‘Oh.’ I skidded to a stop. Well, he wasn’t what I was expecting.
Buddy’s face looked just like his brother’s, but he was short, and kind of skinny. He wasn’t bad looking, and unlike a lot of girls, I liked short guys. They made me feel all tall and supermodelly. I mean, I liked tall guys too—focus, Bremy—but this guy was dressed like his brother and had shaved his head like him too, which kind of made him look a little like a kid dressed up as a thug for Halloween. ‘She thinks she’s some kind of stripper superhero, Dougie,’ the big guy said.
‘I’m not a stripper!’ I snapped. ‘And I never said I was a superhero!’ Although I totally was … almost … or soon to be, once I got my mentor back.
‘She called the cops!’
Dougie and I stood sizing each other up for a moment, before he said, ‘Give me the key.’
‘Um … no?’ I couldn’t let my first successful nabbing of a criminal go so easily. The police were on their way. I just needed to hold him off for a few more minutes.
Dougie made a clicking sound with his tongue before saying, ‘I don’t want to hurt you, lady.’
I snorted. Then I slapped my hand over my nose as my eyes widened in horror at what I had done. Dougie’s big brother gave me a look reserved for the worst sort of people.
I grimaced apologetically before looking back at his brother. I mean, I wanted to arrest him and all, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I knew how sensitive guys could be about size. I cleared my throat then said, ‘With all due respect, I don’t really want to hurt you either.’
He pushed his sleeves up his thin forearms. ‘Oh, you don’t want to hurt me, do you?’
‘No! I mean, I’m sorry. I’m not handling this well.’ I suddenly felt very sweaty. ‘It’s just your brother’s all big,’ I said, making an all-over big shape with my hands, ‘and you’re all—’ I stopped when I realised my hands were now making an itty-bitty shape. I dropped them. They weren’t helping.
‘I don’t normally lay hands on women, but for you, I might just make an exception.’ He rolled his shoulders a few times and stretched his neck. ‘Now, I’m going say it one last time. Give me the key.’
‘I can’t do that,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘This means a lot to me.’
The brothers exchanged confused looks. I was guessing they were baffled about the depth and breadth of my sanity. I was getting a lot of that lately.
Then it was on. The little brother lunged at me. I jumped out of the way, sending him sprawling onto the pavement.
The big man gave me another horrified look.
What do you want me to do? I mouthed back.
‘That’s it!’ The smaller man lunged at me again … and what happened next was shameful.
I swear, I didn’t want to do it—it was just a reflex—but before I even realised what I was doing, my hand shot out, palm landing on his forehead. I was holding him back with the straight-arm as he swung uselessly with his fists. ‘I am so sorry,’ I said, watching the man flail his arms. ‘I am so sorry.’
‘I’ll show you sorry,’ he grunted.
This was not at all how I intended this to go down. I was supposed to be feeling heroic, not like a playground bully. What’s more, I did not want to be here when the cops showed up. I had an identity to keep secret.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’m going to drop my arm, and maybe we can work something out.’
The man stopped swinging, and I dropped my arm. Then he dropped to the ground and kicked me in the ankle! ‘Ow!’ I fell onto my hands and knees. Dougie’s foot slammed onto my back, pinning me like a bug. I struggled against the dirty pavement, but I couldn’t get any leverage. Anger simmered in my belly. I had tried being nice, and Dougie had used it against me. Well, two could play that game. I whipped my hand around fast as lightning and slipped my fingers under Dougie’s pant leg. Then, before he even knew what was happening, I pinched a bunch of his leg hair between my fingers and yanked it out.
‘Gah!’Dougie screamed, hopping backwards.
I exploded to my feet, wiping my fingers on my thigh.
We faced off again. ‘Well, what are you gonna do, Stripperella?’ Dougie shouted, throwing his arms wide. What was I going to do? I didn’t want to beat him up. I wasn’t even all that sure I could. But then again, I didn’t want him to beat me up. It turned out we were pretty equally matched. So what did that leave? Of course! I was smarter than I had given myself credit for. I hadn’t come completely unprepared. I reached around slowly with both hands to the back of my belt.
