Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

He flushed, big hands gripping the bar so tight that his skin mottled. I couldn’t be sure over the music, but I thought the polished wood gave a little whine of protest as if he was going to break off a piece of it. God, he was strong for a human.

  “You fucking bitch.” The bartender’s voice was low with the dump of testosterone from his anger.

  It was almost too easy to piss him off. He was livid, and I could feel his anger around him like an aura. Maybe the rage filled his aura like it was a balloon, and all I had to do was prick it and let out all that anger, and then I could feed on it. The moment I thought that, I knew I needed real food. How long had it been since breakfast? Shit.

  “Now she’s busting your balls,” Newman said.

  “What?” The bartender looked at Newman as if he couldn’t follow the conversation.

  “Marshal Blake told you you’d know when she was really busting your balls. Well, she is. See the difference?”

  “Get the fuck out of here, both of you.”

  “Or what, you’ll call the cops?” I asked. I actually leaned in toward the bar, but I was too short to lean over it. He was out of my physical reach, which was good, because his anger felt warm and good.

  “If you really hate supernaturals, help us hunt this one down,” Newman said.

  “Are you saying there’s a monster on the loose in our town?” His anger started seeping away to be replaced with fear. He was such a big, tough guy, I hadn’t expected him to scare so easily.

  As the anger faded and the fear grew, I fought not to pout. I couldn’t eat fear. Fuck, this was a potential witness, not prey. I looked at him, so big and tough and scared, and wondered if that was why he hated preternatural citizens, because they were all stronger than he could ever be. No amount of weight lifting or gym work would give him what lycanthropy or vampirism could.

  “No, nothing like that,” Newman said. “We just need some information to confirm a few things so we can go back and execute this one.”

  “Help us out, and there’ll be one less monster in the world,” I said.

  “Promise?” the bartender almost whispered, and for a moment, I wondered if he had a real reason to hate the monsters. I’d liked it better when I could just hate the bartender. I didn’t want to think about what bad thing had happened to put such fear into him. Disliking him for being a prejudiced asshole had been so much more fun.

  “Promise,” Newman said.

  “Who you looking for?” the bartender asked, and there was no fight left in him.

  “She dances under the name Giselle.”

  “She’s one of our headliners. She doesn’t work days.”

  “Give us her name and address, and we’ll go to her,” Newman said.

  The bartender shook his head. “I can’t give out the girls’ real names and addresses. I’m the head of security. I’d fire anyone else that did it. I can’t break my own rule.”

  “Not even for the police?” I asked.

  We tried to persuade him, but he stood firm. He felt responsible for the safety of the dancers at his club. I couldn’t help admiring his determination to protect them, but that didn’t change the fact that he was incredibly bigoted and sexist. His very desire to protect the women who worked at the club could even have been an outgrowth of sexism: Women are physically weaker than men, so men must protect them. I couldn’t argue the fact that most men could beat most women on upper-body strength. The problem was that some men drew the conclusion that lesser body strength meant lesser in all things. That was what pissed me off, and I’d met a lot of men who couldn’t seem to want to protect women without feeling they were lesser beings. It was one of the reasons I didn’t let most men step between me and a problem. I was not lesser, just smaller. I was not less just because you could outlift me in the weight room. We all had our strengths and weaknesses. Some people could do the math for astrophysics; other people could drive a stick shift—no one person could do it all.

  We settled for Barry the bartender calling the dancer and persuading her to come down to the club to talk to us. “How do we know she’ll show up?” I asked.

  “I take good care of the girls. They trust me. She’ll come. I can’t promise she’ll give you the answers you’re looking for, but she’ll show up. Find a table and order something to eat. She’ll be here.” He seemed so certain of himself that I let it go.

