“This isn’t what I expected,” the man said.
“The fuck you expect, Regine’s?” Boldly Freddie took the offensive.
“This isn’t a gay bar?” the man asked, “I assumed from the name … “
Freddie said, “I didn’t name the place, pal. All I know is, it rhymes. That doesn’t automatically make it no fruit bar. Now state your business or beat it.”
“I need to see one of your bouncers.”
“What for?”
The man said, “I’m his doctor.”
“He sick?”
“I don’t know until I see him,” said Rudy Graveline.
Freddie was skeptical. Maybe the guy was a doctor, maybe not; these days everybody was wearing white silk suits.
“Which of my security personnel you want to see?” asked Freddie.
“He’s quite a big man.”
“They’re all big, mister. I don’t hire no munchkins.”
“This one is extremely tall and thin. His face is heavily scarred, and he’s missing his left hand.”
“Don’t know him,” Freddie said, playing it safe. In case the guy was a clever bail bondsman or an undercover cop with a wardrobe budget.
Rudy said: “But he told me he works here.”
Freddie shook his head and made sucking sounds through his front teeth. “I have a large staff, mister, and turnover to match. Not everybody can take the noise.” He jerked a brown thumb toward the fiberboard wall, which was vibrating from the music on the other side.
“Sounds like an excellent band,” Rudy said lamely.
“Cathy and the Catheters,” Freddie reported with a shrug. “Queen of slut rock, all the way from London.” He pushed himself to his feet and stretched. “Sorry I can’t help you, mister—”
At that instant the ticket girl flung open the door and told Freddie that a terrible fight had broken out and he better come quick. Rudy Graveline was huffing at Freddie’s heels by the time a path had been cleared to the front of the stage. There a gang of anorexic Nazi skinheads had taken on a gang of flabby redneck bikers in a dispute over tattoos—specifically, whose was the baddest. The battle had been joined by a cadre of heavyset bouncers, each sporting a pink Gay Bidet T-shirt with the word SECURITY stenciled on the back. The vicious fighting seemed only to inspire more volume from the band and more random slam-dancing from the other punkers.
Towering above the melee was Chemo himself, his T-shirt ragged and bloody, and a look of baleful concentration on his face. Even through the blinding strobes, Rudy Graveline could see that the Weed Whacker attached to Chemo’s stub was unsheathed and fully operative; the monofilament cutter was spinning so rapidly that it appeared transparent and harmless, like a hologram. In horror Rudy watched Chemo lower the buzzing device into the tangle of humanity—the ensuing screams rose plangently over the music. As if by prearrangement, the other bouncers backed off and let Chemo work, while Freddie supervised from atop an overturned amplifier.
The fighting subsided quickly. Splints and bandages were handed out to fallen bikers and skinheads alike, while the band took a break. An expression of fatherly admiration in his shoe-button eyes. Freddie patted Chemo on the shoulder, then disappeared backstage. Rudy Graveline worked his way through the sweaty crowd, stepping over the wounded and semiconscious until he reached Chemo’s side.
“Well, that was amazing,” Rudy said.
Chemo glanced down at him and scowled. “Fucking battery died. I hope that’s it for the night.”
The surgeon said, “We really need to talk.”
“Yes,” Chemo agreed. “We sure do.”
As soon as Chemo and Rudy went backstage, they ran into Freddie, Cathy, and two of the Catheters sharing some hash in a glass pipe. Through a puff of blue smoke Freddie said to Chemo: “This jerkoff claimed he’s your doctor.”
“Was,” Chemo said. “Can we use the dressing room?”
“Anything you want,” Freddie said.
“Watch out for my python,” Cathy cautioned.
The dressing room was not what Rudy had expected. There was a folding card table, an old-fashioned coat rack, a blue velour sofa, a jagged triangle of broken mirror on the wall and, in one corner, an Igloo cooler full of Heinekens. On the naked floor was a low flat cage made from plywood and chicken wire in which resided a nine-foot Burmese python, the signature of Cathy’s big encore.