Going Deep, #2 Read online

  Butch returned in late afternoon from one of his endless errands in a very dark mood. I idly wondered which minion he’d had to slap down and why, but questions like that wouldn’t do much for my health or my sanity.

  I slid a glass of ice water across the bar, and he snatched it up.

  “Rough day?” I asked.

  I didn’t really care, but I had to try to be pleasant until he did something to upset that. Our days went far better when Butch wasn’t raging and riling up my staff and customers.

  “Goddamn, Archie Dee.” Butch gulped the water down and held out the glass for more. I grabbed the soda gun and refilled it.

  “What’d he do now?”

  “He’s scoring free pussy all over town,” Butch snarled. “That ain’t gonna make Richie happy.”

  “Richie gets free pussy all over town,” I pointed out.

  Butch rounded on me. “Well, Archie ain’t Richie, now is he?”

  I shrugged. “Does it matter?

  “It sure as fuck does.” Butch wiped his mouth with a big paw. “I heard from four guys their bitches are giving it away to Archie for bags of weed.”

  “Then it’s not free,” I said. “He’s paying them.”

  “Goddamn it.” Butch glowered at me. “Are you fuckin’ stupid? The point is the pimps ain’t gettin’ money. The girls are keepin’ that shit.”

  “They did the work, didn’t they?”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re dumber than a box of rocks.” He leaned over the bar, and his voice rose from grumbling-asshole level to irate-asshole level. “The pussy money goes to the pimp. Got it?”

  The volume of his tone caught Danny’s attention, even over the beat of “Thunderstruck.” He narrowed his eyes at Butch and then swung his gaze toward me. I raised my hand a bit to let him know things were cool. It was my signal to bouncers that I had things under control.

  “Gee, Butch, I had no idea that’s how any of this worked.” I leaned over the bar until our noses were almost touching. “If Archie is fucking the girls on their own time, paying them in weed, it’s none of your goddamn business.”

  He slammed his fist on the bar and yelled, “And where the fuck do you think he’s getting the goddamn weed?” His bald head neon-glowed in the bar lights, sweat dotting his flushed skin. If I were lucky today, Butch would drop dead of a heart attack. I would buy Archie all the pot he could smoke as a thank-you.

  Several of my bar customers actually lifted their faces out of their drinks and swung their heads toward Butch. Butch snarled at them, and they went back to their own thoughts.

  I tapped my finger against my cheek. “If I had to guess, I’d say he must be getting it from Richie. Richie does give him weed, you know.”

  Butch shook his head like an angry bull, spittle flying from his lips. “He’s stealing from my warehouse.”

  “Your warehouse?”

  “Jesus Christ, Hannah, you know what I mean. Stop fucking with me.”

  I wondered how I could raise his blood pressure just a touch more, enough to cause a small stroke. I wiped the droplets of his disgusting spit off my counter, threw that rag into the trash, and gave him a casual glance.

  “Are you angry because you think Archie is stealing, or are you angry because Archie is getting pussy and you’re not?”

  Butch swiped his arm, and the water glass flew, clashing into a beer mug. The mug and glass both exploded, sending foam and shards of glass over the counter. Several glass fragments hit one of my best customers on the arm.

  “Fuck!” Hank lifted his arm and pulled out a chunk of glass. “Jesus, Butch, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  I took Hank’s arm, inspected it, and pulled out several more pieces. Then I grabbed a clean bar rag and pressed it against the wound gently.

  Butch had the decency to look embarrassed.

  I blotted Hank’s arm with water, giving it several pats, and when I looked up, Danny was standing there.

  “Problem?” he asked, glancing between Butch and Hank.

  “Get back to your post,” Butch snapped.

  “I think I’ll get the first aid kit first,” Danny said.

  He disappeared while I continued to clean Hank’s cut. It wasn’t deep, so it didn’t need stitches, but the last thing I needed was for Hank to get an infection.

  “Sorry, Hank,” Butch said. “Free drinks the rest of the week.”

  “It’s Thursday already,” Hank muttered, giving him a baleful look.

  “Free drinks all next week,” Butch said.

  “Okay.”

