Quintic (59 page)

Saturday, I’m going to sleep late,
so
very
late; then I’ll go shopping
.
Women’s clothes. Long sleeves, turtlenecks, baggy pants. The female
form, even her own, now officially disgusted her. She was sick of
watching men stare at naked female flesh. Who were the worse, the
jerks making rude comments or those staring with utter
indifference?

She had
agreed to let Charles drive tonight; it was his car after all.
Although, frankly, the young officer drove like an old
granny.

“
You’re
jittery tonight, Patricia.
Is everything all right?”

“
Don’t
worry, it ha
s nothing to do with you.
Your driving’s fine.”
If you
were eighty years old
. “I’m just tired I
guess.” And nervous. They had done five clubs already, and next up
on the list was the club where she had seen the scarred
guy.

Please let
him not be there
, she prayed
silently.

As luck
would have it, he was there.
Maudit!

If Charles
hadn’t been walking right behind her, she might have run out. As it
was, he pushed her forward and, probably thinking she was fatigued,
sat her down at the first free table he saw. She was indeed tired.
Exhausted as heck. Fed up of the whole thing. Her idea. Damn it,
she had terrible ideas. What was she expecting anyway?

One
in a million odds for Charles to spot the guy.
Forty-seven clubs, one guy, Lemieux’s fighter could be anywhere at
any time. He could have moved out of town, to another country,
another universe. How the heck had she convinced Charles of such a
ludicrous plan? The rookie officer must be totally desperate or
just plain dumb. He should have her arrested. Heck, she should have
herself committed. Have Christopher handcuffed her to his bed until
she got some sanity back.

A chance in
a million for Charles to spot the guy. Shouldn’t her odds amount to
the same? But here she was again, scared of the scar. She felt the
anger bubbling, building inside her.
Again!
Hasn’t once
been enough?
Even if she had settled the
score. Sort of. Even if she had moved on. Or so she had thought.
Yet here he was, and here she was, petrified once more. Even if the
bastard couldn’t do anything right now, could he? A ghost from the
past, that was all he was. That was all
she
was.
Breathe.

Her
e
yes thin slits, she slumped low on her
seat, partly hidden by Charles’s torso, and studied him. He was
uglier than she remembered. She had forgotten all about the fighter
dude; she had eyes only for the scarred
salopard
.

The other
time with Not-so-dumb
and Ape, she had
not taken a good look at him. He had become fatter in the last
years. His already balding head was now completely bare except for
a ridiculous comb-over that didn’t fill the fleshy void. His beady
gaze lingered casually on the nude woman on the stage but turned to
the room from time to time for a quick survey. He had a buddy at
his table, another jerk no doubt. Dirty cops and cops positioned
themselves the same; the disfigured bastard occupied a table
strategically located between the stage, the bar and the
door.

With her
ball cap on and her collar pulled up,
neither the shortest nor the smallest in the place, she
looked like most of the guys enjoying the show (aside from
the
enjoyment
part, obviously). Thus, she didn’t stand out. So
did Charles after four days of beard growing and intensive
exercises on
how-to-blend-in-look-casual-and-go-unnoticed-in-a-stripper-club-one-oh-one.

Her friend
had graduated from the
sit-drink-beer-look-at-the-girl’s-tits-and-ass class. He had yet to
do schoolwork on the lap dance, but she was so
not
buying him one.
She might do some foolish, even scary things for research, but lap
dancing was a hard limit. As were prostitution and murder. Until
tonight. Had she not promised herself to pack a gun for their next
encounter? Or a bazooka. For sure Scar was carrying a gun or two,
so a judge might rule her attack as self-defense, could he
not?

A stroll to
the bathroom without the cap and jacket was all that she needed to
do to let the asshole take a good look. Let him see and remember.
Would he? On her last visit here, she would have bet on a no.
Tonight? He might not recall her face, not at first; he had not
looked at her face all that much back then, only long enough to
make sure she was afraid. He had frightened her. Then, he had
angered her. He and Joshua. When she got scared, really scared, she
got angry. Raving mad. She always reacted like that, didn’t she?
Defence mechanism.

He had not
seen her coming; the jerk
hadn’t been
ogling her face then. And there he was again. And there she was
again! Fear had seized her, but now her anger grew. Into panic.
Into rage. Pure. Blind.

Keeping the
cap, the jacket, the collar, she headed for the toilets. In her
last four days of strip club hopping, she had not once gone to the
ladies’ room. When needed, she used the gas station toilets
in-between clubs. In the corner of her eye, she saw Charles’s
startled frown, but she marched on. She felt Charles jumped up, but
her feet kept on moving her forward. She couldn’t take her eyes off
the scar.

Charles
trailed behind her. What
was it with cops on that team, always following her two steps too
close? When she was just about level with the scar, the jerk’s eyes
faced her way, his leer detailing her up and down casually. Not a
blink of recognition. His gaze went back to the dancer.

She strode
right behind him, almost passed him, a step, two steps, but at the
last second, she whipped around and pushed Charles back out of the
way. Her movement came too blunt, and she caught Charles by
surprise. He crashed back into some guy coming their way. The guy,
a big beard guy, sent Charles back her way. To steady himself,
Charles gripped the scarred bastard’s table, rattling it, knocking
down Scar’s and his buddy’s bottles. Buddy got up, grabbed Charles,
and tried to punch him.

Their
first
club fight scenario
kaleidoscope
d
itself in her mind. Charles was with the
programme tonight, though. He ducked, and the buddy’s fist ended up
in the beard guy’s face, not hard but insulting. Beard charged.
Scar jumped in.

