by Gwen Florio
The man wrenched free of the bouncer’s grasp. “And you do one sorry excuse for a lap dance. More like a lap nap. Let’s see if you’ve gotten any better.” Cherry stumbled behind him toward the row of curtained compartments. A hand landed on Lola’s ass. She twisted away. “Make them stop,” she said to the bouncer. “I need to talk to the manager. Where can I find him?”
“You’re in the wrong place if you don’t like guys playing grab-ass. And we’re not hiring,” he said. “At least not today. Come back tomorrow. The way the turnover is here, there’s always a chance.”
Hot breath gusted into Lola’s ear. An unshaven cheek scraped her neck. “Less youn I get outta here,” a voice mumbled. She brought her foot down on his. Her soft snowpacs had exactly zero effect on the man’s work boots.
“Keep these assholes away from me,” she said to the bouncer. “I only need one more minute here.” The newspaper clipping had acquired creases that sectioned Judith’s face. She held it up so the bouncer could see. Other men crowded in. The appreciative noises they made sent her closer to the bouncer. “Do you know her?”
“Didn’t fuck her, if that’s what you mean. Against the rules.”
The answer acted like caffeine on Lola’s frazzled nerves, concentrating her focus. Distractions receded. She jerked away from yet another intrusive hand and grabbed the bouncer’s forearm to keep him from leaving. “But you know her. Did she work here?”
The beard flapped. “Yeah.”
“Dancing?”
“Yeah. We done here? Because I got to get back to it. Look a there.” Three men ducked into a curtained booth, separate from the larger lap dance area. “That’s trouble.” He turned his back on her and bulled toward the booth, elbows up, plowing through the crowd. Lola fit herself into the space behind him.
“How long did she work here?” she shouted. “Can I talk to somebody who knew her? Maybe one of the dancers?”
“Sheeeit,” he threw back over his shoulder. “They’re too drunk or high to make any sense, and anyhow, weren’t none of them here when she was. That girl’s been gone for months.” He dove through the curtains. Men came flying out, as though propelled by a boot to butts. Lola heard a slap from within. “Goddammit, Destinee. No whorin’ on premises.”
Lola parted the curtains an inch. “But she was in Burnt Creek just recently.”
A woman stumbled out past Lola, adjusting her G-string. Her lip was swollen. Fingerprint bruises polka-dotted her breasts. She smeared her hand across a slick spot on her thigh and wiped it on a man’s sleeve as she headed back toward the stage.
The bouncer stood before Lola. “You see what it’s like? Imagine this place at midnight, two in the morning. If things start getting out of hand now, it’ll be hopeless then.”
“Wait. Do you know where she went?”
He flung meaty arms wide. “Could be anyplace. Lotta towns in the patch, lotta dancers. I tell you one thing, though.”
“What’s that?” Lola held her breath in prayer for a single snippet of useful information. Just one, she begged whatever discredited saint had been assigned to look out for reporters.
“A girl hits The Train, she’s at the end of the line, at least in this part of the world. Doubt you’ll find her in any of the clubs. Now I got to get back to work. And you got to go back to wherever you came from. Which is what your friend did, if she was smart.”
“She was smart,” Lola said to his broad, departing back. “She just didn’t get back there soon enough.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I’m batting a thousand here,” Lola told Bub as she fumbled with the key, trying to open the door with mittened hands. He bounced back and forth between the driver’s and passenger’s seats, impatient for release. A man stumbled out of The Train and past Lola, almost knocking her off her feet in his rush to the middle of the street. He put a hand against her truck and bent over and threw up into the snow. Bub hurled himself against the window in a frenzy of barking, teeth clicking against the glass. The man straightened and wiped his mouth. “Shut the fuck up, dog.”
“That’s my dog. And that’s my truck. So maybe you’re the one who needs to shut the fuck up.” Lola liked situations where she could use her height to advantage and this was one of them. She drew herself up and put her hands on her hips and raised her voice over Bub’s din. “Move along.”
