Tats Too (23 page)

Vivian’s right. I do have an overactive imagination. And thoughts like that are probably why she doesn’t want me to have a gun. I have a tendency to get a little carried away with power.

I’ve made about four left turns and I’m right back where I started. This place is more confusing than Disneyland. And it’s not the happiest place on earth either.

A voice floats out into the hallway causing me to freeze: “I’m telling you, you need to put them together.”

I know that voice.

I edge up to the slightly ajar door on my right and hold my breath, listening.

“They’ll never sign into WitSec together,” I hear Dillon, my archnemesis, say.

Is she talking about me and Viv? She must be. She’s back in the interrogation room where I was. But who’s the other woman?

The door is open next to this one. I quick-peek inside and it’s empty. I jump in and close the door behind me. Yep, just as I’d figured, it’s the room behind the one-way mirror. I turn to the glass window and see Dillon’s back. She’s talking to somebody, but blocking them from my view.

The other woman says, “Keeping them separated’s not going to work, Dana.”

Dillon pulls out a chair and sits, saying, “I gotta use them against each other. Make ’em think the only way they can be back together is to sign into WitSec.”

At first I don’t recognize the woman she’s talking to. She’s wearing business-type clothes, a pantsuit, and her long dark hair is braided. Her right arm is in a sling.

“Lee won’t rest until she finds her,” she says.

Holy shit! It’s Poke. My mind reels for a moment, putting all the puzzle pieces together. Poke is undercover with the FBI. She’s invaded, no, wrong word, infiltrated the Hell’s Belles. The Feebies must be the ones who took Vivian. When we crashed, they were following in the Nissan, and they took Vivian before the ambulance got there and hauled me off.

Son of a bitch. That’s why Poke wanted Viv so badly. To get her into FBI hands and put her into WitSec. I bet Mikey would appreciate this little piece of Poke info. That would cement our budding friendship for sure.

My ears perk up again when Dillon asks, “Did you fuck her?”

Poke laughs and snaps back, “Did you?”

Dillon moves her ass to the top of the table and asks, “How’s your arm?”

“How do you think?” Poke says, “it’s got a bullet hole in it.”

“You can’t go back undercover now.”

“Sure I can, Hell’s Belles don’t suspect a thing. They even visited me in the hospital,” Poke answers.

Dillon looks up at the camera hanging in the corner. The red light’s not on. She grabs Poke by her good arm and pulls her toward her. She kisses her and grabs Poke’s ass, pulling her closer between her legs.

I look down at all the mechanical equipment in front of me. I don’t even have to figure anything out. Every button and switch is labeled for me. I flip the toggle switch that says “Camera.”

The camera’s red light blinks on. I flip the switch labeled “Record.”

The sound of a small motor kicks in and some wheels start whirring. I grab a disc from a stack of blanks and shove it into the open drawer. I close it and a red record light comes on.

I watch Dillon’s Roman hands and Russian fingers travel all over Poke’s body. This is some good shit.

“Smile,” I laugh to myself. “You’re on Candy Camera.” Candid. Whatever.

“I don’t want you to go back undercover. I can’t go that long without you again,” Dillon says between kisses.

“I have to,” Poke says.

“You got enough dirt on the Hell’s Belles to lock them away.”

“I can get more,” Poke says. “Another couple of weeks, maybe a month, I’ll have enough shit on Mikey, she’ll never see daylight again.”

Dillon sticks her hands down the back of Poke’s pants and kneads her ass. She lays a heavy-duty kiss on her.

Now would be a really good time to get the hell out while they’re so busy. I eject the disc and sneak back out the door.

***

I find a stairwell and ski my way down in Festus’s too-big shoes. The bottom floor door opens into the back parking lot. I flop inside his loafers and down the alley about five blocks before I duck into a little bar called the Barca Lounge. I feel my way through the dark to a barstool at the back of the place. Once my ass is planted, I call out to the bartender, “Gimme a cold beer. Whatever’s on tap.”

“Three dollars,” the bartender says, scraping the foam off the top of the mug and sliding it in front of me.

Shit. I hope Festus had some money in his pants.

I dig around for his wallet and find it right where it should be—in the back right pocket. I open it up and pull out fifty-six dollars in folding money. I toss the barkeep a ten, saying, “Gimme a tequila shot, too. Keep the change if there’s any left.”

Thirty seconds later, I dunk the shot glass down deep into the beer mug, watch it boil and chug it down in one long gulp.

“Need another?” the bartender asks.

I throw a twenty on the bar and say, “Keep ’em coming.”

For another twenty the bartender fetches me a padded envelope and some stamps. With a little help from the operator and Festus’s cell phone, I find the address for The Lion’s Den and scrawl it on the outside of the envelope addressed to Mikey, c/o Jerri. I drink the rest of my supper and write out a quick note:
Mikey, thought you might find this interesting. You’ve heard the old saying, “the enemies of my enemies are my friends?” Looks like you and me are friends now. Tats.

I put the disc and note inside the envelope and lick it closed. The bartender promises to give it to the mailman on his next run through.

“Where’s the closest girl bar in town?” I ask him.

“The Honey Pot,” he says, giving me directions.

