The moment Taylor entered Bar Bueno her pulse quickened. It was another bustling Friday evening. A sizable crowd of revellers lined up against the long bar, and the stage where she would sing was rigged and ready to go, with a spotlight bathing her microphone stand in a warm yellow glow.
‘You’d better do good tonight, babe,’ Manny instructed as he squeezed her hand. His head leaned towards hers. ‘There’s a bunch of cops in. Look, there’s Padraig Smail.’
Taylor cast her gaze through the throng. ‘Great! That’s the last person I wanna have in the audience.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘Did you know he was coming tonight?’
His expression pained. ‘As if. You know he’s the last dude I’d want to socialise with.’
She closed her eyes to block the policeman from her vision. Manny may not have wanted to rub shoulders with Smail, but she knew he would anyway. Most likely, that would earn Manny a visit from the man in a few days’ time, one where Smail would offer Manny an unofficial job. Manny, of course, wouldn’t be able to refuse, and these jobs… She sighed resignedly… each time these jobs got riskier and riskier. Eventually, one of them would trip Manny up. He would make a mistake that would send him to prison, even as Smail walked away untouched in the furore.
Manny gripped her hand a little tighter, tugged at her wrist, and drew her into the room. ‘We should go say hello,’ he told her. ‘We can’t afford to get on the wrong side of Sergeant Smail.’
‘Must we? I gotta go prepare.’
‘A minute ain’t gonna make any difference. Besides, it’ll look odd if we ignore him, and I don’t wanna give him an excuse to make my life hell.’
It was true. They had to pay the cop a visit or else he’d take it as a snub, and retribution would follow. Swallowing, she allowed herself to be dragged passed a crowd of bawdy folks who mostly blocked their way. Manny nudged the back of one of them, used his elbow to push the man into his friends. Taylor didn’t notice the group’s reaction but hoped none were of a mind to retaliate. There was always the potential for something to spark off where Manny was concerned. It was the way he swaggered, the way he threw himself around. She was glad he took her passed them quickly, his ego barging them onward, propelling her across the floor so fast she didn’t need to stop and apologise.
‘Sergeant Smail!’ Manny’s voice projected confidence. ‘What brings you here on a Friday night? This ain’t your normal copper joint. Isn’t Flynn’s your normal spot?’
Taylor counted eight men at the table. Eight policemen, two of whom she recognised, aside from Smail. Those two were in Smail’s pocket. Bent coppers. Well, if they were out for a bit of fun and planned to behave themselves, then fair enough. Even crooked policemen didn’t do crooked things all the time. Sometimes even the worst of people did normal. She would sing for the cops the same way she sung for everybody else.
‘Manny Vasquez!’ The tall form of Sergeant Smail unfolded itself from its chair and extended a hand of greeting. ‘This is a surprise, isn’t it? I didn’t know this was your stomping ground. Or yours either, Miss Friedman.’ He nodded hello in Taylor’s direction.
Taylor mustered a smile. Fortunately, her act was due to start in a matter of moments. Manny would have to let her change, and that was good: she wanted to spend as little time as possible in the proximity of Smail.
‘We’re here to celebrate old Frank’s retirement,’ Smail said, slapping the back of the older guy sitting next to him. ‘Thirty years in the force and ready to hang up his badge. Lucky fella.
‘You’re a lucky fella, ain’t you Frankie?’ Smail was yelling, pretending that Frank was deaf. The rest of his companions roared with laughter. ‘Actually,’ Smail continued to shout, ‘Frankie likes a good singer and we were told that the girl who sings here on Friday nights has a cracking voice. Oh, and that she was one sexy lady, too.
‘And we love sexy ladies, don’t we, Frankie?’
Again, more raucous laughter. Taylor was unsure whether to take his remarks as a compliment or to complain.
Manny placed an arm around Taylor’s waist, an act at once protective and proud. ‘Oh, she’s both those things, ain’t you, Taylor?’ He leant towards Smail. ‘She’ll start soon and you guys will be able to see for yourselves. Man, the way she moves that mike… I tell ya, if I had a record label, I would make her a star.’ He gave an exaggerated wink.