The man turned and regarded her out of reddened, bulging eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but took in the fact that Lola stood a good head taller. He closed his mouth. His front teeth protruded, tugging at his bottom lip. “I was just leaving.” He attempted a smile as he backed away.
Lola looked at the splatter in the snow. It appeared to have missed her truck. “Lucky,” she said. The man hunched back toward the bar. Bub calmed as soon as she put her hand on the door. The street was lined with trucks, but the sidewalks were nearly deserted. Night shift workers, Lola thought, already in the bars, drinking the day away, thawing from the inside out. The man who’d upchucked by her truck stood a moment outside The Train, taking deep breaths, face in profile, chin an afterthought. Something plucked at her memory. “Wait,” she said to herself, then called out, “Wait!”
She ran down the street after him, trying to avoid patches of ice. Burnt Creek’s sidewalks weren’t so much cleared as flattened, snow stomped into grimy submission by hundreds of pairs of boots. A man emerged from the alley next to the bar and walked toward her, looking, she imagined, much as she looked herself—shoulders rounded forward, head down, hands jammed deep into pockets, wreathed in clouds of his own condensed breath. As he neared, she saw with envy that he wore a ski mask. Her own cheeks were already tingling, the tip of her nose a stinging rebuke. They passed one another wordlessly, and Lola would insist later that she had no warning at all—no telltale grunt, no swish of air—of the blow that landed on the back of her skull, sending her face-down into the filthy snow, where she lay helpless as his steel-toed boots slammed over and over into her ribs.
“LADY. LADY. Hey, lady.” The face swam out of focus above her own, so close she could smell the reek of vomit on his breath. She turned away. “Hold on just a minute here while I call 9-1-1. They’ll take care of you.”
Lola snatched at his wrist, proving at least that she was capable of movement. Very painful movement. But she had to keep him with her until they could talk. She groaned. “I’m fine.”
The man sat back on his heels and Lola drew a deep and grateful breath—only to regret it when her ribs screamed even louder than the protest her arm had just registered.
“You are not fine. That guy whaled on you six ways to Sunday. I almost missed it. Two seconds later and I’d have been back in the bar. I heard something and turned around and hollered. Didn’t even know he was beating on a woman till I got to you. That’s just wrong. You got to let me at least call a doctor. Police would be better.”
“No doctor. No police.” They’d never get a chance to talk if he called in the cavalry. Lola rolled onto her side and pushed herself up into a sitting position and waited until her head spun more slowly. “Help me up.” She had never realized so many separate motions were involved in getting to one’s feet, each and every one of them involving a new variation on pain.
“You got to let me help you somehow. The way he went after you, there’s no way you’re not hurt bad. He knew what he was doing.”
Lola let go of his arm, swayed, and latched on again. “What do you mean?”
“Just look at you. Well, you can’t. But he didn’t touch your face. Guy’s a pro.”
Lola didn’t want to think about how he might know such a thing. “You want to help me? Buy me a drink.” Even through the pain pulsing behind her eyeballs, Lola could see the flash of interest in his eyes as the unexpected opportunity presented itself. She wondered how badly she’d have had to be hurt to have extinguished that. Blood? A broken bone or two?
“You see,” she said to forestall whatever it was he might have been about to
say, “I think you and I have met before.”
THEY SAT at the far end of the bar in The Train, distant enough from the ceiling-mounted speakers that they could talk at something just below a shout. The dancers took one look and saw a man and woman together and avoided their end of the stage in favor of more lucrative territory. Lola’s request for Jameson’s had been met with a blank stare. She settled for her companion’s request of well tequila, outrageously overpriced and vile enough to remind her why she hated even the good stuff. “No salt? No lime?” she said to the woman who slammed down the plastic cups with a shot’s worth—maybe—sloshing around in the bottom.
“You wanna do that college shit, find a bar over in Grand Forks.”
“We don’t need none of that. Just keep those shots coming,” the man said. Lola forced down three before her companion—his name, he told her, was Ralph—deigned to remember the breakfast at Nell’s. “That place.” He hooked his front teeth over the edge of the plastic cup and gulped another shot. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “Some crazy guy jumped Swanny.”