  “Hold that there,” I said, pressing the cloth back to the wound. “I’ll get this cleaned up.”

  As I grabbed more rags, Butch came around the bar and tried to help me. I didn’t want his bulk taking up my personal space or him breathing my air. I hip-checked him to get him out of my way, and I felt his arm slide around my waist. I shuddered but held my tongue.

  “Sorry, Hannah.”

  “No, you’re not,” I snapped. “You’re just afraid I’ll tell Richie.”

  His hand drifted a bit lower, and I slapped at his arm. It had no effect at all. When I leaned down to get another rag, Butch had the gall, and stupidity, to grab my ass and squeeze. I whirled around and clocked him in the face hard enough for him to see an entire cluster of stars.

  All I saw was Danny O’Shea standing at the end of the bar. If looks could kill, Butch would have died a thousand deaths, and I’d have been happy to see each and every one. Danny’s dark eyes blazed with fury, and his hand clenched on the first aid kit so hard his knuckles whitened.

  As Butch reeled back from my strike, Danny came forward, whirled Butch around, and slammed his face against the bar. Butch had time for one grunt before Danny did it again, and then he moaned before he slid to the beer-drenched floor mat in a heap.

  The music cut off mid-drum beat. On the dance floor, Tiffany slid to the bottom of her pole and stared wide-eyed at Danny. The bouncers and servers stared wide-eyed too. From the other side of the room, I heard the sound of clapping. Jonell was giving Danny a standing ovation, and soon all the customers in the place joined in.

  “Fuck me,” Hank said. “That was amazing.”

  I stared at the crumpled form and then up at Danny.

  “Girls,” I called out, and the four servers on the floor all twisted in my direction. “A drink on the house for everyone.”

  I got a round of applause this time. I waved at Spinner, our D.J., to start up the music again. “Bad Medicine” picked up in mid-song, and Tiffany jumped back onto the pole.

  “I could have handled it,” I said.

  “And you did,” Danny said. “I just finished what you started.”

  “Well”—I glanced down again at Butch’s bloody face—“thanks.”

  “No problem.” He swept up the first aid kit and handed it to me. “I’ll get a few guys and get him out of your way. Where do you want him?” He gestured for a couple of the bouncers then started to heave Butch up off the floor.

  “There’s an old sofa in the store room. Is he breathing?”

  “Oh yeah, snoring like a champ. Got some blood of course. I can clean that up for you. Seen my share of blood.” He laughed. “Worn enough of it too.”

  Connor and Jack got Butch out from behind the bar and drag-carried him through the door to the hallway.

  As Danny turned to follow, I touched his arm. His skin was so warm beneath my hand, so appealing, so unlike most of the people I knew.

  “I’ll bring you the kit when I have Hank taped up.”

  He nodded.

  “Thanks again...Danny.” I couldn’t help it. My voice was laced with hero-worship. I’d had guys try to protect my honor before but not quite as thrilling as what I’d just witnessed, and certainly not against Butch. I glanced toward the doorway. “We might end up paying for that.”

  “Worth the cost,” Danny said. With a quick smile, he vanished as fast as he’d appeared. Superhero all the way. I was smitten.

&n
bsp; I heaved a sigh and pressed my smile away. I rubbed my ass to get rid of the feel of Butch’s hand. I had a business to run, a wound to tend to, and about thirty free drinks to make. I really hated to give away drinks for free, but it would be worth it to make up for the little altercation. Hank, alone, would spiral me into near bankruptcy next week.

  When Spinner began the next song, I couldn’t help myself. I danced behind the bar to Dirty Deeds Done Cheap, wiggling my hips, bobbing my head, and singing along. All in all, this afternoon had been great.

  Chapter Three: Danny

  I’d been a good little bouncer all week. Despite Butch’s insistence that I needed to train for a week or so, he learned after the first day I wasn’t just a dumb ex-jock with muscles. I stuck to my post, kept my eyes away from the girls, and though he wanted me to throw deadbeats out on their asses, I found that the simple approach worked best. If you pointed out they were halfway out the door, they rallied and became model bar flies. When Butch saw I could actually handle remedial bouncing, he pretty much left me alone and disappeared from time to time.

