Personal Protection

by Tracey Shellito

  8

  “You want to go round the council estates on Grange Park?”

  The man was deranged.

  “I’m told many people are at home during the day. A large proportion of the unemployed in this town live there,” he said, plummy tones dripping feigned concern.

  Dean looked pained. “Which is precisely why you shouldn’t go there.”

  “I must go where the voting public is.”

  “Only if you want to get lynched,” I muttered.

  “Which is what you’re supposed to be there to prevent.”

  Bugger! He had good hearing.

  Dean glared at me. It was all right for him; he didn’t have to risk life and limb going round Rider Haggard Court escorting a public school twit.

  Things went downhill from there. The only reason I’d given the suggestion house room was the money he was offering. It was good. Very good.

  The following afternoon I left Dean figuring out the schedules for our new clients, changed my clothes and joined my Principal, the Liberal Democrat MP, on a walk around one of the most dangerous parts of town with his entourage of flunkeys and hangers-on.

  I wondered what the adventure writer would have made of his namesake as I shepherded my charges around young can-kicking children playing truant from school and steered them clear of proto-gang adolescents, to the centre of a grass verge strewn with dog shit.

  This is the sort of place where if you’re fortunate enough to find the chassis when you get back. The car will be on blocks and someone will have nicked the wheels, battery, stereo and anything else not bolted down.

  We’d left his campaign bus four streets away. Which made me popular with his flunkeys who had to lug the PA system. I offered to help until we got to a workable spot, but as his lordship pointed out, I couldn’t do much protecting with my hands full.

  Setting up beside an empty Glasdon bin, he checked the sound level and started his pitch. He sounded convincing. Pity he didn’t believe a word of it.

  Then he held babies, posed for pictures, fielded heckling and answered questions from the people he drew from the flats.

  They were as fascinated by the bulge of Kevlar under my jacket as they were with anything he said. Body armour was unusual, even around here. I stood more or less in front of him, (possible, as I’m not tall and he was) while he orated. His wage slaves with the sound system protected his back.

  Time to leave. We started for the car.

  A guy in a filthy barbour staggered out of an alley in front of us talking to himself. His smell preceded him. The MP’s flunkeys, products of a lifetime ignoring oddballs on the London Underground, pretended the apparition wasn’t there and hurried on. My Principal was not so well prepared. Either never having seen the like in his privileged life, or so high on his success that he saw another opportunity to proselytise, he hailed the fragrant vagrant.

  “Excuse me. Yes, you, sir! Might I ask what brought you to this pass? Could it be…”

  I didn’t listen to any more. I was already moving. When Stinky (not very PC, but this was hardly the time) turned around, shaken out of his own little world, I saw how wide the pupils of his eyes were dilated. This hopped-up hobo wasn’t going to take any bullshit from a politico. Not even one as slick as my Principal.

  I got in front of him and threw an arm across his face just as the crackhead lunged forward. From beneath his coat he pulled a knife as long as my forearm. It skidded along one of the leather protectors that fit from my wrist to elbow adapted from archers’ bracers.

  It cut a slice through the fleshy part of my arm over the triceps, scoring across the muscle. “Go!” I roared, pushing the stammering MP towards the car.

  You shouldn’t yell at your clients, but my purpose was twofold: galvanise the Principal into action and scare the druggie. Blood spattered the pavement. Mine. The MP fled, cronies in hot pursuit.

  I had no one to protect but myself. I concentrated on disarming the headcase. My yell had given him pause. He staggered back, blinking. I didn’t wait to find out if another attack was forthcoming. I kicked the knife out of his hand. He nursed his wrist, swearing.

  The blade clattered into someone’s front garden. Net curtains twitched, but self-preservation kept the householder inside.

  Stinky turned tail and lurched back down the alleyway. I toyed with pursuit but let it go. I had a job to do. Following a nutter wasn’t it.

  I started to reach over the gate to secure the knife when a mutt the size of a pony raced into the garden. I decided if the hell-hound wanted the knife that badly he could keep it. I backed off before it hurdled the gate and added to my bleeding.

  Back at the car, I jammed an oversized handkerchief on to the wound, exerting firm pressure the way you’re supposed to, until I could get it looked at. I wasn’t looking forward to what came next. The knife had been as filthy as its wielder. That meant a trip to A and E, stitches and a tetanus jab. The perfect end to a perfect day! And I still had to babysit the MP back to his hotel and do my stint at the Paradise.

  Sometimes I wonder why I do this job. Am I as mad as the junkie? I don’t have the excuse of being on something. It can only be the money. And it was a lot of money. The politico’s white face when I got back the car made me swallow a satisfied grin; it might be a great deal more now that he knew how I earned it.

  “…and bloody hell did I earn it!” I muttered around a mouthful of fusilli pomodoro.

  Dean tried to pretend I wasn’t talking with my mouth full. He refilled my glass with red grape juice, his own and Craig’s with ruby Cabernet. Tori took a sip of her own grape juice. No vino for her because she was working. None for me because I have a problem with the sauce.

  “It was a good job you were wearing the bracers,” Dean mused.

