Bloodbath, Part 7
7 – Walking Spanish
Roan had little to no familiarity with organized sports, so he had no idea if the reactions of the rest of the Falcons was par for the course. But if it was, he missed out on having teammates.
Tank noticed they’d been gone for a bit and needed to piss anyways (those pink confetti daiquiris catching up with him), so he came in shortly after Roan had put in a call to 9-1-1 to report that he’d been almost stabbed, but had his assailant pinned down in the bathroom of Panic. To say the dispatcher wasn’t sure how to handle that was an understatement. As soon as Tank saw Grey holding a bleeding guy pinned to the wall, he opened the door and shouted in his hockey voice – the one that carried across a rink to his teammates when the crowd was loud and the music was booming – “Avant!”
Grey explained later that that was a kind of a code. It was a bit of French that everyone knew, meaning “before” or “forward”, but Tank used that to call in defensemen. Not all the Falcons on the pub crawl were defensemen (Jeff and Zach were wingers, whatever that meant precisely, Sandy was a center, and of course Tank was the goalie), but within seconds they all crowded the men’s room, ready for a fight. Save for Zach, who was a little too drunk to respond so rapidly.
Grey explained the situation while the guys crowded around the assailant, giving him the stink eye, and Roan almost felt bad for the guy, especially since Grey let up on him so he could get a good look at how totally fucking screwed he was, surrounded by big, angry men. Of all the nights to try and attack him, he had to do it on the one night he was doing the town with half a hockey team. That was the definition of bad timing. Or karma, perhaps, depending on your perspective.
Dylan followed them in too, and was shocked that someone would try for Roan at his place of work. Roan tried to get the guy to talk, but he wouldn’t. Grey and the guys offered to “make him talk” (how ominous did that sound?) but luckily the cops had arrived by then. Also luckily, he knew the cops who showed up, Parker and Kinney, and they didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find him with a group of guys in the men’s room. When they discovered the guys with him were part of the Seattle Falcons, Parker started laughing, and didn’t stop until he was crying. Finally he got a hold of himself, and slapped the cuffs on the guy, telling him, “You hafta be the stupidest guy I’ve arrested this week. And I get all the stupid ones, so that’s something.”
The guy still wasn’t talking. When asked his name, why he wanted to attack Roan, he only said, “I wanna lawyer.”
“Of course you want a lawyer,” Parker replied. “You guys always want lawyers.”
As the cops led him out, the club members applauded them. But when he and the guys came out of the men’s room, they were greeted with applause and wild cheers. Drunk Zach raised his arms and let out an explosive, “Wooo!” He then casually leaned over, vomited behind a table, and then half staggered, half collapsed against the bar. “Woo,” he added anemically. “Fuck I’m tired.”
Jeff grabbed him under the shoulders, propping him up with a single arm (how strong was Jeff? That was a bit unexpected). “Lightweight. You’ve just shamed Saskatchewan. But thanks, ’cause I won the pool.”
Grey pulled out a small clump of bills and tossed it on the bar. “Sorry for the clean up,” he told Luis as he gathered the money.
Luis scanned the bills, and replied, “Honey, you tip like this, you can puke on our floors any time.”
“I’m not a lightweight,” Zach argued belatedly. “I haven’t shamed Skacth .. Suchcutch …home.”
“I told him not to order the Tie Me To The Bedpost,” Dylan said. That was the name of the drink Zach ordered in the girlie drink contest. According to Dylan, it had rum, vodka, and Midori in it, which sounded disgusting, and could fuck you up pretty fast. Zach may have been living proof of that.
“He shoulda went with the Royal Fuck,” Tank added.
Sadly, that was a drink too. Roan didn’t even want to know what was in that.
In spite of the fact that it seemed like the night had ended on a sour note, the guys were eager to do it again sometime soon. Roan happily agreed, as he had had fun. Dylan gave him a look, the kind of look only a person who loved you could give you. It said, without words, “You’re fucking crazy.” And yes, he understood he was. After dropping off Grey, Scott, and Tank at Grey’s and Scott’s place, Dylan said it out loud: “You know, they mean well, but I think they’re all a bit nuts.”