  Where he went I’d yet to discover, but I would.

  I’d noticed a couple of things in that dark bar under the neon glow. First, Hannah was beautiful framed in neon. Second, a big monkey could do my job, and the biggest monkey in the place was Butch. Scratch that. It gave monkeys a bad name.

  Butch was a bad man. No question about that. He wasn’t like some of the other men I worked with at Pussy Whipped. They were all doing their jobs, biding their time each day until they could get back to the parts of their lives that mattered. To Butch, this was the part of his life that mattered. Maybe the only part. Except Hannah.

  I’d been waiting to see him put the moves on Hannah. I knew it was coming, could smell it even above the stink of the beer-soaked wood and see it through the haze of the pot smoke. The lust poured off of him in waves. His eyes never left her tits or her ass. His nostrils flared every time she walked past and he got a whiff of her perfume—at least I hoped it was her perfume and not her pussy. I rarely got close enough to smell anything about her, but not for lack of trying. Butch, however, stayed close, like a tick on a boar’s ass.

  So far, he’d been a good little monkey all week, but like a hungry lion waiting at the feed slot, he’d been prowling around the cage just waiting for an opportunity. Hannah gave him a wide berth, at least as wide as she could when he sometimes helped himself to things behind the bar. As far as I knew, though, he hadn’t helped himself to Hannah.

  I’d taken advantage of plenty of opportunities over the years—Charity came to mind—but I’d never foisted myself on an unwilling or uninterested woman. Granted, in my experience, those were hard to find. Women followed me around like I was the Pussy Piped Piper, and that was good for me. I got plenty of pussy, even more blowjobs, and sometimes got to indulge in a three-way when two women insisted they both needed a spin on the old cock rocket. Always happy to oblige a pretty woman, or even an okay one, I gave them a good time and then went out and played the piper again. My life was an endless series of pussy and ass and tits.

  But that did not make me a bad man. It made me horny and accommodating. I was nothing if not willing to please—and be pleased. Butch was not that kind of man.

  After I’d decked him, I checked on him a couple of times, just to be sure I hadn’t knocked him into next Tuesday and left him for dead, but each time I found him still breathing. The next time he touched my girl he might not be.

  I probably had broken his nose, but that bulb of a nose had been broken more times than I could count so his pretty face wouldn’t be more messed up. He would sport some bruises, but I didn’t find any teeth on the moldy old couch so I figured he should count himself lucky.

  Me, I wasn’t sure if I’d be lucky or not. I didn’t know how Richie would get his retribution or if he would even try. Butch might have been his right-hand man, and I wasn’t sure how he viewed Butch’s unwelcomed forays into Hannah’s territory, but I had a feeling Richie might side with his sister on this one. Maybe I’d get a bonus. Of course, the only bonus I really wanted was a chance to slide into Hannah’s pussy, and that bonus would be on her to give out. I’d wait like a good boy anticipating my dessert after a dinner of liver.

  Hannah made sure to wave goodbye to me when she left at six. The night bartender had arrived, and though Steve and I didn’t say much to each other, we worked well together for the remainder of my shift. Steve was a hardcore barkeep. Everything in the place changed at six from the caliber of dancer to the type of customers to the overall atmosphere.

  Hannah lorded over her domain like a benevolent dictator, and the majority of her “girls”—both servers and dancers—were pretty, nice, and relatively decent, just trying to make a living. Steve, with his Mohawk and piercings and tattoo-covered face, ran the place like a loose cannon. I never knew what to expect. It was rowdy, noisier, and a bit more dangerous—to both the working girls and the bouncers.

  The bouncers were more hardcore and built like the proverbial brick shithouse, and the girls looked like they’d been around the block a couple dozen times. Although they were all stacked with double DDs and a couple of higher alphabet letters and their pussies drew men like flies to manure, these girls had that vacant look of a well-used whore. They danced, and did it well, but I sensed somewhere inside they’d lost whoever they once had been. I felt sorry for them, but I couldn’t save the world.

