Going Nowhere

by Lena North

  One after the other, everyone started laughing until the room was so filled with hilarity my father’s words were mostly heard by me.

  “Only you, Kitty,” he sighed.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” I protested.

  “It never is, so why are you always in the middle of every shitstorm?”

  “My genes?”

  “Exactly!” Grandpa Hunter exclaimed. “Fantastic genes. Everyone knows that.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Az goes biker

  I choked on thin air when the Az walked into Tiaso’s. To see my stepfather in my place of work was surprising on so many levels but the shortage of air passing into my lungs was mostly due to his wardrobe choices. He wore what everyone else was wearing in a biker bar, which was jeans, boots and a tee.

  His boots were cowboy ones, and he'd forgotten to remove the price tag, so it dangled happily next to his left foot with every step, announcing that he'd bought them at fifty percent off. The jeans were a blue so dark I was pretty sure some of it would stain his underwear unless he was going commando, a thought that made me wince. I had for obvious reasons no desire to get any kind of mental image of the Az's balls, blue or not. His tee was pistachio green, and it had a ridiculous picture of a boy-band on it. I was pretty sure it belonged to one of my sisters because of the boy-band but also the cut. It was decidedly female which meant it formed unflattering creases around his non-existent bosom.

  “What in the everloving fudge?” I murmured.

  “Know him?” Silenus asked.

  “Stepmoron. Stepasshole. Stepfather. Whatever.”

  Silenus started laughing in a way that almost made half the patrons fall off their chairs. One of the bears, a real one and not a gnome, accidentally filled his nostrils with beer and the snorting which ensued was not attractive.

  The Az stumbled, and his eyes narrowed when he saw me. I smiled blandly, hopefully presenting him with the picture of perfect innocence. Then he strutted over to sit down next to the president of the Weesels MC, who were weasels, amazingly skilled at finding things, but alas; not very good at spelling.

  “What can I get you?” I asked.

  “A martini,” the Az said. “Lightly shaken and then stirred, two olives and a bowl of peanuts.”

  “Jaeger,” the biker president, Wee, grunted.

  Yes. The thin, beady-eyed man was indeed Wee-the-weasel. His parents must either have figured it was a name he’d manage to spell, or they'd had a really warped sense of humor.

  I handed Wee his shot and put a glass of beer in front of Az. His brows went up, and I shrugged.

  “Biker-martini,” I said, plopped a handful of olives into the glass, and moved down the bar to take an order from three dwarves, which would be a challenge as usual.

  Silenus held his hand up as I passed him, likely hoping that I’d high-five him, which I didn’t. I would have to crawl up and lean over the bar to hear what the dwarves ordered, and had begged Silenus to build a small stair for the shorter patrons such as dwarves, gnomes, brownies and such. He'd refused with the argument that me climbing like that while wearing a giant's hankie was more appreciated by his customers than the girls dancing at the pole on Saturdays.

  The Az actually drank the beer, and when he was halfway through it, I walked back to wipe off the counter top in their vicinity. They were making a deal where the Weesels MC would hopefully find the missing amulet.

  “I’d pay a million bucks to get that amulet back,” Az sighed.

  “I’ll do it,” I blurted out, surprising even myself with those words.

  The Az stared at me, Wee grinned at me, and I heard friggin’ Silenus giggle.

  “You couldn’t find an elephant even if you had it in front of you,” Az declared decisively.

  “But you’d give me a million bucks if I find the amulet?” I insisted.

  “Unequivocally. Now go away,” Az said and waved his hand dismissively in front of his face.

  I murmured a quiet spell, and his waving hand slapped him on both his cheeks. I kept my innocent, bland face firmly in place and put a bowl of peanuts mixed with pickled onions and lemon slices in front of my stepfather.

  “Kitty!”

  I moved toward the old goof who’d called out and leaned in.

  “Beer?”

  “I heard you found Archangel Gabriel’s manbag,” he said, nodding which I assumed he wanted a beer, so I poured him one. “The damndest thing happened. I lost my wedding ring, and the missus has threatened to cut off my genitals if I don’t find it again. I’ll give you a hundred if you can locate it.”

