Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (12 page)

Based on what I’d seen, I thought
the odds of this guy helping us were slim, but
what the hell. “Say,” I said, before he left. “Wonder
if you might be able to help us out.”

He
looked at me for a second, then shrugged. “What’d
you have in mind?”

“You got a name?”

“Terry.”

“Terry
. Good.” I laid the photo of the unidentified blond-haired
man with the tattoos on the bar. “We’re looking
to talk to this guy here. We think he may
come in from time to time. Do you happen to
know him?”

He picked the photo up and looked at
it for several seconds. He shrugged, then looked at us
.

“You guys cops or something?”

“Something.”

“What do you want
him for?”

“A while back, this girl was murdered.” I
slapped the picture of Sophie onto the bar alongside the
unknown man. “We think this guy here might have known
her, so we’re trying to find him so that
we can talk to him.”

He looked at the photo
again for a few seconds, then handed it back. “Never
seen him.”

“Really?” I asked. “If you look close at
the picture,” I pointed, “the background here, it looks like
it was taken in one of those booths right over
there. This guy must have been in here a time
or two.”

Terry stared at me. “Sorry. Can’t help
you.”

“Can’t” or “won’t,” I wondered. It’s
funny—some people go out of their way to help
right a wrong, even if they don’t have any
personal involvement. Others simply clam up. Maybe they’re afraid
or maybe they just don’t want to get involved
, I don’t know. I wonder sometimes what makes people
so different with this. Is it a trait you’re
born with—your DNA stamped before you’re even born
?
This one helps; this one doesn’t
—that kind of
thing? Or is it a result of our life experiences
? Maybe something like you don’t say anything if you
see someone shoplifting unless you’ve been ripped off yourself
? Like it takes some kind of outside catalyst to raise
your level of intolerance?

I was about to pose this
weighty question to Terry when a voice to my right
said, “Hey!”

I turned and saw spiky-haired Leatherman from
the group at the other end of the bar. While
I’d been talking to Terry and pondering the mysteries
of life, he’d walked over with one of his
friends and was now standing beside Toni, who was seated
to my right. I hadn’t heard him because of
the noise.

I leaned back and looked at him. Up
close, I could see that Leatherman was probably thirty years
old, maybe five ten or so. He was thin, and
his most noticeable feature aside from the acne scars on
his face was a three-inch spike that pierced his
left ear top and bottom. His leather pants had stylish
little silver circles sewn into them on the sides, top
to bottom. The man was wearing eyeliner.

He stared at
me for a moment. “Everyone dresses in black here, man
.”

I looked him up and down. “Yeah, I’m starting
to see that.”

“You’re not dressed in black.”

“I
’m not?” I looked down at my clothes, then back
up at him. “You’re right.”

“You’re disrespecting us
, man. You should leave and go put something on that
’s black.”

I sighed. Great. There’s a reason I
avoid bars. It’s pretty simple—bars are the single
place where you’re most likely to bump into a
belligerent drunk. From time to time when I have to
visit a bar in the line of duty—like now
, for instance—I always cringe, hoping I can avoid trouble
in the short time I’m there. Sadly, trouble seems
to find me in bars, and my track record wasn
’t all that good.

“Well, no disrespect intended. We’ll
be leaving soon enough.” If possible, I preferred to not
provoke this guy, but at the same time I couldn
’t afford to encourage him by projecting weakness, either. In
other words, I needed to be right at the intersection
of “Excuse us” and “Go fuck yourself.” I settled on
, “We were just trying to get a couple of questions
answered. Actually, we were just finishing up with Terry here
. He was very helpful.” I turned to Terry. “Thanks for
the information, Terry.”

This didn’t make Terry very happy
. “Yeah, right. I didn’t tell you shit.”

“Terry, that
’s no way to talk to a customer.” I turned
to Leatherman and smiled. “Anyway, since you’re here, maybe
you can help. Then we’ll be on our way
.”

He stood there with a confused look on his face
and said nothing. Apparently, he hadn’t expected to be
questioned. The bartender actually leaned in a little too, as
if to hear, but I noticed his right hand slip
below the bar as if to grab something. I looked
him in the eye, then quickly glanced down at his
arm, and straight back at him. I didn’t say
anything, but he froze. I hoped he’d stay that
way for a few seconds, and I turned back to
Leatherman.

“You ever see this guy?” I held up the
picture. Leatherman stared for a few seconds but didn’t
answer. Truthfully, I’m not sure he could even focus
. “Yes? No? Nothing?”

“How about you?” I asked his buddy
, who’d walked up behind him. I shifted the picture
so that he could see. He was a short, balding
man, wearing a black T-shirt over black jeans.

“What
’d you say?” he asked in a feisty, puffed-up
kind of way.

“I said,” speaking slowly and loudly, “have
—you—ever—seen—this—guy? Do you know who he
is?” He started to look, when Leatherman suddenly stepped forward
and blocked his view. He was now standing right behind
Toni. Tactically, this wasn’t good, and I’m sure
Toni didn’t think much of it, either, but she
didn’t move.

