Unhinged Read online

  “I know that’s what management would prefer,” Patrick said. “Having a bunch of cops in the place isn’t exactly good for business. But it’s totally your call,” he added quickly.

  “No, that’s fine,” I said. “Maybe they’ve learned a lesson.”

  “I doubt it,” Kelly said. “But never mind. Types like that wouldn’t learn a lesson even if they were arrested, so it’d be a wash anyway. And then we’d all be here making statements until the wee small hours.” She gently took my arm and led me to a door at the back, past the washrooms. We descended a steep set of stairs.

  “How do you do that in those shoes?” I wanted to know, as she clacked briskly down the stairs ahead of me.

  “Same way you get to Carnegie Hall,” she said. “Practice, practice, practice.” She led me through what was obviously the bar storage, and then into a large, brightly lit kitchen. I was relieved to see that it was meticulously clean. It even smelled like lemons.

  “Brittany,” Kelly said. She pulled a large first-aid kit out of one of the cupboards. “She’s OCD. Our dressing room would be like this, but we’re not supposed to touch each other’s things. So when she can’t hack being on the floor, she comes down here for a while and works off her demons.”

  “Wish mine were so easily gotten rid of,” I said.

  “Right? Still, I wouldn’t want to suffer from a mental disorder like that. Very little peace.” I sat at the table next to the wall, while Kelly washed her hands. She kicked her shoes off as she did, and she was so petite without them, she immediately looked even younger than I had thought. I watched as she grabbed a stainless steel bowl and a bottle of what looked like rubbing alcohol from another cupboard.

  “How old are you?” I blurted, then said, “Sorry.”

  Kelly laughed, pulling on latex gloves. “I’m thirty-three.”

  “Your Jesus Year,” I said.

  “And Hamlet,” Kelly said. “Or was that thirty-two?”

  “You’ve got me there.”

  Kelly put a tea towel down on the table and grabbed my hand. “Let’s have a look,” she said, unwrapping the gory cloth. There seemed to be one pretty major cut near the webbing between my thumb and index finger, and another smaller one in the middle of my palm. Kelly pulled a bottle of sterile saline from the first-aid kit and washed the blood from my hand with it.

  “These will close without stitches,” she said. “I think. Well, anyway, I wouldn’t attempt to stitch this outside of a hospital setting, and there are so many nerves in the hand, I doubt I’d attempt it anyway. I’d want a neurologist to do it.”

  “I won’t sue you, I promise,” I said. “If you think it should be stitched, I’ll trust you to do it.” I’d rather have pain now and get it over with. And there was something so calming about Kelly’s presence that I did trust her. Even in leopard-print lingerie.

  She shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “I’m going to clean it and do my best with it. Then we’re going to sit down here for half an hour while you hold your hand above your heart, like you were doing upstairs. Good call, by the way.”

  “I got certified in first aid, a million years ago,” I said.

  “It’s not spurting, so you didn’t hit an artery. But if I don’t like how it looks in half an hour, you are going to have to go in and have it seen to.”

  I just nodded. “How long have you worked here?” I asked her. She was applying pressure with gauze but I knew the alcohol would be her next step, and that was going to hurt. A lot. It was time to distract myself, and maybe I’d even get some info.

  “Not long,” she said. “Four months, I guess. I did this before, though, when I was an undergrad in Montreal. Some nights, like tonight, you don’t make any money. It’s pretty dead, and people aren’t spending money. But on a good night, it can be worth it.” She steadied my hand. “This is going to hurt,” she said, at the same time as she poured the alcohol over my hand, into the bowl she’d placed under it.

  I took a swig of the Grey Goose, and closed my eyes to the pain. It was quick enough. I would have rubbing alcohol poured over open wounds once an hour for the rest of my life if I could only find Smith, and get him out of our lives for good.

  “So what brought you in here?” Kelly said. She was bent over my hand, and I decided to stop looking at it. I studied her face instead. “Sometimes groups of girls come in for bachelorette parties or whatever, naughty girls night out kinds of things. Rarely a woman alone.”

