Page 38 of Antihero

“Because,” he said, “you brought a gun.”

She’d withdrawn against the wall, hands flared in a show of passivity.

He brushed past her and up the stairs.

He stood on the sidewalk, breathing the layered air of the city at nightfall.

He glanced over at the HOW’S MY DRIVING? lettering on the back of the moving truck, ass-coverage for liability. Which likely meant further measures. He checked the rear bumper and around the brake lights to no avail. Circling the truck, he examined the grille next—nothing. Multiple tickets had yellowed beneath the wipers of the bug-splattered windshield; the truck had languished awhile in this spot. No obvious gear was suctioned to the glass. But there on the rearview mirror, forward-facing, was a shiny button dot of a lens, aimed just past where the stairs met the sidewalk. If the thugs and young woman had turned left out of the apartment, he’d be out of luck. But if they’d turned right, the surveillance camera might have captured them.

The moving truck, by definition mobile, wouldn’t have shown up in Joey’s geofenced search, which zeroed in on fixed cameras. He snapped a shot of the license plate, texted it to her with a brief description of what he needed.

Then he stepped to the edge of the curb and took in the street. A half block away, a Daisy Buchanan–green neon sign beckoned: THE VELVET KITTY.

Behind him, the woman stumbled up the stairs, breathing hard, slotting the reloaded mag back in the gun. She came at him with more bandido-waving. “You think you can just—”

He seized the Kel-Tec out of her flailing hand again, pocketed the mag, and checked the slide. Stepping off the curb, he dropped the pistol and heel-kicked it behind him down a storm drain.

Her screamed expletives accompanied him up the street all the way to the strip club.

18Bad People

The bouncer looked appropriately menacing for the neighborhood, six foot six, shaved-tight red hair with a touch of curl at the top, sleeve tattoos. A massy torso, firm gut layered over muscle, and ears swollen into pretzels from multiple batterings filled out the stereotype.

His deep-set eyes, black in the dim light of the entry alcove, scanned Evan and didn’t seem to like what they saw. “You gonna give us any trouble?”

“Not if no one deserves any.”

“Not the right answer,” the bouncer said. “The right answer is, ‘No, sir.’” He leaned close, which meant leaning down, the scent of icy-menthol breath mints leaking through his teeth. “Because if any trouble gets started by anybody, it gets finished by me. Capiche?”

He looked as white as clotted cream, rendering the “capiche” inadvertently amusing.

Evan nodded. “Live by Velvet Kitty rules, die by Velvet Kitty rules.”

A seahorse-shaped cast-iron pull handle nuzzled into the venerable wood of the front door. The bouncer snapped his gum, reached for it, and tugged ceremoniously, as if granting Evan access to a sacred chamber.

Smells assailed him as he entered—sugary perfume ineffectively deployed as deodorant, cigarette smoke borne on clothing, aerosolized glycols from the stage-adjacent haze machines. He stood in the shadows at the periphery to assess the place, note escape routes, identify makeshift weapons. A confusion of club-neon pinks and reds wireframed the stage and various pathways through the dim interior. Mounted flat-screens behind the bar ran NBA highlights and infomercials for walk-in bathtubs. A manager type with slicked-back hair worked over one of the plush booths with a wet vac, a background episode Evan did his best not to linger on. Pool balls clacked on a coin-fed seven-foot table, longneck bottles lining the rails, a boozy parapet. A scattering of regulars commanded what seemed to be their usual spots across barstools, haphazard four-tops, and spectator chairs lining the stage. From the banter he sensed they all knew one another too well, quirks and quotidian failings binding them together in shameful camaraderie.

A smudged whiteboard on an easel declaimed: NOW DANCING: BUBBLES!

Largely ignored by the crepuscular inhabitants, the aforenamed Bubbles chewed gum disconsolately and twerked onstage, her dimpled cheeks fluttering artlessly. Snaking a leg around the pole, she gave a workmanlike spin, her bleached split ends trawling the laminate floor. The haze machine issued a flatulent hiss, misting her like a smoked cocktail. A mindless pop song crackled through shitty speakers: When ya call my name, ’tslike a liddle prayer …

Evan thought: Ambience.

“Where the fuck’s Laeta?” someone at the pool table shouted, waving at the unmanned bar.

The manager powered down the wet vac. “Out back having a smoke. You can grab another bottle and leave cash on the bar but don’t touch the hard stuff.”

The manager scuttled out of the booth, cutting across the front of the stage. The haze dissipated, revealing Bubbles checking her iPhone. Evan pondered where it had been stored seconds earlier.

“We been over this, Rebecca,” the manager snarled as he passed, “stay off your fucking phone onstage.”

“I gotta check for the sitter.”

“Babysitter,” the manager said, gesturing at the sparse onlookers. “Sexy. Just—be a fucking professional.” He pointed the wet vac at a stocky guy sitting with a friend at a prime table up front. “I told you, Osman, come eight o’clock, you’re outta the VIP seats.” He banged through a swinging door into the back, no doubt to decontaminate the wet vac.

Evan followed the aisle lighting to Osman’s table, tugged back an empty chair, and sat. From here, a trail of red spots were visible along one of Bubbles-Rebecca’s legs. Bedbug bites.

Osman wagged his head at Evan, tapped his knuckles on the wooden surface. “Help you?”