way. Fat Man’s was a depressing, dark den, smoke hanging in the air, and music playing,
but not too loudly. Men were drinking at wooden tables, watching a woman on stage, in
g-string and tassels, as she twirled heavy, sagging breasts. Brazil didn’t want to stare too
hard, but he was pretty sure that the left one was tattooed with the planet Saturn, bright
yellow, with rings orbiting fast. In big circles. These were, without a doubt, the biggest
breasts he had ever seen in person.
The stripper, whose stage name was Minx, needed another Valium. She was thirsty, had
to have a cigarette, and damn it all, the fucking cops were here. What this time? She
started twirling the other way, then did two different directions at once. This usually got
the men going, but tonight’s stingy crowd was about as excitable as a cemetery. Minx
smiled. The boy cop couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Never seen tits before?” she asked him as he went by.
Brazil was indifferent. West shot Minx a cool look, and thought the stripper’s fried egg
tattoo on her left breast was rather clever, not to mention apropos. Lord, this one even
had stretch marks, cellulite, her clients not interested in anything that wasn’t in a glass.
Colt, the bouncer, was the exception. He was heading at the cops like a freight train on a
mission. He was big and scary in a shiny black suit, thick gold chains, and a red leather
tie. He looked like he might hurt them, starting with Brazil.
“We got a complaint of loud music,” West said to Colt.
“You hear it?” Colt lifted his heavy jaw, veins like ropes in his powerful neck.
He was full of hate toward these white cops, especially the bitch. Who did she think she
was, anyway, strutting into Fat Man’s, in her fancy uniform with all its shiny shit meant
to hurt hardworking people like him? He glanced at Minx, making sure she wasn’t letting
up. It seemed not a night went by when he didn’t have to smack a little more energy into
her, give her pain some place where it wouldn’t show, encouraging her to do her job. She
was slinging away. Nobody cared. Nobody tipped. Two of the regulars were getting up
and leaving, the night still young. Colt knew the cops were to blame.
Colt jerked open the side door leading out into an alleyway. He grabbed Brazil by the
front of his uniform shirt with such force, it ripped.
“Heyyyy!” Brazil yelled.
Colt lifted the punk off his feet and threw him outside in the trash, where he belonged.
Garbage cans clattered against pavement, bottles clanging. It was just a good thing Brazil
was dirty, anyway. He got to his feet in time to see West whipping out her handcuffs.
Colt had her by her uniform shirt, intending to pitch her, too, as the little shit yelled
“Mayday! Mayday!” into his police radio.
Colt gagged, and for a blinding shard of insight thought someone had shoved a pool cue into the hollow of his massive neck. It seeped into his fading consciousness that the bitch
was drilling her index finger into that soft hollow over his windpipe. He couldn’t breathe.
His tongue protruded as she drilled and he gagged, gasping for air, his eyes bugging as he
dropped to his knees, a gun barrel now staring at his nose. Colt’s ears were ringing, blood
roaring as the bitch screamed like she was going to eat him tartare.
“You move I’ll blow your brains out motherfucker’ Minx gyrated.
Patrons drank. Backup cops burst through the front door, far away across the dark,
smoky room. West had a knee on Colt’s beefy back, and was busy snapping cuffs on his
wrists, tight behind him. Brazil looked on in awe. Cops hauled Colt and the drunk dudes
to jail. Minx saw her chance and walked off her runway, plucking lousy folded dollar
bills out of her garter, wrapping up in a sweatshirt, and lighting a cigarette, out of here for
good this time.
“Why did I let you get me into this?” West was saying as she unlocked their car.