  Yikes. The wife didn’t have much tolerance for mistakes, apparently.

  “Your genitals are worth a hundred?” I asked.

  “I meant ten hundred,” he muttered.

  Huh.

  The man who had been jogging next to me in Cathedral Park and kindly pointed me to Pookie’s ghoulish home appeared next to the goof, and said happily, “He means a thousand.”

  I’d known that. Mostly.

  “Okay,” I said, not willing to get into my math-skill-deficiencies. “When did you wear it the last time?”

  The goof looked uncomfortable and squirmed in a way which made the stool he was perched upon squeak alarmingly. I wondered how badly he would hurt himself if it shattered underneath him and if perhaps Silenus should consider upgrading his decor. Furniture made from reinforced steel seemed more appropriate, considering his clientele.

  “I took it off in the parking lot outside a place where it didn’t seem suitable to wear. Put it in my pocket.” He paused, and I kept watching him. “Uh, it was outside this club called Pussy-Pussy-Pussy.”

  Aha. I could see why the wife would object in such a violent way to the ring being lost.

  “I was only there to pick up a pal.”

  “Sure,” I said, which seemed like an appropriate response to his blatant lie.

  “We’ll do it!” the jogging man said excitedly.

  I turned and was about to protest when the goof’s phone rang, so he tossed some bills on the bar and he walked away with a grin, calling out to us over his shoulder.

  “Excellent, let me know when you’ve found it!”

  The old man was so distracted by calling out to us and accepting the phone call that he almost walked straight into Joel and Elsa who apparently had decided to keep me company that evening. As expected, three biker-dudes got up and began moving chairs and people to clear the path for Elsa through a less than half full bar. She smiled sweetly, and one of them fainted. Joel stepped over the fat man and ushered Elsa forward. One of the biker-babes rubbed up against him, and her husband tried to hit Joel in the face, which he avoided with ease nimble enough to make it clear he was used to angry biker-husbands swiping at him.

  I ignored the mayhem my friends caused and stared at the regular in front of me.

  “We’ll do it?” I drawled out.

  “It’s easy. The goof dropped it somewhere at that place, so we go there, find it, and collect the pastry.”

  My annoyance was swiftly replaced by confusion.

  “Pastry?”

  “He means the cake,” Joel said as he sat down. “Cash,” he clarified as if I was stupid.

  I kept ignoring him.

  “You,” I said and pointed at the man, who reared back a little. “What’s your name?”

  He suddenly grinned happily again, and said chirpily, “I can call you Betty.”

  There was suddenly a chorus of low laughter on the other side of the bar, and I realized that his friends, the garden gnomes of the Bears MC, were with him. I really needed Silenus to build a platform or something.

  “Huh,” was the only thing I could think of saying, but in case he’d forgotten, I added slowly, “Except my name is Kitty.”

  “A man walks down the street, he says why am I soft in the middle?”

  I blinked. The man was singing that question, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to answer him. Since I didn’t think he
wanted to know that too many carbs were probably the answer, I blinked again and ignored the laughter from beneath the bar.

  “Paul Simon?” the man said with a smile.

  Yeah, I knew who Paul Simon was. Everyone did which was partly because the man was one of the most gifted musicians of our times. Mostly it was because there was a persistent rumor that he was a warlock, of the Wicca variety. It had never been confirmed, but a man who released an album called ‘Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme’ was not a regular, as far as I was concerned.

  I still didn’t get it.

  The man kept singing, and when he got to the chorus, a surprisingly loud choir of voices from around the bar chimed in.

  “… I can call you Betty, and Betty when you call me, you can call me Al.”

  You’d think someone who’d grown up in a virtual tsunami of dad-jokes should have gotten that one a lot sooner. The chuckles from around the bar told me that it wasn’t the first time he’d pulled that stunt, but since it actually was mildly amusing, and since he was so obviously pleased with himself, I couldn’t find it in me to get angry.

