Unhinged

by Barbra Leslie

  It had either gone out with the trash somehow, fallen out of my bag, or – and I hoped I was wrong about this – I had missed my bag in the kitchen at Helen of Troy when Garrett had come in, and it had landed on the floor for anyone to see. I resolved to ask Garrett for her number, if she wasn’t working there anymore. You know, to thank her for tending to my hand.

  In the meantime, I’d seen a work rota backstage when I walked a couple of the girls to their vehicles at the end of the night. Zuzi was scheduled to work tonight.

  She and I were going to have a little talk.

  * * *

  It seemed to me that it was significantly busier that night. I carded a group of four kids – two guys and two girls – whose obviously fake IDs had them at ages ranging from thirty to thirty-eight. None of them could have been older than seventeen. They faded back onto the street and I could hear them laughing walking back up the road into the late summer night. The weather had changed from rainy and cool to a late-August, languorous humidity that made people want to make the most of it. Autumn came quickly in this part of the world.

  Garrett had presented me with my very own Helen of Troy Security t-shirt, which had the unfortunate acronym HOT on the back in huge letters. I knew immediately that I would not be wearing this t-shirt for my runs. Darren was going to have a field day with this one.

  I kept more of an eye on the floor than I had the night before, looking for the girl I thought was Zuzi. At around nine-thirty or so, I saw her approach a table of young guys, two of whom I had carded and whose driver’s licenses had proven them as newly nineteen, the drinking age in Ontario. All five of the kids looked like chess club nerds, but their bravado was obviously increasing with every overpriced beer. One of them bought a lap dance from Zuzi, and I watched her dance for a minute. She didn’t have the athletic talent of some of the girls, but I thought maybe she had a non-threatening sexuality that would appeal to younger guys like these. Not to mention my brother-in-law, apparently. She had thick, slightly messy dark hair and a small but softly buxom body, as opposed to the lean, hard six-packs that a lot of the girls seemed to have worked very hard for.

  I caught her eye unintentionally after she had finished the lap dance. She was leaning over the table, obviously trying to talk him into another dance. She smiled at me, a friendly, open smile, said something to the boys and held up a finger, obviously promising to be right back.

  “I’m Zuzi,” she said. She shook my hand, and noticed mine was still bandaged. “Sorry! I just wanted to say hi. I saw what you did the other night, or at least some of it. I was so scared for you I nearly peed myself.”

  She spoke softly, and with no guile whatsoever. She looked twenty-three, twenty-five tops.

  “And then Patrick told me later that night that you’d been asking for me? We haven’t met before, have we?”

  “No, no,” I said. “I just came in to kill an hour that night. I live close by, and my brother-in-law had been coming in here. He told me that you two had become friends so I thought that since I’d wandered in I’d introduce myself.”

  “What’s his name?” she said loudly. The DJ had turned the music up significantly for the next dancer, who, I’d been told, needed to feel the bass through the stage or she couldn’t dance.

  “Fred,” I said. “Sort of skinny dude, reddish hair with lots of gray?” I indicated his height, a bit shorter than me.

  “Oh yeah, him,” she said happily. “Nice guy. Good tipper. No touchy-feelies. My ideal customer.”

  “He paid you for dances?” I said.

  “Well, yeah,” she said. She laughed. “That’s sort of what we do here, right?”

  “Oh, I get it,” I said. I shook my head in a sort of “stupid men” gesture. “He made it seem like you guys were friends. Like, actual friends, as opposed to…” I waved at the stage, at the tables.

  “As opposed to the professional dancer–customer dynamic?” she laughed. “They all think that. No, I should say that all a girl’s regulars think that, if she wants to make money.” She turned around to check her table of chess club geeks. Another dancer had moved in. Zuzi sighed and turned back to me. “Haven’t seen him for a bit, your brother,” she said.

  “Brother-in-law,” I corrected her. “My sister’s husband.”

  “Oh shit,” she said. She put her hand on my arm and seemed genuinely concerned. “I’m sorry. Really, he never even touched me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “My sister died nearly two years ago.”