“They play hockey. Of course they’re nuts.” After a brief pause, he admitted, “That’s probably how come we get on so well, even though we have absolutely nothing in common.”
“Except a love of trouble.”
“I don’t love it. It loves me.”
Dylan was driving since he hadn’t had any alcohol. Roan didn’t feel at all tipsy, but figured it was easier to surrender the keys than argue. “Did you recognize that guy?”
“The one who tried to attack me? No.”
“Any idea what that was about?”
He was forced to shrug. “A lot of people hate me. I couldn’t even begin to narrow down the list.”
“Shit, that’s sad.”
“Tell me about it.” What did you do about that? Public apologies, start handing out money, a little bit of both? And even then, that probably would only cut down his enemies list marginally.
He wondered if it was the church. Yeah, they’d backed off since he almost ripped that guy’s arm clean off, but they were never going to be best buddies, and some followers got overzealous. It was always the religious nutcases who were the most dangerous people: they honestly believed god was on their side, so nothing they did was wrong, even if that included massacring kindergärtners on a playdate. It’s one of the reasons he always distrusted religion as a whole. No one should ever feel that right about something, so justified in their righteousness that nothing they did was out of bounds.
No, the guy hadn’t been infected. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t in the Church of Divine Transformation. It only meant he hadn’t been infected yet.
The combination of alcohol and downers was a risky one, and by the time they got home he just decided to fall into bed. Dylan joined him, and seemed to hold him tighter than he usually did. Scared? Possibly. He even asked, as Roan was falling asleep, “Do you think Hallmark makes a ‘Thank you for saving my boyfriend’s life from the psycho’ card? I should send one to Grey.”
“He didn’t save my life. I coulda took him.”
“You’re hard to kill, hon. You’re not invincible.”
“I know, but it wasn’t stepping in front of a bullet.” After a moment, he added, “You could probably make him a mix CD for practice.”
“I’m leaving that to you, alt rock fan.”
“Hey, they’re a hockey team. They like the harder stuff.”
In the morning, Roan checked his phone messages and email messages, and got a couple of surprises. The guy arrested last night was named Charles Crosby – the name meant nothing to him – and it turned out there was a warrant on him in California, for assault and domestic violence. So he was most likely going to take a trip across state lines, and Roan wouldn’t have to worry about it for a while. He still never said why he went after him. Email wise, Darren had responded to him with some wariness. Roan had already picked out his assumed identity from the Rutherford database: a student named Chelsea Yamamoto, a cute younger student who could have no class overlap with Darren, so there was little chance they’d met before. Pretending to be her, she talked about having seen him hanging with his friends, and how she thought he was kind of cute, but was afraid to talk to him for fear of being embarrassed. Darren responded before he got off line: he would be at Club Amsterdam tonight, in one of the VIP rooms, and she was invited to join him.
Horny bastard. It was so nice to know teen boys were the same, whether gay or straight or somewhere in between.
Club Amsterdam was a hell of a place to invite a sixteen year old girl, though. It was a strip club that tried to present itself as classy and exclusive, but really only its even more absurd prices and large building separated it from its competition. Supposedly its dancers were “screened”, but for what Roan didn’t know – STDs, dependent children, track marks, well tucked away dicks? No idea. He wasn’t looking forward to going there.
Then there was the added problem that Darren would probably have his bodyguards with him, as silly as that was. As soon as he realized he wasn’t Chelsea, he’d order then to sling him out. He needed something to tip the balance, something that would make them pause and not be so fast to act. He needed bodyguards of his own.
Well, that was a no brainer, wasn’t it?
