Chapter 5 Harrison
HARRISON
I’m not sure what I just witnessed.
The most beautiful woman I’ve ever met just made some complicated courtroom argument over why she should be allowed to bring me in as her guest. I didn’t quite follow her logic, and there were about a dozen holes in her case, but it somehow got Chet to shut up and let me inside.
I was about ready to punch his lights out when Bianca walked in.
I’m glad she did. Beating up the bouncer wouldn’t exactly boost my chances at scoring a return visit in case I can’t find what I’m looking for tonight.
I’m not even sure what I’m looking for, if I’m being honest.
Maybe I’m overthinking this whole thing. Maybe Alissa and Maddox really did just take off on a long-term vacation to celebrate their newfound love.
It wouldn’t be the craziest thing a person has ever done for love.
Far from it.
I know from personal experience.
* * *
Regina Sinclair will never notice me.
Or worse, she will notice me, and it will be for the reasons the other kids in school notice me.
My big ears.
Rabbit Ears, they call me.
And then, at my first middle-school dance, wearing the new dress shirt that Mom had worked a double shift to be able to buy for me, I got on the dance floor and froze.
I didn’t know how to dance.
So I just…hopped around.
And I was christened with a new nickname.
Rabbit Feet.
The two names are interchangeable, all depending on the mood of the school bullies, particularly their ringleader, Hector Dimpsey. A rotund boy with a freckled face whose only goal in life is to make me miserable.
Mom sent me to elementary school every day wearing green.
The color of our culture. I was their Irish pride and joy, the little boy born on St. Patrick’s Day.
In elementary school, it was fine. The kids thought it was cool that I got to wear my favorite color to class every day. It was like a game. Would Harry wear emerald today? Lime? Olive?
My mother should have known better than to keep sending me to school in my verdant wardrobe once I hit sixth grade.
Middle school is different. It’s the deadly cross section where kids are at their most immature and their most hormonal.
And the bullies, like Hector Dimpsey, will pinpoint the exact thing that makes you different and use it to make your life a living hell.
Hector made fun of my green shirts first. He called me Leprechaun Boy. I asked Mom to buy me some plain black T-shirts and a dark-gray hoodie.
But then he came for my ears. And I couldn’t exactly rip those off.
And so Rabbit Ears stuck.
Half the school calls me that now.
But Regina Sinclair has never called me Rabbit Ears.
Granted, she’s never called me anything. I doubt she even knows my name.
She’s an eighth grader. She has shiny black hair and gorgeous hazel eyes.
She’s almost always wearing a striped miniskirt—with leggings if it’s cold outside—and a creamy cardigan that wraps around her body the way I’d like to.
She wears makeup, too. I heard she was the first girl in her class to start wearing it, and all the other girls followed.
Her lips are always the color of a fresh strawberry.
I’ve always wondered if her lip gloss is strawberry flavored, too. There’s only one way to find out.
I’ve never kissed a girl before. My buddy Maddox—he goes to a different school—says he has, but I think he’s lying. He kept deflecting my questions when I asked him about it.
“Rabbit Ears!”
A chill runs down my spine. Right on time, just when I’m working up a little courage to walk by Regina, maybe even make eye contact with her, my personal tormenter has made his entrance.
Hector Dimpsey is wearing his usual attire. Yellow T-shirt stained with whatever he had for lunch today, athletic shorts with his underwear sticking out, and ratty sneakers. He grabs me by the ear and slams me against my locker.
“Where’d you think you were going, Ears?”
“To…recess,” I sputter out.
We call it recess. It’s really just outdoor time after lunch. There are a few basketball hoops that some of the kids shoot half-deflated balls through. Other than that, it’s a chance for the teachers to get a moment to themselves before afternoon classes begin.
It’s also a chance for Hector to deliver his daily beating to me behind the cafeteria dumpsters. The paraeducators don’t patrol that area during recess, so it’s a free-for-all.
Every so often I manage to sneak out of lunch before Hector gets ahold of me.
No such luck today, though. If anything, he’ll beat me twice as hard for not immediately submitting.
He drags me through the back door by the ear and then pushes me to the ground. Two of his goons—I don’t know their names, but he calls them his Kingsmen—flank him. They start kicking at me as I squirm on the ground.
Then Hector hoists me up by the shoulders and the Kingsmen hold me in place.
He starts wailing into my belly. He never hits my face—way too easy to leave a black eye or other evidence of his wrongdoing—only the parts of my body where bruises will be covered by clothing.
He knocks the wind out of me, and I try to hunch over, but the goons keep me standing to maximize the pain from Hector’s punches.
He ends the beating with a kick to my balls, and I crumple to the ground, crying.
“Pussy little Leprechaun never fights back.” Hector spits on me for good measure. “What a fucking wimp.”
The Kingsmen laugh with Hector, and they head to the main outdoor area.
I check my watch. I have just enough time to run to a bathroom and clean myself up before class. Make it look like this never happened.
Hector’s an ass, but at least he’s got good time management skills.
I get to my feet and fall right back down to the ground. One of the Kingsmen must have gotten my ankle, and it hurts like hell. I can’t put any weight on it.
Shit.
I’ll have to call for help. Get a teacher. And then I’ll have to explain why I look all messed up.
If I tell them I got beat up by Hector Dimpsey, he’ll make my life even more of a hellscape than it already is. If I tell them I just tripped and fell, they won’t believe me.
I grit my teeth and try one final time to get to my feet, but I collapse to the ground again, crying out in pain.
“Hey, need a hand?”
I look up and gasp.
It’s another eighth grader. Tall, slim, with dyed black hair—highlighted with electric green streaks—that covers one of his eyes. Wearing all black, including eyeliner.