Taylor supposed he was attempting to act knowing, but it came across sleazy. She cringed inside, but at least she’d managed to avoid direct conversation with the scummy cop, and that was a blessing. Instead, she leaned into Manny, kissed him on the cheek, and said, ‘I gotta go!’
‘What…? Oh sure, babe.’ He was paying Padraig Smail so much attention he’d forgotten he held her tight.
Unconsciously, Taylor rubbed her wrist once he let it go, an act that failed to remove the red pressure marks. At least the bruising was discreet enough that it might go unnoticed. Unlike some of the others she wore. She’d chosen a special outfit to cover those up.
She slipped away to the small office that doubled as her changing room. There, she admired the garment she’d dropped off earlier. It was a beautiful crimson dress. Expensive. But then, singing was an expensive business. You paid a lot of bucks to look good on stage. Even Manny understood that part of the money she earned needed to be ploughed back into her costumes. At least she assumed he did. He always gave her a generous allowance from the money she earned, and she bought nice stuff from that, which he never complained about.
She took her time as she migrated from her day clothes to her performance ones, and checked herself in the wall mirror to make sure the bruises were as hidden as she’d hoped, before studiously applying a fresh layer of lipstick. ‘Now…’ she told herself after pouting at the glass, ‘let’s pretend there’s no cops out there. No cops, and, especially, no Padraig Smail.’
She brushed her hands down her sides, breathed deeply, and went off to sing.
Her set, as it always did, was lapped up by her audience. She sung Latino songs: merengue; bossa nova; salsa. The revellers listened enthralled, whooped and cheered at the right moments, and demanded an encore when she was done. She obliged, of course. After all, singing filled her with such joy, she would have sung all night, and without payment, if the bar owner asked her to. She sang for Manny, a slow ballad she once gave him a private rendition of. It was a tune she always ended her set with. Everyone loved it, of course, but she sang it only for him, her eyes following him around the room as she sang.
He’d spent most of the evening flitting from table to table, talking to acquaintances, some of whom she’d even met. He was networking, setting up business deals, earning his way. He was a man in demand: musclebound, unflappable, mercenary when he needed to be. His hands nursed a bottle of beer, cradled against his trunk. He didn’t drink it – because he drank rarely – but held it to prove he fitted in with everyone else. It was all an act. She was aware of this because he’d told her that was what he did. He feigned an ease with liquor despite having no appetite for the stuff, and clutched his bottle tight to show how much of an ordinary guy he was, taking no more than five sips the entire evening. He loathed everyone he came into contact with, each lousy no-good asshole he talked to, each one he made a deal with, even those who lived on the right side of the law. He wouldn’t trust any one of them enough to call them friend, and she speculated upon his reason for not taking himself off to live somewhere where he wouldn’t need work for any of them.
When her final song ended, Taylor flashed Manny a smile and thanked her audience for their kind attention before she headed to her changing room. Padraig Smail was waiting by the door. ‘Excuse me, sergeant,’ she said. She sensed his eyes peeling her outfit from her body, and she suppressed a shiver.
Padraig reached out, barred her way. ‘Whatever’s the hurry?’ he asked. The man reeked of cigarettes and alcohol.
Of course, singing in a bar meant Taylor came across the lecherous. However, she was wise enough that those wasters quickly learned to leave her alone. She was powerless over the way they leered at her, but they didn’t dare lay a finger. If they did, a withering glare and a sharp rebuke were enough to send them off. Still, she was sure many of them took an impression of her home to pleasure themselves with. That was if they didn’t fall asleep first. Those drunks weren’t coppers, though. Specifically, they were not Padraig Smail. ‘I need to get changed and head home, sergeant,’ she told him. ‘It’s getting late.’
His arm didn’t move, but his eyes did. He stared at her breasts.
‘It’s not that late. Certainly not too late for another shong. Will you sing a shong for me? A private shong?’ His eyes flicked away from her chest to the changing room door and back.