His eyes widened and his hands went up. ‘Don’t shoot.’
I scoffed. ‘Please, I can’t be trusted with a gun. Besides, I’ve got something better.’ A moment passed.
‘What are you fiddling with back there?’
I grunted. ‘Nothing … just give me a … there!’
I whipped my hands back around and flung the piece of lighted flash paper directly at him. The little sheet went up in a brilliant flame between us as I pivoted hard to take off down the alley. It was just the distraction I needed to make my getaway. I would live to fight another day, and really, I would just be happy to live. Suddenly I heard an angry yell that almost sounded a little pained behind me.
I hesitated. The paper shouldn’t have hurt him. It was a magic trick. Kids could use it. Granted, I had made it myself. Maybe I got the chemicals wrong. Maybe I—
‘My eyebrows!’
I stopped and peeked over my shoulder. The man was feeling all over his forehead with his fingertips. ‘You burnt off my eyebrows!’
‘Really?’
‘My brother’s wedding’s tomorrow!’ he yelled. ‘The best man always gets laid!’
‘Oh Dougie,’ I said, sadly shaking my head. ‘Not always. Not always.’ I suddenly brightened. ‘But maybe with a makeover—’
The fury in his eyes snapped my mouth shut. Uh-oh. ‘Now, I’m really going to kill you!’
I spun my head back around and sprinted forward. I had about two hundred yards before I would make it to the opening of the alley. There was no guarantee he would stop there, but running was the only option I had left.
My arms and legs pumped while my heart hammered in my chest.
I was giving it all I had, but I could still hear the outraged screams behind me, and they were getting closer.
Then I heard something else.
My salvation. I stopped and spun towards my attacker.
He jolted back in surprise. Wow, his eyebrows really were gone … and the skin looked a little red. I shuddered. ‘Do you hear that?’ I said, pointing a finger towards the opening of the alley.
His eyes darted about before settling on me with realisation.
‘The cops are almost here.’
He looked back over his shoulder at his brother.
‘Let’s go!’ the big man shouted.
Dougie growled and clenched his fists.
‘Come on!’
Dougie narrowed his eyes at me. ‘This isn’t over.’
‘Really?’ I exhaled a sigh through my nose. ‘Don’t you want it to be over? I want it to be over. I found the whole thing to be kind of … awkward.’
Dougie coughed a laugh. ‘Not as awkward as the idea of you being a stripper.’
My eyes flew wide. ‘Why I oughta! Come here you little—’
He spun on his heel, and I had to fight the urge to grab him by the cuff of his jacket and shake him around.
Then a new happy thought popped into my brain. They couldn’t get away! The big guy was still cuffed to the back of the van. The police would catch them both. And my note was on the ground! This was terrific! This was—
The sight of the big man hopping into the back of the van, leaving one door open, with the cuffed hand curved out around the back of the other door, stomped the happy out of my thoughts. When he saw me looking, he stopped, then gave his hips a sarcastic wiggle, apparently mocking my earlier attempt at striptease.
‘Seriously?’ I shouted bac
k. ‘Seriously!’ He gave me the finger as the van sped away.
I slumped over to a brick wall and collapsed against it, giving myself a second to rest before the cops arrived.
That had not gone well.
In fact, you could say it had gone badly.
I shut my eyes and rocked my head back and forth. Well, at least it was over now. The evening could only get better. I had a date. Well, not a date, technically, but still, an information-sharing dinner with a wonderful, handsome reporter. It was time to lick my wounds. Maybe let him l—
Suddenly my cell phone rang.
I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter.
What were the odds this was good news? Given the few people who had this number, I imagined not great. I pulled the phone from my belt and cracked one eye open to see the number.
Not great at all.
I spun around the corner to the street while I pulled the phone up to my ear.
‘Hey, Mr Pushkin,’ I said, trying to put a smile in my voice. ‘What’s going on?’
