Unhinged Read online

  Other than the bouncer, the bartender was the only male staff member I could see. He approached with a smile, wiping down the bar in front of me and putting down a coaster. “What can I get you, miss?” he said, which made me happy. I hated ma’am.

  “Vodka and lemonade, please,” I said. I smiled, but in a distant way. I was pretty sure he was going to try to chat – which was a good thing; I could get info from him – but I did not want to encourage him to flirt. Then I told myself to get a grip. This guy was surrounded by beautiful dancers all night, girls with a lot more youth and… assets to offer than I did. It made me relax a bit.

  When he put my drink down, he asked if I wanted to run a tab.

  “Uh, no,” I said. That would mean giving him a credit card, and in case Michael Vernon Smith did, in fact, have anything to do with this place, there was no point in advertising myself. I pulled a fifty from my wallet and laid it down. He nodded and made change, and when he laid what looked like thirty-eight bucks back on the bar – twelve bucks for a mixed drink in a strip club was actually pretty cheap, I thought – I pushed the ten back to him.

  “Thanks,” I said. His nametag said Patrick.

  “Oh, thanks very much,” he said, disappearing the bill so quickly and effectively on his person that I didn’t even see where it went. “Want to see a menu?”

  “No, thanks. Actually, I live in the neighborhood. I had time to kill, and I heard an old family friend was working here. Thought I’d check it out.” I took a sip of my drink. It was good. “This place is most definitely not what I was expecting.”

  He laughed like he’d heard that one before. “I know,” he said. “But is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “A good thing,” I said. “I think.” I took another swig of my drink, hoping he’d ask.

  “So who’s your friend?” he said. Good.

  “Zuzi,” I said. “Not so much my friend, but my brother’s friend.”

  He snorted and wiped the bar in front of him. “Zuzi,” he said. “She’s the only dancer here who doesn’t use a stage name. I mean, where are you going to go from Zuzi?”

  “Well, she could’ve gone in the opposite direction,” I said. “Rosemary. Susan.”

  He laughed. “Marjorie.”

  I was smiling, but I was impatient for him to tell me if she was working. Get this party started, as it were. Just then, a group of young guys came in, several in rugby shirts, all looking like they lived in a frat house. Fan-fucking-tastic. And to top it off, instead of heading to the tables, they made a beeline for the bar. Judging by the decibel level they brought in with them, they had obviously started the party several hours earlier.

  If I’d been the bouncer, I’d have given serious thought before letting them in. But the dude at the door still had his head in his puzzle book. The tip of his tongue was poking out between his lips as he tried to erase an answer. I watched as he realized he was writing with a pen. I doubted his Mensa membership was going to be in the mail anytime soon.

  My new bartender friend Patrick was busy checking IDs – good for him – so I sighed and stood up, grabbing my drink off the bar. I was going to find a table, see if I couldn’t get one of the dancers talking. I was sliding my bag across my body, glass in tow, when I felt a hand on my ass.

  “You off-duty, baby? Wanna give us a lap dance?” I could feel his breath on my neck.

  Oh, how I wanted to tear that hand off his arm. I wanted it so badly I could taste it. But I was there to find Zuzi, or any of the other dancers that might know Fred. I was not there to get eighty-sixed for crippling frat boys. Not that they didn’t deserve it.

  I reached back and very deliberately removed the kid’s hand from my ass.

  “I don’t work here,” I said, without turning around. “But I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding lots of nice girls here who will dance for you, if you pay them enough. Ones who don’t mind your breath.”

  There were eight of them, and I was surrounded by three. Size-wise, two of them were no taller than I was – maybe five-ten, five-eleven – but as the one who grabbed my ass was now pressed into me, I had a good idea that he was a lot bigger. Because, of course, that’s the kind of luck I have.

  The two who’d heard what I said were cracking up, which I knew didn’t bode well for me. Nobody likes being made a fool of in front of their friends, but when you’re talking about a pack of frat boys, it escalates the chances of something stupid happening by a few orders of magnitude.