It all
happened so fast; she hadn’t stepped away from Scar’s back yet. As
the
salaud
got up, her first instinct was to take a step back. Fear.
Then, action-reaction, anger kicked in. She lunged forward, fisted
his beer bottle by the neck and smashed it into the back of Scar’s
head. She swung again angrily; Scar ungracefully dropped to the
floor. She kicked him. No more thinking. Her boots hammered his
back, his ribs over and over again.
Turn around,
salaud
. Look at
me.
She ached to kick his face. His
groin.

B
uddy aimed at her. Charles threw
himself in between. Two against one. Beard in for himself and Scar
out for the count, that made her and Charles two against one
against one.

Four cops
invaded the club. Then two more. And two more. More still. One of
them got hold of her. Everything went black.

Her Plan

S
he heard noises.

Que c’est bruyant!

The noises
turned into voices.
Angry voices.
Arguing. Yelling.

Qu’ils sont bruyants!

Was she
having a bad dream?
She didn’t dare open
her eyes, though; the voices might get worse. She remained
immobile, eyes closed.

A
voice
seemed familiar. Somewhere close
by, it called her name.
Sorry, I’m sleeping
.

The voice
gr
ew worried. More yelling. Damn, now she
too was worried. Did she need to open her eyes to make the yelling
stop? Another voice. Irritation laced the noise, yet the tone came
calm, soothing almost. It too called her name.

Merde, mais taisez-vous!
The
voice grumbled; she knew that voice.
Please, speak amongst yourselves and pretend I’m not
here.

The floor
was cold. Hard.
Uncomfortable. Something
touched her shoulder. A hand?
Il est où le salaud?
She didn’t
want anyone to touch her, not with Scar around. Where was he? She
shouldn’t be lying down. Not when
le salopard
might be near. The
fear cut through her foggy head. She needed to get up.

She opened
her eyes and pushed off the floor. Bolted. Too fast. She went
do
wn but surprisingly gently. Hands under
her armpits slowed her fall. Charles. She wanted to throw up.
Normal reaction considering, wasn’t it?

She
swayed on her knees, one steadying hand on the
floor because the room spun. Charles didn’t let go of her
arm.

“
You’re
going to be all right. Just breathe, Patricia. You’re going to be
fine. That’s a girl. Breathe. Everything’s going to be fine,” he
repeated over and over.

Mais qu’est-ce qu’il en sait?
What the hell did he know? Where the heck was
Scarface?

She
recognised t
he other voice in her dream,
Not-so-dumb, as he took her other arm, “Up you go, sweetie. We’re
going to check you out. We’ve an ambulance waiting for
you.”

“Non
. No, no way. I’m fine.
Truly.” Someone must have knocked her lights out. As she had the
scarred jerk. The thought made her so happy that she giggled. Good
for him. Maybe she had killed him. Her chuckles intensified, no
regrets there. “What the heck happened?” She managed to ask
in-between hiccups of glee.

“
Not much.
The cops broke the fight. Stun-gunned you.” Bummer.

“
What
happened to our, hum,
attackers?”

Not-so-dumb
lifted an eyebrow at her question. “A guy’s en route to the
hospital, and I’ve got two under arrest. They’re cooling off in
police squad cars outside. As for you two−” Not-so-dumb shrugged.
Universal police sign language meaning anything from,
“
W
e’ll see
,”
to, “Y
ou’re going to the loony bin
,”
to, “
L
et’s do
this again sometime
,” to,
“
We’re about to cuff you
unless
−”

“
Stop
frowning, you’ll get wrinkles, Patricia,” Not-so-dumb said instead.
“Come on. The tech will examine you, and we take it from
there.”

“
Okeydokey.”
She focused on Charles. His lower lip was swollen, so was his left
cheek to his eye; blood smeared his knuckles and shirt. “Are you
OK, Charles sweetie?” Her voice was breathy.

“
Yes.
” He smiled, adding, “You
should see the other guys.”
Guys
. Plural. Lame but cute. At
that moment, his eyes had the same gleam as Christopher and
Hamilton. He was a mess nevertheless.

She sighed. No doubt she didn’t
look any better.

“
Patricia,
stop stalling. Ambulance’s that way.” Not-so-dumb urged, true to
his name.

“
Let me give
you a hint
, Officer.” She glared at him.
“If the victim can walk to the ambulance, then the victim doesn’t
need the ambulance.” She didn’t want to go to the
hospital.

“
Let me give
you a hint, Babe sweetie. If the victim can smart-mouth the cops,
then maybe the
victim
’s well enough for a trip
to the police station.”

Good point.
She didn’t want to go to the police station either.

“
Like I
already explained, Steve, it’s all a misunderstanding. I bumped
into the guy−” Not knowing why she had shoved him back, Charles’s
explaining was a little shaky.

Not-so-dumb
insisted on sending
her to the hospital nonetheless. When the arresting officer came to
join them, he insisted on arresting them. Christopher arrived at
this point. She glanced at the tightly set jaws, the clenched
fists, the half-smoked cigarette he was crushing between his
fingers; she looked away. The Big guy was beyond angry.

When he came
to stand next to her, Charles straightened his stance. So did
Not-so-dumb Steve. She didn’t, suddenly too exhausted. As her eyes
grew moist, she
decided
to concentrate on holding
back her the tears. She had expected the waterworks. Scared, then
angry, then exhausted and sad was a typical chain reaction for her
when under stress. She usually managed to hold the last for when
she was alone, though, but maybe not this time. They needed to
hurry.

Christopher
didn’t
hug, hold, or speak to her. He
chatted with the arresting officers. He yapped to
Steve-not-so-dumb. He lectured Charles. When everyone agreed on
whatever they had discussed while she was silently going into
shock, Christopher gestured her to the door, and once outside, to
his truck, all without a single word or a comforting caress.
Charles helped her sit in the back of Christopher’s vehicle before
sitting with the Big guy in front for a silent ride.