  Newman and I took the menus and walked deeper into the dark interior of the club. The narrow entrance with the bar widened out until you could see the room was a lot bigger than it had looked from the doorway. We found a table far away from the stage. I had no inclination to watch the woman on the stage. I had my own breasts; I didn’t need to look at hers. Yes, I dated a few women, but that did not mean I wanted to see them all naked. The same went for men: Just because you like the gender doesn’t mean you want to see them all. It’s not Pokémon.

  I sat so that Newman could watch if he wanted to, but he didn’t seem interested either. He concentrated on his menu like it was important. I wondered if he was uncomfortable. I wasn’t exactly uncomfortable, but I wasn’t comfortable either. It just felt awkward, like I wanted to go up onstage and tell the dancer to clap to the beat of the music until she found it. The few men drinking near the stage seemed not to notice her lack of rhythm, which bothered me, too.

  “I know what I’m ordering. How about you?” I asked.

  “I thought I’d get coffee. Seemed like the safest thing to get here.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “It’s a strip club. They aren’t known for their cuisine.”

  If Edward or even Olaf had been there, I’d have explained that I’d thought about eating the bartender, so I really needed to eat food. Since I couldn’t say that to Newman, I just said I was hungry, which was true. It was bar food, which ran high to fried food, but I didn’t have to sweat my cholesterol, so that was fine. I liked fried food.

  I got a burger, fries, and a Coke. Newman chose chicken fingers with fries, water, and a Coke. I added water to my order, and Newman took both the menus and our orders to tell Barry the bartender. Newman and I had both decided that I didn’t need to interact with Barry any more than necessary.

  A blond woman wearing a very short black dress started walking through the room. Her hair was long, waving artfully over one shoulder so that it looked casual. I’d have had to touch the hair to know if it just lay that way or if hair-care product held it in place. She touched a shoulder here, a cheek there at some of the other tables. She stayed away from the stage area, where the other dancer was still doing her awkward wiggle. It would have been considered rude if she tried to poach one of the customers near the stage while someone else was dancing, but the tables where people were eating or ignoring the stage were fair game.

  As the blonde got closer, I could see that she was wearing black satin stilettos. The black dress was satin and shiny, moving around her body as she walked until I was sure that there was no bra under the dress, just small, tight breasts. That hint of breast underneath the satin was so much more attractive than the nearly naked woman onstage. Maybe it was the confidence that the blonde had as she moved through the room or the grace of her walk in the heels, but whatever it was, she blew the woman onstage out of the water—at least for me. I dated mostly men, but every once in a while a woman would hit my radar, and this one did.

  I looked for Newman, but he was still hidden around the corner, giving our order to the bartender. How long could that take? The blonde was laughing with her head back as if whatever the three men at the table had said was the funniest thing. They probably hadn’t been that amusing at all, and no one laughed like that for real. It was as if she practiced it in a mirror the way comedians practice facial expressions for their standup, but whatever the blonde had been practicing in the mirror was elegant, sexy, and— Where was Newman?

  I pushed away from the table so I could
get up to check on him, and the blonde was suddenly standing in front of me. I was staring at the black satin of her dress and had to look up to see her face. It made her seem tall, but I’d seen the heels; they added at least five inches of extra height, which made her only a little taller than me. She smiled down at me. Her gray eyes looked huge, with thick lashes framing them. She’d done her eyes up in black, gray, and silver. It looked almost Goth or emo or whatever they’re calling it these days. It should have looked bad with the yellow of her hair, but it didn’t. Neither did the silver lipstick, or maybe it was just shiny lip gloss with little sparkles in it. Whatever it was, it matched everything else she was wearing just fine.

  I realized I’d been staring at her, so I stopped and looked at the floor and then almost desperately in the direction that Newman had gone. You’d have thought after all this time I’d be less awkward around strippers, but being attracted to women was still new to me, and it threw me back to the old days when I was awkward around men. It was like starting over with a new gender was starting over completely. Or maybe it was just not having any of the men in my life with me that made me unsure of myself. I hadn’t had to meet new people on my own in a few years, and apparently on my own, I was just as awkward as I used to be. Great.