  “You could have just told me,” I sighed. “Al.”

  “I’ll be your wingman in the quest for the lost wedding ring.”

  I ignored the slightly weird choice of word and shook my head slowly, aiming a glare at Joel who was suddenly laughing loudly.

  “Co-pilot?”

  Now Elsa was laughing too, but she did it whilst nodding vigorously.

  “Assistant?” he tried. “Kitty, please. I don’t mind my job. It’s an okay job, but I install goddamned central vacuum systems. There’s no going around the fact that no sucking in the world will ever be exciting.”

  “I disagree.” Grandpa Hunter pushed Joel to the side, sat down on the stool and grinned at the man. “I’ve found that suck –”

  “Eek!” I squealed and pointed to myself with both hands. “Innocent granddaughter here.”

  “Guess I gotta have a talk with Jackson again,” Gramps muttered, which I ignored.

  “Assistant,” Al repeated, also ignoring my lecherous grandfather. “I’ll do all the grunt work. Please, Kitty, I need a little excitement in my life.”

  He’d widened his eyes and tilted his head to the side.

  Well, hell. He looked just like a dog, and not like the Pookie kind of dog. He looked like a goddamned golden retriever.

  “Al,” I said reluctantly. “You started this mess, so okay. You just got yourself a highly temporary second job.”

  “Yes!” he said in a voice that was a little too much a squeal for my taste.

  What the hell had I just gotten myself into?

  “The first task for you is to find out where that place is located,” I declared.

  “Which place?” Gramps asked.

  “Some seedy place where the old goof lost his ring. It’s called Pussy-puss –”

  “Corner of Warburton and Seventh,” Gramps cut me off calmly.

  “How –” I stopped myself because asking a question you seriously didn’t want to know the answer to was just plain stupid. “Never mind,” I mumbled.

  That didn’t stop Grandpa Hunter.

  “Told you about that already. Howl, Yowl and I went there to…” he paused and wiggled his bushy brows. “Check things out.”

  “Howl and Yowl?” I asked, pretty sure I knew who he was talking about but too bewildered to stop myself.

  “Bo and Andy,” he said.

  The speedo clad, crotch-enhancing old farts who had been with him on my parents’ porch had apparently been given new nick-names. Grandpa didn’t hesitate to confirm this too.

  “Figured we’d need stage names.”

  “Stage names?” Joel asked.

  I frowned at him and bugged my eyes out in a way I hoped would communicate that he was in no way helping.

  “For when we’re…” Grandpa made a pause, and there was another ridiculous brow-wiggle, this time aimed at Joel. “Performing.”

  I closed my eyes and wondered if I could find another family somewhere. Preferably in the far east, or perhaps in the Amazon jungle. Swimming with piranhas seemed infinitely preferable to hearing about my grandfather’s performances.

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Al said, and my eyes flew wide open.

  He smiled sweetly, and innocently, at Gramps.

  “Don’t ask,” I said but it came out as a wheezy cough, and he either didn’t hear or else ignored my advice.

  “What’s your stage name?” he asked.

  Grandpa Hunter beamed at Al, the patrons of Tiaso’s, and what possibly was the entire universe as he stretched his arms out and straightened his back.

  “The furminator,” he declared proudly.

  Oh my God.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I love lesbians

  Rafael held out a single, deep red rose, and I moved to let him walk inside. Dad wheezed out something which sounded like a chuckle from his position leaning into the fridge, searching for God knew what, and I watched in confused silence as Rafael said something to my brothers which made them grin at him in a way that was surprisingly unstupid. Rafael winked at Janie and handed her a small box.

  “Honey-fudge,” he murmured. “Thought you might –”

  “If I leave Biff, will you marry me?” Janie blurted out, and Dad straightened so quickly I worried he’d give himself a hernia.

  “Sure,” Rafael chuckled, and Janie grinned at him. “Are you ready Kitty?”

