Dan draped his right arm over my shoulders, speaking rapidly to the woman and giving me a friendly shake as he did. As she listened she nodded, and when he had finished she pressed a button on the intercom and said something, quickly.
A door at the back opened almost immediately, and a young woman who couldn't have been older than eighteen emerged wearing something that would only ever look arousing in lingerie catalogues. Her hair was black, loose about her face, and she was just close enough to pretty that I supposed she would be if I saw her anywhere but here. Her body was entirely visible under the fabric, her breasts still winning against gravity and her nipples erect from their contact with the air-conditioned air. Her pubic area was barely hidden by a black thong.
She stopped in the doorway and put one arm up on the frame, striking a pose, then turned to give me a view of her from behind. Her body was small and slight, and there were bruises on the back of one thigh. All of her nails – fingers and toes – were painted red.
"This is Katrina," Dan said. "You're going to go with her."
I realized I was in a whorehouse, and I saw where this was heading, and I said, "No, I'm not."
Then I stamped my right foot down on his, going for his instep. The move clipped him, enough that he growled, trying to pivot and drive his knee into my stomach, but I twisted away from him, out from under his grip, and the knee missed, but his right grabbed the collar of my jacket, keeping me from backing away. Before I had the HK up he'd grabbed the gun with his left, twisting it down so fast and so hard that I had to let it go or risk him tearing my index finger off in the trigger guard. The gun landed on the floor between us and I pitched myself forward, hitting him in the nose with my forehead. That rocked him, but he didn't let go of my collar, and with his left he shot two quick and mean punches into my right side, going for my kidney. Heat and pain chased each other around my middle and I almost lost control of my bladder, and the part of my brain that thinks these kinds of things at the worst possible moment wondered if I'd ever been hit so hard in my life.
He still had my collar, and I tried to get my arms up to his, turning to break his hold, but the kidney punches had done a number on my legs, and I got halfway through the turn before he shifted his balance and drove me into the desk, ramming the edge into my belly. I doubled over and he used his left to slam my face down onto the desktop so hard, the can of Diet Coke fell over. As the pool of carbonation swept into my eyes and hair, he changed his grip, using both hands to hold my head down, putting all of his weight against me, and I could feel his thumbs digging into my right temple.
Points of light began swimming before my eyes. The soda had found its way into one nostril, the carbon dioxide burning, and I sputtered and struggled, and Dan didn't relent.
"No more, okay?" He sounded as if I'd hurt his feelings more than his body. I probably had.
There really wasn't any choice. I tried to nod, realized that was never going to work given my current posture, and choked out a noise of assent. Again, his grip changed, and while one hand remained on my head, thumb still applying pressure, the other ran down my leg and located the Smith Wesson. He threw that aside, then went through my pockets and took my wallet, my knife, every slip of paper I'd gathered during the day.
Satisfied that I'd been disarmed, he released me, and I pushed myself back up, feeling humiliated and angry and in a fair amount of pain. Katrina was still in the doorway, looking bashfully at her red toenails. The fat woman was already mopping up the spill on her desk, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
Dan took me by the shoulders, straightening me up, and adjusting my glasses before letting me go. His mouth and nose were leaking blood, but he smiled as if he was having the time of his life.
"Okay, we're friends again?" he asked.
I sneezed, trying to get the carbonation out of my nose. "Friends," I said.
Dan tucked his arm around my shoulder once more, and together we followed Katrina into the back.
The room had a queen bed, a wet bar, and a speckled mirror on the ceiling. Attached to the head and footboard of the bed were leather manacles, lined with fur. There was also a couch, a Sony television with a Toshiba VCR, an ornate coffee table, and a cheap particleboard armoire. Despite all I've seen and done in my life, it was my first time in a brothel, and for some reason, I hadn't believed that people really liked this sort of thing.
Katrina crossed the room to another door, holding it open and beckoning for me to follow. It was a bathroom, the main fixture of which was a raised Jacuzzi. A shower filled the opposite wall, separated by a toilet and sink, both of which could have used a scrubbing. There were more mirrors.
As soon as I'd stepped inside, Katrina started to remove my jacket.
"Don't," I said.
Her attention stayed focused on my chest, and she cooed something I didn't understand and tried to lift my jacket off again. I caught her hands, felt them small and cold, and tried to get her to meet my eyes.
"I don't want to get undressed," I told her.
She turned and looked at Dan, who was standing in the doorway, said something in whatever it was they all seemed to speak. Dan, who was wiping at his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, grunted a response.
"You have to strip," he told me, studying the bloodstains on the fabric in his hand. "Either she helps you or I do."
The frustration made it into my voice. "I'm not looking to get laid."
Katrina glanced from me to Dan, then back, then cooed something again. Dan shook his head in response. This seemed to satisfy her, because she reached out for the side of my face, touching my skin where the soda had dried.
"Huh?" she said. "This? Yes?"
"You don't have to fuck her," Dan told me.
I brushed her hand away, trying to be gentle about it, though the truth was that my anger was threatening to get the better of me. She understood or she didn't, but either way she mimicked the gesture, perhaps mocking, and then moved to the Jacuzzi and sat at the edge.
"I gave you a choice." Dan dabbed at his nose once more, then folded the handkerchief tidily and put it in his back pocket. "Look, Mr. Kodiak, this is how it goes. You're staying here couple hours, okay? Maybe five, six. All paid for, best girl in the house, best room in the house, you get everything, all paid for."
"I don't want…"
"Yeah, I know, you don't. That's okay, you don't have to have her, nothing like that. But I need your clothes."
At the Jacuzzi, Katrina was gently splashing the water with her feet.
Dan was watching me closely, serious, and I saw in his eyes that I had misread him earlier. If he was a hood now, he hadn't always been one, and something in his expression reminded me of Moore.
This was what I'd been afraid of, what I knew would happen, and if Dan and I mixed it up again, I was pretty sure the result would be the same. Only this time, he wouldn't be concerned that we remain "friends." When he said he needed my clothes, I knew he meant that he needed all of them, and I knew that once I lost them they'd be gone for good, most likely burnt or dumped. I wasn't going to be able to keep the tracker, either; there was no way I'd be able to get it loose and hide it on my person with him watching.
I could only hope that the tracker had worked, that Natalie or Corry had been able to mark my location, and that someone was on the way.
"All right," I said.
He looked relieved, spoke quickly to Katrina, who swung her legs out of the water and reached around to the back of the door, pulling a terrycloth bathrobe from the hook there. I took my jacket off, then my shirt, and when she saw my vest, she made a comment to Dan. He answered, and she nodded, as if his explanation was perfectly valid.