“Shut up!” I yell again, and shove the paper off the table, the leaves littering the floor.
“Shut up!”Like a broken record with a defective volume dial, I keep yelling louder and louder.
The door bursts open, and two uniformed cops rush in and shove me against the wall.
“Calm down.”
“Stop resisting.” Their orders are nothing but white noise, like the grotesque buzzing from the fluorescent lights casting the sterile room in a sickly artificial glow.
“Shut up!”
“Calm down.”
“Stop resisting.” I’m not resisting. My cheek is pressed hard against the wall, and two strong sets of hands hold me still.
“Just shut the fuck up.” My blood whooshes in my ear as I pant in their grip.
“It’s okay, let her go.” The detective, a white man named Liam or Smith or something, speaks calmly despite the escalating tension pulsing in the concrete room.
The unis hesitate but release their hold, and I step away from the wall to face Detective Something-or-other. “Stop talking like I don’t want to help you. Like I don’t care that my best friend was gutted like a fish. Stop treating me like I’m withholding information. Stop. Just stop—“ I can’t hold myself up any longer and collapse onto the floor, drawing my knees to my chest.
“I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but obviously it’s been long enough for the fucking paper to be written and printed. I’ve told you ad nauseam everything I remember. I haven’t slept or eaten in what feels like days, and my best friend was just murdered. So, please, just shut the fuck up.”
He crouches down to my level, and I reluctantly part my fingers covering my face. “You’re right, none of us can possibly understand what you’re feeling right now. And I apologize for pushing you like this. I wish there were another way, but right now that sick bastard has killed four women, and you’re our best bet of catching him before four becomes five. So, please just one more time: What happened last night? Start at the beginning.”
“Thanks, Dex.” Beth smiles at the giant bouncer and has to stretch on her tiptoes to press a kiss on his cheek. Peaches’ signature scent of cologne and sweat wafts out of the strip club’s door.
“That’s what I’m here for, Beauty.” Beth’s stage name is fitting, her platinum bob framing her perfectly sweet, but beautiful, features. She reminds me of Tinkerbell, even in her bubblegum-pink sweat suit that’s covering her sparkly stage clothes.
“Doug again?” I ask, linking my arm with hers as we wave to Dexter and walk away from the club. She nervously twiddles the gold chain around her neck, thumbing the gold letters that spell out her stage name. I got it for her birthday last year, and she wears it every day.
“Yeah, occupational hazard.” She sighs and forces a smile. She started working at Peaches almost five years ago. I know she loves dancing and most of her regular customers, but there’s always a handful of creeps that can sour an entire evening.
“And this Doug, you’ve never seen him? Has she ever described him? Tall, short, Black, white?”
“He has a small dick.” I lean my elbows on the table and stuff a handful of chips into my mouth—they finally conceded to bringing me something from the vending machine.
“What?” The detective pauses whatever he’s scribbling on his notepad and looks up at me.
“Dick. Pecker. Phallus. Willy. Coc—“
“I know what a goddamn dick is.” His knuckles whiten around his pen.
“Right. Well, that’s how he got his ‘name.’” I use air quotes because it’s not really his name. “Beth gave him a private dance and he whipped it out—which they’re not allowed to do, by the way.” Beth strictly danced, not that there would be anything wrong with servicing her clients in other ways, but I knew the police would care ten times less if they thought she was a hooker.
“And she said it was the tiniest thing she’d ever seen, so she started calling him Unhung Doug—she couldn’t remember his real name.”
“Hold up.” The detective’s sidekick, Officer Quincy—I actually remember because it was my childhood dog’s name—pipes up from the corner he’s been silently observing from. He’s been hitting me with stares that I think he thinks are intimidating, but really it just looks like he’s holding back a fart. “Doug isn’t even his real name?”
“It’s fine, we’ll find it out,” Mr. Detective says, holding out a hand to silence his partner while keeping his eyes trained on me. “What happened next?”
“Thanks for picking me up, Low.” She usually gets a ride home from another dancer. Beth gives me a weak smile, and I can tell she’s exhausted because she hasn’t bothered to take off her makeup, which she always does before leaving. That, or she just really wanted to get out of there. I can’t blame her.
“Why do they keep letting him in?” The managers are usually very good about blacklisting problematic customers, so I’m surprised this asshole is even getting chances to harass her.
“They don’t. He keeps sneaking in. I don’t know how, but it’s getting real old.” She crosses her arms against her chest defensively as if still trying to cover herself from his unwanted advances. Her light-brown eyes seem to absorb the cool darkness of the night air as they scan the club’s parking lot for my car.
“Times like this I bet you miss your big, Russian bodyguards,” I laugh.