He called Grey, who picked up almost immediately, and sounded very chipper. No hangover for him – he had the alcohol tolerance of Charles Bukowski. (Or maybe he didn’t drink that much – come to think of it, he could only remember him having three alcoholic drinks last night. Mostly he drank water.) Roan asked him how everyone else was doing, and he said everyone else was fine, save for Zach, who was greener than Shrek, but who was surprised there? Anyways, Roan told him the deal: he had to question a kid who always traveled with professional goons, ex-military bodyguards who probably mainlined steroids for breakfast and were most likely armed. He really didn’t want to get into a fight with them, all he wanted was a stalemate. Would he be interested? “Oh hell yeah,” Grey volunteered almost instantly. “Should I pick you up?”
“You know where Club Amsterdam is?”
“We took Carty there for his birthday last year.”
He had no idea who Carty was. Probably an unmet teammate. “How was it?”
“Weird. How can a strip club be arrogant?”
Roan had no answer for that. Did anyone?
He put in a call to Holden, who said he thought he had some leads, but until he tracked a solid one down he was not going to get his hopes up. Holden was being elusive for some reason, and Roan really didn’t trust it. Trying to pry it out of him turned out to be wasted time, as he claimed a client at three and begged off. Roan bet there was no client. What was that bastard up to? Yes, he was a surprisingly good investigator, but he just got stabbed going off on his own. Did he want history to repeat itself?
Before totally committing to this course, Roan tried to get in touch with the Brewsters again. No dice. He couldn’t get past the receptionist, no matter what lie he tried on. He found that Hatcher had called and left him a message. The bank had called to say that Jordan’s card had been used last night (yes, he had a credit card at his age – unbelievable), and the it was used at … Club Amsterdam. Huh. What was going on there? Roan felt better about this deception now.
Grey picked him at five thirty, when Dylan was gone – Roan hadn’t wanted to tell Dylan what he was up to. To his surprise, Tank was in the car as well. “You need at least two,” Grey said, referring to bodyguards. “Scott woulda come, but he promised his girl he’d take her out tonight.”
“His girl?” Roan repeated. He had a girlfriend, all this time? The little slut.
“Aria,” Tank said. “Fucking hot. He gets all the hottest tail.”
“Well, he’s hot,” Grey replied. “He would.”
There was no arguing with that logic.
Club Amsterdam was far away from the part of town sometimes known as “strip row” – there were three strip clubs and ten bars within an eight mile radius of each other. It was a sad part of town. But Club Amsterdam was downtown, near the business district, trying very hard to put on airs. Which truly baffled Roan, because it was a titty bar – guys came here to see tits. How exactly did you class that up?
In the parking lot up the street from the club, he briefed Grey and Tank on everything again. It wasn’t that he thought they didn’t get it, he just didn’t want to get them hurt. He told them that the guys were ex-military and had guns, so he really didn’t want to start a fight. This was all about fight prevention. “Is that why you’re wearing a Butthole Surfers t-shirt?” Grey asked wryly.
“I just grabbed a shirt,” Roan lied. Okay, no, he didn’t. When going into aggressively heterosexual places, he always liked to wear something gay. The Butthole Surfers weren’t gay to his knowledge, but their name kind of was.
“Do you have your gun?” Grey continued, the tiniest of smirks on his face. He was wearing a Seattle Falcons t-shirt, navy blue and a little too tight, so his well-defined pecs were shown, and you got some hint of the six pack abs hiding beneath. In a sense he had dressed gay, but mostly he dressed just to show what guys who wanted to start shit with him would be getting into.
“No. I’m not getting into a gun battle in a crowded place. Even drawing a gun in such a situation is idiotic, but I wouldn’t put it past these assholes.”
“Guns are pussy weapons,” Tank proclaimed. “You wanna fight, just fight. Don’t hide behind shit like a dickless wonder.”
“Says the goalie,” Roan teased.
“Hey, he starts shit sometimes,” Grey said. “I think he has the most penalty minutes of any goalie in the league. It’s well known if you encroach on his crease he’ll send you flying. He’s the Ron Hextall of French-Canadian goaltenders.”