Chapter 3
This was a bad part of town. Even for a person like me, who was looking for bad parts of town. Rundown brick buildings crowded me on either side, and while the streets were nearly empty, I knew people, most likely scary people, lurked all around. TV machine guns blasted from apartment windows, hidden couples screamed at one another, and, I swear, I heard at least one cat screech. Luckily, nobody had harassed me … at least not yet. I was still feeling a little shaken. I didn’t have time to change to see Pushkin, not if I was going to make my date on time, but I had found a windbreaker lying on the sidewalk, which did something to cover my secret identity. As an added benefit, its loud eighties colours probably made a few would-be attackers weigh their options heavily. Nobody wanted to tangle with a woman dressed in eighties fashion.
None of this, however, helped me shake the feeling I was being followed. That was happening a lot lately. Call me paranoid, but I was starting to believe my father was having me tailed. I didn’t know why exactly—beyond his generally being evil—but I had a few theories. As I said, a couple of months ago, I had jumped off the lap of luxury to make it on my own. Believe me, I wouldn’t have done it without good reason. I had an identical twin sister, Jenny, back home. Leaving her was the hardest thing I had ever done. At the time, I reasoned that I needed to get on my feet before I could tell her why I left and bring her with me. She had special needs—the wheelchair was the biggest issue—so it seemed the wise thing to do. I had never kept any secrets from my sister before, and my leaving without telling her the reason why drove a big ol’ wedge in our relationship. If I had told her, however, that our father had killed our mother—or allowed her to kill herself with a biological weapon he had designed—well, I really doubted she would have wanted to continue to live with him, and, as I said, she had a lot of special needs that I couldn’t afford to accommodate back then—actually, still couldn’t. All solid logic if you ask me. But she took it badly, and I still hadn’t had the chance to tell her the truth. In the meantime, she had been allowing my billionaire father with his cutting-edge technology at St. James Industries to experiment on her, seemingly curing her. I’d tell her the truth now, if she’d give me the chance, but we hadn’t had any contact since she flew my father away—in a helicopter, no less—from the penitentiary where he had planned to unleash a computerised zombie army of inmates on the city as a sales demonstration to the world’s most notorious terrorists. So now I wasn’t sure if my father was trying to kill me as revenge, kidnap me for safekeeping, or drive me insane by having me followed. And Jenny was flying helicopters. Freaking helicopters! Suddenly I tripped over what looked to be half a honey-glazed ham fused onto the sidewalk. Story of my new life.
It wasn’t all bad though. Once I got through this meeting with my psychopathic mobster landlord, Mischa Pushkin, I could go home and get ready for my information-sharing dinner with reporter, and all around nice guy, Pierce Stricklin. We had so many things to discuss, and if I played my cards right, I hoped one of them would be the colour of his bedsheets. We certainly wouldn’t be discussing mine. I didn’t have any. I had a thin quilt on my cot by the toilet. In fairness to the architect, my apartment was walk-in closet size. Everything was by the toilet. I stood before the address Mr Pushkin had given me over the phone, taking it in.
Two by fours crisscrossed the storefront windows, light beaming through from the cracks. Heavy laughter and music swelled from inside. Great. I grabbed the rusty handle and pulled the door open.
Instantly, I was lost in a thick cloud of smoke. I coughed and waved a hand in front of my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to get a hold of the sting so that I could open them enough to see what was going on. When I finally did get my vision back, it only took half a second before I shut my eyes again. It hadn’t been a good sight. Maybe the next time I opened my eyes all of the mobsters sitting around tables drinking and playing cards would be gone, and there would be a … pony, munching on clover, perhaps. I slowly opened my eyes again.
Nope, no pony.
I smiled weakly at the forty or so men giving me the death glare.
‘Um, hi?’
Nobody answered.
‘Maybe I’m in the wrong place,’ I said, turning and pointing back to the door. ‘I’m just going to go.’
Yeah, Mr Pushkin might be upset, but he couldn’t kill me if he couldn’t find me. And if I stayed here, there wouldn’t be much left for him to torture anyway. I pulled the door open quickly and—
‘Little Bremy!’
