“Is she even a skater?”
“Hm. I dunno. Didn’t think to ask.”
I looked over the cheering mass again, this time for a woman’s face. Surprisingly, there were a number of women mixed in with the hormonally overloading hipster men. Half the crowd looked like trust fund jag-offs who spent a lot of money to look like they just finished a shift in the coal mines. The air was thick with irony and badly groomed facial hair. All were shouting and whooping it up. I recognized a few patrons from the bar, but nobody looked like Byron, per se.
“Rhoda Ruder!”
The crowd hollered their loudest for Ginny. Apparently, she was a fan favorite. She took her loop, shaking her fist high, but I could see her eyes moving person to person. Once she passed us, she shook her head.
Junior’s phone beeped. “G.G. texted me. All quiet at the house. He’s going a little nuts. Apparently, they do not, in fact, have cable, and the Patriots game is starting in a half hour.”
We’d left G.G. back at Ginny’s place, in case Byron tried a smash-and-grab while Ginny and Dana were at the roller derby. We said we’d relieve him after the match, since it was his shift at the bar. Even though Junior knew he had his best chance at putting his knuckles to Byron’s face back at Ginny’s place, you try to keep him from a bunch of barely clad chicks beating the crap out of each other.
“Tell him we’ll relieve him by the start of the third.”
The derby started and the two teams went at it. I couldn’t claim to fully understand the rules, but from what I could tell, it was half a race and half a hockey brawl. I managed to figure out that each team had a girl with a red cardboard arrow glued to her helmet. The other girls had to either help or hinder her progress through the cluster.
Ginny was hell on wheels, pun intended. When she had the arrow, she was fluid and fast. When she was a blocker, she leveled the other girls brutally. It wasn’t hard to see why the fans dug her. Whatever got your motor running, roller derby-wise, Ginny was an ace.
The buzzer sounded, marking halftime of the game. The Beatdowns were up twenty-seven to sixteen, but I’d be damned if I had any idea how the scoring system came to that amount.
Junior and I worked our way toward the locker room. If Byron was going to try to start a problem, he’d be an idiot to do it with this many witnesses. The danger for Ginny and Dana would have been on their way to the rink or on their way home.
“Imagine the possibilities,” said Junior in a way that made me a bit ill.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dude! A girls’ locker room. A girls’ roller derby locker room.”
I didn’t know why the sport made the difference, but was afraid to ask. “What the hell do you think is going on in there?”
“Tickle fights.”
A skinny security guard in a Boston Derby T-shirt stood at the door, bony arms folded in a rough approximation of toughness.
“Can I help you guys?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “We have to talk to Ginny or Dana.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
I rolled my eyes. “Rhoda Ruder.”
The guard snorted. “Sure, buddy. You have any idea how many guys want to talk to her?”
“Listen, pencil-neck,” said Junior. “You call on that little walkie you got strapped on your belt and get us in there or get her out here. Tell whoever’s on that other end that Boo and Junior need to talk to her.”
He narrowed his eyes at us suspiciously, then turned his back to us and covered the mouthpiece so we couldn’t hear what he was saying.
A voice on the other end squawked, “I’ll be right there.”
Skinny smiled smugly. “He’ll be right here,” he said.
Who the hell was “he”?
That question was answered quickly as I spotted a shock of white hair moving a good six inches above the tallest person in the room. “Boo Malone! Well, I’ll be goddamned.”
“Mitch.” I extended my hand to him, a smile stretching across my face at seeing the old-timer. Mitch Young took my hand in his and shook it warmly, then pulled me into a hug.
“Junior!” Mitch gave him the same shake-hug. “Great to see you boys. Christ, you both look like shit.”
“And you look old.”
“Yeah, well. That’s the goddamn passage of time for you.” Mitch twirled the frayed toothpick between his teeth. He’d been chewing the same toothpicks for ten years, trying to give up his beloved menthols.
Skinny hooked his thumbs into his belt. “You know these guys, Mitch?”
Mitch sighed. “Walter, why don’t you go check the restrooms and make sure that nobody’s smoking a reefer.”
