The Hard Bounce - [6]

Hot shame filled my chest. Kelly Reese made me feel like a bully. “Listen, I… I’m sorry,” I said. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“No need to apologize,” she said, but her eyes didn’t leave the table.

“I’m not having the best day, as I’m sure you can smell.”

She forced a tight smile. “You do smell awful.”

“Thanks. Ask anybody. Any other day and you’d be overpowered by my smoothly masculine musk.”

“No doubt.” The smile came a little less forced.

“Can we start from the top again? And this time straight?”

“I’m just here to find out whether or not you’re available for hire.”

“For what?”

“My employer’s daughter has been missing for a week and a half. He would like you to try to find her.”

I drained the last of my beer. “I don’t know who you or your employer has been talking to, but that’s not what we do. Like I said, we do club security and every now and then we’ll pick up a bail jumper for shits and giggles, but that’s it. Hell, more often than not, we know the guy we’re picking up. Missing persons usually go to cops like your friend at the bar.” I tipped my empty shot glass at the cop. The cop saw my gesture and closed his eyes, disgusted. I gave him a hearty wave.

Kelly Reese raised an eyebrow. “Well, with observational skills like that, you might be the right person for the job.”

“The flattery is certainly helping, but again-”

“However, my employer knows that going to the police could mean the situation leaking to the media. Unless it becomes absolutely necessary, he would like to avoid that.”

“And your police escort is here…” I trailed off, allowing her to fill in the blank.

“My friend at the bar is just here to keep an eye out.”

“For what? For me?”

“For anything.”

“I see,” I lied. I didn’t see shit yet. Although my ego deflated slightly that I didn’t warrant the singular attentions of her bodyguard. “But as I said, we really don’t do that sort of thing.”

“He’s just asking you to try.” She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a cream-colored envelope and slid it across the table. “Here’s a picture and a small retainer, should you choose to take our offer.”

I opened up the envelope and pulled a smaller envelope out. It was unsealed, and clearly held more than a month’s wages in bouncer gigs. I hoped my eyes didn’t do a cartoon bug-out. “Okay, then, we’ll give it a shot,” I said a bit too quickly. Money talks, brother. And in this case it sang a rock opera.

I pulled out the picture.

It was the girl with the dyed red hair.

I leapt up from the table, knocking over my chair, and ran to the door where she had just kissed me on the cheek less than two hours before. Junior saw my frenzy and ran over. “Yo! Where’s the fuego?”

I stuck the picture in his hand. “This girl was just here. Find her!”

No questions asked, he ran back down to the basement. I looked around the street in front of the club. Nothing. I ran back through the bar and out the back. A few kids were hanging out there in a cloud of acrid pot smoke and quickly hid their hands. No girl.

I let out that long and profane curse I was holding in.

I stormed back into the bar and over to Kelly. “All right! What the hell is going on? That kid was just here. Who is she?”

The cop decided he’d had enough of the silent partner routine. He quickly came over to the table. “What do you mean she was just here?”

“What the hell do you think it means, Chief Wiggum?” I smacked the back of my fingers across the envelope. “She was just here.”

Junior came in through the back. “Nothing. There’s a few band members and a couple of groupies downstairs, but not this one. Who is this?”

The cop said, “Where? Who was she with?”

“Who is this?” Junior asked again.

“I don’t know,” I said to them both.

“Then why the fuck am I looking for her?” Junior asked.

“Where was she?” The cop again.

“Hey!” I yelled at the cop. “Step off! Until you introduce yourself, you can blow me with the interrogation.” His face darkened, but he shut up for the moment. “Junior, go back downstairs. Show that picture to everyone down there and ask them if they know her, and if anybody does, where she went and who she was with.”

Junior threw his hands up and sighed. “Fine.”

I turned on the cop. “You. Who are you?”

He pointed a sausage finger at Kelly. “I’m with her.” Kelly just stood at the table, tense and unsure.

“I didn’t ask you who you were with, pal. I asked you who you were.”

Veins bulged on his forehead. “Danny Barnes.” He said his name like it should mean something. It didn’t. “And you’d better watch your mouth, boy.” He meant it. I suddenly remembered the man was a cop. And according to his bulgy jacket, an armed one.

“Good. Thank you. Now that we’re all introduced, why don’t one of you fill me in on what the fuck this is all about.” Relative calm restored itself, and the three of us sat back down at the table. “Question number one,” I said. “Who is this girl?”

Barnes answered. “Her name’s Cassandra.”

“Cassandra what? Just Cassandra? Does Cassandra have a last name or is she like Cher?”

I thought I could hear Barnes’s teeth grinding. “As I’m sure Ms. Reese has explained to you, last names are out of the question at the moment. We need to respect her father’s request for privacy.”