“Now, Switchblade, be nice.” Snake, the biker with Pres on his leather vest, asked. “Maybe he doesn’t want to tell us and needs a bit of inducement.”
“I’m in human resources,” Pete supplied, thinking quickly.
“Human resources?” Snake barked a laugh. “What’s that?”
“I help people.”
“He does what?” The biggest, burliest of the men leaned across the bar. “What did that mean, Gunner?”
“He helps people,” Gunner repeated.
“Actually, it’s a bit more than that,” Pete said, wanting to clarify himself with a more accurate description. “I also lecture.”
“Lecture?”
“La-tee-da,” Snake said, with a gruff, sarcastic laugh.
“What do you lecture on?” Gunner asked, cocking his head at an angle. His hair was long and fell to one side as he sized up Pete.
Oh boy, every time he opened his mouth, Pete dug himself deeper into the hole.
“My friend asked you a question.” Switchblade slid off the barstool and narrowed his eyes on Pete as he menacingly reached to grab hold of Pete’s shirt, hauling him halfway across the bar.
“Settle down,” Snake barked, stopping his friend by raising his hand.
Switchblade released Pete, who fell back onto his feet and drew in a shaky breath.
While still posed in a halting position, Snake said, “Pete here is about to tell us how he helps people by giving them lectures.”
“It isn’t like that, I…” Pete paused long enough to swallow. “I’m more of a teacher than someone who gives lectures.”
Walt muttered and shook his head. “He looks like some fancy professor with the way he dresses.”
Snake ignored Walt’s comment. “What do you teach?”
“Yeah, I’d be curious, too,” Rowdy said, “because I can tell you’ve never been to bartending school.”
“Can’t say that I have,” Pete admitted, working hard at not showing how intimidated he felt. Walt was right. With his button-down shirt and his clean-cut looks, he stuck out like a penguin in a birdcage.
“Seems you have yet to answer the question.”
“Okay, since you want to know,” he said thinking fast, and remaining as vague as possible, “I teach ancient Middle Eastern literature.”
All eight men sitting at the bar looked at him, and then at one another, as if Pete had been speaking Greek.
“You trying to show us up, boy?” Snake demanded, eyes narrowing.
“Of course not. I simply answered your question.”
“You think you’re smarter than the rest of us?”
“Not at all,” Pete insisted.
“He’s a real know-it-all,” Switchblade chimed in.
Snake slid off the stool and glared at Pete. “You rubbing your education in our faces is an insult to every man here.”
“Let me assure you that wasn’t my intention.” Pete started to backpedal as fast as he could, wondering how this conversation could have disintegrated so quickly.
“It seems to me,” Snake said, looking thoughtful, “this here genius needs a lesson in humility.”
Walt leaned toward Rowdy. “Told you this was going to be good.”
“Yup. I can see it comin’,” Walt said, scratching the side of his full beard.
“I’m actually quite humble already,” Pete felt the need to say. “Working this bar has kept me that way all night. I’m not exactly cut out for this job, but I’m doing my best.”
“Sometimes folks like you need more of an object lesson,” Gunner told him.
“Object lesson?” Switchblade repeated. “Hey, Snake, that’s a good idea. We can’t let no college boy spout off his smarts to us.”
Before Pete understood what was happening two of the biggest bikers came around the bar. One stood at each side of him. They grabbed hold by his elbows and lifted his feet several inches off the ground as they effortlessly carried him out from behind the bar.
“Wait,” Pete protested, “where are you taking me?” He didn’t bother to struggle, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. He twisted his head to look at one biker and then the other. Both ignored him as they walked across the room to where the dartboard was pinned to the wall.
“Stand there and don’t move,” Snake instructed, as he plucked the darts from the board.
“Stand here?” Pete swallowed tightly. “Why?”
Snake ran his fingers over the tips of the darts as though testing their sharpness.
Pete swallowed tightly.
“If you value your more vulnerable body parts, I’d advise you to keep still.” Snake raised his arm, took aim, and tossed the dart, which whizzed past Pete’s right ear.
Pete gulped.
“That was close,” Switchblade said, and slapped Snake across the back. “Let me give it a try.”
Pete’s mouth had gone dry. He swallowed and resisted the urge to duck as Switchblade took over Snake’s spot.
Pete squeezed his eyes closed.
The tavern door opened. Pete squinted through his closed eyes and noticed it was a woman. One he knew. One he’d seen that very day.
She seemed to quickly assess the situation. “What’s going on here?” she demanded. “Snake, what are you doing?!”
“Ah, come on, Bambi, we’re just having a little fun.”
They were shocked by her audacity as she moved to block Pete from their view. “A little fun?” she repeated. “Come on, guys, enough is enough.”
Pete’s eyes flew open, and sure enough it was the very waitress who had served him and Hank lunch that afternoon. The one who had attracted his attention and whom he’d thought about during the entire drive back to Bridgeport. They called her Bambi, but the name tag she wore at Mom’s Place said her name was Millie. He couldn’t imagine what she was doing here and was mortified that she would be the one to come to his rescue.
* * *
—
Millie served drinks, which was how she knew the bikers who called themselves Hell’s Outlaws. Millie liked them because they were generous tippers, whereas the majority of customers were inclined to leave her a dime, if that. She might have gotten bigger tips if she’d been willing to show a bit more of her body, which was something Millie refused to do. Working in a strip club was humiliating enough. She hated the job, hated the name the strip club had assigned her, but none of the girls, onstage or off, used their real names. Still, she needed the money if she was going to make rent. That and what she made working the lunch shift at Mom’s Place was just enough to get her by, month to month, with no extras. Because she didn’t drive, she spent a good portion of her pay on taxi rides.