  “Hi, beautiful,” the blonde said in a voice as silky as her dress.

  Something about the tone reminded me of Jean-Claude back at the beginning when I’d been more a mark than a romantic possibility. The voice and the word choice were as fake as a three-dollar bill. I might be awkward with women on my own, but I was not a mark. My head came up, and whatever she saw in my eyes wilted the smile on her face.

  “I didn’t mean to make you angry,” she said in a voice that was almost normal. She leaned her ass against the table, which made the bottom of the dress rise until it became doubtful if there was anything under it except for her. “Most women like to be told they’re beautiful. I know I do.”

  “You’re beautiful, sexy, and more attractive dressed than the dancer onstage is nude. Now go find someone else to flirt with.”

  “Why should I flirt with someone else when you say the nicest things?” The blonde was almost purring as she leaned her upper body toward me. She was giving me a chance to look down the front of the dress. I kept looking at her face.

  I brought my badge up until it was in front of her big gray eyes. They widened a little bit, but then the smile was back to the sexy practiced one. “We get a lot of cops in here, but you’re my first female detective.”

  “I’m not a detective,” I said, pushing my chair farther back so I could stand up. I was going to hunt Newman down.

  The blonde sat down on my lap, taking the chair push as invitation. Rookie mistake on my part. I knew better. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave a little wiggle in my lap, which made the dress slide up again.

  “You’d better be wearing at least a thong under that dress, because I do not know you well enough to have your body fluids smeared all over my pants.” My eyes were back to looking angry, and I didn’t apologize for it.

  “You haven’t got me that wet . . . yet,” the blonde said, giving me the full sexy look out of her big eyes. It might have worked, except I wasn’t kidding about not wanting her body fluids on me. The thought just creeped me, no matter how attractive she might be.

  I saw Newman coming back with our drinks. “Get off my lap now.”

  “I saw how you looked at me across the room.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You, darling,” she said, leaning in to try to kiss the side of my neck.

  I put my hands on her upper arms to hold her back. “Liar. I’m working, and you’re working, so you need to find another mark.”

  “Just because we’re on the job doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.”

  It was the phrasing that got me, on the job. It was a cop phrase. Made me wonder how many of the local police frequented the club. “Some of the local cops regulars for you?”

  “If you want information, you’ve got to play nicer than this with me.”

  “This is me playing nice.”

  “Are you a tough girl?” she asked.

  That made me smile. “You have no idea.”

  Something uncertain flickered through the blonde’s eyes, and then she was back to being sexy and flirtatious. If she was as good at her job as I thought she was, she’d be able to flirt even if she was bored out of her mind. People think that the strippers’ job is to dance onstage and take off their clothes, but that’s not really it. Their job is to get money from customers whether they’re onstage or off-. Some dancers enjoy the performance or are true exhibitionists, but not as many as you’d think. They dance for a lot of reasons, but the main one is to earn money to put themselves through college, to support their families, to support themselves. It’s a job, and if a dancer is sitting in your lap, she wants something, usually money but not always.

  Newman hesitated with the drinks as if he wasn’t sure I wanted him at the table. I let go of the blonde’s arms and waved him over. I did not want to be alone with her any more than I had to be. If I was going to be awkward with someone this smooth, I needed backup.

  The blonde had taken her chance to sit more firmly in my lap and put her arms around my neck. She gave a little wiggle. “If you were a man, I’d ask if that was a knife in your pants or you were happy to see me.”

  “I’m not happy to see you,” I said, smiling.

  Again, her eyes were uncertain, but she snuggled closer to me, working around all the weapons just fine. I was so not her first police officer, but then, she’d admitted that already.

  Newman set the drinks on the table and smiled as the two of us looked up at him. “Marshal Blake, introduce me to your lovely companion.”

  “I would if I knew her name,” I said.

  “Phoenix,” she said.