Leatherman looked at me and then gave
me a bit of a sneer. “We don’t come
here to be hassled by cops.”

“They’re not cops
,” Terry said quickly. I glanced at him and saw that
he was still staring at me, his hand still poised
beneath the counter.

“Not cops?” Leatherman said. “What’s this
guy to you then? What do you want with him
?”

Toni had had enough of the guy standing right behind
her. She slid out of her seat in my direction
and turned toward him in the tight space between our
seats, which was my cue to also slide out of
my seat and turn to face them. Toni moved to
my right and as she did so, she said, “We
want to talk to him because we think he might
have been friends with a girl who was killed.” If
Leatherman or his feisty buddy decided the thing to do
was to go to blows, at least we were both
standing and facing them now.

Leatherman, standing only a few
feet from us, checked Toni out closely, and then he
turned to me. “Don’t you think it’s about
time you should leave?”

I stared back and gave a
little nod. “Yeah, actually I think it’s getting pretty
close to time.”

“Good.” He turned to Toni and gave
her an ugly, lewd smile. “You can stay, though, sweetheart
. You’ll have fun. I’ll bet we can show
you a hell of a lot better time than this
guy.”

Toni looked at him for a second and pretended
to consider their offer. “Nah, thanks for the invite, but
I don’t think so.”

“You sure?” Leatherman persisted.

She
smiled and shook her head. “Sorry, guys,” she said, nodding
toward me. “This guy here’s already more man than
I can handle, know what I mean? The man’s
like . . .” She spread her hands apart, maybe eighteen inches. “Now
, I’m sure that the three of you wouldn’t
. . .” Her voice trailed off as she moved her hands together
until they were no more than a couple of inches
apart. She shrugged.

Leatherman apparently didn’t appreciate the comment
. “We’re all grown-assed men, here, sweetheart.” Surprisingly quick
, he reached out and grabbed Toni’s left arm just
above her elbow.

Big mistake. I’m okay with looking
. Touching: not so much. Toni started to move just as
my left hand shot out in front of her and
grabbed Leatherman by the wrist. At the same time my
right hand grabbed a handful of his left shoulder and
spun him toward the bar. Toni slipped neatly behind me
as I propelled Leatherman forward. I pushed his left arm
up between his shoulder blades in a classic hammerlock as
I slammed him into the bar in the space between
the seats—firmly, but not hard enough to do damage
. I levered his arm just enough to wake him up
. Leatherman never knew what hit him. But when he figured
it out, he howled like I’d set him on
fire.

“Owww! Let me go! You’re breaking my shoulder
!”

“No, I’m not,” I said.

“Let him go!” Terry
yelled.

I glanced at Terry to make sure he wasn
’t about to do anything rash. He looked all tensed
up, but his hand was still hidden ominously below the
bar. I looked down at Leatherman. “You can look,” I
said quietly, “but you can’t touch. Those are the
rules. Got it?”

“I said let him go!” Terry yelled
again. I looked up. Now both hands were visible—he
was brandishing the fat part of a two-piece pool
cue.

“Yeah, asshole,” Mr. Short-and-Bald said. The song
was fading out, which made it easy to hear a
loud
click
. I recognized the sound. I quickly looked over
, and Short-and-Bald was holding a nasty-looking switchblade
.

Terry heard it too. “Put it away, Mike,” he said
, slowly and deliberately. “This is not going to happen inside
here.”

I was about to let Leatherman go just as
Mike dropped into a fairly sloppy excuse for a fighting
stance, one foot behind the other, knees bent. He had
a look in his eye that might have been menacing
if he were sober. That said, I’ll be honest
: knives scare the hell out of me. I’ve seen
the damage they can cause, and they give me the
heebie-jeebies. We were less than six feet from the
guy. If Mike was paying attention and even halfway knew
what he was doing, we were already well inside his
kill zone. That is to say, he could be on
us before we could get our sidearms clear.

Fortunately, Toni
knew this too, because suddenly while Mike was trying to
focus on me, a bright red laser dot bloomed, right
in the center of his chest. It didn’t waiver
. Cool. Advantage our side.

Only Mike didn’t notice.

“Dude
,” I said, still holding Leatherman against the bar. I nodded
toward Mike’s chest. “Take a look.”

Mike was a
little slow, though, and he didn’t seem to get
it.

I nodded toward him again. “Look at your shirt
.” I said it slowly so that he’d understand.

He
looked down and saw the red dot. He got smart
fast. “Oh, fuck!” He immediately froze.

“Step back!” Toni said
loudly in a strong command voice. I glanced over my
shoulder and, even in the dim light, her Glock 23
was clearly visible. I could see sparkles in the air
where the weapon’s laser sight bumped into little dust
particles. “If you make a single move toward us with
that knife, I will shoot you!”