The Bad Kitty Lounge by Michael Wiley

ask. Eric Stone had paid me five thousand dollars to ask it.
    I said, “Is William DuBuclet planning to hurt Greg Samuelson’s wife?”
    Jarik gave me a look like I’d lost my mind. “Why the hell would he want to do something like that?”
    â€œI guess he wouldn’t,” I said.
    Robert and Jarik got out with me at my house.
    I touched the back of my head. I said, “Was the thugs-in-the-night routine really necessary?”
    â€œWe want you to know what we can do to you,” Robert said.
    â€œCan I have my gun?”
    Robert laughed. “Sure.” He handed me my gun.
    Jarik said, “No hard feelings?”
    I took my Glock by the barrel. “No,” I agreed. “No hard feelings.”
    I swung the gun so its grip hit Robert square in the face, between his nose and his upper lip. He went down on the sidewalk.
    Jarik grabbed for his gun but I swung on him, too. I caught him above his left ear and he crumpled on top of Robert. “No hard feelings,” I said. Now we all had blood on our heads.

SEVENTEEN
    JASON AND LUCINDA WERE sitting at the dining room table when I came in. I’d bought the house in the Ravenswood neighborhood after my divorce from Corrine. The ad had called it a handyman special, and I’d figured I should keep my fingers busy doing something healthier than unscrewing the caps from whiskey bottles. Now Jason and Lucinda had shoved the tools I was using to one end of the table, and they’d made the place look like home—if home was plaster dust, aluminum foil, take-out containers, mismatched glasses, and paper towels for napkins, which is what home was for me. They were chatting and laughing and if you didn’t know better you could’ve mistaken them for a mother and son eating together and welcoming home a father who’d been kept late at the office. But we all knew better.
    Lucinda had showered and put on jeans and a soft green wool sweater and looked like someone you’d want to cozy up to on a couch. Jason looked like the tall, grinning eleven-year-old he was, except he had a deep bruise on his right cheek.
    â€œWhat happened to you?” I said as I walked into the room.
    They looked at me and their laughter broke. Lucinda said, “What happened to
you
?”
    I looked at my jacket, at my hand. Blood had stained them. More blood streaked the top of my jeans. “Oh, this,” I said. I tried a smile, but got back blank faces. “Give me a minute.”
    I went to the kitchen, soaked a dish towel, and tamped the skin and hair around the wound, rinsed the towel, and touched it again and again, until the towel came away pink and then clear. I went to my bedroom and put my Glock on the dresser, emptied my jacket pockets, leaned the picture of the teenaged Judy Terrano against the mirror, balled up the jacket to soak in the sink, and changed into new jeans.
    Jason and Lucinda gave me the same blank faces when I returned. “Bumped my head,” I explained, and took a seat. They’d finished the tom yum soup and pad see yew but had left a few bites of red curry with shrimp. So I poured the remaining jasmine rice onto my plate and ate. My head hurt when I chewed. They watched me in silence. I swallowed a bite and looked up. “What?” I said.
    Jason gave a little shrug. “You’re still bleeding.”
    I tried the smile again. “A lot?”
    A couple of quick shakes of his head.
    â€œThen it will stop,” I said, and ate another bite. “What happened to the cheek?”
    Again the shrug. “I bumped it.”
    â€œDon’t be a smart-ass. What happened?”
    He hesitated, then said, “You remember that guy I told you about who burns other kids’ butts with a lighter?”
    I nodded.
    â€œYou remember how you said guys like him don’t get away with that forever?”
    I didn’t like the direction this was taking. “Yes.”
    â€œI decided he