  “Oh, I live close by, and I wanted to get out for a couple of hours. My brother knows one of the dancers, so I was kind of curious about the place.” More and more I was dubious about Zuzi’s story of forced prostitution. Kelly, for one, did not seem like she could be threatened into much. And both she and Patrick at the bar seemed pretty relaxed, not nervous, jumpy, or acting as though they were operating under any kind of duress. “Zuzi,” I said. “Do you know her?”

  “Of course,” Kelly said. She didn’t glance up at me, look worried, or pause. “She’s a cutie. There aren’t that many of us here, really. It’s a small club. Kind of a family atmosphere, weird as it is to say. And we’re only open at night, though the new management is talking about opening in the afternoons, but we’ll see. But yeah, we may work different evenings and so on, but mostly we all know each other.”

  So there was new management. That part of Zuzi’s story, at least, was true.

  My bag was still slung over my body and I could hear my phone going crazy with texts. I had to get home. Darren was probably having a fit. And Rosen would be so mad he might actually raise his voice. I sighed.

  “Is that your man, wondering where you are?” Kelly said. “Want me to reach it for you? Can you text with your left hand?”

  “Family waiting for me,” I said. “We’re supposed to be watching a movie.”

  “Well, I’m almost finished here,” she said. “Do you promise that you’ll keep your hand elevated, and if it keeps on bleeding in a couple of hours you’ll get yourself to the hospital?”

  “I promise,” I said, lying. “Hey – thank you so much for doing this. I’m keeping you from making money.”

  “No worries,” she said. “Like I said, no money to be made tonight anyway. Besides, I wanted a chance to meet the woman who busted those ninja moves up there.” I laughed. “Hey,” she said. “I’ve only lived here for a few months. Like I said, I’m from Montreal. You want to grab a coffee sometime? I don’t really have any, uh, non-stripper friends.”

  “I don’t have many friends, period,” I said. “That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I’m a bit of a pain in the ass, to be honest. But if that doesn’t bother you, sure, let’s grab a coffee one of these days.”

  “Excellent,” she said. “I’ll write my phone number down for you. My phone’s up in the dressing room and you’re ignoring yours.” I looked at my hand, which was clear of blood, the edges of the larger cut held together by butterfly tape. She found a large gauze pad and placed it over the entire palm, and wrapped my hand with some kind of self-adhesive gauze tape.

  “That’s quite the first-aid kit,” I said. “You’d think you worked at some kind of mountain rescue facility or something.”

  “Same thing,” she said, smiling. “Some girls need some pharmaceutical help to get up onstage and swing their bits around. Then, of course, champagne.”

  “Let me guess. You get girls falling from great heights a lot,” I said.

  “Six-inch heels aren’t kind.” She nodded. “All done.”

  My hand felt immensely better. It hurt, but I could tell it was going to be fine. Certainly better than other injuries I’d sustained over the years.

  “Awesome,” I said. “Thanks so much. I mean it. Now give me your number, and I’m going to get myself home before they start the movie without me.”

  Kelly found a pen and a Post-it note in a drawer and was writing, when one of the calamari guys walked in. His shoes hadn’t made a sound, and both Kelly and I jumped.

  “Jesus,” sh
e said. “You just took ten years off my life.”

  The man walked over to us, smiling. Kelly didn’t seem alarmed that he was down here, but my face must have shown my confusion.

  “Sorry! I’m Garrett,” the man said. He had an open face, and looked younger than he’d seemed at the bar. “I’m the manager. I just wanted to pop down and see if Kelly’s taken care of you. I am so, so sorry for what happened to you upstairs. Sheldon… well, Sheldon is a great guy, but sometimes he focuses on the wrong things.”

  “Don’t blame him,” I said. Sheldon didn’t seem like the type who would have an easy time finding another job. “He probably wouldn’t have been able to catch much from where he was anyway.” Kelly slipped the Post-it into my good hand, and started repacking the first-aid kit.

  “Leave that, Kel,” Garrett said. “I’ll do it. They’re going to be calling you onstage in a few minutes. You should probably get ready.”