Ray Sinclair.
Regina’s twin brother.
* * *
Damn it. I’m hard.
Bianca’s breast grazed my upper arm when she bent over to grab her ID. That tiny touch sent a pulse of electricity through me that I haven’t felt…maybe ever.
She went ahead of me down the mirrored staircase to the main part of the club before I could thank her for getting me in.
I didn’t mind it too much, because she gave me a nice view of her ass on her way down.
She took off her coat as she walked, revealing an elegant white evening gown that clings to her in all the right places.
If only I could follow her into her dressing room and rip it off her.
I shake the thought out of my head. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to find out what’s going on with Maddox and Alissa.
But as I pass through the green door that leads to the Aces Underground floor, I look toward the pink stage in the Hearts section, where Bianca is setting up for her first performance. The least I can do is listen to a few of her songs as thanks for sticking her neck out for me.
Problem is, there’s no place to sit in Hearts. It’s for dancing, and I haven’t danced since my Rabbit Foot days. I don’t have a partner, anyway, since my woman of choice will be on the stage.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard Bianca perform—she’s almost always been here when I’ve been Maddox’s guest. She sings a lot of jazz standards.
I sometimes see a touring musical at one of the big theaters in downtown Chicago, but those are usually modern shows like Wicked or Book of Mormon.
Bianca sings a lot of standards from the forties and fifties, which are nice to listen to, but not pieces I usually recognize.
I haven’t really listened to her sing when I have been here, anyway.
When Maddox has brought me to Aces in the past, we’ve almost always stayed in the Spades section where he and I could ply girls with liquor, see if any of them were interested in joining us for a romantic night.
Every so often we’ve gone to Diamonds, played a game of blackjack or Texas Hold’em.
The only time I’ve gone to Hearts has been at the insistence of a woman I was trying to bed.
And even then, we didn’t really dance, just swayed to the lilting music.
The one section of Aces that I haven’t really checked out is the Clubs section.
It’s the area where patrons smoke cigars, cigarettes, hookah, and occasionally weed.
I’m not much of a smoker, so it’s never been my scene.
But it’s outfitted with green leather chairs, which happen to be the closest seating to the Hearts section. I take a seat.
“Cigarette, sir?”
I crane my neck around to the scraggly voice. An old man—very old, at least ninety—sporting long white hair, a crooked nose, and a battered tux with tails is holding out a silver tray with an array of cigarettes of varying brands splayed across its surface.
I hold up a hand. “Sorry, sir. I’m not much of a smoker.”
The old man cocks his head. “I’m afraid you have to be smoking if you’d like to stay in the Clubs section, sir. Aces rules.”
I raise an eyebrow. “By whose authority?”
He grins. “Rouge’s, of course.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course.”
“The rules are the same in the other sections. You can’t be in Spades without a drink, nor can you stay in Diamonds if you’re not playing or watching a game.”
“But I’m a doctor. A cardiothoracic surgeon who oversees a lot of lung transplants. Those things”—I gesture to the cigarettes—“are behind half the issues my patients face.”
The old man bows his head. “Of course, sir. Perhaps a cigar then? You need not inhale.”
I open my mouth to tell him that cigars contain the exact same cancer-causing ingredients as cigarettes when I realize something.
I’m healthy. I eat well, hit the gym five times a week. Take lots of walks.
And it’s been ages since I treated myself to a cigar. Even longer since I had a cigarette.
I rarely treat myself. I know they’re addictive, that they cause all kinds of health problems.
I can’t remember my last cigarette, but I’ll always remember my first.
That terrible day at the Dimpsey house.
That, more than the health risks, is why I so rarely smoke.
But tonight is different.
And if what this old man is saying is true, I’ll have to smoke something if I want to sit here and listen to Bianca’s set.
Might as well make a good memory.
“What brands of cigars do you have, Mister…”
He twitches his eyebrows. “Night, sir. Mr. Night.”
“With a K?”
He shakes his head. “Night as in nighttime.”
That’s a fake name if I ever heard it. But it fits the club.
Mr. Night turns around, grabs another tray from the counter at the center of the Clubs section, and returns. “Our most popular brands that we carry include Arturo Fuente, Cohiba, Montecristo, and Padron. Any of those strike your fancy?”
“Cohibas are from Cuba, correct?”
“Yes sir. We get them imported weekly.” He lowers his voice. “Smuggled over since the embargo went into effect.”
“I’ll take one of those, then.”
Mr. Night places the tray on a table next to my chair. He extends his long, bony fingers and wraps them around the Cohiba cigar. He produces a cutter from the inner pocket of his jacket. “How would you like it cut?”
“Straight, thanks.”
“Very well.” He cuts the end off the cigar and hands it to me. “Light?”
“If you have one.”
“I always have a light, Dr. O’Rourke.” Quick as a flash for a man of his advanced years, he snaps a lighter emblazoned with a club symbol out of his pants pocket. He flips the lid open, triggers the igniting mechanism, and a small green flame erupts.
I stare at the tiny flame. “How do you make it green?”
“Rouge made the lighter herself. It contains small traces of copper to match the color of the Clubs section.”
Of fucking course. I chose the green section. I can’t escape that damned color for the life of me.
I place the Cohiba in my mouth and Mr. Night brings the lighter to its foot. I take a few puffs—wow, I forgot how delicious Cuban tobacco is—and my cigar is lit.
“That Cohiba there should keep you entertained for several hours, Doctor,” Mr. Night says.
“Thank you.”
He turns and attends to another Aces patron. I take a few more drags from the cigar, relishing the taste.
And I realize.
How the hell did Mr. Night know my name?