Lola maneuvered her swollen fingers—her attacker must have stomped on her hand—to unfold the newspaper clipping. “He was looking at her.”
Ralph’s bleary eyes brightened. He smacked his lips. “I remember. You stay out here any amount of time, you’re just glad for a warm body. Looks, too—now that’s a bonus.”
Lola braced herself and knocked another shot, but it failed to erase an image of Judith beneath a squirming Ralph, his face against her shoulder, those teeth digging into her too-prominent collarbone. Please God, she thought, let him have been as quick as his rabbitty looks indicated.
“So you knew her.” She congratulated herself on her noncommittal tone, and a moment later fought hard to conceal the relief that washed through her at his reply.
“Not me.” Lola’s gratitude vanished with his next words. “Swanny claimed that one. And if you know anything about Swanny, you don’t want to be between him and something he’s got his eye on.”
“Someone.” Lola couldn’t help herself.
“Come again?”
“She was a person. Not a thing.” Oh, Judith. She spoke quickly to cover up her lapse. “If I wanted to talk to Swanny about her, where would I find him?”
“You wouldn’t, not today. He’s working an extended shift out on the rig. He won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon.” He waved to one of the dancers. “Some beer here.” The woman who brought it leaned across the bar. Her breasts dangled almost to its surface. Crow’s feet fanned out from the corners of her eyes. Her roots were long past the touch-up stage.
“Party room?” the woman asked, the words automatic. “We do lap dances for ladies, too. Equal opportunity, you might say.” She stuck a cigarette-yellowed finger into her mouth, drew it out slowly, and ran it across Lola’s lips.
Lola laid down a ten for Ralph’s beer and a five for a tip. “No, thanks.”
Even as Lola pressed her lips together to rid herself of the nicotine taste, Ralph’s hand crept along her thigh. Lola slapped her own hand over it. Was there no end of insults she could endure in a single afternoon?
“I was thinking maybe you and me could get dinner tonight,” he said.
Lola wondered what his idea of dinner was. A fast-food burger in the backseat of his truck? She directed a tight smile at him, still holding his hand in a death grip. “Swanny,” she reminded him. “I need to talk to him about Judith. She had a name, you know. Or maybe you don’t.”
His look was both rueful and sly. “All the women want to get with Swanny. Even though he’s a prick. I’m the nice guy. But ain’t nobody asking about me.”
There was a commotion by the booths. The bouncer blew past. A dancer at the other end of the room noticed his distraction, and crouched quickly on the bar in front of a group of men. She said something to them. One lay a bill on the bar. The woman pulled her G-string aside. The man leaned forward and licked. The rest whooped.
Lola turned away. “What makes Swanny a bastard? And who’s the one getting free drinks off a woman right now?”
He raised his cup in acknowledgment, but reminded her, “Looks like drinks is all I’m getting.”
Damn straight, Lola thought. She wanted nothing more than to swallow about a bottle’s worth of ibuprofen and sink into a hot bath, although at this point, even her sleeping bag in the back of the truck looked good. Still, she needed to get to Swanny. “Seems like I owe both you and Swanny for that breakfast mess back in Magpie. How about if I buy the two of you dinner at The Mint? Maybe tomorrow night? That’ll give you time to check with Swanny”—she forced a wink, handed him a business card—“and see if he minds coming along on our little date.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lola almost wished she’d asked Ralph to stick around and help her climb into the truck. She’d never realized how far off the ground the driver’s seat was. Once there, the simple act of raising her arms to the wheel caused a rush of agony. Bub, who’d jumped out for a quick break, returned with senses on full anxious alert, whining and tentatively swiping her face with his tongue.