There was no hiding his intent. It was suddenly both very warm and very cold, and Taylor was exposed and scared. Padraig Smail was a large, powerful man and her small frame had little hope of overcoming him if he forced the matter. ‘Please, sergeant,’ she pleaded, ‘I’m through singing for the evening. I wanna get changed and go home.’
‘No shong?’ His words were slow and lazy. ‘Well, how about a kiss for this good sergeant, then?’
She ducked her head away from his encroaching lips. Padraig tried again, pushed his hips against her, his breath hot and fetid against her neck.
‘Please!’ Maybe if she closed her eyes he would disappear. His hand kneaded at her breast and for a moment she understood that the worst thing that might happen, would.
But his breath disappeared from her neck, the pressure of his manhood fell away from her groin and her breast was no longer compressed under his sweaty palm. With a thump, he rattled against the wall beside her, and the wall shuddered.
‘That woman is mine!’
Taylor had never been so relieved. Manny stood above Smail, every inch the hero. She sobbed, one great violent convulsion ran through her frame. Manny had come for her, no doubt puzzled by the time it was taking her to change our of her stage gear. Finding Smail mauling her, Manny had grabbed the man by the back of his collar and slammed him into the wall.
‘You keep your filthy cop hands off her!’ he yelled. The punch he landed onto Smail’s stomach doubled the policeman in two. ‘If I catch you near her again, so help me, Smail, I’ll kill you, you understand? I’ll kill you so damn painfully you’ll think you’ve died, gone to Hell, come back and died again a hundred times.’ Manny shoved Smail to the ground, then launched a foot at the policeman’s lower back, which caused Smail to groan and roll over. Then Manny kicked again, this time his foot striking the cop with force upon his head.
‘Time to go.’ Manny grabbed Taylor’s wrist and pulled.
That she hadn’t yet changed wasn’t the reason she resisted. ‘We can’t leave him like that,’ she protested. ‘He might die!’
Blood spilled from a gash along the back of Smail’s head to pool upon the floor, and an ominous gurgling spewed from the back of his throat.
‘And what do you care if he does? What do you care?’ Manny stopped tugging at her, dropped her wrist angrily, and studied her in a way that made her go chill. Some part of him reached a false epiphany. ‘You fucking care for him, don’t you? You care for that fucking scum copper. I bet you’ve been fucking him. Haven’t you? Haven’t you?’ His face was pressed up against hers, all spit and drool and saliva that splattered onto her face and ran down her cheek.
‘No, Manny.’ Her voice was strained and her words unconvincing.
‘You’ve been fucking that shit bag.’ He grabbed a handful of hair from the back of her neck and yanked it. ‘Admit it, you fucking slut. You were going to fuck him just now, weren’t you, even while I was out in the bar pretending to be all chummy chummy with his scum cop pals?’ He yanked her hair again, harder this time, making her eyes blur in pain. ‘Admit it!’
Agony, sharp and intense. Pain lanced from the roots on her scalp straight down her neck. ‘Please, Manny, I’ve done nothing. I’d never do that. The idea of it disgusts me. Please…’
She wasn’t sure what came next: the blow to her face or the one to her stomach. Both would leave their mark: the one to her cheek impossible to hide; the other, an angry black and purple bruise that would rise like a dirty footmark from her hip to her rib, she’d be able to cover with a top. Either strike would have been enough to make her pass out. Together, she’d no hope of consciousness. She was aware that she fell to the floor on top of Padraig Smail, she recalled that much, but when she awoke Manny was nowhere around. Instead, a crowd of people had gathered about, concern plastered across their faces. She attempted to move but found her limbs entangled in Smail’s and the effort of separating herself sent such a shock of pain through her body that she almost vomited. Instead, she let her head fall back upon the floor, closed her eyes and wished the hurt away.
‘Easy now,’ someone said, addressing her. ‘The cops and medics will be here soon. They’ll sort you out, make sure you’re okay.’ She uttered an incoherent whisper in response before slipping back into unconsciousness.
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