Chapter 12 #2
Cutter saw it coming and faded slightly, robbing the Mountain’s blow of half its power—but even the discount punch was enough to rock him.
Cutter attempted to fade to his right, giving himself room to maneuver away from the bar—but the Mountain hit him again, this time with two machine-gun jabs that rocked his chin.
Lights exploded behind Cutter’s eyes. His legs began to buckle.
He was vaguely aware when the Mountain skirted to his left, moving in for the kill.
Where the hell was Johnson?
Then Mitzi and her red kimono backpedaled from somewhere near the bar as if she’d been shoved.
Cutter heard Johnson give her a muffled order.
It didn’t seem to matter. She fell into the Mountain, tangling him up and buying Cutter time to get his bearings.
The big man peeled the screeching woman aside and rushed forward again, bellowing with rage.
Cutter ducked again. Another devastating hook burbled the air a quarter inch from his nose.
Then Johnson appeared, swinging the heavy Kel-Lite wider than needed.
If the big guy hadn’t been drunk, he might have avoided the blow—but he was and he didn’t.
Johnson’s flashlight connected with the nerve cluster at the base of the Mountain’s neck.
From the way he yelled, Johnson probably destroyed his collarbone.
The Mountain crashed to the carpet, twitching on his side, cursing, trying to rise with a leg that wouldn’t listen to his brain. It looked for a moment like he might make it to his feet. Cutter put a stop to that with a toe of his boot.
Johnson rushed forward with his cuffs, but Mitzi jumped on his back, pounding him on top of the head with her fists.
Johnson grabbed two handfuls of kimono and pulled her entire body over his shoulders, dropping her to the floor. He stepped on the puddled silk to hold her there.
“Knock it off!” the young deputy spat. “We’re trying to help you!”
Mitzi shrugged off the short cover and gathered up to pounce again wearing nothing but her black G-string. Cutter grabbed both her arms above the elbows from behind. He wasn’t as big as the Mountain, but horseshoeing gave him a hell of a grip.
“He said knock it off!” Cutter growled.
The other dancers and club patrons clapped and whistled at the show. They came here to see a dance, but a naked woman wrestling a sheriff’s deputy was a worthy substitute.
“Call Me the Breeze” wasn’t a long song, but neither was the altercation. “Cocaine” started to blare over the speakers. Someone in here was a JJ Cale fan. A fleshy girl in a red G-string resumed her spot on the stage and began to dance.
A normal Monday morning at the Show Pony.
Johnson stood with cuffs dangling from his fist, glancing back and forth as if he didn’t know where to put his eyes.
Mitzi gave another half-hearted pull against his boot and then relaxed. “Troy ain’t going to jail!”
“Are you kidding me?” Johnson said. “That guy was beating the hell outta you when we walked in and now you’re protecting him?”
Cutter handcuffed Mount Troy and sat him against the base of the stage before looking directly at Mitzi.
“Someday, the Texas legislature will get its head on straight and allow law enforcement to press charges,” he said. “Until that day, we’re going to need you to give us a statement if we want the assault to stick.”
“I’m not giving you sheeit,” Mitzi said.
Johnson leaned in closer to Cutter. “They both hit us,” he said. “We can get them for assault.”
“We could hold them on that for a minute,” Cutter whispered. “Maybe. But we’d have to call Tarrant County and admit we’re poaching across county lines.”
Johnson shoved Mitzi’s kimono back at her. Cutter took the cuffs off Troy. The two of them walked out the rear door hand in hand with a warning from the bearded bouncer that Troy could not come back—until he was sober.
Cutter dabbed blood from his split lip with a handkerchief while he took his first real assessment of the Show Pony.
Whoever was in charge of the air conditioning kept the temperature of the blue black haze just low enough to squeeze most of the humidity out of the dank air.
It made sense. The girls weren’t wearing much of anything.
And besides, patrons didn’t come in here to cool off.
Two women in robes slouched at a bar to the left of a small crescent stage where the dancer in the red G-string had resumed swinging half-heartedly around one of three metal poles that ran from floor to ceiling.
The dancer threw her head left and right to the continued whine of “Cocaine.” Cutter counted eleven men in ones and twos among the half dozen small tables directly in front of the tip-rail that ran the length of the stage keeping patrons at arm’s length when they tipped. A couple of the men wore suits.
The cloying smell of cheap cigars and even cheaper perfume hung in a cloud of desperation.
A Hispanic man in a dark T-shirt worked the bar, keeping the mesmerized lunch crowd happy.
“Holy shit,” Johnson said under his breath, hollow, like he’d just taken a punch to the gut.
