“Jimmy!” I called out as I pushed through the crowd.
“Ms. Charlie, I ain’t seen you in weeks.” Jimmy snapped his tongs in my direction. “Where you been? Where’s my boy Huck Finn? And what can I get for you this fine evenin’?”
I tried to sort his questions out in my tequila-soaked brain. “Umm … Huck’s at home. He got hit by a car … so I haven’t been walking home for a while. This guy … he didn’t think it was safe for me … by myself.” I winced at my disjointed explanation.
Jimmy narrowed his gaze at me. “You done tied one on.” It wasn’t a question. He looked around. “You by yourself tonight?”
I nodded. “It’s cool. You know I’m not far from home.” I tried hard to avoid slurring my words. I was like a drunk teenager trying to fool her parents.
“I still don’t like it.” He handed me my hotdog without me having to order. I handed him the rest of the money I had on me. He tried to refuse, but I stuffed the bills in the pocket of his apron.
“See you tomorrow, Jimmy.”
“It’s a date, Ms. Charlie.”
I wandered a few more steps before I took a bite. I chewed and swallowed. And then gagged. Bad idea. Tequila and hotdog were not going to coexist peacefully. But I didn’t want to waste it. So I kept walking, on a drunken quest to find one of those homeless pups that wandered the street to pull in money for their owners. If it was good enough for Huck…
I finally spotted one sitting on the corner beyond the barricade that blocked the cars from Bourbon Street. The end of his leash was knotted to a pipe. It looked like his owner had just tied him up and left him. He was brindle like Huck, which made me smile. I staggered forward and offered up the hotdog.
“Here you go, baby. Eat up.” He swallowed it down in two head-tossing bites. Just like Huck.
“What the fuck, bitch?”
I spun around and registered a man striding out of the shadows. He wasn’t one of the hippy-looking homeless guys. He looked … mean.
“Ummm … sorry. I’ll just be going.” I looked at the dog and started to turn back toward the crowd only a dozen or so yards away.
“I don’t think so.” His fingers bit into my bare arm as he swung me around and dragged me down the dark street. I started to scream, but the back of his hand caught my cheek and my head snapped sideways. The air in my lungs evaporated as icy fear rushed in to take its place. Memories of my last close call assailed me. I had no Huck this time. No way to protect myself.
He was patting down my pockets, looking for money, while I just stood there dumbly. “You gotta have something. Fuckin’ bitches always got something,” he muttered, still gripping my arm. He tossed my cell phone into the gutter.
My drunken haze was ripped away as the reality of my situation solidified. I rammed my knee up into his groin and yanked against his grasp as he doubled over. But his grip was too tight. His dog growled, and I stayed just shy of the snapping teeth that had looked so harmless only moments before. I rotated my arm, trying to twist out of his hold. But he was faster, and I felt a slash of pain across my side. I looked down at the slice in my white tank top as it turned red. He froze, as if realizing what he’d just done, as if the action had been a reflex. In his shock, he dropped the knife, and it clattered to the sidewalk near the dog. I kneed him in the balls again. This time he stumbled and let go of my arm. I ran toward the crowd.
“You better run, bitch,” he yelled after me.
I staggered down Bourbon Street, clutching my arm to my side as hot, sticky blood seeped out of the wound. I spotted a cop and started toward him. But then common sense intruded. Cops meant a hospital and questions. I turned away, tripping over the curb and stumbling into a doorway next to a strip club. The doorman glanced over at me. Then did a double take.
“Whoa, sweetheart. You’re bleeding. Fuck!” He fumbled for his phone. “I’ll call 911.”
“No. Don’t.” I started to sweat and dizziness assailed me. “Could you call someone else for me?”
He held the phone, poised to dial. “Number?”
I rattled off one I knew by heart. The bouncer held the phone out, and I pressed it to my ear.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“I need you.”
I woke up wearing nothing but my bra and underwear in a bed that wasn’t my own. I stretched and winced at the pain in my side, the pounding in my head, and the throbbing of my cheek. I groaned.
I was a total shit show.
Fragmented memories of last night came flooding back as I surveyed the very familiar room and the man in bed beside me. His blue eyes flicked open, as if he’d just been lying there, waiting for me to wake. He stared at me for a long moment before speaking.
“Scared the shit out of me last night, Lee.”
I tried to recall exactly what the hell had happened. It was mostly a drunken blur laced with heart-stopping fear. “I don’t remember much after the phone call.”
“That’s because you didn’t fucking make it through the phone call. You passed out, went into shock. Bouncer had to tell me where the fuck you were. I paid him four hundred bucks because you dropped his phone and shattered the screen. Well, that, and he was a stand up guy and used his shirt to stop the bleeding before I got there.”
I chanced a glance down at my side. There were no stitches, only an angry red seam. I looked up at Con.
“No hospital?”
His snapping blue eyes turned serious. “Did you really want me to announce your whereabouts to the FBI, Charlotte?”