“That guy got me worse than I thought,” she told him. “Prob’ly a good idea to go to an emergency room.” Or, more likely given the size of Burnt Creek, a clinic. But she didn’t know where one was. She fumbled with her phone, thinking to look up the address. Its screen swam before her eyes. The tequila, she thought. “I’m in no shape to drive,” she said. The long muscles in her back howled when she bent over the steering wheel. “But I just can’t sit here until I freeze.” She started the truck. Bub leapt to his usual post, front feet on the dash, back leg braced, alert to whatever came next. The sheriff’s office was two blocks away. The pickup weaved toward it on streets that were, for one brief blessed moment, largely free of traffic but for an elderly man in a sedan who braked and leaned on his horn until Lola wrestled the truck out of his lane. Lola swung wide into the sheriff’s office parking lot. The truck stopped at an angle. She turned off the engine. Opened the door. Eased one leg out, clung to the wheel, worked the other leg over toward the opening. Lost her grip. Fell into the snow. Made an abortive attempt to push herself up, then lay back and waited for the warmth that survival manuals had assured her came to freezing victims, wondering if that warmth had come to Judith at the end.
SHE CAME to in Thor’s arms, his face close to hers, green eyes fixed on her own grey ones, mouth nearly close enough to kiss. She closed her eyes again, and a second later, was glad she had, thus avoiding the inevitable look of disgust on his face.
“Miss Wicks! You’re drunk! You reek of liquor.”
“Tequila,” she mumbled. “Awful stuff. Hate it.”
“Apparently not. Let’s get you on your feet.”
“No!” But she was too late. He hauled her upward. The moan that escaped her turned into a full-fledged scream.
Thor paused, his face considerably out of kissing range. Lola dangled above the ground. “Miss Wicks?”
“Clinic. Please.” Each word took a great effort. She forced more. “I. Got beaten. Up.”
He lifted her again, more gently this time, to her feet. “Lean on me. Can you walk? Who did this to you? When did it happen? Here. Hold onto me. Like this.” He wrapped her arms around his waist and took a step. Lola dragged her feet through the snow. They worked, a welcome surprise. Thor took another step. When they got to the building’s front steps, he simply lifted her. Lola and Thor groaned in unison. She had forgotten about his back. “I’m sorry,” she gasped.
“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” he said through whitened lips. “Me all stove up, you beat up. Not much farther now. You owe your dog a treat. He stood out there and barked and barked. Otherwise, there’s a good chance nobody would’ve found you until quitting time.”
Dawg was in his usual spot in the front office and stayed put when Thor and Lola staggered in, Bub at their heels. Dawg’s nostrils flared. “She’s drunk. And what’s that dog doing in here?”
“That may be.” Thor’s breath came ragged from exertion. “But she’s hurt, too. And the dog seems to go wherever she goes. Help me out here.”
“No. I can manage.” The last thing Lola wanted was Dawg manhandling her aching body. She put a hand to the wall and followed it to the open door of Thor’s office and eased none too gracefully into a chair.
“Don’t go anywhere,” Thor said to Dawg. “I’m going to need you to help me find whoever did this to Miss Wicks.” He closed the door and turned to Lola. “Do you think you can answer a few questions before I get you some help? Because the quicker I jump on this, the quicker I can get this guy.” He handed her a cup of coffee, and poured a second one. “Drink this. And when you’re done, drink that one, too. We need to get you sober.”
LOLA TOLD him the same thing three times in a row. Cops, she thought on Round Three. Always trying to trip you up. “No. I didn’t know him. Or if I did, I couldn’t tell. He came out of the alley. Started”—how had Rabbit Face put it?—“whaling on me. He didn’t say a word. And I never saw his face. He wore a mask. He was big. And he hit me really hard. That’s about it.” She was just about to relax, thinking he was done, when Thor got around to the topic she’d hoped to avoid.
“What were you doing over there?”
“Interviewing someone.” Which was true, she thought.
“On the street? In your truck? Where?”
Lola ran one hand over the other, her fingers thick, the skin tight and shiny over burst blood vessels. “In a bar.”
Thor waited.
She lifted a hand before her face. Her thumbnail was black. She was probably going to lose it, she thought. “The Train.”
Thor’s expression changed not at all. It occurred to Lola that there was probably an entire session in the police academy on poker faces. “Indian guy?” Thor asked. “Because that’s what your story is about, right?”