  Zuzi looked at me with such sympathy that I could feel my eyes pricking with tears that wanted out. And that would definitely not be cool, to have the new security person crying at the door.

  “Don’t cry here, Danny,” Zuzi said. Her voice was a bit harder, and she put a big smile on her face and turned to walk away. Garrett was walking through the club. “Walk me to my car later?” she said loudly. She didn’t want management to think she was distracting the security person? We weren’t supposed to fraternize on duty? Garrett hadn’t said anything like that to me, but who knew. I nodded at her, and turned back to the door, where a bachelorette party was coming in. There had to be sixteen young women, maybe more, and the bride-to-be had a tiara, sash, and heels she was a bit wobbly in. Garrett came over and greeted them warmly, smiled at me, and led the girls to the center of the club, where tables had been reserved for them.

  The next hour was busy enough that I could avoid thinking about anything beyond the moment. I happened to witness a man roughly grab the breasts of one of the dancers as she was bent over in front of him dancing, and I saw the girl slap his hands away. But he was also grabbing her around the waist, trying to pull her onto his lap. She looked up in my direction, and I waved at her to let her know I’d seen and was coming over. I quickly drew the velvet rope across the door, caught Garrett’s eye at the bar, and pointed at the door.

  He saw where I was heading, and he took my place at the door. I could tell he was watching me as I threaded my way through the tables. My brain was working overtime. There were rules about what I was and was not allowed to do, as an employee of the club. I couldn’t just walk up and punch him in the side of the head, for example, which was my first instinct. The law said I could only use physical force in self-defense, and Garrett had stressed that one of the reasons he’d wanted to hire a woman is that men felt less threatened by a woman, and wouldn’t feel the need to get all macho in front of their buddies and throw a punch.

  That hadn’t been my life experience, but I was about to find out if it would be the case here.

  When I reached the table, the dancer, a small blonde who looked more strung-out than the other girls I’d seen here, was being held by the customer in a reverse bear hug, on his lap. The man was jerking his groin into her and pushing her back onto him, hard.

  It was as close to out-and-out rape as you can get with your clothes on. And it was definitely sexual assault.

  She had tears streaming down her face, causing her makeup to run down her face, the black mascara making inlets into the thick layer of foundation she was wearing to cover bad skin. She’d stopped struggling, and was being bounced up and down like a doll. I saw that the man’s large arms were wrapped tightly around her abdomen; it would have taken a much stronger person than she looked to break that hold.

  Blood was pumping to my brain and to my muscles, and I wanted so badly to maim that man, at that moment, that I felt dizzy.

  As I approached them, I reached into my pocket for my car keys, and without thinking first, I stuck one into the man’s ear, far enough to hurt, but not far enough to break his eardrum. Yet.

  His eyes, which had been closed, popped open, and he released his grip on the girl. She jumped off his lap and started screaming at him. I didn’t register the words. In my peripheral vision I could tell that one of the other girls grabbed her and hustled her backstage.

  We were the center of attention now, at least for the tables in this part of the club. I leaned forward,
smiling for the benefit of anyone watching, and whispered into the man’s ear. The ear that had the key lodged in it.

  “You’re going to get up in a moment and leave this club, and you are never going to return,” I said. “If you make a sound – in fact, if you make a single movement that I don’t like right now – I promise you that I will shove this knife so far into your ear that your eardrum will burst. Trust me, sir, it’s very painful, even when a person is as drunk as I presume you are.” He wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t a knife.

  My lips were right down next to his ear; no one else could hear me, and no one could see the key. It would look as though I was having a private word in his ear. I hoped. “Blink once if you agree that you’re going to be a good boy and put your dick back in your pants. Blink twice for no, and then this conversation will get a lot more interesting.”

  He blinked once. My eyes were about two inches from the side of his head.