“I love how you say that like I know what it means,” Roan said, getting out of the car. Grey just chuckled at that. He also shucked off his jacket and left it in the car, exposing his well muscled arms, another bit of fair warning to any opponent, but really, shouldn’t the scars on Grey’s face been warning enough?
They walked into the club, which was disappointingly pedestrian: metal, neon, clear acrylic, spotlights on small stages centered around long poles, which women who were predominately blonde wrapped themselves around. There was a bar off to one side, long and wooden, with mirrors behind it reflecting light and bodies, and near the back, hidden by shadows, was a doorway. Standing in front of the doorway, which was cut off by a velvet rope, was a huge Samoan man, maybe six four and three hundred pounds, with a blue flame tattoo crawling up the side of his neck. As they neared, Grey suddenly took the lead, and said, “Hey, remember me? Grey Williams of the Seattle Falcons.”
The bouncer looked unmoved – perhaps the Britney Spears song was too loud – but then he said, “The soccer team, right?”
“Hockey. Sounders are the soccer team.”
He shook his huge head, a dismissive gesture if there ever was one.
Grey went on, regardless. “That’s Tank Beauvais, goaltender, and this is Ron Hextall, our center.”
Oh good. He was now the butt of some hockey joke, he was sure of it.
The Samoan pointed at him. “You look familiar.”
“I’m legendary,” Roan replied, deadpan. Grey was grinning at him in the spastic light, almost laughing.
Tank suddenly exclaimed something in French, his words tumbling together so fast Roan had no hope of understanding any of it. (Not that he actually spoke French.) Grey made a calming gesture with his hand, and told the bouncer, “Tank wonders what’s up.”
Tank added something else in French emphatically, and pointed at one of the nearest dancers. “Dude, chill,” Grey said, then added, “Ce lieu suce.”
“You speak French?”
Grey shrugged. “You play hockey, you gotta speak some.”
“Darren Brewster is expecting us,” Roan added, realizing that the guys were actually doing a decent job of buffaloing this guy. He was a bit confused, and Tank’s French outbursts – which he was beginning to suspect were nonsensical and/or insulting – were making it worse.
The bouncer raised his eyebrows. “Really? He mentioned he was expecting someone … huh.”
“Is Jordan with him?” Roan added, trying to keep it casual.
“Who? Oh, you mean that skinny rich boy? Naw, I ain’t seen him in weeks.” He lifted up the velvet rope, and said, “C’mon. He’s three doors down, on the left.” As they crossed beneath the rope, the bouncer added, “What is it with hockey anyways? You skate around, you hardly score, and it’s kinda dull, ain’t it?”
“Not from our perspective.”
“Manger moi,” Tank told him. Roan was fairly certain he just told the guy to eat him. But in French it sounded classy.
“Huh?”
“It’s not for everyone,” Roan told him, mimicking sympathy, but in all honesty he was clamping down hard on the urge to laugh.
“Guess not. I prefer football.”
Once they were in the back room, a maze of under lit corridors, Grey said, “Yeah, guys who shoot ‘roids in their ass until they’re too big to fit through a normal doorway, with their junk shrunk to the size of raisins. Sign me up for that.”
“I know you told him to eat you, Tank, but that’s the limit of my French. What else did you say?”
“I was complaining,” he admitted. “I said the place was cheap and ugly, it smelled bad, and expecting ten bucks for a soda was a joke.”
All fair points. “When you pointed at the stripper ..?”
“I said she looked like his mom.”
Grey laughed then, but tried to stifle it. “You bastard, I almost lost it then.”
Tank just smiled in a pleased, slightly unbalanced way. Again, Tank seemed like the mellowest guy in the world, but he gave off an energy that suggested that was a trap. Both he and Grey exuded the quiet confidence of men who never had to worry about anything, but Tank still had an edge to him that made him harder to read. Either he was honestly just a bit nuts, or really liked people to think that he was.
