“Don’t you even care about Olson?” He stepped off the porch.
“How is he?”
“Quit acting like you give a shit.” His voice was shrill, tinged with a measure of fear that I had never heard before.
“Things are in play at the moment.” I looked at the Bentley and then back at Delmar.
“It always is with you.”
“I need a place to stash some people.”
“What do you think this is?” He put his face inches from mine. “Motel 6?”
“They burned my house down.”
“I ought to . . .” He frowned. “What?”
“Rundell’s people did it.”
He looked at Nolan, Tess, and Billy standing by his car.
“We’re out of places to go,” I said.
“All right.” His shoulders slumped. “They can come in.” He turned and walked up the steps leading to the front door.
I motioned to my three traveling companions and went inside.
They’d redecorated again, a minimalist theme this time: chrome-and-glass furniture, white walls, black accessories. An M-16 with two clips taped together back to back was leaning in the corner.
Olson stood by the stairs. He had a bandage on his head and a mildly confused look on his face. “Heya, Hank.”
I looked at my friend but didn’t say anything.
“The docs think he’ll be all right.” Delmar watched as Tess, Nolan, and Billy spilled into the room. “It was rough there for a day or so when the swelling wouldn’t go down.”
I looked at Delmar. “I need two things.”
“What?” He crossed his arms.
“A clean shirt and no questions.”
Nolan took charge. She asked for a first aid kit, told Billy to wait in the living room in one of the fancy chrome-and-leather chairs. Delmar left to get the medical supplies while Olson squinted at the man with the dyed black hair sitting in his front room.
I hesitated for a second and then introduced them. Olson frowned but didn’t say anything.
Delmar returned at that particular moment. “Who the hell did you say that was?”
Nolan took the first aid kit and reminded him he was gonna get me a clean shirt. Then she grabbed Tess by the arm and took her to the bathroom in the back to clean the cut on her head.
Delmar went upstairs and came back in a few minutes with a plain spread-collar white oxford-cloth shirt. I took off my denim one and put on the fresh garment.
It didn’t look right untucked, so I removed the inside-the-waistband holster with the Hi Power.
Olson watched me place the gun on a glass-topped table in the entry-way. He nodded a couple of times as if he remembered something and then began to rummage around in the hall closet. A few moments later he handed me a Sig .380 that fit perfectly in the hip pocket of my jeans.
He seemed quite pleased to have accomplished this simple task. I hoped that nothing permanent had been jarred loose in his oversized cranium.
Delmar and Billy were looking at each other warily when I walked into the living room. I told Billy it was time to go.
“Is this who I think it is?” Delmar said.
“Yeah.”
“But he’s supposed to be dead.”
“As far as you know, I still am.” Billy stood up.
“Or what?” Delmar turned and faced the undead one.
Billy flexed his fingers.
“You responsible for this?” Delmar pointed to Olson, now leaning against the banister.
“You blame the clouds when it rains?” Billy smiled the bad smile.
I stepped between the two of them. “Let’s go.”
Billy followed me outside. We got in the Bentley. Delmar stood on the porch and watched us drive off.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Sugar Babies prided itself on being an upscale establishment for the value-minded consumer, a hybrid, of sorts, occupying the territory between the low-end dives and the thirty-dollar-per-table-dance places where the women all looked like turbo-breasted supermodels.
Ten-dollar cover charge, decor only slightly less garish than an off-strip casino waiting for the wrecking ball, dancers without too many tattoos and most of their teeth.
I valeted the Bentley and gave the guy a twenty to park it by the front. A girl in black fishnet hose, butt-cheek-high hot pants, and a velvet halter top sat behind a counter just inside the front door. She took our cover charge and stamped our hands.
The music was loud, a thumping bass line belonging to a band whose name I couldn’t quite bring to mind but remembered seeing a couple of years earlier on Behind the Music, talking about the night it all went to shit when the lead singer ingested twenty grams of Peruvian flake with Miss July 1987.
