bathroom and washed his hands—twice—then sat on the freshly wiped bar top, letting his feet dangle.
Badway emerged from the back, bundles of money in his hands. “Sitting on your ass already, huh?”
“I don’t work here. Until you put me on the payroll, I’m not lifting a finger around this joint,” Porter said.
“Isn’t that just like you?” Badway sat on the bar next to Porter and called the group of workers together. The women had their purses and jackets on; the men had changed into different T-shirts—clean ones that didn’t have a night’s worth of accumulated grime on them.
“Good job tonight, guys. Good job,” Badway said. He handed each of the beer-tub girls and bartenders a bundle of money. They all counted their share, then pulled some bills from their stacks and gave them to the barbacks.
Barbacks were paid a small amount by the club as salary, and were tipped out by the staff for their hard work all evening. The barbacks ran back and forth all night, doing everything from filling beer tubs with ice and fetching new bottles of booze to switching out kegs and pulling the trash at the end of the night.
The blonde beer-tub girl— the object of Mr. Green’s affection— stuffed her money into her purse and looked up toward Porter on the bar. “Thanks for helping me tonight, random guy I’ve never met before.”
Badway clapped Porter on the shoulder. “I’m sorry, I should have introduced him earlier. This is Porter. Porter, that’s Janet.” Then he pointed around the small group, giving people’s names. Porter gave a short wave.
“Is Porter working here now?” Erin asked as she smiled at Porter.
Porter shook his head. “Work for this guy? Not a chance. I’m just visiting.”
“Seemed like you were working tonight,” Erin said.
“Those idiots with the tracksuits? I was just keeping Sarge here from getting his ass kicked. Seems like I’ve been doing that most of my life,” Porter said.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Badway said. “I had it under control.”
“Sarge? Were you two in the Army together?” Erin said.
“Army? Hell no. Porter’d never be in the Army,” Badway said.
“Because I like to think for myself,” Porter said with a smile. “Our mothers are sisters.”
“You’re cousins?” Janet said. “I guess… I mean… I can see the family resemblance.”
Porter laughed. If he and Badway were orders at a coffee shop, Porter would b
e a dark roast with a healthy splash of milk in it. Badway would be a cup of coffee with extra milk, hold the coffee.
“If you see the resemblance, we should get your eyes checked,” Porter said as the group laughed.
Badway thanked the staff again for their work that night, then let them all go home. People gathered lumped together in small groups and pairs to walk out to their cars. Safer that way, especially for the girls, who were underdressed as part of their jobs. Erin hung around, stealing glances at Porter, but ultimately left with another group.
Badway locked the door behind them. “Ready to go to my place?”
“How far do you live?” Porter said. “I could use a shower.”
“I’ll show you.” Badway led Porter through the empty dance floor and out the back door of the club, which emptied into a U-shaped courtyard with large cobblestones. A small alley was just past the courtyard, running the length of the building. On the right was a metal staircase. Badway took the stairs two at a time, unlocked a metal door, and flicked a light switch.
Porter followed him into a loft in various stages of renovation.
“Home sweet home,” Badway said, holding his arms out wide.
The wooden floors needed sanding and refinishing, and the drywall was down in several places, exposing electrical wiring and old, metal water pipes. The kitchen opened to a large living room, where there was an oversized leather chair and a plush sofa. A flat-screen television balanced on a series of milk crates.
