The Hard Bounce - [5]

Ms. Reese raised an eyebrow. “Boo?” Was it a tiny smile or a smirk that touched on her face?

“Long story,” I said and quickly got up from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

I took the stairs two at a time up to the 4DC Security office. And by office, I mean the space next to liquor storage, complete with desk, separate phone line, and one dangling light bulb. All the comforts of home, if home is a Guatemalan prison.

Tommy Sheralt, the alcoholic lunatic who owned the joint, cut us a deal on the space. We got a desk, Tommy got a discount on our rate and the guarantee that we won’t tell the customers that he cuts the top-shelf liquor with rotgut.

In the desk, we kept spare sets of clothes for such emergencies, though our usual emergencies involved bloodstains.

I stripped out of my foul clothes and into a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. I still reeked. Junior kept a pint of cheap cologne in his drawer, and I tried to cover up the rest with an Irish shower. I was trading in smelling like a bum for stinking like a Greek man-whore, but it was a step up. Finally, I cracked a bottle of Crème de Menthe and gargled, spitting into the wastebasket while quietly resenting Ms. Kelly Reese for making me give a shit.

When I walked back downstairs, Junior was doing his best seductive lean-in on Kelly. I hurried over and caught the tail end of one of Junior’s knee-slappers. “And the farmer says, ‘That’s the fourth faggot rooster I bought this month!’” Junior cracked up while Ms. Reese tried her best not to look completely horrified.

“Good one, Junior,” I said and clapped him on the back. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Huh? My bad. Didn’t know I was stepping on toes here.” Junior winked at Kelly with as much subtlety as a bear on a unicycle. Kelly gagged on her beer. “By the way, Boo, we need another bottle of Johnny Blue at the bar. Came in with the Bud,” he said, nodding to the bottle in Kelly’s hand.

Well, well… Ms. Reese just got a whole helluva lot more interesting.

Johnny Walker Blue wasn’t sold at The Cellar. Would have been like offering Kobe beef at Taco Bell. Junior just informed me that our little Ms. Reese had come with a police presence.

I didn’t have to look at the bar itself. From where I sat, I could see the entire room reflected in the long mirror running across the far wall. He blended in better than the prom queen across the table from me, but I knew immediately who Junior was talking about. He sat nursing a beer and stared straight ahead, all the while watching our table out of the corner of his eye. Big guy with a white beezer haircut and an old black nylon jacket on despite the heat, which told me he was packing. His air was “don’t fuck with.” Old-school tough.

“You got this covered?” Junior asked, tipping his head back toward the bar and the cop.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “You can head back downstairs. I got it up here.”

“You sure?” I knew he was only about a third concerned. The other two-thirds were curiosity and just plain nosiness.

“I got it,” I said, a little firmer.

Junior nodded and walked toward the front, giving the cop’s back a long lingering glare.

I checked the cop in the mirror one more time before I turned my full attention back to Ms. Reese. “So, do you own a bar?”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“You said you wanted to hire us. We do bar and club security. That’s what people hire 4DC Security to do.”

“No, I don’t own a bar.”

“Club, then?”

“No.”

The game of twenty questions was wearing thin. “So assuming you haven’t mistaken us for a ballet troupe, what is your business with us, Ms. Reese?”

“Kelly,” she said.

“What?”

“Please, you can call me Kelly.”

Even that small offering sounded patronizing. She seemed to have been torn between disgust, condescension, and sheer horror since she walked in the place. It was all probably unintentional, but it was crawling under my skin like a fat tick.

“Okay, Kelly, what’s your business?”

“My employer would like to hire your services.”

“And just who might your employer be?” I said, popping down my bourbon.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that at this time.”

“You’re not…” I laughed a little too loudly and glanced in the mirror. My outburst made a white beezered head turn at the bar.

Gotcha.

“Let me explain something to you, Kel. I don’t know whether you’ve seen too many spy movies or just have a hard-on for old noir, but I don’t work for phantoms, and this cloak and dagger bullshit you’re feeding me is going right up my ass. So you can cut the shit and talk to me straight or you can go piss up a rope.” I stood from the table, ready to walk. It was one part my shitballs of an afternoon and another part poorly repressed class rage. Either way, it felt good to let her have it.

Her voice shook a bit when she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Malone. I’m just following my employer’s wishes at this time. I didn’t mean to get you angry.”

She looked much younger than my original assessment right then. On the table in front of her was a small pile of napkin bits. She’d been nervously ripping off pieces and rolling them into little balls. She wasn’t just being snobby. She was legitimately scared to be there. And of me.