Gotta love a guy who still calls it reefer.
After Walter skulked off, Mitch looked at us sheepishly. “Goddamn nephew. Hard to believe we share biological stock, huh?”
“Hey, brudda,” Junior said. “Sometimes those apples drop off the family tree, then roll a long way down a big friggin’ hill.”
“True that.” Mitch was a local legend in the Boston security business, with a reputation that bordered on mythological. One of my personal favorites was the story of him denying Elvis Costello entrance into The Rat in ’79, telling him, “I don’t care if you’re Abbott and Costello, you don’t get in without an ID.” True story. Or true legend. Either way.
“Nice to see some real security on this gig. The girls look like they can rile a crowd up.”
Mitch laughed, a deep rumble that started in his belly and put a smile on the face of everyone in earshot. “You have no idea.”
“You working anywhere else?”
Mitch’s ears went red. “Actually, the rink is my gig.”
I swallowed my embarrassment for him. Mitch Young being reduced to roller rink security was like Bruce Lee being forced to teach a Zumba class.
“Hey,” I said, clapping a hand on his still-solid shoulder. “A gig is a gig is a gig, right?”
“Damn right,” he said, his attempt to salvage some dignity both obvious and painful to watch. “Old bouncers don’t retire, they just work at goddamn roller rinks. So, Walter said you needed to speak to Rhoda?”
“Yeah.”
Mitch opened the locker door a crack and yelled in, “Ladies?”
“Hiiiii, Mitch,” came a sweetly unison reply, like a class of second-graders addressing the principal.
“You all decent? We got visitors for Rhoda.”
“Whenever you’re around, my thoughts are never decent, Mitch,” a husky voice that rang of a young Kathleen Turner called out. The girls all whooped, and Mitch went three shades redder. I wondered if he was conscious of the fact that he was rubbing his wedding ring with the thumb on the same hand.
The door opened and Ginny poked her head out. “Hey, guys. I didn’t see him, did you?” She was dabbing at her sweaty cleavage with a towel. I took a quick look over at Junior to make sure he hadn’t fainted.
“Nope.”
Mitch looked at us. “Who are you looking for?”
“Guy named Byron. He’s been harassing Ginny—sorry, Rhoda, and her roommate. We’re actually kinda on the clock.”
“Well, goddamn, you point him out when you see him and I’ll toss his ass in the dumpster.”
The dumpster toss was one of my favorites as well. Another chapter in the legendary Book of Mitch was that he was the first one to make it a practice at The Cellar. Today, a dumpster toss was almost a rite of passage at the club. “We’re gonna go trade spots with G.G. Would you mind making sure she gets to her car unmolested?”
“I’d consider it an honor.”
“Thanks, my man. We gotta boogie.” Junior and I turned to go.
Behind us, I heard Ginny say, “Thank you, Mitch.”
Then the chorus from within. “Thaaaank you, Mitch.”
The last thing I heard, almost sub-audibly, was Mitch. “Till death do I part...”
***
As we walked out of the rink, Mi
tch’s words echoed in my ears and added to the sourness in my stomach that started with the hangover.
Old bouncers don’t retire.
I couldn’t help but feel I’d gotten a peek into my own future and I didn’t like the look of it. Junior’s mouth was also turned down at the corners. “That ain’t right.”
“I hear ya.”
“Not one goddamn tickle fight.”
Same planet. Different worlds.
Chapter Eight
“Hold up here,” I said to Junior as we approached Ginny’s street in Jamaica Plain.
“Why?”
I pointed at a car sitting by itself, plumes of exhaust condensing in the frigidity. “There.”
“Maybe somebody’s warming their car up.”
“Maybe. Let’s wait a minute and see if he pulls out.” I never would have been suspicious if it hadn’t been so goddamn cold out. If it was Byron, he’d have had to keep the engine running or freeze to death.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Junior said, squinting.
“I was thinking, what if Byron’s watching the house? Maybe he saw G.G. going in. If we go in the back and G.G. goes out the front, we can lure him in.”
