Glory dove for the microphone like she was sliding into home and yanked it away from him, and Glenn seized it from her and ferried it way out of Mick’s reach like a burning torch.
Deprived of the microphone, Mick performed a rude illustrative gesture using the kazoo as a prop instead.
“YUCK, dude!” a discerning person hollered.
Glory was actually amazed Mick had managed a rhyme.
“Oooooooooh,man!” Someone in the audience was clearly gleefully horrorstruck.
“YOU SUCK, MICK!” someone else yelled. Either in support of Glory or by way of editorial review. Both were fine with her.
“YOUSUCK!” Mick predictably snarled by way of reply to the invisible critic.
He staggered off the stage toward the voice and collided with the still gently whirling Marvin Wade, sending him spiraling precariously out of his orbit and crashing into a guy gingerly balancing two half pints of beer in his hands. They both went down hard in an explosion of glass, beer raining down after them, just as Mick threw a wild punch toward his insulter, so wild that it spun him about 180 degrees and the punch landed on the wrong guy, who toppled flailing backward in his chair into the guy next to him, who shoved him upward into the guy Mickmeantto punch, who shot to his feet and shoved him roughly off, got hit in the face for his effort, and in seconds all was pandemonium.
Chapter9
When Eli picked up the phone at the sheriff’s station he thought Glenn was shouting “MAYDAY! MAYDAY!”
Then he realized it was “MELEE!”
This became clearer when he heard what sounded like breaking glass and furniture crashing and a little feminine shriek of fright.
“My kajoo!” someone bellowed. “You motherfucker! You stepped on my kajoo!”
“Get here!”Glenn shouted to Eli, and he ended the call.
Good God. How could a chamber of commerce mixer devolve into abrawl?
Oh wait: it was open mic night, too, that was how.
Glory was there.
He could extrapolate from there.
The citizens of Hellcat Canyon were treated to the rare sight of three sheriff’s deputies cruisers roaring down Main Street, sirens wailing and lights blazing.
And when the deputies leaped out of their cruisers, they could hear grunting and thumping and the odd crash from outside the Misty Cat before they even entered.
Eli pushed the door open and they all burst in together.
It was still dimly lit for open mic night and the floor was as warm with bodies, some rolling on the floor, a few pinned and taking what amounted to bitch slaps, a few others locked in what looked like grappling, drunken tangos. Hardly a world-class group of fighters, but they were drunk and angry and they had projectiles to hand if they really wanted to go Wild West in here.
And then—Dear God—he saw Glory was in the middle of it trying to pull some guy off what looked like Marvin Wade, who was flat on the floor. She had the guy by one arm and was tugging, leaning back on her heels, like some kind of waterskier. She looked up, then her eyes flicked past him and she dropped the arm she was tugging.
“Eli!Look out!”
He spun around.
Mick Macklemore had hoisted a squat bar stool and Eli saw its four legs coming at him sideways. He knew in an instant that it was too late to duck completely. He was going to get nailed good.
Then Glory hurdled Marvin Wade’s prone form, cocked her arm, and hurled a punch at Mick’s jaw.
His head snapped back and he flailed, skidding in spilled beer and landing on his ass. The stool rolled away from him and landed with a thud. Glory set it upright and gave it a pat.
Eli was on top of Mick in an instant and got him in cuffs.
Eli and Scotty waded into the rest of the idiots fighting and got them separated and shaken and scolded into submission then cuffed and lined up like bad children on a bench in the front of the Misty Cat, ready to load them into cruisers or release them on their own recognizance, once they got all their statements.