  I was indeed ready, or as ready as I’d ever be for my first date with Rafael. Why I’d agreed to this weird double dating, of sorts, I had no clue, but I had, and we were having dinner. Grandma Hazel would join us to act as chaperone, something Rafael had accepted without objections.

  Neither Rafael nor Grandma was aware of the portion of the evening we would spend at Pussy-Pussy-Pussy, mostly because I hadn’t told them about it. Time was running out, though, so we had to visit the place, and it had to be that very night.

  I’d sent my new and very eager assistant to check the place out, and Al had returned to tell me that it was indeed where Grandpa Hunter had said it was, it was indeed a bordello, and he was indeed not entering the place.

  “Love my woman. Pretty sure she loves me. Want to keep a status quo on that and crawling around on the floor of a bordello might make things awkward,” he said and blushed.

  I hadn’t known a man’s ears could get that red. The Easter bunny’s ears were the closest I’d seen, but they were a more pinkish hue.

  “Someone has to go,” Elsa piped in and watched me with a small grin.

  “Tonight,” Joel chimed in and moved his hand away from his phone. “Their schedule says the cleaning crew comes in tomorrow morning.”

  “You can go,” I said to Joel.

  “I have a date.”

  “I have a date too,” I snapped. “I can’t take Rafael to –”

  Then I cut myself off and grinned.

  Rafael would be the perfect companion to that place. There would be lots of women there and if they objected to us searching the place he could just order them to let me.

  “Exactly,” Elsa said. “Just pop in on your way to the restaurant. The ring is probably on the floor somewhere, or in a corner. Grab it and get out. Bada-bing.”

  I was pretty sure the bada-bing-factor would be more or less nonexistent, but since I didn’t have a better plan, I nodded and said we’d go.

  And now I was sitting in the passenger seat next to Rafael, glancing at my grandmother and trying to come up with a good way to share that we would go where we would go.

  When I’d cleared my throat the third time, Grandma Hazel murmured something.

  “We have to stop at a bordello on our way to the restaurant,” I blurted out.

  Damned witchy grandmother and her truth saying spells.

  The car swayed slightly, and Rafael burst out laughing.

  “Okay,” he said. “You got a particular one in mind, or do I get to choose?
”

  I gave him the address, and he was still chuckling when we parked outside a two-story house painted in a dark red with pink trims. Above the door was a neon sign that blinked out the word pussy in bursts of three.

  “Ooh,” Grandma squealed. “I’ve never been to a place like this. I might learn something.”

  Both Rafael and I turned slowly to look at her.

  “Hazel,” Rafael said quietly. “You might want to stay in the car.”

  “In your dreams, buster,” Grandma chirped and got out.

  We did too, and the three of us trooped into the place.

  It looked like a bar, except it was quite early in the evening still, so there were only scantily clad women lounging around. When they caught sight of Rafael, they surged forward in a tidal wave of hookery desire to make their living off someone looking like him, which I admittedly could understand.

  “Looks like you could take your pick,” Grandma Hazel said with a smirk.

  “Guess so,” Rafael murmured. “Step back, ladies,” he added, and the gathering in front of us all took one step backward.

  All except one girl.

  “Step back,” Rafael repeated.

  The group did what he ordered them, except for the girl who didn’t move.

  “See!” I exclaimed. “I’m not the only one who won’t follow your orders.”

  “Huh,” Rafael grunted, walked up to face the girl and murmured, “You’ll walk back to the bar.”

  She started laughing which showed off a pair of pretty impressive incisors. Or, yeah. They were fangs because she was a vampire.

  “Won’t work, angel,” she whispered. “I’m a lesbian.”

  At first, her words didn’t register as more than a weird way of announcing her sexual preferences, but then the force of what she’d said hit me.

  “I am not in any way a lesbian,” I barked out before either Rafael or Grandma could draw the conclusion that I was.

  “Do you have a problem with lesbians?” the girl asked.

  The happy look on her face had been replaced by one that was scary in a big way because she was a vampire, but she was also kind of butch, and the muscles on her arms were quite impressive.

  “No,” I squeaked. “I love lesbians.”