Roan led the way to the room, one door among a few, none particularly indicative of what was inside. But he could smell sweat in the air, arousal, frustration. What was that Chris Rock joke? Something about there never being sex in the champagne rooms? Well, these were the equivalent of the champagne rooms, and no, there was no sex, although there was anticipation and disappointment.
Roan opened the door without knocking, not sure what he was going to see. What he saw was a sleazy/cheesy looking lounge, with velvet sofas in a semi-circle and mirrors on the wall, and some kind of pop style R & B music blocking out the sounds of the club or any noises from the other rooms. A scantily clad brunette waitress in a gold bikini (really? Tacky ..) was serving drinks off a silver tray to Darren and his “posse”. The posse consisted of three steroided out muscleheads – one shaven headed, one with a crew cut, the last with a type of proto-mullet (he mentally dubbed them, in order, Curly, Moe, and Larry) – and a stacked blonde in a skin tight purple sheath dress who probably worked for the club. Darren was unimpressive, your average frat boy type with a soul patch and unruly dun brown hair that suggested he was vain and trying hard not to come off that way. Something in his eyes had the smug arrogance of the terminally bored, but he looked sour at their entrance. “Dudes, occupado,” he said. Wow, that just made Roan hate him more.
“I’m Chelsea Yamamoto” he told him. “You were expecting me.”
Darren’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
Larry, Moe, and Curly all stood up, and Grey and Tank took a couple steps forward, as if ready to charge them. The fact that there were three of them and that at least two of them outweighed Tank by a hundred pounds didn’t seem to phase them. Grey was physically relaxed, a total lie (no good fighter ever really tensed), and Tank seemed almost semi-conscious, save for his eyes, which seemed to eat up the room with every glance, sorting details and tossing them aside based on irrelevance. His laser like focus was impressive; he was a sniper waiting to happen.
“I’m a private detective, and I’m looking into the disappearance of Jordan Hatcher. I wanted to talk to you, but all I seemed to get was the runaround. Which I think I understand now. So why are you using his credit card, Darren? Surely your dad’s loaded.”
Darren was holding a beer bottle, which he rested on his knee as he looked at him with contempt. “What? What the fuck? Get out of here or I’ll have you removed.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Grey said casually. A threat that didn’t sound like one.
“Who are these fucks?” Darren demanded.
“I thought Jordan was your best friend. What happened?”
Darren looked confused and pissed off. “I don’t hafta talk to you. I can have you arrested.”
“And get yourself arrested? You’re seventeen. You can’t drink; you can’t legally be here. You’ll get the club shut down, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Now, what did you do to Jordan?”
Belligerence flashed through his gaze, as it had never occurred to him that there was something he couldn’t do. The woman in the sheath dress suddenly looked nervous – she hadn’t known he was seventeen? Yeah, it was kind of shitty of him to put her job at risk.
“Get them out,” Darren said to the Three Stooges. He then, with almost no telegraphing, flung the beer bottle. “Fucking asshole.”
Roan saw it coming and wasn’t concerned, he knew he could duck it, but he never had a chance. Suddenly a hand snapped out and snatched the bottle out of mid air, and in almost the same motion flung the bottle back with double the force. It was Tank, showing off nearly super human reflexes of his own.
Darren saw it coming, eyes widened in horror, and attempted to scramble off the couch to avoid the bottle, but wasn’t fast enough. It shattered on his shoulder, surprising a yelp out of him. “Chickenshit motherfucker!” Tank yelled. “Get up and fight, you piece of shit dog sucker!”
Grey leaned over and whispered, “Is he an awesome goalie or what?”
Roan actually wanted to select the “or what”, but really didn’t have the time, as that’s when shit started to happen.
