The Great Escape

She drifted toward a kennel of males: a golden retriever, a greyhound, a pit bull, and a couple of mongrels. All of them were watching her. She almost asked permission to join them before she remembered who she was. “I’m Viper.” She set her beer on the table and took the only empty chair. “If you hear any stories about me, they’re probably true.”

WHERE THE HELL WAS SHE? By midnight, Panda had checked every bar in town before he remembered The Compass. Lucy had taken his car, so he’d had to come into town by boat, leaving Temple alone. For all he knew, Temple had downed the rest of the chocolate Lucy had bought. He no longer cared.

He surveyed the crowd and spotted her right away. She was dancing in front of the band with a skinny, long-haired kid who looked like a young Eddie Van Halen. If you could call that pelvic grind she was doing “dancing.” Both the lead guitarist and bass player were singing right to her, a cover of Bon Jovi’s “Runaway.” She looked tough, dangerous, and barely legal in her trashy top and trashier shoes. Her skirt wasn’t much more than a handkerchief and showed way too much leg, along with a new tat of a snake coiling up one calf, its fanged head pointed toward Nirvana. Hard to remember that two and a half months ago this tough-as-nails man-eater had been wearing pearls and preparing to settle into domestic bliss with the most respectable guy in Texas.

He was attracting his own kind of attention, but he’d long ago lost his taste for coeds. The song came to an end. She hooked her arms around the young stud’s neck, leaned into him, and kissed the son of a bitch. Long and hard.

Panda plowed through the crowd and gave the punk a nudge on the shoulder. “Get lost.”

She turned her head just far enough to lift her phony-pierced eyebrow at him, then tightened her hold on the kid’s neck and stuck her lips near his earlobe. “Ignore him. He’s not as tough as he looks.”

Panda didn’t have to stare at the kid more than a few seconds before the kid figured out that wasn’t true. The boy broke Lucy’s hold. “Later, okay?”

Lucy watched the kid hurry off, then glared at Panda. “Go away,” she shouted over the music. “I’m drunk, and I was just getting ready to make out with him.”

He gritted his teeth. “Congratulations. At this rate, you’ll be done with your list in no time.”

She stomped her metal-studded shoe. “Damn it, he’s leaving, and I was going to sleep with him. Now it’ll have to be the greyhound.”

Like hell. He didn’t know who the greyhound was, only that this she-devil wasn’t sleeping with anybody but him tonight. “Here’s the thing, babe … I don’t share my woman.”

She looked way too outraged. “I’m not your woman. And I’m not your babe!”

He kissed her before she could say any more. She tasted like booze and cinnamon lipstick. But she didn’t throw herself into the kiss the way he wanted. Instead she nipped his bottom lip with her teeth and backed off. “Nice try, Patrick, but no dice. I’m partying with new friends, and you aren’t invited.”

“Hold on. You told me you wanted to make out in public.”

“And you said you wouldn’t.”

“Changed my mind.” He was a shitty dancer, but he figured what she’d been doing wasn’t exactly dancing, so he pulled her against him.

She refused to cooperate. “Buy me a drink first.”

“You’ve had enough.”

She glued her feet to the ground. “No drink, no dance. Get me a kamikaze.”

He gritted his teeth and stalked over to the bar. “Make me something that tastes like a kamikaze,” he told a female bartender who looked like a prison guard. “But without the booze.”

“What are you?” she growled. “Some kind of religious nut?”

“Just make the damned drink.”

The final concoction tasted more like an orange Popsicle than a real kamikaze, but maybe Lucy wouldn’t notice. He spotted her perched on some guy’s lap. The kid was tall and almost comically skinny, with a long nose and longer neck. The greyhound.

He bought himself a beer and sauntered over to the table. The greyhound saw him coming and got up so fast he nearly dumped her. Panda nodded at him and handed Lucy her drink. “I see you’re up to your old tricks, babe.”

She gave him the stink eye.

“A word of advice, boys …” He sipped his beer. “Check your wallets before you let her get away. She can’t help herself.”

As they reached for their pockets, he set down his beer and pulled her back to the dance floor, where the band had launched into an off-key ballad. She smirked at him. “No need to make out with me. Like I told you, I’ve already done that. With two of them.”

“I’m impressed.” He cupped his hands around her butt and moved his mouth closer to her ear. “How about getting felt up in public? Is that on your list, too?”

“No, but …”

He squeezed. “You should put it there.”