Chapter 1
My eyes fluttered open, and I squinted against a light shining in my face. As I sat up, a hand grabbed my shoulder and pushed me to the ground. A voice said something I couldn’t make out. I relented and laid back.
More voices now. These others seemed further away and happily yelled over the thumping bass line of Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” The club, I thought, that’s where I am. The music and chattering voices swirled nauseatingly inside my head.
What the hell happened?
“Easy,” a male voice said. “Take it easy.”
The light in my eyes seemed brighter as if it had moved closer.
“Are you okay?”
I waved at the light. “Get that outta my face.”
“Relax,” the voice said, and the bright light moved away. “We’re only here to help.”
A young police officer knelt next to me. He wore white latex gloves, and his name badge read Delaney. The flashlight he held pointed downward. “What happened?”
Pain cascaded over the right side of my face. “I don’t remember.” I turned and spat a glob of blood onto the concrete floor. Delaney straightened and stepped away.
I hacked, and it set off an explosion inside my head. Rolling over to my hands and knees, I sucked for air. Blood drooled from my mouth. I spat once more.
Officer Delaney again. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Dropping back to my butt, I said, “Working the floor.”
While my tongue searched for broken teeth, I stole a glance around the bar. Music pounded from the speakers hanging from Club Royale’s ceiling. Multi-colored lights flickered. People of all shapes, sizes, and colors danced without concern.
At the front door and nearer to me, several police officers interviewed a group of customers. Watching me intently from that group was Erika Taylor, a late-twenties black woman. She gave a small, concerned wave when we made eye contact.
“Hey,” the cop said.
My tongue discovered a large gash on the inside of my cheek.
Delaney leaned over and spoke in the slow speech pattern reserved for foreigners. “Do you remember what happened?”
I pushed myself to a knee.
“Don’t get up. Medics are on the way.”
“I’m fine.” Holding the wall for support, I made it to my feet.
“So, you were working the floor, and then woke up on it?”
“What can I say?”
Erika continued to watch from the edge of the crowd.
“Yeah,” Delaney said and clicked off his flashlight. He slipped it into the thigh pocket of his pants. “What can you say? Wait here.”
Erika hurried over then. “Are you—”
“Fine.” It was the same thing I’d told the cop. I didn’t feel that way, though.
She studied my head and grimaced.
I touched the right side of my face. Finding wetness, I pulled the fingers back and saw them covered in dark red. “How bad?”
“There’s a gash. Not too long, but it’s bleeding like hell.”
I removed a crushed pack of Marlboros from my pocket. I fished around for a smokable cigarette. “Did you see what happened?”
Erika was a member of the club’s waitstaff. She wore the requisite midriff shirt emblazoned with the club’s logo. After a glance toward the cops, she said, “Croy Bradford.”
“This was some sort of payback?”
“Maybe.”
Bradford played for a local university and was the stereotypical farm boy. Tall, blond, thick in the chest, and thicker in the head. He was also a mean drunk. A couple of weeks prior, he tied one on and tried pulling one of the servers into a VIP room. Crazy, sometimes illegal, things happened in the VIP rooms but only when it’s consensual. The server didn’t want to go, but Bradford and his buddies were insistent.
After I told Bradford and his cronies to knock it off, we had a shoving match. His poor attitude ended his night. With the help of several other bouncers, I tossed the farm boy on the sidewalk—much to his embarrassment and the perverse joy of the assembled crowd waiting to get inside.
“That tells me who,” I said, “not how.”
Erika’s gaze swept once more over the assembled cops. “He hit you with a beer bottle.”
“From behind?”
“That’s what I heard. I didn’t see it.”
Bradford stood close to six and a half feet tall, weighed around two-fifty and was now in his senior year of college. If he swung a bottle, there would have been a significant force behind it. I’m lucky my head was still attached.
Erika said, “You’re lucky your head is still attached.”
I eyed her, wondering if she could read my mind.
“What?”
“Where were the guys?”
“Right before you got hit, another fight started near the DJ. Don’t you remember?”
“Sort of.” The others had moved toward a donnybrook on the far side of the dance floor. “Interesting timing, that.”
I pulled a crumpled cigarette from the pack and lit it. A deep inhale made me lightheaded, and the world tilted. I reached out for the wall, and Erika grabbed my arm.
“You okay?”
Bile rose in my throat, and the cigarette slipped from my fingers. Erika ground it out with her shoe.
Weakly, I asked, “Did you tell the police?”
She stared at me.
I looked over her shoulder. The cops were still talking, but it looked as if Delaney was starting to pull away.
“Isaiah,” she said. Her younger brother was a running back on the same team. “He was here, too.”
“So?”
“I missed Croy hitting you, but I saw Isaiah snatch the bottle from him. He smashed it on the floor on the way out.”
My gaze drifted toward the front door. There appeared to be a pile of glass.
“Right.”
“I’m sorry, John. I thought Isaiah had finally gotten his shit together.”
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
“This is bad. It’s inexcusable.”
“What are you asking me to do?”
“Nothing. I just thought you should know.”
I lifted my chin toward the group of people standing near the cops. “Somebody probably saw him.”
“It’s okay.”
“One of the crew might have seen him, too.”
“I know.” Her face remained passive. “Never mind.”
“What if I tell the cops what you told me?”
She looked down. “Then you tell them. It’s okay.”
“Did they ask what you saw?”
Erika didn’t look up.
“Right.” I absently dug in the pack of cigarettes again but stopped. I didn’t need to feel any woozier. “Your brother and Bradford aren’t welcome back here.”
She nodded. “Thank you, John.”
“Don’t thank me. If I ever see Bradford—” I let the threat hang in the air. “Pass that message to your brother.”
Erika nodded again.
Officer Delaney came back over. “Anything jog your memory?”
“No.”
The cop pointed at a group I assumed were witnesses. “They say you got blindsided by a big white guy with a beer bottle.”
“Look around. The club is full of big white boys with beer bottles. It’s Spokane, for Christ’s sake.”
The officer frowned. “One of them thought he might be a ball player or something.”
“News to me.”
Delaney eyed Erika. “You?”
“I missed the whole thing.” She pointed to the other side of the club. “I was over there.”
“And no one has said anything?”
She shrugged. “Nu-uh.”
The officer faced me once more. Even though he was young, his eyes were filled with the judgment many cops develop. I should know. I used to see it in the mirror.
“Why do you think he did it?” Delaney asked.
“No idea.”
“Maybe you cut him off. Maybe you didn’t let him in some other time. Maybe you kicked him out previously. You’re not even willing to take a guess?”
Sirens from outside announced an approaching ambulance.
“Am I free to go?” I asked.
Delaney sighed heavily. “The medics should check you out.”
Erika snaked her arm through mine. “I’ll make sure he gets there.”
The cop waved us toward the door.
Outside the bar, red and blue lights bounced off the neighboring buildings.
“I won’t forget what you did for me,” she said.
When the medics approached, Erika backed off. She listened to their initial questions about my injury then returned to the club.