  “Ah, my moment to shine under the spotlight,” she said. With her back to him, she glanced at my hand and shook her head slightly, looking into my eyes. “Gotta go. Hope your hand feels better, and remember to go to hospital if it keeps bleeding.”

  I nodded and smiled, and when Garrett turned to watch her slip into her shoes, I crumpled the note in my hand in a little ball.

  Either Kelly didn’t want her manager to know she’d given me her number, or there was something on the note she didn’t want him to see. I stood and moved my bag and reached for my phone with my good hand, dropping the yellow Post-it into the bag at the same time.

  “Thanks for coming down to check on me,” I said, smiling at the guy. “She did a great job.” I started to move past him, but he grabbed my arm. Gently, but he grabbed my arm.

  “Can you give me five minutes? I’d really like to have a chat,” Garrett said.

  “Sure,” I said. I rooted around in my bag, still pretending to look for my phone. I sat back down and pulled my stiletto-hairbrush out of my bag and laid it on the table, as though it was in the way of me finding the phone. Garrett sat down, and I pulled my phone out and set it on the table as well. I sat back down in my chair, and my phone obligingly dinged with another text.

  “My family. They’re driving me crazy,” I said ruefully. “What did you want to chat about?”

  Garrett smiled at me. We were alone in the basement now. I picked up my hairbrush and twirled it in my hand as though I was just fidgeting. I kept the thumb of my good left hand close to the button that would release the dagger inside.

  My heart was beating quickly. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to use it.

  ELEVEN

  “That was impressive, what you did upstairs,” Garrett said.

  “From what you saw,” I said quickly, then wanted to bite my tongue. I knew that it was highly unlikely that the two men at the bar hadn’t caught at least some of what was going on; they had the best vantage point to witness the gang coming at me.

  “From what I saw,” he agreed. He started packing up the first-aid kit, and once he’d packed the bottle of isopropyl alcohol away, I relaxed a bit. I’d been half expecting to have it tossed into my face. It’s what I would have done, if I had wanted to subdue someone and it was at hand.

  I had no real reason to think he wanted to do me any harm, of course. Other than Fred being driven away from this establishment by a serial killer and all-around nutjob earlier in the evening. Oh, and the reports that the new management – of which he was obviously a member – was forcing the dancers into some sort of prostitution.

  And the fact that Kelly definitely hadn’t wanted Garrett to know that she was giving me her number. Why would he care? Why would she be nervous about that?

  “I really do have to hit the road,” I said. “Don’t worry, you won’t be hearing from my lawyer or anything. I’m not the litigious type.”

  “I hope not,” he said slowly. “May I ask you, what do you do for a living?”

  “I’m unemployed,” I said. True, and the simplest answer. I wanted to tell him it was none of his business, but I was very uncertain about the nature of the situation I’d found myself in, and I was keen to make it out of Helen of Troy unscathed.

  Well. Relatively unscathed.

  “Good. Because I’d like to offer you a job here.”

  “Come again?” I said. That, I was not expecting. “I’m flattered,” I started to say, but he cut me off.

  “Not dancing,” he said. “Not that you couldn’t,” he added quickly, as though afraid of insulting me. “I’m sure you’d be great. Honestly.”

  “I’ll stop you there,” I said, holding my bandaged hand up. “I’d be the least likely exotic dancer on the planet, and you don’t have to flatter me.” He blushed, which made me relax another ten percent. I was pretty sure I’d read somewhere that psychopaths can’t blush. Could be junk science, but in my experience, evil people are too narcissistic to feel embarrassment.

  Then again, I’d proven myself to be an utterly shitty judge of character on more than one occasion, so that hairbrush was staying close.

  “Security,” he said. He put his hands flat on the table. “I’ve been wanting to hire a woman to do security, and someone with half a brain. You seem to more than fit the bill.”

  “Well, I’m a woman,” I said slowly, “but I’m not sure about the brain part.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t going to mention it, but ‘rapey’ is not, strictly speaking, a word.” He smiled again, and this time it didn’t look so threatening.

  “Never let it be said that I let silly things like proper language use get in my way when my dander is up,” I said. I couldn’t help smiling.

