What was part of his job was the fact that her boyfriend or fuck buddy or whatever he was to her was all about the payback—so what you now had were two guys in New Rocks shoving each other in a china shop of other people who were jonesing for their fix of drugs, alcohol, or sex.
And therefore likely to hit back.
Given that humans one-on-one were dumb enough, but in a group they could be truly stupid, he knew he had to take control. Jumping in between the two, he strong-armed both at the collarbone.
Before he could start his speech about pulling their shit together, the four men behind the fight decided to get involved.
Fists flew around him, one of them clipping him in the head.
No more talking.
Duke dominated the situation, grabbing lapels and throwing men bodily onto the concrete, elbowing others in the chest, coldcocking whoever tried to step to him. The entire time, as hands latched onto him and he ducked punches and dodged a knife, he was utterly calm, totally detached.
He honestly didn’t care whether he got arrested for violence, or stabbed, or shot. And he didn’t give a damn whether he did permanent damage to the people he was submitting—or whether that chick got turned into a hood ornament or not.
“Nah, let him go,” he heard Big Rob say over the din. “He needs the exercise.”
The sound of flapping clothes and the grunted curses from the crowd he was controlling cut through the night as the line tried to re-form around the drama and all kinds of cell phones broke out. Fortunately, the club’s front entrance was not well lit, and this was going to be over soon.
Which it was.
There weren’t a lot of MMA fighters waiting to get in line to hang out at the Iron Mask, so the men who had volunteered for a beat-down didn’t have a lot of staying power. One punch was usually enough to wipe their slate clean—which was a pity. He enjoyed hitting them, feeling his knuckles connect with flesh, watching them go down or trip over their own feet.
He was not interested in being on the news, however.
Wrapping things up, he went over to the two primary aggressors, who had parked it at the curb and were in recovery mode, grimacing as they rubbed their jaws, their heads, their shoulders. The sister in high-heeled boots had tottered back into their orbit, her mascara-stained face and crazy hair pretty much the way they had been before the argument over familial relations had broken out.
Both men gave Duke the hairy eyeball as he loomed over them.
In a quiet voice, he said, “Don’t stand in my line again. Or I’ll follow you home. Clear?”
“You can’t threaten us!” the lady of the hour hollered, going all stampity-stamp-stamp with her size sixes. “We have rights.”
Duke leaned in, putting his face into hers. “You won’t know I’m there. You won’t see or hear a thing. But I’ll come after you—you can bet your life on it. And know this—I like scaring people. It’s fun for me.”
Whether it was his dead eyes, or the hiss in his voice, or the words he spoke, she went quiet. And moved closer to the man who she’d put her knee pads on for.
Duke looked down at the two dummies, giving them a chance to speak up if they were so inclined. Total silence. And then the pair of them stood up and escorted the girl away.
Turning back to the club, he found that the line had reestablished itself and was back to inching its way inside. Keeping his head down, so that any pictures wouldn’t show him clearly, he regained his post.
“Shit, man,” Ivan said. “You’re not even breathing heavy.”
Duke just shrugged. When you worked road crews for a living, shoveling hot asphalt in the summer and road salt in the winter, your heart was quickly turned into an efficient machine, its atria and ventricles, its myocardium, its three hundred or so grams, pumping with total coordination to supply oxygenated blood to the body.
No big deal. Just an issue of training.
The real miracle was that he was somehow able to live without one. Oh, he had that hollow muscle posterior to his sternum, sure. But in the metaphysical sense? He’d lost his heart years ago—and he wouldn’t change a thing about that.
Nope.
Duke lifted his arm to check the time— “Fuck.”
“What’s up?”
“I lost my fucking watch.” He leaned out and looked down the sidewalk to where the fight had taken place. Naturally, there was nothing on the ground that appeared even vaguely metallic.
Then again, if that clasp had broken, and the thing had slipped off his wrist and been seen by any one of the, oh, say, hundred or so kibitzers? It would’ve been snatched. Vintage Rolexes were desirable, even to morons.
It was the only nice thing he owned, a relic from the past.
Had owned, that was.
Whatever. He’d lost more than that along the way, and he was still upright and walking.
“I gotta leave a little before ten,” he told Ivan. “But I’ll flipside in thirty minutes.”
“That’s what Big Rob said. I think he’s going to cover.”
“Cool.”
Back at the hair salon, Cait knocked on the glass door and leaned in, trying to tea-leaf whether Pablo was still inside. The lights had been dimmed, which was not a good sign, but come on, it had taken her less than five minutes to—
The stylist walked out from the rear, in the process of pulling a black jacket on. “Vev closed,” he called out.
“I know,” she shouted back, her breath condensing on the glass. “I lost my earring? I just want to check the dressing room floor?”
She tugged at her earlobe, like that would help in translation.
Pablo was a little huffy as he unlocked things and let her in. “Lovt und fond behd desk?”
“I think it’s probably in there.” She pointed to the hallway.
“Wen yoo in here?”
Cait frowned. “I’m sorry?”
He waved his hand with impatience. “Yoo go thur. I get out box.”
Wow, she thought as he turned away. Maybe he had short-term amnesia from all the peroxide in the hair color? Too much aerosol from the sprays? Mousse-induced dementia?
Cait went back to where she’d done her disrobing and got down on her knees, patting under the built-in bench, looking around on the carpet. She even pulled her sweater out at the neck to see if the shell had gotten stuck in the weave.
“Damn it…”
Heading back out, she went over to Pablo, who was clearly tapping his boots to go home. The “lovt und fond” was in fact a Stuart Weitzman shoe box, and in it there were two pairs of sunglasses, a stringy scarf, a couple of chunky, fake-gold necklaces, and…
A hoop earring that was big enough to double as a choker.
No dainty seashells. But she hadn’t really expected it to be there—Pablo didn’t seem like the type to rock a vacuum around his business before he left for the night.
“Okay, thanks,” she said. “It’s a little seashell, a gold shell?”
“Do ve haf number for oo?”
“Ah … your assistant called it yesterday to confirm my appointment with you?”
He seemed confused. “Vell, wee call if fond.”
“Thanks.”
Outside, she shook her head. Weird, weird, weird. But lost accessory be damned—the guy did great hair, and that’s what she was paying him for.
He must have one really short Christmas list, though.
Back in her Lexus, she gave the whole head-to-Old Caldwell thing another go, and about fifteen minutes later, she made it to the part of town where an entire twelve-block section of multicolored Victorian mansions had been turned into condo associations, cafés and shops—although the latter were nothing like where she’d just been. Here they were folk-art galleries, organic spice sellers, hemp clothiers, that kind of thing.