We ventured inside. A large main stage was on one mirror-lined wall, a level below the rest of the place. The main stage had a circle of chairs around it with a ring of tables after that. This lower section was occupied by what looked like two busloads of Japanese tourists.
A red-haired young woman in pigtails, knee-high white stockings, and a hot pink bikini was dry-humping the brass pole in the middle of the stage. Every few seconds she would lie flat on her back and spread her legs for the cheering crowd.
I counted five more smaller stages dotting the room. Each one had a dancer clad only in a G-string, shaking all her jiggly parts to the beat of the music.
The place was full, not an empty seat visible from where I stood, and people milling about in the aisles. Every dozen feet or so was a tuxedo-clad manager.
“You’ve got a plan, right?” Billy leaned close to be heard over the music.
“Not even a bad one.” Which was the truth. Things were moving too fast. No time to plan.
A girl wearing the same fishnet hose and halter top getup as the cashier approached us. She carried a small cocktail tray in one hand. A bandolier of shot glasses bisected her chest, a fifth of tequila resting on her hip like a pistol.
“You guys want a table?” She looked about nineteen, pretty with a button nose and flawless skin. She smiled and her face came alive, green eyes sparkling in the strobe lights of the bar.
I smiled back. “Sure.”
“This way.” She threaded her way through the crowd to the back of the room.
I followed her to a two-topper near the DJ booth and one of the smaller stages. I wondered how a girl like her had come to be in a place like this.
I said, “How did a girl like you come to be in a place like this?”
“Save it for a dancer, okay?” She smiled again but it didn’t light up her face this time. She put two cocktail napkins on the table. “What do you want to drink?”
“Shiner.” I motioned to where I thought Billy was. “And he’ll have a . . .”
Billy was gone.
The waitress jerked her thumb backward. “He’s that way.”
I looked where she indicated. Billy was standing next to one of the other stages. A blonde was kneeling down, knees and thighs bracketing his shoulders, his head between her cantaloupe-sized breasts.
“Crap.”
“Whaddya expect,” the waitress said. “It’s a titty bar.”
I left the table and walked up to Billy. “What the hell are you doing?”
He didn’t reply. I guessed it was because his ears were blocked by the dancer’s breasts. Maybe it was the music, though.
“Billy.” I tugged on his arm. “Not now.”
“Mmmpht.” His voice was muffled by silicone and flesh.
I yanked and he broke the connection with the dancer. “We’ve got stuff to do.”
“Goddamn, I haven’t seen tits like that since . . . shit, I dunno when.” Billy tossed a five-dollar bill at the girl as I pulled him back to the table.
The music changed. Now playing was the Dixie Chicks’ ode to trailer park trash everywhere: “Good-bye Earl.” The dancer on the main stage had stripped off her bikini and wore only a miniscule thong, the white hose, and seven-inch platforms.
I dragged Billy back toward our spot. The waitress was placing a bucket of champagne on the table while a Rubenesque woman with a tattoo of Kid Rock on her shoulder performed a lap dance for a young man in a wife-beater undershirt and baby blue nylon warm-up pants.
The waitress handed me a beer. “That’ll be seven dollars.”
“Who’s that?” I gave her a ten-spot.
“You want a tequila shot?” She stuffed the bill into the nether regions of her cleavage without offering change.
“I’m looking for somebody.” I ignored her offer. “A new guy. Been in and out of here a lot lately.”
“A guy. In here. That narrows it down.”
“He shaves his head and dresses like a high-class pimp.”
Her eyes got wide for a millisecond before returning to normal. “Sorry. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Pass the word to the manager.” I handed her a twenty.
She ignored the bill and left, looking over her shoulder as she made her way down the crowded aisle.
I turned back to our table. Billy had sat down in the only available seat and was gaping at the woman grinding her crotch into the man in the other chair.
The man looked over. “Ain’t this the shits?”
I took a long swallow of beer.
