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A lot of things seemed to happen at once. One of Todd’s friends took a swing at Dick, missing and pinning me against the bar as he fell. I reached into my purse, feeling for the little keychain canister of vampire mace Gabriel had given me for Christmas, but couldn’t find it. It wasn’t attached to my keys or caught loose in the lining. Crap. I thought about stepping out of the way and letting Dick handle this, but then Todd smashed a pilsner over Dick’s head. I yelled, “Hey! What the hell are you doing?” and shoved Todd back. The smaller of Todd’s buddies gave me an admirable upward right hook to the jaw, knocking me back on my butt.
Have I mentioned that most male vampires have no compunctions about hitting girl vampires?
I scrambled to my feet, picked the Girl Hitter up, and slammed him to the floor. Todd spun me on my heel and punched me in the eye.
Ow.
The dance-floor crowd was now circled around the ruckus, cheering Dick on as he kicked Todd in the kneecap and hit him in the throat with a pool cue. The taller of Todd’s friends smashed another pilsner and the tequila bottle over Dick’s head, so I kicked him in the crotch and felt a vicious little thrill when he howled and toppled over.
As Todd turned and advanced on me, I grabbed a chair, sidestepped him, and broke it over his back on “B-b-b-benny” and knocked him to the floor on “the Jets.”
“Outside, Dick, now!” Norm yelled, apparently hitting his limit in terms of broken bar paraphernalia. Dick grabbed a pool cue and chased the three of them out of the bar. I felt I had no choice but to follow, along with most of the patrons in the bar. The gentleman with the spanking-new crotch injury elected to get into his car rather than suffer further humiliation.
Todd was getting winded, and his other friend was whining about something in his face being broken.
“Just give me my money, and we’ll call it a night,” Todd wheezed.
“I’ll tell you what, you get in your car and get the hell out of here, and I’ll keep my girl here from kicking you in the goods, too.” Dick smirked. “She’s done it before. She’ll do it again.”
Todd look one look at my size-nine boots. I smiled, my fangs fully extended over my lip. Todd ran for it. The crowd groaned in disappointment and dispersed.
After I handed over cash to cover the broken stools and pitchers, a more forgiving Norm allowed us back into the bar to press ice to our rapidly healing faces.
“You should know better,” Norm told Dick.
“Hey, Jane threw just as many punches as I did!” Dick cried.
Norm shook his head. “She was hitting in self-defense. You started it.”
“Todd hit me first. Besides, how was I supposed to know he was dumb enough to head all the way to Memphis without even looking at the stupid tickets? I thought he would have figured it out weeks ago.”
Norm pointed a fatherly finger at Dick. “You know what I mean. If you didn’t do your back-alley deals at my bar, I wouldn’t have all that many fights. Why did you even come tonight, anyway? You knew Todd would come looking for you, and you know he loves Cover Band Night.”
“I forgot all about it,” Dick said, avoiding eye contact with me. Norm muttered something under his breath and turned his back to help another customer.
I stared at Dick, who busied himself pouring the remaining ice from his face pack into my water glass and stretching his freshly healed jaw. “Dick, what’s the third thing?”
Dick stared at me, his face blank. “Did you get a concussion, Stretch?”
“The third thing that men do to get over a break-up. Drinking, not talking about your feelings, and then what?” I said, growing suspicious. “It’s fighting, isn’t it? You set this up.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dick said, still not making eye contact.
“You set this up,” I repeated, poking him in the sides.
“Yes,” he mumbled in the tone of a little boy who’d burnt his Mother’s Day breakfast in bed. He smirked. “I didn’t arrange for him to hassle me, but I figured, you’re sad, you’re angry, you didn’t get to hit anything the other night. Todd was going to be there anyway, so why not let you get some stuff out of your system? I always feel better after a good cathartic tussle.”
“You did all this for me?” I laughed.
He shrugged. “You feel better, right?”
I thought about it for a second and realized that I did. That beating the tar out of a Bruce Springsteen fan with poor attention to detail had made me feel better than all the liquor and ice cream and Bette Midler in the world. “I sort of love you, Dick.”
“While my heart and all my other parts belong to a certain adorable redhead, I love you, too, Stretch,” he said, giving my shoulder a brief squeeze. “You’re the sister I never really wanted.”
“Nice.”
7