I pick up Festus’s phone and scroll through his contact list until I find Dillon’s name. I press the green button and wait with the phone plastered to my ear.

Dillon picks up on the third ring. She’s not too stupid because she answers, “Okay, Lee, where the hell are you?”

“Meet me at the Honey Pot,” I say. “Half an hour.”

I hang up before she can reply.

***

The Honey Pot is an old-school girl bar with all the butches on one side and all the femmes on the other, eyeballing each other across the expanse of the dance floor like they’re at a junior high school dance. The butches have all oiled their boots, pressed a crease in their black jeans, dusted off their hats, slicked back their hair and they strut and preen at the pool table. All the femmes hug each other and share lipstick and dance together, pretending they’re not doing it all for the butches.

I stand at the bar for a moment soaking it all in, then I slough off all the stares and head for a table in the back that’s empty because it’s smack-dab in the middle, not in either butch nor femme territory, but against the wall.

I tended bar in a place just like this when I was fresh out of prison. I worked the bar and every single lady who came in the door (I mean every one of them, not that they were actually single as in unattached). I was fresh meat on the girl scene and for a while there all of them wanted a slice.

I was in hog heaven. Until I realized that once you slept with a lesbian they thought that meant you were married or something. I’d go home with them and the next day they’d be handing me the keys to their place and talking about getting a puppy.

So I switched to straight women. They were more my speed. They didn’t want exactly what I didn’t want. They didn’t want to go out in public, they didn’t want to get married (because they usually already were), and they didn’t want it for very long.

But all that was the old me who did whatever the voices in my pants told me to do. The new me puts my back against the wall and watches the front door, waiting.

Dillon struts in ten minutes late, peers into the darkness, finds me in the shadows and walks over. She pulls out a chair across the table from me and eases down.

“Nice place,” she says like she’s disgusted and has never been here before. She takes off her cowboy hat, starts to put it on the table, then thinks better of it and settles it back on her head. She moves all the time like a watch that’s wound too tight. She taps her toes or her fingers, eyes twitching around the room, coiled and ready to spring.

Sharks move all the time, too. If they don’t, they die.

“You never been here before?” I ask.

“Why would I?” she asks, using her thumb to push the brim of her hat back further on her head.

Um…because you’re a raging dyke and you love pussy? But, I just shrug and gesture to the cocktail waitress.

“What d’ya want to drink?” I ask.

Dillon licks her lips, and makes a big show of thinking about it. “Beer,” she finally says.

A plump, perky waitress squats down at our table, earning herself a good tip by giving us an unobstructed view down her shirt. “Hi, Dana, been wondering when you’d come see me again,” she coos to Dillon. “What can I get you guys?”

“A pitcher and two glasses,” I order. The waitress nods at me, gives Dillon a little wink and walks away.

I don’t say anything about the waitress being on a first name basis with her. I don’t have to. Her face says it all.

“I don’t like small talk,
Dana
, so let’s cut straight to the chase.”

She leans back in her chair and hangs one arm up over the back. I lean forward with my elbows on the table and continue, “I know you all have Vivian.”

“That took you long enough to figure out,” she smirks.

“Why’d you tell me she was missing?”

“I didn’t. You said it. I just forgot to tell you I’d found her.”

“Poke is undercover?”

She answers my question by not answering.

“Where is Vivian?”

“Safe.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“That’s all I’m saying,” she says. She puts one boot over her knee and picks an imaginary particle of dust off the black snakeskin. “It’s a secret.” She smiles and this time she winks at me.

She makes my skin fucking crawl right off my body.

The waitress comes back with our pitcher, puts it in the middle of the table and a frosted mug in front of each of us. Dillon stares at the waitress’s tits as she pours us each a beer. I guess she figures since I’m on to her secret life she might as well be herself.

I watch Dillon’s eyes travel over the waitress, yank her skirt up and fuck her hard right on our table.

Shit. She did all that with just one look.

The waitress must feel it, too, because she gives a little shiver and whispers to Dana, “I get off at two.”

She watches the waitress all the way back to the bar and I feel like I’m sitting on the back row of a porn movie and everybody around me is jacking off. I change my mind about Dillon. She’s not stupid. She’s a friggin’ snake. A snake wearing snakeskin boots.

“She’s a regular hellcat, ain’t she?” Dillon says, still leering at the waitress’s ass.

“I wouldn’t know.”

She turns her cold eyes to me. “I meant Vivian.” She sips from her mug. “I like ’em with a little spit and vinegar.”

She’s baiting me, but I’m not biting. I straighten up, giving myself a little extra space. “Did Vivian sign your witness protection papers?”

She shakes her head. “Refuses to sign. Won’t do it unless you do.”

I cross my arms defiantly and lean back in my chair. “If Vivian doesn’t want to sign, I don’t either.”

“That would be a really bad choice. I’m the only one who can save you from the Mafia.” She drinks half her beer and licks the foam off her upper lip.

I laugh. Now she’s my self-appointed savior? Where the hell was my savior when the Goodfellas caught up with us in Heaven? Or at the Lion’s Den for that matter.

“She’ll end up signing without you. We’ll get her a new identity. And you’ll never see her again.” Dillon says coldly.

“No, she won’t. She’d never leave me.”