The song ended and the dancer stopped dancing. She grabbed the bottle of champagne, poured two glasses, and handed one to her friend.
“Hey.” He drank half of it in one gulp and stuck out his hand to me. “I’m Iggy.”
“Hi, Iggy.” I ignored his offer of a shake. “Why are you sitting here?”
The man laughed. He smacked the table, which made the fake diamond dial on his oversized watch spin.
His eyes never seemed to blink.
“Dude, needed a place for a table dance.” He patted the woman’s bare ass. “This here is Nicky.”
“Hi, Nicky.” I stared at the woman’s breasts. They were so big they needed their own zip code.
The woman leaned over and kissed me on the lips, one hand giving my inner thigh a good squeeze.
Another song cranked up: Bon Jovi, “You Give Love a Bad Name.”
Billy said, “Heya, Nicky? How about a dance?”
“Sure thing.” The woman killed the rest of her champagne and slid over to Billy, managing to drag her thigh against my crotch in the process.
“Oh, yeahhh . . .” Billy leaned back and spread his legs.
I rubbed my eyes and tried to remember when I had last eaten anything of substance. This was not going as planned. But things with Billy rarely did.
“You need a pick-me-up?” Iggy handed me a tiny square of folded paper. “This shit will do you right.”
“Iggy.” I dropped the paper in the bucket of ice containing the champagne bottle. “Why don’t you go away?”
The younger man laughed again. When he stopped, his eyes seemed wider and more bloodshot. He grabbed me by the arm. “Hey, it’s all cool and shit.”
I wrenched free.
He stood up and leaned over. He smelled sweaty, with a metallic stench coming off his breath. “Don’t cause a scene. You’re in enough shit already.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The man needs to talk to you.” Iggy developed a tic on the left side of his face.
“You need to lay off the drugs. Your heart’s gonna explode.”
“You think they didn’t tell us to watch out for you?” Iggy smiled. His teeth were gray, the color of mold.
“Do you come with subtitles?” I let my hand slip from the table, getting it a little closer to the pistol in my back pocket. “Because I’m not following what’s going on.”
“That thing you stole, whatever the hell it was.” His eyes jiggled in their sockets. “It’s, like, real important that they, like, get it back, you know, dude?”
Nicky had her mouth on Billy’s crotch. His eyes had rolled upward until only the whites were visible.
“Iggy, this is the major leagues. Do yourself a favor and go away before you get hurt.”
The song ended, and Billy handed Nicky some money.
“Hey, I am just the messenger.”
Billy stood up and looked at the brunette dancing on the stage behind Iggy.
I said, “How about you pass a message back to whoever sent you over here?”
“It don’t work that way.” A small pistol appeared in Iggy’s hand. It was pointed at my stomach and impossible to see in the dark club unless you were standing a foot or less away. “The man needs whatever it is, in the worst way.”
“Tell him I’ve got it. But not with me.”
Billy squinted at a platinum blonde on the stage behind Iggy. He staggered that way.
“We’re gonna take a walk.” Iggy’s lips were flecked with spit, his hair greasy with perspiration. His gun hand shook. “Your buddy can stay here and get his unit rubbed on.”
“No.”
“I will so pop one in your kneecap.” He pressed the muzzle against the bend in my leg but didn’t sound very convincing.
Suddenly the pressure against my flesh was gone. Iggy’s mouth twisted in pain. His fingers holding the gun were bent back at the wrong angle. Billy had hold of the pistol, one finger behind the trigger so it couldn’t fire.
“Dude.” Iggy’s voice was tight with pain. “This is so wrong.”
“You think?” Billy twisted a little more, and Iggy’s index finger snapped.
The man howled but I couldn’t hear him. The next song had started with an extra-loud screech of feedback. God bless Ted Nugent.
Billy threw Iggy against the DJ booth. He hit with his head and fell into a twitching bundle on the floor.
“They know we’re here,” I said.
“I guess this means I’m not gonna get another table dance.”
