I’m not exactly dressed for a night at a club. I’m also not carrying, dammit. Now that Shae’s president-elect, her detail won’t let me carry around her or Elliot.
Unfortunately, my apartment is in the exact opposite direction, so there’s no time for me to run there first, haul ass up and down three flights of stairs, and grab my gun.
Fuck it.I’ll have to go as-is.
I try calling several more times, plus I’m keeping an eye out just in case we pass him. Not that I’m hopeful we will. I’m nearly certain he’s already at the club.
I hope.
It’s bitterly cold tonight, and damp. At least it’s not raining. My hope is Jordan opted to take a cab after all, but I sense a stubborn streak in him that I might have accidentally reinforced by suggesting he take one in the first place. An attempt, consciously or not, to prove me wrong.
That makes me want him even more, that feisty streak of his. He won’t be a pushover. Not at all.
As we approach the place I groan, because it’s even worse than I feared. There was a gang shooting just two blocks from here last night. Also, the place is fricking packed, man, with people spilling out onto the sidewalk to smoke and vape despite the cold night. I don’t have earplugs with me, either, meaning I’ll probably be deaf by the time I locate Jordan in the packed building.
I find the box office, pay my entry, and I’m given a wristband. Based on the schedule posted in the box office, the second band just started playing. There’s no assigned seating, because it’s general admission. I head into the lobby and find it isn’t as crazy as I thought it’d be, but I can see through the windows in the inner doors that there’s a solid wall of people within the auditorium space. The noise level is already borderline painful, even out here.
Fucking fantastic.
The old theatre building housing the club has seen better days, but the lobby still brings to mind its former glory. Decorative columns with faded and peeling gilded paint festoon the space. Glancing around, I spot a merchandise table at the far end of the room and I head there.
“Don’t suppose you sell ear plugs, do you?” I ask.
Guy looks like he’s twelve. He’s got neck tats, spacers in his ears, a ring in his upper lip, and a purple and green mohawk, with his tattooed scalp shaved on either side. He grins. “Forget yours, Pops?”
I grin back instead of telling him to fuck himself. I must have used my scary Special Agent Leo Cruz grin, the one I didn’t hesitate to use before, when I was still employed by the US government and carried a badge, because his grin fades and he recoils a little.
I dig out my wallet and hold up a ten. “You have any or not?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, sealed plastic baggy holding two orange sponge earplugs.
“Two dollars.”
I shove the ten at him and snatch the plugs from his hand. “Keep the change, asshole.”
I’m already ripping the bag open and twisting the plugs into my ears as I push through the inner doors. The sound smacks into me like a living wall, pulsing against and through me. Even with the earplugs it’s stillpainfullyloud. I’d rather shoot at a range without ear protection.
Turns out there’s no seating because there are no seats.
Fuck. I haaaate situations like this. I don’t enjoy club concerts, especially if I’m not carrying, and I hate them even more likethis, when I’m worried about Jordan.
This is like being locked in my worst nightmare when I worked The Shift—a dark, crowded, noisy building with shifting light patterns that make it nearly impossible to get a good bead on a target and make it stupid easy for anyone to hide themselves among the throng.
I spot at least three drug deals going down as I circle the audience perimeter, and I don’t even fucking care. I don’t wear a badge any longer and, unless they were on the White House grounds, it’d be out of my jurisdiction, anyway. They’re probably pushing weed, or E, or K, or maybe acid or something. Typical concert shit.
Not my circus, not my clowns.
At least it’s not a goddamned rave. On the stage, the band currently playing sounds closer to Anew Revolution or Three Days Grace than Arctic Monkeys. Waves of people between me and the stage are bouncing up and down with the beat in a way that nearly gives me motion sickness. The guitars are screaming, the lead singer is screaming, the audience is screaming.
My patience is screaming.
My nerves are screaming.
When I start to hear the sound of metal screaming, I close my eyes and shake my head once, hard, to try to reset. I can’t afford nightmares right now.
I need my focus.
After taking a deep breath, I open my eyes and resume my trek.