  Things started revving up around seven, and when the clock hit nine o’clock, the party was getting started. Drugs made an appearance, girls disappeared through the black curtains behind the stage, and neighborhood gangbangers strolled through the place and headed down the hallway. I never saw much because the shift bouncers herded me out as soon as they pushed their way through the front door. I never had to worry about forced overtime. I was still considered day shift, and day shift had to go when nighttime rolled around.

  Butch lumbered out of the storage room around six thirty that night, looking like he’d gone a couple of rounds with Ali back in his prime. I smiled to see my handiwork because it looked much more devastating under the flashing lights. I hoped the asshole had a wicked headache. He went behind the bar, poured himself a highball glass full of Wild Turkey, and slumped down on a stool. Occasionally I felt his glare burning a hole through the back of my head, but I kept my gaze moving from the pool of light on the stage and around the perimeter like a good little soldier.

  Richie made an appearance around nine thirty, and his first glance at Butch had him signaling toward the back. Butch peeled himself off the barstool, blinked his bleary eyes, and followed his boss. When no one called me back after twenty minutes or so, I figured I was in the clear.

  Boy was I wrong.

  The boom came down at five after ten when I stepped out into the muggy night air. A couple of guys were hanging outside smoking, and I pushed through the haze, heading toward my car. I’d gotten about two doors down when I heard my name being called. The smart thing would have been to keep going, and usually I do the smart thing. For some reason, I turned around.

  Richie stood in front of the door to Pussy Whipped, dressed in a gray pinstripe suit that probably cost more than three of my mortgage payments. Butch, I was delighted to see, had to hold the building up with his gargantuan bulk. Next time maybe he’d think twice about touching an ass that didn’t belong to him.

  I sauntered back to accept my punishment, or maybe I’d luck out and get a reward. I’d wanted to be on Richie’s radar, though I’d never thought it would take me stepping in like a white knight to get it.

  Even in the heat, Richie managed to look cool. We stood under the glow of the Pussy Whipped sign. It was a blue whip, and every time the neon shifted, the whip seemed to strike and a crack would sound into the night air, along with a burst of red sparks. I actually thought the sign was pretty cool. It was certainly classy for this neighborhood, where most of the signs either advertised beer or had been scrawled in Sharpie
and propped in the window. Some of the storeowners in the neighborhood should have pooled their money and sprung for a proofreader.

  Richie gestured to the bruises on Butch’s face, a nice kaleidoscope of color under the flickering sign. “You do this?”

  “Yep.” I gave Butch a stare-down. Butch stared back through blood-shot eyes. Not sure if that was my handiwork or if he’d had a bit too many highball glasses of booze. “And I’ll do it again if he doesn’t keep his giant shovels to himself.”

  “That could be a problem,” Richie said.

  I sent him a questioning look. “Why? My job is to keep the hands off the girls. All hands. All girls.”

  “No, not all girls. Just the servers and the dancers,” Richie said. “I hired you to be a fucking bouncer, not a champion for workplace harassment.”

  I opened my mouth, but Richie snapped his fingers together like a small clamp, so I shut my trap. I didn’t want to be fired for pissing him off personally.

  “Hannah takes care of herself.” Richie adjusted his silk tie. “If she won’t—or can’t—she’ll take it up with me, and I’ll handle it.”

  “Then handle it,” I snarled. “His prints are all over her ass. And I’ll bet it’s not the first time.”

  “This is an employee issue,” Richie said. “How I handle it is none of your concern. Got that?”

  That cool veneer had started to crack a bit. I sensed a heat inside of Richie ready to boil to the surface. That small dot of sweat on his forehead indicated something about this situation had gotten to him, maybe for the first time. I could have made an educated guess and said Butch had done this dozens of times—with impunity. What the hell went on between these two, and what did it have to do with Hannah? Or me?

  “I got it,” I said, my gaze drifting to Butch, “but I don’t like it.”

  “My level of interest concerning what you care about wouldn’t fill your pencil cock. You’ll do your job, you’ll keep your eyes away from the bar, and you’ll do what you’re asked to do. Anything beyond that is outside your jurisdiction. Understood?”