  “Do it now,” I said. “Put your dick away. Don’t say one fucking word.” I didn’t look at it, just cut my eyes quickly to the right to watch his hands. He tucked in, and returned his palms to his thighs. He kept wiping them on his trousers, like they were sweating. Good.

  “Did your server run your credit card for a tab?” He blinked. “We will be billing you fairly for all your drinks, but we will be adding a very expensive bottle of champagne, for the girl you just assaulted, in public. Blink.” He blinked. “If you dispute these charges, some very unpleasant people will come visit you at your home. I promise that you will not enjoy this visit. Blink if you understand me.” He blinked. “Now, I know that when I take this knife out of your ear, you might take it into your head to put up a fight. I don’t think you’re quite in your right mind.” He blinked hard, rapidly, trying to indicate that he wouldn’t. “If you do, not only will my friends and I have to teach you a terrible lesson, but the police will be called, and there are dozens of people in the immediate vicinity who saw you sexually assault this young woman. Oh, and of course we have the security tapes. And just so you know, no one can see the knife. Everyone around us thinks that you and I are having a friendly, if one-sided, conversation.” He blinked. Sweat was running down the side of his face. He stank of fried onions and fear.

  “So I’ll tell you what. I’m going to remove the knife. I may nick you with it as it gets removed, but if I do, please don’t worry. It’ll just be a superficial cut. It won’t bleed long.” He blinked madly. “When I remove it, stand up, turn around, and walk toward the door. I promise you, sir – I promise you on the graves of my dead parents – that you will live to regret it if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

  I removed my hand – and the key cupped in it – from his ear. I really hoped it looked like I was cupping his ear to whisper into it. If not, well, so the fuck be it.

  The man stood, and stumbled forward a couple of steps. I grabbed his arm as if to steady him – he was drunk – and pressed very hard on a spot on his ulnar nerve. The baby finger and ring finger on that hand would be numb for a day or two, but he’d live. He jerked upright while keeping his eyes to the floor. I followed as he walked quickly, if unsteadily, toward the front door. Garrett held the door open for him, and the man walked out.

  A smattering of applause started from the patrons and staff who witnessed it all, and the DJ – Rick, his name was – blasted Aretha’s “Respect”.

  My cheeks were blazing, but the DJ wasn’t finished. “There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Here at Helen of Troy, women rule the roost. Mess with one of them at your peril, gentlemen.” The bachelorette party went absolutely wild and started singing along to Aretha. The waitresses were rushed off their feet and waving at me.

  “I knew it!” Garrett said. He had a ridiculous smile on his face, and I could tell he was trying to restrain himself from hugging me. “That was something else, Danny. I’m going to ask you later how you managed that, but in the meantime, why don’t you take your break? Order your staff meal, get a drink if you want. You probably need to chill for a minute. Take as long as you need. Glen’s coming in shortly.” He put his arm around my shoulders and gave me an awkward one-armed hug. I knew he couldn’t restrain himself. “Oh, and there’s a friend of yours at the bar, Doug he said his name was, if you want to say hello.”

  My heart stopped. Doug. Doug Douglas. It was an old joke.

  I walked to the bar, and there was Dave, holding a blue drink with an actual mini umbrella in it. His back was to the bar, and he was smiling at me. It was an odd smile, but it was a smile.

  SEVENTEEN

  “The old key-in-the-ear trick, huh,” Dave said, but quietly. He handed me his drink. “Thought you might need this.”

  “Blue curaçao, vodka and lemonade?” I said.

  “The very same.”

  I took a sip, and welcomed the slight hit of alcohol. Then I put the drink on the bar and, without thinking, hugged him. I breathed in the scent of his neck. When he pulled back from the embrace, I kept holding on, and he half-laughed and squeezed me back. I felt him relax into it, into me. My muscles loosened.

  “Yo. Danny.” Cass was bartending again. She leaned across the bar and spoke quietly. “I don’t want to be a buzzkill, but ixnay on the PDA on the floor, babe.” She glanced over at the door, where Garrett was presumably standing. “Your ass will be grass, you keep that up.” She leaned over the bar further and stuck her hand out to Dave. “I’m Cassie. You must be Superwoman’s man.”