  “Just kidding, honey,” I said. “Hey,” I called to the bartender, “get this guy a drink on my tab.” I hoped he wouldn’t say, “No way, you don’t have a tab.” I was hoping he’d signal to the bouncer that maybe, perhaps, he should look up from his remedial reading and do his job. He nodded, and continued making drinks, his attention on the sudden influx of orders. That, or he just didn’t want to get involved.

  I slid away from the bar, threw a smile over my shoulder to make them think I was a good sport – hardly – and started to thread myself through the guys standing around. They had all moved over closer to us. They sensed there was going to be a show.

  Can a woman not go into a strip club to question strippers about her brother-in-law’s disappearance anymore? I was becoming giddy. I could feel the laughter bubbling up from my belly. It was so ludicrous. I’d spent most of my summer in bars all across the city, and on some of those nights – nights when I couldn’t get Dave out of my head, or chase the demons out of my soul – I would have been more than happy to fight anybody who looked at me wrong. The first time I want to actually keep a low profile, I get groped by Neanderthals. I knew a couple of people might look at me – an unaccompanied woman in a strip club is a natural curiosity – but I was really hoping I could go in, get info, and get out before Belliveau got to the bakery.

  I was nearly past them, and busy patting myself on the back for the self-control I had just exhibited, when three things happened.

  A strong hand grabbed me around the neck and pulled me back.

  Someone else grabbed one of my breasts. Hard.

  And I saw a young woman in a neon-pink negligee staring at me with her hand over her mouth, before she went skittering away in the other direction.

  Zuzi? I thought. And then I fought.

  TEN

  I’d underestimated the potential hazards of being swarmed by drunk frat boys. I was too busy worrying about Fred and Michael Vernon Smith to take a few college kids on a bender seriously.

  We all live trapped in our skin, and even when we look in the mirror we rarely see what others see. Because of my years of fighting – though they were a long time ago now – and my more recent history of doing physical harm to some bad people, I sometimes forgot that despite it all, and despite being in pretty good shape, I am, in fact, a woman. And with that fact comes less muscle mass and less sheer size than a lot of men. Not to mention the fact that, to a certain breed of man, a woman is an easy target for violence.

  I’m usually prepared for the potential of regular street violence, and when I’m on high alert for danger, I feel confident enough. But in a situation like this, being inside a bar where staff are present, where most humans generally observe social niceties and don’t randomly attack each other? Well, color me embarrassed. I didn’t see it coming.

  The one who had pulled me back by my neck had managed to get me into something of a chokehold, though I could tell he tried to make it look like he simply had his arm playfully around his girlfriend’s neck. And even the bartender wouldn’t really be able to see what was fully happening; the boys had gathered around and effectively blocked me from view.

  The one who’d grabbed my breast was directly in front of me, and red-faced from booze and excitement. He grabbed his crotch and said something I couldn’t hear, because the blood was pounding in my ears with adrenaline and rage. But his intent was clear enough.

  I am one of the small percentage of women who have never been sexually assaulted in any way. Sheer luck; I
’d put myself in enough compromising positions over the years. But as the arm of the guy behind me tightened around my neck, I imagined what these guys could, and would, do to a drunk young woman their own age at a party. I thought about what had happened to my sister.

  I wanted blood.

  I reared my head back as hard as I could, to connect with the face of the one holding me. I could tell he wasn’t the big one; he was only a little taller than I was, so while I wasn’t able to get enough leverage to inflict maximum damage, the back of my skull connected handily with his nose.

  With one hand I reached behind before he could back up, grabbed his crotch as hard as I could, and twisted. I’d noticed that they were all wearing shorts when they walked in, because it made me wonder about the lack of dress code here. The move wouldn’t have worked as well if he’d been wearing jeans, but with the preppy, light cotton shorts he was wearing, I was able to get a good grip.

  I was not kind to that kid’s scrotum. I used a lot of my strength on wrenching his balls as hard as I could. If there is a God, I did enough damage to ensure that he’ll never be able to procreate.

