Skip ducked under a table, hoping to get a chance to cut someone’s hamstring, but two of the female freaks caught sight of what he was doing and piled chairs and tables on top of him, until he was completely covered by a fretwork of steel tubing.
Aldinach stood by the bar, one eye on the barman, the other on the fight.
‘You with these people?’ the barman said.
‘Never met them before in my life.’ Aldinach glanced towards the main door. Customers were exiting through it in droves. ‘Do you think anyone will call the police?’
The barman shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. But I figure not. Sort of clients we get don’t find cops copacetic.’
‘Are you going to call the police?’
‘What for? How often do I get to see the Skunks getting their hides furrowed?’
Things were quieting down now. Most of the hang-arounds had either fled or were stretched out on the floor or across the bar furniture.
Aldinach minced across the floor towards the mayhem. The eight Corpus members turned towards her as one.
‘Skip,’ she said, in a high, girlie little voice. ‘You under there?’
Oni cleared the tables and chairs that were piled up above Skip Dearborn’s huddled form. He had adopted the foetal position, same as you do when you are attacked by wild dogs.
Skip emerged from beneath the wreckage and stood up. He was holding his switchblade and the can of pepper spray out in front of him as if they were some sort of lucky charm – a string of garlic designed to ward off vampires. He looked around at what remained of his merry band of men. ‘Shit.’
‘You going to use that?’ Aldinach approached closer.
‘This was some kind of set-up, wasn’t it? You’re all in this together? You knew this was going to happen before we even came in. You people suckered us. You ain’t no fucking Desiree.’ Skip raised the pepper spray.
Aldinach snatched a fighting baton from Nawal’s hand. Before Skip was able to respond, she brought the baton down across his knife hand, smashing the bone. Then, as he bent down to grab his wrist, she smashed him across the back of the neck, snatched the can of pepper spray, and blasted him full in the face.
Skip pole-axed to the ground like a discarded shirt.
‘Heck of a date,’ said Aldinach, as she and her siblings started out of the building.
31
Calque, who was driving, and not relishing his silent passengers, turned up the volume on the radio. ‘Listen to this.’
An announcer was describing the previous night’s mayhem at Alabama Mama’s.
Sabir, who was trying to get some sleep after yet another disturbed night, groaned. Lamia, who had somehow managed to curl up and fall asleep on the back seat, didn’t respond.
‘Look what we’ve been missing. We’ve been staying in the wrong part of town, apparently. A gang attack. Two groups of Hells Angels tearing into each other. Fourteen people taken to hospital. Redneck heaven.’
Sabir straightened up. He knew he wasn’t going to get any sleep from here on in. ‘What do you know about rednecks, Calque?’
Calque hitched his chin. ‘I know a lot about rednecks. The Polish man at the motel even told me two redneck jokes.’
Sabir pretended to reel backwards. ‘But you can’t even speak English. How could you possibly communicate with him?’
‘It is simple. He is a Pole. A civilized man. A European. He speaks French.’
Sabir sighed. ‘Can you remember them? The jokes, I mean.’
Calque appeared to be deep in thought. ‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Well tell me them, then. If I can’t sleep, I might as well be entertained.’
Calque pursed his lips, his eyes furrowed against the morning sunlight. ‘The first one goes like this. A redneck from Alabama dies. But fortunately he has left a will. In it he leaves his entire estate in trust for his widow. The only snag is, she can only inherit when she reaches the age of fourteen.’
Sabir stared at him. ‘That’s it?’
Calque shrugged. ‘I thought it was very funny. I laughed when the Polish man told it to me. The other one is better, though. Much better.’
‘Okay, shoot.’
‘There you go again with this silly expression. Why should I shoot? It simply doesn’t translate into French. When you speak French, you should use the French idiom. Not an American one.’
Sabir turned down the radio, which was still blaring the local news at them. ‘I would very much like to hear the second joke, Captain Calque.’
Calque nodded. ‘Very well. I shall give it to you. This is even funnier than the first one.’
Sabir squeezed shut his eyes.
‘Two rednecks from Alabama are approaching each other on the road. One has a sackful of chickens in his hand. The second redneck says, “If I can tell you how many chickens you have in your sack, will you give them to me?” The first redneck thinks things over. “If you can guess how many chickens are in this sack, I will give you both of them.” The second redneck stares down at the sack. “Five?”’
Lamia gave a hoot from the back of the car. Even Sabir had the grace to laugh.
‘You see,’ said Calque. ‘I told you the second joke was better. In France we tell such jokes about you Yankees.’
‘Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me in the least,’ said Sabir. ‘We Yankees tell such jokes against you French. I learned dozens of them when I was in the National Guard.’
Calque pointed his finger in Sabir’s direction. ‘You are half French. Don’t forget that, Sabir. You owe a duty to your maternal homeland.’ He was beginning to look slightly nervous.
‘How can I ever forget it? That’s why I was the butt of the damned Frenchy jokes in the first place. However, I figure that any man who can’t tell a good joke against himself doesn’t deserve the claim to a sense of humour. Don’t you agree?’
‘Go on,’ said Lamia from the back of the car. ‘Tell us an anti-French joke.’
‘You sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘Okay. How many Frenchmen does it take to screw in a light bulb?’
There was silence in the car.
‘One. He holds it, and the rest of Europe simply revolves around him.’
Calque took both hands off the wheel and made a disparaging motion. ‘That is not very funny at all.’
‘Okay. Try this then.’ Sabir took a preparatory breath. He was beginning to feel a sense of impending doom. Still, for some reason he couldn’t quite figure, he felt unable to stop himself. ‘How do you confuse a French soldier?’
‘How?’
‘You give him a rifle and ask him to fire it.’
Calque slammed the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. ‘That is outrageous. Did they really tell such jokes as this against you when you were in the army?’
‘I wasn’t in the army. I was in the National Guard.’
‘The National Guard, then. Pah.’
Sabir’s jaw was beginning to freeze with the tension of his unwanted position. ‘Yes. All the time. Comes from having a foreign-sounding name. The true joke was really on them, because my father was pretty near 100 per cent pure American – it was my mother who was French.’
‘Tell me another joke. One about women this time.’ Lamia was sitting up straighter in the back of the car.
‘It’ll be about soldiers. Those are the only ones I know.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘What do female snipers in France use as camouflage?’
More silence.
‘Their armpits.’
‘Their what?’
‘Their armpits.’ Sabir knew for certain that he’d gone too far this time.
‘What does that mean?’ Lamia was leaning towards him from the back of the car. ‘I don’t understand that joke. How can a woman use her armpits for camouflage? And anyway, we don’t have female snipers in the French army. Women are not allowed to engage in combat.’
‘It’s a joke. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. Like the movies, jokes rely on a willing suspension of disbelief.’