“You love pool,” Dawn countered. “I know for a fact you spend hours playing with the bouncers after the bar closes at night. They say you win back all the money you paid them for the night so they have to keep working.”
“Gonna fire them when I get back to the bar.” Banks stared down at the empty table and shook his head. “Crooked. Felt’s not been looked after. Cues are bent. Balls are probably weighted.”
Arianne laughed. “Well then, since you know everything that’s wrong, I guess you won’t mind playing against me. I promise to go easy on you.” She grabbed a cue and a block of chalk. “We’ll have a quick game until Dawn needs us. How much do you want to put down? I’m thinking of buying a new bike and I’m a couple grand short.”
“Don’t like playing against sharks,” Banks said, but he took a cue and the faintest smile curved his lips.
“I’ll go let him know I’m here.” Dawn left them and headed over to the bar. Back when she’d been a dancer, Bunny paid Jimmy a small fortune for Dawn’s exclusive attention at the Pink Cherry dance club, and although Jimmy didn’t allow her to have sex with her clients—that privilege was his alone—he did allow almost anything else. Bunny took full advantage. However, he was always respectful and civil, often chatting with her after a dance despite the extra cost, and they forged an understanding. Sometimes Dawn would break the rules. In return, she earned a mark in Bunny’s book.
Tonight she had come to collect.
She recognized the tall, broad-shouldered bartender from the last time she’d visited Bunny’s pool hall with Arianne and shoved a fifty-dollar bill across the counter. That night she’d left with Cade and wound up in his bed for the second time. He made her come four times in as many hours and then she sneaked out before daybreak, ashamed of herself for breaking her own rules about one-night stands, but more afraid that if she stayed she’d break them again.
“I’m looking for Bunny. Tell him Dee wants to see him.”
The bartender pocketed the bill without looking up. “He knows you’re here.”
Dawn gestured for Banks and Arianne to join her, but when they reached the counter, the bar phone buzzed and the bartender put out a warning hand.
“One second.” He answered the phone, listened, and then hung up without saying a word. “Leave Jagger’s bitch and the muscle outside.”
Banks moved so fast all she caught was a blur at the corner of her eye, before he grabbed the bartender by the throat and yanked him down on the counter. “Don’t much care for your disrespect, beer boy. Maybe you want to rephrase your request.”
The bartender’s face turned red, then purple, and he flailed and struggled in Banks’s powerful grip.
“He can’t talk.” Dawn made no effort to hide her exasperation. “You’re crushing his windpipe. I’m sure he’ll be more polite if you allow him to breathe.”
Banks huffed and released the bartender, shoving him backward from across the bar. “How ’bout you try it from the top?”
The bartender paled and his hand flew to his throat. “Not my rules. No leather. No muscle.”
“Am I the muscle or are you the muscle?” Arianne grinned at Banks. “Since we’re both wearing leather it’s hard to tell.”
“I’ll go in alone,” Dawn said with a bravado she didn’t feel in the least. Cade was in Whitefish, and for once he wouldn’t be around to swoop in and save the day. Tonight was her night, and although she felt apprehensive, she also felt a tingle of anticipation. This was the world she had run from. Now she was back, and this time no one would push her around.
“We’re here if you need us.” Banks folded his arms. “And I’m watching the door.”
The bartender nodded and she followed him down a narrow hallway to a door guarded by two bald, thick-necked bouncers. They moved to let her pass and Dawn stepped into Bunny’s office, a drab room containing only a metal desk, a small window, and three chairs.
Pasty-faced and balding, with rounded shoulders and a visible paunch, the man sitting behind the desk could have blended into any crowd save for his eyes, cold, hard, and obsidian black.
“You.” Bunny leaned back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. His two security guards, tall and heavily built, shifted on either side of his chair.
“Me.”
“What do you want?”
Dawn twisted her hands together. “I’m calling in my mark. There’s a video out there that shows me supposedly buying crack from a PI. Jimmy set it up to take my kids away. I want to find the PI, and I want to know who was behind the camera. I got a copy of the video from my lawyer.” She put a hand into her purse. The security guards moved forward as one. Bunny shook his head.
“You don’t have a mark with me. And if you did, you used it up when you brought Jagger’s old lady here and his goons almost slit my throat.”
“You and Arianne made a deal. That had nothing to do with me. I just made the introduction.”