Kay Thomas - Bulletproof Bodyguard

Marcus heard music blaring as he pulled into the potholed dirt parking lot. Three motorcycles and a half dozen trucks were haphazardly parked out front. A light crowd for a Saturday night, but it was early yet. Things didn’t start rocking here until after midnight.

The scent of spilled beer, stale sweat and cigarette smoke assaulted him as he cruised inside. The bikers were at the bar with a couple of women Marcus recognized from previous visits. The hookers working here on weekends were a sad lot. The Tonk was the last stop on the food chain. Marcus could never imagine being so desperate to get laid that he’d take up with one of these “ladies.” An STD or worse was in a john’s future. But, apparently, the women did a booming business—especially on a holiday weekend.

Manny, the owner—a massive black man with two gold front teeth and an attitude—was tending bar. Marcus gave him a nod.

Manny didn’t need bouncers in his place. Instead, he kept a sawed-off shotgun behind the counter and a snub-nosed revolver in his belt. Oh, fights might break out. But when Manny told you to leave—you left. The cops were never called.

Heavy metal blasted from the jukebox at the far end of the room. A few tables were scattered around a pool table on the opposite side of the bar, and a game was just starting. Marcus nodded to one of the players as he walked toward the far corner.

Four men sat at a scarred wooden table. Even in the darkened room, their buzz haircuts and perfect posture stood out. There was just no hiding that kind of discipline in a place like this.

“Hello, Gregor. Boggs.” Marcus sat without being invited.

The older man in the group spoke in a growl, “North, it’s about damn time.”

“Here I am, as we discussed.”

“Have you checked in yet?”

“No, I’m going over to the bed-and-breakfast after this.”

Manny sauntered over with a beer and set it in front of Marcus and nodded a greeting to Frank Boggs.

“Evening, Manny. Where’s Earleen tonight?” asked Marcus.

“That girl has done gone and got the flu. Said she might be in later. But she looks worse ‘n she usually does.” He paused a moment, his gold teeth disappeared, then winked again in the dim light. “She sure hates to miss the weekend tricks.”

Marcus laughed out loud. “Yeah, like you’d let that happen. Sure hope she feels better.”

“I’ll tell her you said so.”

Gregor waited until the man ambled back toward the bar.

“Who’s Earleen?” he asked.

“Manny’s daughter,” said Marcus.

“Her father pimps for her?” Gregor asked. His growl had changed to a rumble.

Apparently, his few puritanical tendencies were highly offended at their conversation. He didn’t get it and Marcus decided not to enlighten him.

There were plenty of tricks turned in Manny’s Tonk but his daughter, Earleen, was not involved in that lifestyle. Manny probably didn’t know she’d ever even considered it and would kill the man who laid a finger or anything else on his daughter.

“Yeah, he’s a real prince. Giving her all the advantages,” said Marcus.

“A girlfriend of yours?”

Marcus smiled, but his stomach turned. He’d met Earleen several years ago when she was a runaway and contemplating turning her first trick on Farish Street in Jackson. Working Vice at the time, he’d almost arrested her. Instead, after hearing her story, he’d put her on a bus back home to South Mississippi.

Unfortunately, this audience wasn’t interested in the only “happily ever after” Marcus had ever seen while working that side of the street in Jackson, so he spun it a bit.

“I never kiss and tell, Gregor. Do you?”

Boggs snorted. The other two men smiled uneasily.

“You know the nicest people,” snarled Gregor, ignoring the question.

Marcus realized he was antagonizing his mark more than he should. He slid a manila envelope across the table. “Here’s the blueprint you wanted.”

“Have any trouble?” Gregor pulled out a small loose-leaf notebook and tucked the envelope inside.

“No trouble. The security personnel have access to all the wiring schematics in case there’s a problem with the generators or security system. Since I’m a bodyguard, I have access, as well.”

“I want to double-check these camera locations against the ones I already have.”

“No problem,” Marcus said. “What else?”

“What time will you finish work tomorrow?”

“Should be done around five-thirty or six. None of my whales are here till the weekend.”

“Good. We’ll make the final preparations then.”

Marcus nodded and made a conscious effort to ignore the beer in front of him. “Why the bed-and-breakfast? Wouldn’t a hotel have worked just as well?”

“Oh, you’ll like River Trace—fabulous location, beautiful setting, soothing water.” Gregor laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. The other men stared at their drinks.

Marcus didn’t trust the answer but knew it was all he would get tonight. He pushed the bottle away. “All right. See you later.”

MARCUS SHIVERED. The water was turning cold. He stepped out of the shower, wincing when he grabbed too quickly for the thick white towel on the counter.

He looked down at the ugly red scar that ran along his collarbone. It’d been three months since he’d finished rehab, and the pain could still take his breath away. He’d better take a handful of ibuprofen before he went to bed, or it would hurt like hell tomorrow.

He wiped down the foggy mirror; chocolate-brown eyes stared back at him. Dark circles accented the lines underneath them. His wet black hair needed a trim. He had more gray there than he remembered.

His nose canted slightly to the left—the result of a bar fight when he was twenty. He certainly wasn’t twenty anymore. Tonight he looked every one of his thirty-nine years, or as Manny would say, “worse ‘n usual.”

Marcus dug around in his Dopp kit for the medicine, thinking about the Tonk’s owner and his daughter. Apparently, Manny had never delved too deeply into Earleen’s “walk on the wild side,” he was so glad to have his daughter home.

She’d recognized Marcus as soon as he’d walked into the Tonk—several weeks ago. By her account, she’d never told Manny how she got home from Jackson, or that Marcus was really a cop.

Marcus wasn’t sure if that was true, but she had been his best informant since he’d been in McCay County, and Manny hadn’t kicked him out of the bar yet. So that was probably a fair sign.

While Manny himself didn’t deal, drugs were sold in his place with surprising regularity. The Tonk was a hot spot for all kinds of sin in South Mississippi. Every undesirable, hood and petty crook within a three-hundred-mile radius eventually made their way through his bar.

Earleen had introduced Marcus to lots of people there, including Frank Boggs. Frank dated Carlotta, a friend of Earleen’s. That’s how this investigation had all started: one interesting conversation at the Tonk with Marcus doing what he did best—listening, blending in, talking when necessary.

When Boggs found out Marcus was a bodyguard at the Paddlewheel, he was anxious to talk about McCay County’s sole casino and what it was like to work there. The hell of it was Marcus had been at the Tonk that night strictly to hang before he went to work.

He’d needed to see for himself that Earleen was okay. That she was happy. Every once in a while he needed to see that he’d done something right when the cover was starting to get to him, even if he had to stay under to do it. So technically he wasn’t even “working” the job when the initial contact happened.