Head-up on a brass-knuckled biker who threw a hissing right, Harry blocked it with his left. He kicked the guy twice in the same shin, and once in the balls. He caught a left that backed him up, and the knucks came in again, a roundhouse. He ducked, digging his right into a jelly gut. His shoulder stayed in place, but a hard left connected, and Harry’s ass touched down. He sprang back up.
He didn’t come out of nowhere, because Big Palmero never came out of nowhere. It took him too long to get where he was going. But he was moving quick for him, quick like a landslide, and snatching that brass-knuckled fist at the wrist, Palmero pushed his palm straight through the guy’s elbow, snapping the arm clean at the joint. The biker hit the floor and cradled his crippled limb, screaming.
No shots were fired.
The cops blew in behind helmets and masks and billy clubs that went whap whap whap. Harry vaulted the bar he was supposed to be watching and stayed right there until they cleared the club and Peyton came over to vouch for him, which Harry needed, in spite of his black t-shirt with the periwinkle lettering of Sailor Randy’s logo.
Harry ducked everybody with a camera.
The melee was front paged in the Sun-Sentinel, and it led the morning newscasts, file footage of the outdoor bar on calmer nights, clean-cut college kids whooping it up, shots of the dance floor and stage, “... where the riot” — they weren’t calling it a fight — “is said to have erupted.” The Chief of Police and the Mayor got quoted and so did some EMS guys. The paper ran a photo of Peyton, with a big black eye. “Dozens” of arrests were made, nobody said how many, and fifteen people had to be hospitalized.
Harry would almost have been all right with all of it. Almost. But the next night he had to listen to Peyton’s juiced-up blockheads, whose conversations were usually restricted to how many big plates they could squat, crowing about their heroics. Like they’d achieved something. It made Harry sick to think he’d been on their side, right there with them, C-note-a-night muscle in a classic mug’s job.
The chicks Bryce Peyton employed as bartenders weren’t at Sailor Randy’s because they were especially skilled at mixing cocktails, or because they could handle a bunch of customers all at once or had the kinds of personalities people were willing to shell out money to be around. They were there to preserve the myth of the beach bunny as ideal woman, modern version: bottle blonde where nature fucked up, sun-tanned, cap-toothed, tattooed and pierced.
Agatha stuck out because she was none of these things. Big Palmero handled the introduction. It was early. Bryce had just turned down the lights, and Agatha was toweling lime juice off her fingers, getting ready to go. Harry asked her if people called her Aggie.
“With a name like Agatha,” she said, “they better.”
Harry told her it was a nice name, though what he meant was it was an old-fashioned name, and if he had a daughter, he sure as shit wouldn’t be naming her Agatha.
“Double double, toil and trouble,” Agatha said. “It sounds like the name of one of the weird sisters.”
With the possible exception of Bryce Peyton, who could surprise you with the things he knew, Harry would’ve laid ten to one that he and Aggie were the only two souls in the place who knew the line was from Macbeth, and he said so.
Her hair was light brown, and her dark eyes were bright with intelligence. She had a nice, compact body, and the shape of her legs looked great, even in her jeans. She stepped down the bar to pour two drinks, and Harry pictured her walking away from his bed at the Wind N’ Sand, panties riding high, baring one cheek of her ass.
“You don’t seem like Bryce’s type,” he said.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Why’d he hire you?”
“Because he trusts me,” Aggie said.
“You know him a long time?”
“Eight years. We worked together at a place called Mead’s. There’s a Dunkin’ Donuts there now.”
“So you’re local.”
“Fort Lauderdale, Florida,” she said. “But you’re not.”
“I’m from New York.”
“The city so nice, they named it twice. Why on earth are you here?”
“I needed a change of scenery.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “What’s your story?”
“Let me take you out for breakfast, and I’ll give you the condensed version.”
The bar accumulated a handful of customers, waiting with bills in their hands. Standing money, Peyton called it. He was glaring across the dance floor, his eyes locked on Harry’s, his arms spread wide and his palms turned up. Harry made a gun out of his hand, and fired it by pushing down his thumb. Right you are, boss.
“I thought you had to close,” Aggie said, reaching for a bottle of Midori.
“Not tonight,” Harry lied. “Listen, I gotta make it look like I’m working. I’ll catch up with you later.”
As a matter of fact, the toilet cop always had to close. So if he was going to see Aggie after work, he needed somebody to cover for him. This was going to be tough. He had no friends on this crew, and everybody hated closing.
The first guy he hit up was Tommy, no last name learned or cared about. He was looking a tad tender from Tuesday night’s festivities, though his left eye had started to open a bit. Tommy was a good bet. This was his only job, and the most important thing he had going the next day was polishing up his tan.
“Dude,” Tommy said, “you serious?”
“Like a capsized cruise ship.”
“I can’t,” Tommy said. “It’s Thursday night.” Like if it had been a Monday or a Friday, Tommy’d be happy to oblige, the muscle-bound closet-case.
That led Harry to William-Not-Bill, a puppet-legged blockhead with Cuban blood and a prizefighter hairdo, spiky on top with rat-tails curling out the back. When Harry asked him for the favor, Not-Bill wanted to know if Harry’d been smoking crack.
This left only the Big man himself, and Harry stalled asking the whole night, till he noticed Aggie counting out her money and getting ready to split.
“I give you the twinkiest gig in the whole house, and y’all wanna run outta here,” Palmero said. “Why you gotta do me like that?”
“I got a date with Aggie,” Harry said. “I mean, I do if you cut me loose.”
“That right?” Palmero said. He nodded his enormous head, impressed. “Ain’t she the sweetest?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out, Big.”
“Well, shit,” Palmero considered, “I gotta be at the clinic by nine, otherwise I would. Don’t suppose none of these tough guys is gonna help you out.”
Harry shrugged.
“Course not.” He thought a minute. “Alright, look. I’ll do it tonight and tonight only. Not on your account, you understand, but because I like Agatha.”
“Thanks, Big,” Harry said. “I owe you one.”
Palmero said, “You don’t owe me shit. Just do me a solid. In the future, make time on your time, not on my time.”
Agatha St. Denis pronounced her name like the French martyr, San-duh-nee, and unlike the rest of her family, who Americanized it so that it rhymed with tennis. They were sitting in a Stuckey’s in Dania, being waited on by a begoggled biddy who moved like she had arthritis in her ankles.
Aggie didn’t pour syrup over her pancakes, she made a puddle in a saucer and dipped bite-sized chunks into it. And she didn’t use butter. Bad enough she was eating at this hour, a snack like this could wipe out an entire week’s worth of sensible dieting.
“What’re you worried about?” Harry said. “So long as you’re eating, I figure you’re okay.”