  “And, by the way, I should apologize for my friend up there,” Garrett said. “He’s part of the company that bought Helen of Troy, the company I work for. He’s up from the States for the weekend and wanted to check how I’m running things up here.” I caught a slight roll of the eyes. He didn’t like the man. Well, neither did I.

  “How old is your daughter?” I said. He looked blankly at me. “You mentioned having a daughter, up there.”

  “She’s ten,” he said. His face lit up, and I found my tense muscles relaxing. He pulled his phone from his breast pocket and showed me the picture on the home screen of a freckle-faced redhead with her front teeth missing. “That’s two years old, that picture, but it’s my favorite.”

  “She could be Anne of Green Gables,” I said.

  “Those are her favorite books!” he said. “She was so excited to move to Canada. I think she was pretty disappointed when we got to Toronto and it wasn’t like Avonlea.”

  I handed Garrett his phone. Shitty judge of character or not, I had a hard time believing that this man was an evil pimp.

  “You’re a lucky guy,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, but with a pause first. He put the phone away, and took out his business card and slid it across the table. “So will you think about it? Please give me a call. The offer will be on the table while you decide.”

  “You haven’t really made me an offer yet,” I said. “I didn’t hear anything about money. Not that I want to be so crass as to bring it up.”

  Garrett stood and took the bowl Kelly had been using to the sink. He looked over his shoulder at me. “First rule of business, Danny. Once we start talking money, it’s a negotiation.” He ushered me back upstairs, chatting about Canada’s Wonderland and other places he’d taken his daughter since they’d come to town at the beginning of the summer.

  “Is there a back door?” I asked him once we were back on the main floor. We were by the washrooms. “I’m parked around back, and frankly I don’t want to walk through the bar again tonight.” Plus, I wanted to check out what was back there.

  “Of course,” he said. “I don’t blame you. What a bunch of douchebags. Most Canadians are great, but in this business, we do sometimes see the worst.” He led me the other way to the end of the hall, then left into the bar’s kitchen. I’d been inside the kitchens of a few
restaurants in my day, but this was by far the cleanest. A couple of the workers greeted Garrett without any obvious nervousness, no “oh shit, the boss just walked in”. One was flipping burgers, and two were plating. A skinny dark-skinned guy washing dishes nodded at me without smiling. I wouldn’t smile either, standing over that steam all night.

  “Garrett, table four wants to see the manager,” a waitress standing on the other side of the pass yelled. “A hair in their soup.”

  “Are you kidding? Literally, a hair in their soup?”

  “No imagination,” she called back, and deftly piled more plates on her arm than looked humanly possible. “Oh, and it was a blonde hair,” she said over her shoulder. She was brunette, and there were no blondes in the kitchen. I laughed. Garrett rolled his eyes. He reminded me a bit of my brother Laurence for a second.

  “Go,” I said. I nodded at the open door, outside of which two kitchen workers in stained whites were playing hacky sack. “I’ve got it from here.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “So much for the quiet weekend. Jeffrey,” he called to one of the guys outside the door, “can you make sure this lady gets to her car safely?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “I thought you wanted to hire me as security.”

  “Hey,” he said. “You just got swarmed by a bunch of testosterone cases, and you’ve got a busted paw. Let’s just make sure you make it off the property in one piece, shall we?” He handed me another card. “In case you lose the first one. I want you to call me,” he said, smiling, before rushing off to deal with his wannabe freeloaders.

  The evening was beautiful, and after my experience in the bar and my tension in the basement, I was glad to be outside. Jeffrey smiled and walked about fifteen feet away from me all the way to my car, kicking the dirt as he went. If anything untoward were to happen, I doubted Jeffrey would be of much help.

  Then again, I’d thought that about Dave when I first met him.

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling a little stupid. I didn’t have a lot of experience being ushered to my vehicle. I wondered for half a second if I was supposed to tip him. I unlocked it remotely and got in, checking the back seat by rote. After I reversed out – awkwardly; my right hand wasn’t good for much – I stopped and rolled down the window.