My shoulders dropped in defeat. So close. I let the door swing shut and turned back to face the room of terror.
There stood Mr Pushkin, all six thousand feet of him, in the middle of the tables, arms outstretched in welcome.
‘Hi, Mr Pushkin.’
‘I been doing the waiting and waiting!’ He waved a hand for me to come to a table at the back. ‘Come. Come.’
My eyes darted around the tables for the best route. These men did not look like the types who would be happy to scooch in. I pulled my windbreaker tight around my body and began to weave my way through the maze of chair legs.
I had almost made it, but with my rear tucked in tight to pivot around one seated gentleman, I lost my balance and pitched forward, landing with my hands smack on a table. My nose stopped about two inches from a man’s face, very large and meaty. As my eyes widened, his smile spread, revealing some awfully yellow teeth. Thick breath ripe with the smell of beer wafted over my cheeks.
I guess a look came over my face because the man said, ‘What?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I answered quickly.
‘What?’ he demanded, with at least two more degrees of scary.
‘I don’t know. It’s stupid,’ I stammered. ‘I guess part of me was expecting you to be drinking vodka.’
He pushed his face closer into mine, locking my still widening eyes with his own. ‘And I was expecting bigger boobies,’ he said, raising a hand and making what looked to be a honk honk squeezing motion. ‘Or maybe hoping. Hoping is the word.’
Laughter erupted around me. ‘Gentlemen! Gentlemen!’ Mr Pushkin’s voice called out from behind me. ‘Leave little Bremy alone. She’s good girl. Bad tenant. But good girl.’
I straightened, unable to take my eyes from the man’s yellow teeth until I had reached a safe distance. I then quickly shuffled over to Mr Pushkin and huddled in the chair he had pulled out for me. He folded his monstrous body into another chair before looking up, huge smile on his face.
‘Little Bremy.’
‘Mr Pushkin.’
‘Please, call me Mischa.’
Nope. That wasn’t going to happen.
‘What happened to your nose?’
My nose? I brought one hand up to my face. Oh yeah, I guess I had scraped it back when I kissed the pavement in the alley. ‘Oh … nothing … a pigeon fell on me.’
He nodded. ‘It happens. The pigeons these days … so lazy. They neve
r want to fly.’
I squinted my eyes. ‘Um … right.’
A moment of silence passed between us.
I broke first.
‘Mr Pushkin, if this is about the rent, I thought Mr Raj had made some sort of arrangement so that the majority of my pay would go directly to you first.’ Mr Raj, my psychopathic boss and owner of The Pink Beaver. In one of my more dangerous life decisions—which was saying something—I had agreed to basically what amounted to indentured servitude over at the strip club in order to pay my rent. Both men were terrifying, but I guess Mr Pushkin had that little extra something that made me want to pay him first. It wasn’t the sixth finger he had on his right hand that was now tapping the table. Or the fluorescent green marble he had rolling around in one of his eye sockets. I was cool with differences. I think it was the crazy. Yup, definitely the crazy. And not the kind you’d find in a textbook. ‘If you haven’t received the m—’
He stopped me with a wave of his hand. ‘No, little Bremy, that is not why I called you here.’
My shoulders relaxed half a second before they shot up even higher. If it wasn’t the rent, why the hell was I here?
‘You see, I like you, little Bremy.’
‘No, no you don’t.’ The words were out before I could stop them.
He pointed a bratwurst-sized finger at me. ‘See! Right there. You are funny girl.’
‘No. No, I’m not.’
‘And … what is that word?’
‘Reckless?’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘Irresponsible?’
‘No. No.’
‘Unable to appreciate the obvious dangers of terrifying situations before going into them?’
‘No, no, not that either,’ he said, bringing his finger to his chin. Suddenly he poked the same finger in the air. ‘Humble!’
I sighed.
‘And helpful. So very helpful.’ He stopped speaking and spent a good moment just smiling and nodding at me. ‘That is why I asked you here. I need favour.’
Suddenly the entire room swayed like I was on a ship, in a storm, about to go under. ‘You see, little Bremy—’
Sidekick Returns Page 2