  It certainly was. Even so, I had another ruined suit and a three-inch gash on the underside of my left arm. Without friends like Craig I would still be sitting in A and E now.

  “Do you think you should work tonight?” Tori worried.

  “Not wishing to come over all macho, but I’ve had worse. I’ll be fine as long as no one hits the stitches.”

  Craig chuckled evilly. “They’ll wish they hadn’t if they do.”

  “Damn right!” I have been known to get very angry with people who hit my stitches.

  Tori collected up our plates and whisked them into the kitchen. I wasn’t sure, but I thought she might have been crying. I made to go after her, but Dean grabbed my unsewn arm and Craig shook his head. “The last thing she needs is the Lesbian Avenger. Trust me, she just has to come round to these things. Like I did.”

  I sat down. I wasn’t aware that Craig had ‘come around’, but let that pass.

  I took the opportunity to ask about our investigations while Tori was absent.

  “All of the ex-girlfriends have alibis. I’m sorry, Randall, you’re going to have to look elsewhere for your culprit.”

  I swore softly and rolled the empty long-stemmed glass between my hands. It’s at this point in television crime that the beautiful cop goes undercover and acts as bait. But I was neither beautiful nor a cop, and nobody was going to take me seriously getting my kit off. I haven’t got the body for it and nothing on the planet will persuade me to have my legs waxed.

  “So where does that leave us?” I asked.

  “If you could get me the membership register of the club, I could check into the men’s backgrounds. We might find somebody with a criminal record, or at least a medical record for impotence,” Dean pondered.

  It was a long shot, but I didn’t know what else to do. Knowing a few of the clientele’s secrets might give us some links to the attackers after we’d heard the girls’ stories. It wasn’t going to be easy. I couldn’t think of a way to persuade Brian Senior to give me the list. This was going to require subterfuge, or something outright criminal. Breaking and entering and violation of the Data Protection Act for starters.

  “I can get you that,” Tori said softly from the doo
r. I stood.

  “Not if it gets you fired,” I told her.

  “Randall, I’ve been working there two years, I could probably tell you the names from memory! Most clients aren’t secretive about who they are and where they live and work. They tell you all sorts of things to try and impress you. Most of them either need to talk, are drunk, or want you to do more than dance for them in the club. They don’t usually lie to you. They have to be quite well off to afford a full membership fee. That attracts a certain type of man. They all want to brag about the size of their equipment and their bank balance.”

  “Then how do you account for Randall? That is where you met, isn’t it?”

  Dean didn’t like stereotyping, even though she wasn’t alluding to men in general.

  “The women are different. There are only four of them that come on a regular basis – aside from Randall – and all but one of them are very sweet and reserved. They don’t talk much, they just watch you with round eyes and sweating palms.”

  “Do Randall’s palms sweat?” Craig asked mischievously.

  “Fuck off, Craig,” I said, blushing.

  “I’ve never private danced for Randall,” Tori admitted.

  Craig got out his wallet. “How much would that cost?”

  Dean swatted him, and I swore at him again. But Tori considered me very carefully. A good deal more than my palms were sweating under the stress of her regard.

  “Oh, I think I’d do her for free,” Tori said, swaying her hips in a slow bump and grind as she oozed across the floor towards the table. Dean went very quiet and Craig watched in fascination, but I took her by the arm, spun her round and escorted her out of the room.

  “We have to get ready,” I said, firmly, keeping my back to D & C.

  “Spoilsport,” Craig called.

  I didn’t care. There was no way I was sitting through one of Tori’s performances in front of my friends, no matter how much in jest it was meant to be.

  Tori waited until I got her into her bedroom before wrenching her arm free. “Are you ashamed of me, Randall?

  “No!”

  “Ashamed of what I do, then?”

  “Of course not.”

  She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Then what was that all about?”

  “Sex is very private to me. I don’t want my friends to know what turns me on, or gets me off. Or more to the point, I don’t mind them knowing, as long as they’re not getting a ringside seat. Watching you at the club is different, anonymous. Watching you in front of my friends… I couldn’t do it. I won’t. It’s not about being ashamed of you or what you do.”

  “You’re ashamed of yourself,” she decided.

  “Tori!”

  “You’re ashamed of being a lesbian. I see the way you squirm when we have to go somewhere together publicly. It’s no touching, holding hands, kissing, or affection. You’re not with me until we’re behind closed doors, unless I force the issue. Or you think you’re losing me. Or someone makes a play for me.”

  “I’m just not very demonstrative in public.”

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

  “It’s the truth!”

  “Prove it.”

  “How?”

  She looked at me hard. “I’ll think of something.”

  9

  I got another unpleasant surprise in the car on the way to the Paradise.

  “What?!”

  “It happens one night in every three months. It’s members only.”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “You told me you weren’t ashamed of what I do.”

  “I’m not! But you didn’t tell me once every three months you take everything off!”

  “That’s because I guessed you’d react precisely like this. It’s only the difference of a g-string, Randall. They hardly cover anything to begin with!”