  Dave grinned at her and shook her hand. “I’m Dave. I used to be her man, once upon a time, but she left me high and dry a few months back.”

  Cassie raised her eyebrows. “Honey, whatever you did, I think she forgives you.” She winked at him and crossed the bar to take a drinks order.

  “She doesn’t know the story,” I said to him. “This is my second shift.”

  “Evidently you’re fitting in,” he said. “Not even the entertainment and you’re still getting applause.”

  “I’m shit on the phone,” I said. I was talking quickly. My adrenaline was still up, and I wasn’t expecting to see him yet. I wasn’t prepared. “I mean, I’m shit anyway, I’m unforgiveable and fucked up and all that, but I’m also completely unable to talk about anything important on the phone.”

  “You talk to Dr. Singh about important things, I presume,” he said, twirling his coaster. “She’s not right in front of you.”

  “It’s Skype,” I said, “and I’m not in love with Dr. Singh.”

  I clapped my hand over my mouth. The words had popped out without any thought. I tried to avoid thinking about Dave. The Summer of the Prowl was mainly about not thinking about what I’d done to Dave.

  “Jesus,” Dave said, after the world’s most painful pause. “You really have no filter, Cleary.” He looked truly surprised.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “You’re on break? Let’s take a walk for a few minutes.” I nodded. I was going to keep my trap shut from now on. I was going to learn sign language and pretend I was mute. I was going to seal my lips shut with superglue whenever I had to go out in public.

  I followed Dave out the door, tapping my watch in Garrett’s direction to let him know that I was aware of the time, that I was on break and not leaving. He nodded, and waved me out, mouthing, Take your time.

  We walked in silence for a minute, past the few people who had retreated outside to smoke. Two of the bachelorette girls were outside, laughing loudly, and I kept my head down and my arms crossed. Submissive body language. I was waiting for the emotional blow.

  “I’m going to say a few things now,” Dave said. “Please just let me get them out, and then we can talk later at home.”

  I nodded. I pretended my lips were glued shut. It was hard to do.

  He’d said “at home”.

  “What you did in New York was,” he looked at the sky, like the right words were going to appear to him, “very painful.” He looked at my face. “Ned is not your biggest fan right now. But I think he
’ll get over it.”

  I opened my mouth, but shut it again.

  “We slept in the same bed for months. I held you while you cried in your sleep. I know that what you’ve been through is… unimaginable, for most people.”

  I looked at the ground. I willed myself not to burst into ridiculous tears.

  “Danny, there are things I haven’t told you about myself. Things that you might think are unforgiveable. Well, at least the fact that I haven’t told you before. I should have. I think for people like us, trust is very hard-won. I would trust you with my life without hesitation. You know that.”

  I nodded. I knew that.

  “But the thing I’ve been wrestling with these last months is whether it would ever be possible to trust you with my heart again.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Yeah, I’m smoking. Shoot me.” I took one from the pack, and he lit them both.

  “So what I’m trying to say, I guess, is that, yeah, I love you. But it might take some time before I can trust you. That way,” he added.

  I kissed him. I couldn’t help it. After a second, he kissed me back, but not for long.

  “We’ll have time to talk about all this at home,” he said. He cupped my cheek for a minute, and smiled into my eyes. “I came here because – well, because I wanted to see you, but also because as soon as Darren told me where you were, that you were working here, that they had hired you for security, I knew something was wrong.” I started to tell him about the manager having seen me deal with the frat boys, but he cut me off. “I know about that. But did you know that it’s against the law for them to hire you? Any security personnel – bouncers, security guards, whatever – in Canada have to be licensed? There’s a whole course, a test administered by the government, everything. They can’t just hire someone off the street to do what you’re doing. And they must know that. Jonas is doing some research right now about the company that bought this club months ago. But we do know that they have other clubs, and bars and so on. They would know the licensing requirements.