“Why don’t we just bum rush the car? Yank him out and throw a boot party.”
My teeth chattered in the chill of Miss Kitty’s interior. I found myself envious of Byron’s car—if it was, in fact, Byron’s car. “One, we don’t know it’s him in there.”
Junior shrugged and rolled his neck, visibly jonesing to engage Byron for a second round. “Dragging him out the window is one way of finding out.”
“Two, if we beat his ass on the street, he can call the cops on us and file for assault. And he’d be right. If we catch him in Ginny’s…well, we got him dead bang. If he wants to call the cops, he’d be confessing to breaking and entering too.”
“Fucking pussy.” In our world, you never called the cops on somebody. Ever. If you could dole out the lumps, you better be able to take them too. Our whole scene was one big fight club. If anyone got his ass kicked and went to the cops, he’d never live it down.
“I’m just saying, is all. We don’t know how Byron rolls. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to get locked up over this jag-off.”
“I was calling you a pussy, not Byron.”
“Fair enough. Allow me then to finish up with point three.”
“Shoot.”
“Let’s assume that it is Byron in there, okay?”
“Okay.”
“He’s in an idling car.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You and me, we’re not exactly cat burglars. What if he sees us and jumps the car into gear? Let’s assume he realizes we’re not creeping up on him to wish him a happy Kwanzaa.”
Junior frowned. “Are you anywhere near a point?”
“Say he goes with flight instead of fight. If I recall events correctly, you didn’t do so well the last time you played chicken with one of Detroit’s finest automotive products.”
“Let’s go in the back.”
Unfortunately, “the back” was connected in the rear by somebody’s yard and an eight-foot-high picket fence. The good news was nobody would be able to see us from either street.
Stealth wasn’t exactly our forte, so we went with casual. We opened the gate to the backyard and walked in like we belonged.
“Who’s going over first?” Both of us needed assistance to get over the wall, but I figured whoever did it first would be able to manage it with the most dignity intact.
“Like we always do?” Junior placed his fist into his open palm, ready for yet another bout in our lifelong game of rock-paper-scissors. “On three?”
“On three,” I said.
“One…two…HOLY FUCKBALLS!”
Furious barking erupted from the back door of the house. Big barking. We both jumped in tandem and got ready to bolt. I looked at the rear of the house for any sign of a doggy door. From the sound of the barks, the animal would need a garage door to fit through.
Junior was crouched in a ready position. “Jesus, I almost pissed my Fruit of the Looms.”
“Let’s go again and get the hell inside.” My skin was flushed from the adrenaline rush, but my lip stubble was starting to develop icicles.
“Onetwothree—shoot!”
Paper.
Junior threw rock.
“Shit.” Junior locked his fingers together and bent low at the knees. The snarling dog was loud, but I could still hear Junior mumble something about a “tubby bastard” as he hoisted me up.
My first leg was over, then found purchase on a chain-link fence that rimmed the pickets on Ginny’s side. Hell, it might not be that tough after—
Then the back door opened. A miniature old lady in matching blue slippers, robe, and hair stood to the side to let the dog by. “Awright, Pickles. Cawm down.”
Pickles?
Pickles was a Rottweiler that looked to be pushing Junior’s weight. Except he was fast. Pickles shot across the small yard like a furry Armageddon. The old lady shut the door behind herself, oblivious to both our presence and the trauma that Pickles was about to inflict on us.
Junior screamed. “Hey, HEY, HAAAYYYY! Get me up! Get me up!”
I grabbed the shoulders of his pea coat and heaved myself backward, trying to leverage his weight. Precariously, my toes clung to the top bar of the fence. Junior made it most of the way over before he stopped.
Junior’s face was a mask of fear as he howled. “Pickles got me! Pickles got me!”
With one last lurch, I threw my weight backward. Pickles’ snout peeked up over the fence, clamped to Junior’s foot, then separated. I quickly prayed that the separation didn’t include Junior’s foot and ankle.