Two big guys in ill-fitting tuxedos appeared by the table.
“Uh-oh.” I whacked the first one on the side of the head with the half-full bottle of champagne before he could do anything. Billy shoved a chair into the other one’s diaphragm. They landed on top of each other.
We headed toward the front door, not running but not dillydallying either.
A group of camera-toting Japanese men in the aisle slowed us down. They were scurrying after a six-footer with Marilyn Monroe hair and implants so big they cast a shadow in the low light of the bar.
We were in the middle of Japanese men when the third tuxedo showed up, blocking our way to the front. He had a headset on, covering one ear, a mike by his mouth.
He saw us and stopped, blocking the aisle.
The blonde stopped, too, which caused all the Japanese men to run into her and her enormous breasts.
Tuxedo yelled something into his boom mike.
The dancer swatted the Nipponese tourists. “You little yellow fuckers quit following me. I told you already: No cameras allowed in Sugar Babies.”
An older Japanese man in a red sleeveless golf sweater stood at the edge of the group, a Nikon in his hand.
Billy tapped him on the shoulder. “You want me takee picture?” He pantomined using a camera.
The man said something in his native tongue and bowed. He handed a very complicated-looking digital camera to Billy.
“Hey.” Tuxedo elbowed his way past the blonde and reached for Billy between two Japanese men.
A Ted Nugent set was under way. “Free-for-All” gave way to “Cat Scratch Fever.”
“Miss Chesty?” Billy yelled at the Monroe-esque dancer. “You wanna stand over there with Mr. Toyota?”
More Japanese tourists had materialized, crowding the aisle, forcing themselves between Tuxedo and Billy. They jabbered back and forth as their friend moved toward the dancer. The music got louder.
“No fucking pictures!” The blonde tried to get away but the crowd forced her next to the man who had given his camera to Billy.
“Drop the camera and place your hands on your head.” Tuxedo’s fingers were within i
nches of Billy.
“Everybody smile.” Billy put the Nikon to his face.
“I told you to assume the position.” Tuxedo grabbed Billy’s shoulder.
Billy turned and hit him in the face with the camera.
Feedback from the music wailed across the room. The yellow-and-blue strobe light kicked on as did the fog machine, filling the air with a surreal-colored haze that seemed to fit perfectly with the screeching guitar.
Mr. Tuxedo covered his nose with one hand while fumbling with his boom mike with the other. The blood that dripped between his fingers appeared green in the weird lighting.
Billy tossed the camera to the Japanese man.
I looked around for more bouncers but it was hard to see who was who with the strobes, fake tits, fog, and all the tourists crowding us.
Billy pushed his way through the crowd. Mr. Tuxedo still stood in the aisle, green-black blood staining his white shirt. Billy punched him in the stomach, and he fell to the floor.
“Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” The dancer grabbed Billy by the hair and pulled at the same time that I managed to break through the bottleneck of tourists and run into both of them.
The three of us dropped to the floor, next to Mr. Tuxedo. A couple of Japanese fell on top of us, along with a petite brunette dressed in a barely there French maid’s outfit who appeared from out of nowhere.
Someone bit my forearm. A nipple poked me in the eye. Cameras flashed. Japanese men jabbered at one another in Japanese. My face was pressed into the dirty carpet of the bar.
I tried to get up until a foot hit my solar plexus and everything shut down.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Noise all around. Angry voices. Yelling. The chatter of the Japanese tourists grew faint.
Rough hands held my arms and dragged me somewhere. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a box of glass shards. My head hurt and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t remember getting hit there.
Another song was playing: “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC.
I opened my eyes. The hands holding me gave a shove, and I hit the door at the rear of the club with the side of my face. The door opened inward and I fell onto a tile floor.
The harsh fluorescent lights killed my vision. The music was muffled now, a dull throbbing that matched the pain in my gut and head. More hands grabbed me, pulling me upright and hustling me down a corridor.
The Next Time You Die Page 21