It was hard to tell if he was getting over the fight or seeing Mitzi without her kimono.
“Why do you reckon that dancer goes to the trouble of wearing those little panties? I mean, it’s not like it’s leaving anything to the imagination. ”
“They work on tips.” Cutter couldn’t help but chuckle. “The G-string gives men a place to tuck their dollar bills.” The kid had obviously never been in a strip club. Probably never drank a beer or smoked anything harsher than a mustang grapevine behind his school.
Cutter wished he could say the same.
“Thanks for your help,” Sideburns said from his podium in the shadows.
“You mentioned you called us,” Cutter said.
The bouncer nodded to the end of the bar.
A tallish woman with straight Ali MacGraw hair turned and looked directly at Cutter.
He guessed her to be in her early thirties.
Perched on the barstool within arm’s reach of the stage, she wore a red-and-black buffalo plaid robe that would have looked stodgy had it not been short enough to show off much of her tan thighs.
“It was her,” the bouncer grunted. “Gloria called the law as soon as those two idiots started fighting.”
The woman shook her head. “I didn’t do anything,” she said. “Y’all darkened our door before I could let my fingers do the walking … so to speak. Anyway, Mitzi and Troy go at it every Monday after he blows all her cash over the weekend. There’s never any reason to call the law.”
“Gloria?” Cutter said. “Gloria Blaisdell?”
A look of panic flashed across the woman’s face. For a moment, Cutter thought she might try to hoof it out the back. Instead, she raised a glass in salute. The liquid inside glowed blue. Another gin and tonic.
He gave the woman a nod and then leaned sideways, raising his voice just enough so Johnson could hear him above the music.
“You take the lead on this one, kid,” he said.
Johnson turned, wide-eyed. “I … You … what should I …”
“We know Curtis Watts worked here,” Cutter said. “Start there. See what she knows. And remember to be nice.”
Johnson took a little spiral notebook from his hip pocket and then cleared his throat. “You ever heard of a guy named Curtis Watts?”
The woman raised an amused eye at Johnson, then turned to Cutter. “I assume you’re training this cute little puppy,” she said. “Shouldn’t he introduce himself first?”
Cutter tipped his hat. He would have taken it off after all his talk about treating everyone like humans, but the Show Pony seemed like the kind of establishment where he should keep both hands free.
“Cutter and Johnson,” he said. “We’re investigators with the Parker County Sheriff’s Office.”
“Cocaine” faded into the darkness and the Allman Brothers Band started singing “Every Hungry Woman.”
“Cool, cool, cool,” Gloria Blaisdell said. She plunked down her drink and took a brown cigarette from a pack of More Menthols on the bar. Cigarette parked between her lips, she held out a shiny steel Zippo to Johnson, who stood and looked at her blankly.
At length, she flicked open the lighter and laughed, looking at the girl on the stool next to hers.
“Guess this ain’t the movies, Claire. I’ll light the damned thing myself.
” She blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling, then picked a fleck of tobacco off her crimson lip. “Now, what was it you wanted to know?”
Johnson cleared his throat again. “Are you Gloria Blaisdell?”
“In the flesh.” Blaisdell let her robe fall open, taunting.
“Take it easy on him, ma’am,” Cutter said. “If you don’t mind.” She took a drag from her cigarette and then closed the robe. Not that it did much good.
“You were asking about Watts?”
“Yes,” Johnson said. “Curtis Watts. You know him?”
“I know a guy named Watts,” Blaisdell said. “Guys who come around here tend to keep their Christian names to themselves. You, for instance. What’s your given name?”
“Lafayette,” Johnson blurted out.
“That is one hell of an impressive name,” Blaisdell said. “In fact, that—”
Cutter cleared his throat. “I said take it easy …”
“Okay.” Blaisdell slouched on her stool, deflated. “Watts worked here for almost a year. We run a law-abiding establishment here at the Show Pony.”
“Good to know,” Cutter offered.
“What kind of work did he do?” Johnson asked.
“This and that,” Blaisdell said. “Patrons can get a little handsy once in a while. You know, like Troy was to Mitzi. Anyhow, Watts is a big-enough guy to keep that sort in line. Know what I mean?”
“When did you see him last?”
“I can’t remember exactly,” Blaisdell said.
“A week or more. He came in for some cheese fries.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder at the bartender.
“Jorge makes a mean batch of cheese fries.” She leaned in close to Johnson and whispered, “He uses smoked Gouda.” Then louder, “I can have him make y’all some, if you want. ”
“We’re good,” Cutter said.