We landed in a tangle on Ginny’s side of the fence. Junior’s thick mass drove right into my sternum, knocking the wind out of me. As I lay wheezing, Junior scrambled off, clutching his foot. Saints be praised, he still had a foot to clutch, but his sneaker was gone.
G.G. came busting out Ginny’s back door with a tire iron in his hands. He lowered his arm when he recognized us. “What the hell is wrong with you two?”
I was still struggling to get air into my compressed lungs, but managed to wheeze, “We’re…being…stealthy. Pickles…” I pointed back to the gap between the fence slats where Pickled gnashed his jaws, trying to work his way through to us.
“Five,” Junior said, counting the toes on his right foot for the second time as he hopped into the back door and into Ginny’s kitchen.
“You’re lucky you got a foot to count it on,” said G.G., looking into the neighbor’s yard from his perch on the back steps. “Pickles don’t look like he’s playing.”
From the kitchen window, I could see Pickles making a day of it with Junior’s sneaker. Pickles tore the nylon tongue clean off and swallowed it. I swallowed too. Rock-paper-scissors had saved me. I was wearing work boots, which might not have popped off my foot so easily. If I hadn’t gone over the fence first, Pickles would be making the same meal of my leg below the knee.
“Goddamn eighty-dollar pair of Reeboks,” Junior grumbled. He flung his soaking wet sock into the garbage can. “Now I gotta hop around in this?” Junior waved his hand in the general direction of the accumulated world.
“Am I good to go?” G.G. asked. “Been listening to the goddamn game on the radio like a peasant.”
“Yeah, but when you do, just walk out like you were alone. We think Byron’s casing the joint and we don’t want him to know we’re here. Pretend to lock the door.”
“Got ya. Later, Boo.”
“Later.”
“See ya, Hopalong.” The big man snorfled a little at his own joke.
“Bite me,” Junior grumbled.
“Careful what you wish for,” I said.
“Oh, hyuk-hyuk-hyuk. You two are a riot.”
Junior and I sat in the living room. Ginny and Dana may not have had cable, but they did have a huge selection of DVDs.
“Holy Christ,” Junior said as he flipped through the titles. “Goddamn broads.”
“Whatcha got?”
“Pretty Woman. Les Misérables . . .” Pronounced Less Miserables, natch. “Sweet Mother of Mercy…”
“Please tell me they have something with Batman.”
“Brokeback fuckin’ Mountain.”
I shrugged. “Won best director.”
Junior gave me a look that could have cracked granite. “Don’t even kid.”
“Got the Joker in it. Kind of…”
Then something thumped off the door. Hard. Junior ran at the door before I could even stand from the chair. He yanked the door open onto a very surprised Byron as I rounded the hallway bend. Byron froze in the spot he was in, crowbar in the jamb of the doorway that was now wide open, to his surprise.
“Hiya, Byron.” Junior drilled him right in the mouth with a straight right.
Byron tumbled backward down the porch steps, the crowbar falling soundlessly onto a snow drift.
Junior was on top of him before he could even put his hands up.
I calmly followed and picked up the crowbar out and away from Byron’s reach. This dance was all Junior’s.
Kneeling on his chest, Junior laid shot after shot into Byron’s mug. All the while yelling, “How’s your face? How’s your face?” between blows, with the odd “cocksucker” and “bitch” thrown in to add flavoring.
“That’s enough, Junior.”
“How’s your face, faggot?”
“Junior!”
Junior raised his hand up once more, then lowered it. Thankfully for Byron, it wasn’t lowered into his puss again. Instead, Junior pulled out thick plastic ties from his back pocket.
Byron was nearly unconscious and bleeding freely from his busted mouth, but alive. I helped Junior turn him over and we fastened his hands behind him. It was over so fast, it was nearly unsatisfying. We each grabbed a shoulder on his jacket and dragged him back inside Ginny’s before any neighbors came walking by.
We dropped Byron on the floor of the hallway. Junior sat on the floor and groaned as he massaged the blood back into his bare foot, which had turned light blue with purply splotches.
“You okay?” I asked.
Rough Trade Page 7