  The one behind me collapsed onto the floor. My body was free. The guy who’d grabbed his crotch pulled his arm back to punch me in the face, which I easily ducked and shouldered his abdomen, squatting quickly and using his momentum to flip him over my shoulder. It looks impressive, that move, but it’s a lot easier than throwing a punch. From the sounds behind me, he landed on twisted-nuts guy. I hoped he’d broken his neck, but I wasn’t that lucky. The other one would have broken his fall, and he’d be back on his feet swinging in seconds.

  A few of the kids looked petrified and immediately backed away from me. Later when they told the story, they’d probably say they didn’t believe in attacking a woman, but I know fear when I see it.

  The last one in my sightline, a short, muscular guy who looked like a wrestler, was charging at me. For one wild second he reminded me of The Rhino in the old Spider-Man animated show. I couldn’t have moved out of his way even if I’d had time. There was no room. So in a pure – and very stupid – Hail Mary move, I chucked the contents of my vodka lemonade in his face, then brought the empty glass down on the kid’s head. Which did manage to stop him just before he would have tackled me. I understood my mistake when I realized that there was much more blood coming from my hand than from his skull.

  Rhino hadn’t fallen over, just appeared dazed. But when he caught a look at the blood pumping out of the vein I’d managed to open on my palm, his face went gray, and he keeled over in a dead faint.

  Vasovagal syncope at the sight of blood. Tough guy. He was a fainter, like me. For a minute, I nearly felt sorry for him.

  The other two boys had backed further away, and I quickly turned to check on the condition of Twisted Nuts and Mad Dog behind me. They were both still on the floor. Mad Dog had stayed down after all, and was nursing what looked like a possible broken finger from his tumble over my shoulder.

  But I’d forgotten one. The big guy, the one who’d groped my ass in the first place. He was leaning on the bar, behind his two friends on the floor. He glanced at Twisted Nuts, who was curled up in a ball and seemed to be finished puking. The whole thing had taken probably two minutes, maybe three. Tall Guy was smiling at me meanly, and looked about to say something.

  But my buddy Patrick the bartender got there first.

  “Move from that spot,” he said softly to Tall Guy. “Go on. I dare you.” Patrick had a baseball bat slung over his shoulder. It was an old wooden one with what looked like long cast-iron nails hammered into it every few inches.

  It was definitely not for Little League, that bat.

  I took a breath and looked behind me. The bouncer had finally abandoned his sudoku and was standing about ten feet away blocking the door. His arms were crossed. He might not have been the smartest card in the deck, but he was built like a Buick. And when he wasn’t trying to erase his answers in pen, the expression on his ugly mug was enough to make my knees feel a little wobbly, and I wasn’t even on the receiving end.

  Though when I looked back at my hand, I thought maybe my wobbliness had more to do with that.

  “Bar towel, please? A clean one, if you’ve got it,” I called to Patrick.

  Without taking his eyes away from Tall Guy, Patrick tossed me a white towel from under the bar, and I quickly wrapped my hand with it.

  I tried not to think about how fast it soaked with blood. I didn’t want to ruin my new macho image by fainting next to Rhino.

  “Sheldon?” Patrick called out.

  “Yep,” the bouncer said, still standing with his arms crossed, looking like The Mountain from Game of Thrones. Sheldon? I doubted I had ever heard a less appropriate name. Snake, maybe, or Tank. Big Lou. Anything but Sheldon.

  “Keep an eye on these patrons for me, would you? Make sure they’re comfortable, don’t slip on any blood or vomit, anything like that.”

  “Yep,” Sheldon said. He looked at Tall Guy. “You comfortable, sir?”

  I nearly – nearly – felt sorry for the kid. “Absolutely,” Tall Guy said. “Very comfortable.” He took a swig of beer and looked anywhere but at Sheldon, who hadn’t budged, or even blinked, as far as I could tell.

  Patrick stashed his bat, and motioned me to the other end of the bar. I stepped over Rhino, who was coming to. On my way past the bar, I looked out at the rest of the club. A few dancers and wait staff were standing watching, but as far as I could see, the only patrons who had even noticed were the two businessmen at the bar eating calamari. It happened quickly, and the bar was situated on the opposite side of the club from the stage.