Moe dove for Tank, attempting a tackle, but Tank was clearly in “game” mode, ready for anything, and people just moved too slow. He stepped aside and punched Moe right in the gut, his own forward momentum making the punch that much worse. He dropped right to his knees, retching, while Tank taunted, “Stupid fucking shit licker! A two legged pig moves faster than you!” Tank then punched him in the back of the neck, sending him sprawling onto the floor.
Larry went for Grey, who simply grabbed his extended arm and twisted under it, and when he was behind Larry, he rabbit punched him right behind the ear. Larry went down like a ton of bricks, unconscious on his feet. Roan knew there was a sweet spot there, and so did Grey, apparently. Maybe that was the judo training.
Curly initially seemed to go for Roan, but stopped and reached into his coat instead, going for his weapon. Moron. Roan grabbed his arm as he started bringing it out, gun in his hand, and twisted hard. Too hard. It wasn’t just that the bones snapped, they crackled like bubble wrap, tendons tore, and Curly started turning shades of purple. He kicked, catching Roan in the leg, and it hurt enough that Roan lashed out a kick of his own in anger. And that was the mistake, as he was a little too angry.
His kick hit the man’s knee with enough force that it shifted, and his knee seemed to bend the wrong way, back to front. He collapsed, still conscious, his right arm a twisted ruin and his left leg no better, making strange, truncated keening noises somewhere between yelps and moans. His gun had fallen on the floor and he was still trying to grab it with his good hand, but Grey snatched it up and winced. “Fuck, dude, you really messed him up.”
Roan shook his head, ashamed of himself, trying to swallow back the anger, the adrenaline, the growl bubbling up from the base of his throat, the pain snaking through his lower jaw. That shouldn’t have happened; he shouldn’t have shifted so easily, with so little provocation. What the hell was that?
Moe was still face down on the floor, but his arm was reaching under his jacket. Roan pointed, and Grey took the hint. He dropped down knee first on the guy’s back, and put his hand on the back of his head, pushing his forehead to the floor. “Dude, I can knock out your front teeth, or you can just chill out and wait for this to be over. Do you have good dental?” The guy stopped struggling, but muttered, “Goddamn motherfucker.”
“That’s Mr. Motherfucker to you,” Grey corrected.
The girls had left the room quietly, slipped out without notice. Perhaps there was an emergency protocol, learned in case of altercations, but that also told him that security were probably on their way. They needed to get this done now and get out ahead of any bigger thugs. Not that they couldn’t handle it – he had a two man wrecking crew here – but he wasn’t sure what was happening to him, and another fight could make it worse.
Darren was crouched behind the sofa, blood leaking from a small glass cut on his cheek, his eyes wide and terrified, especially since Tank was advancing on him, hands balled into fists at his side. “Who are you guys? You mob? You want money? My dad’s got money, but he won’t pay if you hurt me.”
“Stuff your money up your ass you cowardly piece of shit,” Tank snapped. “You wanna fight, stand up.”
“I don’t wanna fight,” Darren said, almost shrieking, cringing further back behind the couch.
Roan moved forward, giving Tank a pat on the shoulder, letting him know he could back off. “We don’t want money, we didn’t even want to fight.”
“I did,” Grey volunteered.
“I just want to know what happened to Jordan. Where is he? Why do you have his credit card?”
“I don’t!” He shouted, nearly hysterical. “I don’t know where Jordan is, all right? He stopped talking to me!”
“’Cause you stole his card?”
“Why do you keep saying that?! I didn’t! I swear to god man, Brittney just does shit, okay?”
“Brittney? Selfridge?” Suddenly it clicked: Brittney’s mother said she was a shoplifter. Maybe she was just a thief in general. “She’s with you, isn’t she? She left Jordan for you.”
“It’s not her fault,” Darren insisted. He was almost crying; the smell coming off of him was sharp and metallic with fear. “We didn’t know he’d run off. We didn’t!”
So what it came down to wasn’t his stifling life or his asshole of a father, but betrayal by his best friend and girlfriend. It would have been depressing if it wasn’t so pedestrian.