  “After the town or the legendary bird?” I asked.

  “Both.” She smiled at me like I’d said a smart thing. I wondered how many of the customers didn’t know the origins of her stage name.

  “Would you like a drink, Phoenix?” Newman asked.

  “That would be lovely.”

  He asked what she wanted. She ordered something with ice in it. I wondered if she’d drink it for real or sip it and let the ice melt. Nursing her drink so she’d stay in control would win her points with me, not that she cared what I thought of her, not for real. As she wiggled her short skirt across my lap again, I really hoped we learned something worth this level of up close and personal with a strange woman.

  Newman went to put her drink order in, and she snuggled her face against the side of my neck. Her breath was very warm against my skin. She smelled of good perfume. Her hair was clean, thick, and smelled of shampoo. If there were hair-care products in her hair that were keeping it to one side, they had left her hair soft to the touch.

  Movement caught my eye at the table nearest us. It was four men who looked like they’d run in from work for a late lunch, or an early dinner. They were in ties and suits with the food in front of them, but they weren’t looking at their food. They were staring at us. Shit, I was dressed for hunting bad guys, with more weapons than most people owned, so I hadn’t felt like a woman in that strip club anyway, but the woman in my lap was dressed feminine enough to make up for me—or maybe the fact that I was dressed more like a man fed some lesbian fantasy? I tried not to think too hard about it.

  I glanced farther out into the club. Some of the other customers were looking at us, too. The ones around the stage were still watching the girl onstage, which was good, because it was considered bad form to distract from the stage act. The woman on the stage was moving even less than before, and she still seemed to have no idea there was a beat to the song.

  The blonde brushed her lips against the skin of my neck, not a kiss but still more reality than usual t
his early in the game. Maybe she was just flirting to try to get the customers more interested in her for the stage show later, or maybe she just liked girls better than boys.

  I laid my cheek against her hair, her face still buried against my neck. “What are you doing here this early, Phoenix? You’re too good for the early crowd.”

  That made her raise her face enough to look into my face. “Oh, Beautiful, you say the sweetest things, and you’re right. Another dancer couldn’t come in at the very last moment, naughty girl.”

  Her face was so close to mine. Her lips were parted just so, and her eyes held large like an anime character. It was so artificial, so practiced, that it didn’t move me nearly as much as the brush of her lips had. That had felt real, as if she’d forgotten the act for a second. Or maybe that was part of the act, too. With strippers, you never knew. One of the reasons I’d been able to resist Nathaniel and Jean-Claude for so long was that they both flirted professionally, so I hadn’t been able to tell that they were serious with me. Only years of living with them had finally helped me figure out the difference. The girl in my arms was a mystery still.

  “Were you working two nights ago?”

  Phoenix nodded, managing to get more hair-bobbing action into it than necessary. She had good hair, and she knew it, but then she knew exactly what her assets were and how to use them for work. I’d never have been that smooth, but that was okay. I had other skills.

  I was debating if I could get to my phone without kicking her off my lap when Newman came back with Phoenix’s drink. He set it down next to my water, which reminded me that I hadn’t drunk anything yet. I was just letting my ice melt, which was okay for the water but not for the Coke.

  Phoenix turned to flash Newman a very nice smile despite the less than happy look on his face. Her reaching for her drink let me do the same for mine. The Coke was already too watered down, so I reached for the water. It tasted cold and far better than it should have. It was another sign that I hadn’t been meeting my physical needs, which made all the metaphysical ones harder to control. Which explained why I’d leaned against Olaf in the interrogation room, which was the lycanthrope energy, and probably why I had a strange woman in my lap, which was closer to the issues/abilities I’d inherited from Jean-Claude. I’d gone from uncomfortable and almost angry about Phoenix in my lap to, if not enjoying it, at least not disliking it. It so wasn’t me, but to get information from her, maybe a little less me and a little more Jean-Claude wasn’t a bad thing?