The music was thumping away. There were strobes and black
lights and the whole scene was confusion. The ventilation fans
were roaring but the air was hot and foul. I was tired and I was
getting a headache. I slid off my stool and tried a circuit of
the whole place. Couldn’t find the blonde anywhere. I went
around again. Didn’t find her. The Special Forces sergeant I
had spoken to before stopped me halfway through my third
circuit.
‘Looking for your girlfriend?’ he said.
I nodded. He pointed at the dressing-room door.
‘I think you just caused her some trouble,’ he said.
‘What kind of trouble?’
He said nothing. Just held up his left palm and smacked his
right fist into it.
‘And you didn’t do anything?’ I said.
He shrugged.
‘You’re the cop,’ he said. ‘Not me.’
59
The dressing-room door was a plain plywood rectangle
painted black. I didn’t knock. I figured the women who used the
room weren’t shy. I just pulled it open and stepped inside.
There were regular light bulbs burning in there, and piles of
clothes and the stink of perfume. There were vanity tables with
theatre mirrors. There was an old sofa, red velvet. Sin was
sitting on it, crying. She had a vivid red outline of a hand on her
left cheek. Her right eye was swollen shut. I figured it for a
double slap, first forehand, then backhand. Two heavy blows.
She was pretty shaken. Her left shoe was off. I could see needle
marks between her toes. Addicts in the skin trades often inject
there. It rarely shows. Models, hookers, actresses.
I didn’t ask if she was OK. That would have been a stupid
question. She was going to live, but she wasn’t going to work
for a week. Not until the eye went black and then turned yellow
enough to hide with make-up. I just stood there until she saw
me, through the eye that was still open.
‘Get out,’ she said.
She looked away.
‘Bastard,’ she said.
‘You find the girl yet?’ I said.
She looked straight at me.
‘There was no girl,’ she said. ‘I asked all around. I asked
everybody. And that’s what I heard back. Nobody had a
problem last night. Nobody at all.’
I paused a beat. ‘Anyone not here who should be?’
‘We’re all here,’ she said. ‘We’ve all got Christmas to pay
for.’
I didn’t speak.
‘You got me slapped for nothing,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble.’
‘Get out,’ she said again, not looking at me.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘Bastard,’ she said.
I left her sitting there and forced my way back through the
crowd around the stage. Through the crowd around the bar.
Through the bottleneck entrance, to the doorway. The guy with
the face was right there in the shadows again, behind the
register. I guessed where his head was in the darkness and
60
swung my open right hand and slapped him on the ear, hard
enough to rock him sideways.
‘You,’ I said. ‘Outside.’
I didn’t wait for him. Just pushed my way out into the night.
There was a bunched-up crowd of people in the lot. All military.
The ones who had trickled out when I came in. They were
standing around in the cold, leaning on cars, drinking beer
from the long-neck bottles they had carried out with them.
They weren’t going to be a problem. They would have to be
very drunk indeed to mix it up with an MP. But they weren’t
going to be any help, either. I wasn’t one of them. I was on
my own.
The door burst open behind me. The big guy came out. He
had a couple of locals with him. They looked like farmers. We
all stepped into a pool of yellow light from a fixture on a pole.
We all stood in a rough circle. We all faced each other. Our
breath turned to vapour in the air. Nobody spoke. No preamble
was required. I guessed that parking lot had seen plenty of
fights. I guessed this one would be no different from all the
others. It would finish up just the same, with a winner and a