  That was true. I was hard pressed to explain the difference myself, but somehow there was one. I wondered how she felt able to do this after what had happened to her. I didn’t say any more though. Her life, her choice.

  “Customers still can’t touch us. I’m still going home with you at the end of the night.”

  I concentrated on driving. I couldn’t stop this. I was committed to working in the club. There was no point arguing about something I couldn’t change. But I didn’t have to like it.

  The Bird of Paradise was full when we arrived. Every chair was taken. Part of me wanted to rage and hit out at them all for being so prurient, knowing that they’d be seeing that much of my girl. Another part, the voyeuristic part that had brought me here to watch Tori originally, understood them completely, sympathised with them and felt the same electric buzz of excitement and expectation. The thought of all those eyes getting off on what was mine when only I could have it at the end of the night. The thought of a girl that close, totally nude. Even though you couldn’t touch her, she could touch you. And you could smell her... If I wasn’t ashamed of myself, as Tori suggested, maybe I ought to be.

  I got myself under control and saw Tori to the dressing room. This was going to be one hell of a difficult night and not just for me.

  Brian Junior confirmed as much when I reached the balcony. “I hate these nights,” he moaned. “The customers are always more aggressive, and most of the bouncers walk around with permanent hard-ons. It’s bloody difficult to concentrate when you’ve got a boner. And the last thing you want to do is get into a fight.”

  I could well imagine.

  “Because it doesn’t happen all the time, you can’t get used to it,” he went on, eyes helplessly tracking a girl as she went by. “After you’ve been working here a few months you’re just about over the fact that topless women are walking all over the place but…”

  “I suppose the private dance booths get a lot of use?”

  He nodded. “And the number of men thrown out of them defies belief.”

  We talked as we walked, quelling some ticklish situations just by our proximity.

  “How’s the training going?” I asked to get his mind off things.

  “Fine. They had us doing something they call Formation Walking today.”

  I remembered. Working in a team of protection agents is a bit different from what I do. It’s like a perfectly choreographed ballet. Moving around the client in fixed patterns. Keeping fans and fanatics at arm’s length. Deciding who’s a threat and who’s just enthusiastic.

  “I’m having a hard time seeing how it can help me in what I do here...”

  “Depends on whether you’re content to be a bouncer for the rest of your life.”

  “You mean they’re teaching me to do what you do?”

  “That’s what you asked for, isn’t it? It’s one of the ways you learned to overcome your fear so you can defend yourself or somebody else. And tackle a head case wielding a knife.” The hole in my arm from the tetanus shot itched and my stitches twinged, reminding me I could use some practice at that area myself.

  “It’s good money?”

  “Yes. You’re risking your life. I can’t think of any other reason to do it.”

  It hadn’t been that way for me to begin with. The sad, chauvinistic part of me enjoyed playing the hero, even if it was dangerous. The feminist in me got a kick out of doing what was traditionally a man’s job, as well as or better than they did. This business with Tori was bringing out the worst in me. I was revisiting all my bad habits. It isn’t wise to encourage these attitudes in trainees. It tends to get them killed. So I didn’t ’fess up.

  “They’ve arranged an Aggressive And Evasive Driving Techniques Course tomorrow.”

  “If you can afford it you should go. Even if you never use it, it’s a great excuse to do handbrake turns and drive like a Formula One racer without getting arrested.”

  They’d also cover Ramming. Nothing can prepare you for that if you’ve never been in a car crash. They give you head gear and padding to practice in; he’d probably have a lot of fun. If
he wasn’t the nervous type. And if he didn’t get whiplash.

  “Do we get to go on a skid pan?”

  I nodded. He grinned his enthusiasm.

  “Cool! Thanks, Randall, I really appreciate this! This could be the start of a whole new career for me. It’s not that I don’t like working here, I do! But I’d like to prove I can do something for myself, not in dad’s shadow, if you know what I mean?”

  “I understand. Just don’t quit this place until you’re sure. See whether you’re cut out for the life. Once you’ve got your first stab wound or the first bullet hole, then you can make some hard decisions. It’s not a glamorous job. They’re a good bunch of blokes to work with, though. Get them to show you their scars. Once you get them talking, they’ll tell you how they came by them, how many times they nearly died, and how many of their friends actually have. I’m not trying to dissuade the competition – I wouldn’t have given you the address otherwise – but to be truthful, there’s not a lot of call for what I do round here. You have to be flexible, willing to move around the country. Sometimes even abroad. A lot of call for bodyguards in the Middle East at the moment, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

  Brian looked thoughtful.

  Then somebody yelled for assistance…

  The night was every bit the bitch Brian had implied.

  A drunk got creative and decided to take a walk on the balcony railing. Before anyone could fetch him down, he fell off – on top of one of the bouncers. We had to call an ambulance to come and take both of them away. The drunk had nothing but bruises. The bouncer had a broken collarbone.

  I broke up three fights, two on the mezzanine, one on the balcony – and this on a night when the Chief Superintendent of Police was sitting in the front row. He didn’t lift a finger to help. Everyone, both staff and rabble-rousers, pretended he wasn’t there.