“This has happened before, I take it.”
At ten after, Amy walked into the kitchen, dropped her bag, and kissed me on the cheek. “I thought you were making feta pasta.”
“Change of plans.”
She glanced around. “Where are the kids?”
“Outside, with Regina.”
“I didn’t know she was coming.”
“Neither did I.”
Amy smiled. “I’ll go say hi.”
She exited through the side door.
“Mommy!” Myles yelled.
“Mommy!” Regina yelled.
We ate on the deck. Grill-smoke hung in the air.
“Why, everything’s so delicious, Clay,” Regina said.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you for having me.”
“You’re being different,” Charlotte said.
“More cake,” Myles said.
“You’re welcome anytime, Regina,” Amy said.
“Am I?”
“Apparently,” I said.
“More cake.”
“Sorry, dude. We don’t have cake.”
“More. Caaaake.”
“No cake, honey,” Amy said. “But there’s ice cream.”
“Cake,” Myles moaned. “Cake.”
“He wants steak,” Charlotte interpreted.
I cut pieces and pushed them onto his plate, causing him to moan again, this time with pleasure.
“Caaake,” he said through a mouthful of meat.
The adults laughed.
Charlotte said, “Why does he talk like that?”
“He’s learning,” Amy said.
“I don’t talk like that.”
“He’s younger than you, sweetheart.”
“Do I talk too much?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Devin said I’m a chatterbox.”
“Devin can eat it,” Regina said.
“Eat what?”
Amy, stifling a laugh, said, “It’s an expression. It means you should ignore her.”
“Devin’s a boy.”
“Then ignore him.”
“Eat it, Devin,” Charlotte said.
“Cake.”
Amy and I put the kids down while Regina went to get changed for our night on the town. Half an hour later, she still hadn’t reappeared.
“What’s taking her so long?”
Amy craned past me. Covered her mouth. “Oh my God.”
Regina sashayed out to the living room.
Tonight’s look was Disco Goddess: skintight black faux-leather pants, matching mini-biker-jacket, hot-pink crop top, eyeshadow the same fierce shade, eyeglasses another pink echo, radiating waves of Barbie energy; hair gelled in front and teased at the back into a full-on poodle-tail pouf.
She struck a pose, ten years younger and four inches taller on black Air Jordan platforms.
“Let’s dance, bitch.”
Chapter 14
For hours we canvassed downtown Oakland, handing out flyers with pictures of Adam and Denny during better times, plus the facial reconstruction of John Doe.
It was Friday night, sidewalks jammed. A few people took a look and asked what had happened or expressed sympathy. Mostly the reaction was indifference. They were too drunk; we were ruining their vibe.
By one a.m., a sense of futility had set in. We stood at the velvet rope, waiting to be admitted to Ambrosia Social Club.
Regina said, “My feet are killing me.”
“Weird.” I lifted a New Balance 547. “Mine feel great.”
“Eat it.”
The bouncer, a massive, mean-looking dude in a circus tent coat, gestured for our IDs and had Regina open her purse. She displayed the contents: half a ream’s worth of copy shop flyers. He took one and stared at it.
“Careful,” she said. “It’s loaded.”
He frowned but unclipped the rope.
Mirror balls scattered lurid red light over the dance floor. A DJ wearing a horse-head mask spun vinyl at an ear-crackling level. We divided the flyers and moved off in opposite directions: Regina swimming into the throng while I fought my way to the bar.
A lone bartender was on duty. He ignored me for several passes before granting eye contact.
“Get you?” he shouted.
I put out a flyer. “Seen them?”
He glanced at it, glanced at me; then he took the flyer into the kitchen and reemerged with backup, a woman twenty years his senior, unmistakably management.
“I have to ask you to leave,” she shouted.
I made a why face.
“We don’t like cops here.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“I don’t care. You’re making people uncomfortable.”
The bartender stood behind her, glaring at me.
“These men are dead,” I said.
“Last chance. Get out.”
I raised my hands in concession and backed off.
Turned and plunged into the crowd.
I couldn’t see Regina — too short — and I threaded across the dance floor, offering flyers, pressing them into sweaty hands. Bodies crushed together, grinding, flirting, snapping selfies, sucking down cocktails to forget their student loans. The music was an aneurysm. I tried not to think of how people would fare in a fire.
Stepping through a bead curtain I followed a corridor to a back room bathed in hookah smoke. Here you could talk without shouting. More bodies lay on floor pillows in various states of undress or repose. Neon declared it to be The Comfort Zone.
Regina was engaging with three men, trying to redirect their focus from her cleavage to a flyer.
I picked my way toward her, bent to her ear. “Move on.”
She nodded and stood with her purse.
“What the fuck, dude,” one of the guys said.
Gen Z, bushy beard, knit cap, Fair Isle sweater. As if he’d just pulled into port after a hard year’s whaling rather than doing graphic design for Salesforce.
He muscled in front of Regina, chest out, swaying. “We were having a conversation.”
“Sorry, it’s over.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” He appealed to her. “You let him speak to you like that?”
She ignored him and turned to go. I was a step behind her and then the guy was on top of me. Then all three guys were on top of me. Aside from the Gorton’s fisherman, there was one guy wearing a turquoise cowboy shirt and another in acid-washed overalls. It was like fighting the Village People. I thought I was doing pretty well, all things considered.
Regina must’ve disagreed. She loosed a hair-raising war cry and ran at Overalls, rocking him with a knee to the jaw that snapped his head back and sent him through a cute vintage lamp. I took advantage of the distraction to twist violently, bucking off the Buckeroo and the Old Tar, scooting on my ass along the sticky, splintery floor. Everyone else had begun scrambling for the exit, screaming and shoving to get out of The Comfort Zone.
So not the vibe.
I clambered to my feet just as Captain Ahab came lurching toward me, cheeks livid with post-pandemic rage and thirty-three-dollar elderflower martinis. With a short sidestep I cupped the base of his skull and delivered him face-first into the exposed brick, whereupon he returned to Davy Jones’s locker, or at least to the waiting list at Davy Jones’s dentistry practice. Meanwhile John Wayne was chasing Regina with a broken bottle like some high-stakes game of tag. Her platforms were slowing her down. I started to intervene but was diverted by Overalls, who roused himself to grab my right knee.
I’m very sensitive about my knees. Righty in particular. Lot of history there. A lot of — dare I say it? — trauma. I didn’t like it. It made me mad.
I rammed a fist into his temple, laying him out for good. Two down.
The Marlboro Man had backed Regina into a corner and was taking weak floppy jabs with the bottle while she swung her purse, scattering flyers into the pulsating air.