  “Good for you, miss,” one of the businessmen said. “I’m sorry we didn’t step in. It was pretty much over before we’d even noticed.”

  “Very impressive,” the other one said. “I’d shake your hand, but…” He looked at the blood-soaked towel wrapped around it. “You should teach a class,” he said, after I’d half-smiled and moved off. “I’d like my daughter to learn how to take care of herself.”

  “Tell your daughter not to hang out at strip clubs,” the other one said to his friend. He sounded serious, not snarky, but I stopped dead in my tracks and turned back around.

  “That, sir, is horseshit,” I said. I came closer. “His daughter should be able to go anywhere she likes, without abusive rapey assholes like them,” I nodded at the frat boys, “harassing her, or touching her, or saying any fucking thing they like about her body or her beauty or whatever else they feel is their right to say. If your daughter had a job here, like these girls,” I said, pointing my chin at the dancers who were standing a few feet away, watching us, “maybe even just a job bartending to get through school. Or dancing – whatever. But if your daughter had a job here and was sitting at the bar after her shift waiting for a friend, say, and a bunch of drunken idiots decide she’s fair game, she must be a slut, for sale or for free, less than human, because she’s sitting in a place like this? Would you blame her, or would you blame the fucking sociopathic dickwads who targeted her?”

  My voice had gotten louder. My hand was starting to hurt, really hurt, and I was having a post-adrenaline comedown. Plus, my chances of being inconspicuous here and getting any info had just been flushed down the toilet by a bunch of walking penises.

  Not that I was angry or anything.

  The dancers watching had been joined by two of the waitresses, and they all clapped and cheered when I was finished.

  “Preach, honey,” one of them said, and I flashed her a grin.

  “I’m sorry,” one of the men said. “But please, miss – you have to get to the hospital.”

  I held my hand up, above heart level. I remembered that from first aid. “Thanks. And I’m sorry. My blood is up, you know?” I looked at my hand. With the bloody towel, I looked like I had just walked off a horror film set. “Literally. Ha. Enjoy your evening.” I walked toward Patrick.

  “I’d ask to see your hand, but I can
tell it’s worse than I thought it was,” he said. “You probably want to get to the hospital. Do you want me to get you a cab? Or phone the police? I’m sure the manager will want to talk to you, make sure you’re okay, but you might want to get that looked at first.”

  “I’ll do it,” a woman said, appearing beside me. She was one of the women who’d been watching, though I’m not sure how much she’d seen. “I’ll take her downstairs to the kitchen and see how bad it is, see if I can’t sort it out.” She looked at me. “I’m Kelly. I’m in med school, second year. Before that I was a vet.” She was wearing a leopard-print teddy and, even in her towering heels, she was a good three or four inches shorter than I was. And compared to some of the girls, she was dressed like a nun.

  “What would you like to do?” Patrick said to me. “Hey – what’s your name?”

  “Danny,” I said. “I don’t want to sit in Emerg for six hours. I trust Kelly. Even though she’s obviously not old enough to be in second-year med school after having been a vet. Are you a crazy person, or just some kind of savant?” I said to her. I wanted to get away from the mess I’d left at the door, and get my hand looked at. I couldn’t afford an injury, not now. Not with Smith close by.

  “Neither,” she said. “It’s just dark in here. I’m older than I look.” She looked at the bartender. “Patrick, get her a shot of something,” she said. She looked at my face, at how white I’d probably become – I was feeling a bit faint again – and stopped him. “Make that a bottle.”

  Patrick grabbed something from the top shelf, a half-full bottle of Grey Goose, and handed it to Kelly. I looked over at the other end of the bar, where Tall Guy was pretending to study his phone nonchalantly, as though he was too cool to be fazed by what had just happened.

  “Listen, do whatever you want about the police,” I said. “But maybe just kick them out, bar them, whatever.” I looked at Rhino, who was being helped off the floor by the two young guys who had stayed out of it.