“Fuck you, you lying bitch!” Baseball Cap bellows.
“Hey now!” Rory clicks on his flashlight and shines it in Baseball Cap’s face. “There’s no call for that kind of language. What’s your name?”
“Todd Dungworth.” Baseball Cap pinches the bridge of his nose and tilts his head back.
Todd. Figures. I never met a Todd who wasn’t a total a-hole. Also, Dungworth? What an unfortunate last name. Although, given the last ten minutes, I’d say it’s appropriate.
“I think my nose is broken,” he whines. “Somebody call an ambulance.”
“I don’t think a broken nose is life-threatening,” Rory says without emotion. “I’ll drive you to the all-night clinic. But first…” He takes a notepad from his pocket and flips it open. “Let’s talk turkey, shall we?”
“She’s lying,” Todd complains.
I roll my eyes and look up at the gathered crowd. “Anyone hear what he said, or see how the fight started?”
Two people raise their hands. One is the woman who was standingrealclose to Cash, occasionally shooting him lustful looks, right before the fisticuffs got underway. The other is a guy who was trying to get my attention for a refill when Todd called Jean-Pierre that awful name.
“Okay, good.” I nod. “Would y’all mind staying here and giving your statements? Everybody else, back in the bar! The show’s over, and the next round’s on me!”
A cheer goes up, and the gathered crowd pushes back inside. I hear the jukebox click on, and the sounds of chairs scraping across the wood floor mean my customers are retaking their seats.
“Everyone pop a squat on the curb. I’ll go down the line taking statements,” Rory says as his partner radios in to the New Orleans Police Department.
The task force is the first line of defense against crimes in the French Quarter, but it’s the NOLA police who have the ultimate authority.
I cringe at the thought of my name and the name of my bar going out over the airwaves. George Sullivan and the guys and gals in his department—excluding Rory, naturally—aren’t exactly my favorite people.
Jean-Pierre grabs the spot on the other side of Cash, and I sit down beside him. “Not really the night of fun and fiddling I promised you, huh?”
“Oh, I don’t know,cher.” He wraps his arm around me. Then he whispers in my ear, “It was a lot of fun before dis one”—he motions to Cash—“decided to do his best impression of John Wick after dem bad guys killed his dog.”
Isn’t it strange—and bystrange, I meanscary—how quickly a good night can go bad?
Looking up at the starry sky, I’m reminded of another place and another time andanotherguy who thought he could say and do whatever he wanted. There’d been blood then too.
I swallow convulsively as a sick feeling congeals in my belly.
