“Stel a, beautiful, cal off your man.”
I felt the band settle in behind me and Duke was stil close to my side.
“What’s happening?” I repeated.
“You don’t cal off your man, we got problems,” Monk threatened.
I never liked Monk. I suspected he skimmed from our take on the door. I knew he watered down drinks. I also knew he didn’t card pretty young girls nor did he serve them the watered down booze. He also got too close when he talked to me and he had bad breath. Al this was not conducive to me liking him so I never did.
I shoved in between Mace and Vance.
“What… is… happening?” I asked, speaking slowly and sounding as pissed off as I was.
I mean, no one messed with a ZZ Top vibe.
No one.
Especial y not someone like Monk.
Monk had dark, thick, bushy hair around the sides of his head but he was bald and shiny at the top. He was shorter than me, rounder than anyone I knew and had weasel eyes.
He looked like a weird, scary clown without the makeup.
“He’s over code for maximum capacity,” Lee answered for Monk. “And his boys aren’t doing thorough searches.” This was not good.
Monk often went over code, this wasn’t a surprise. But thorough searches were kind of important if I wanted to be breathing in the morning. And equal y important for al the Rock Chicks to be safe.
Rock Chicks to be safe.
“You know how long it takes to wand someone and look through their shit? It’d take hours to get people in here,” Monk flashed at Lee then lost his bravado and visibly quailed when Lee’s angry eyes sliced to him.
“Monk, do you have any idea what’s at stake here?” Floyd had shoved in between Lee and Mace and he looked even angrier than Lee but not more than Mace, one glance at Mace said very bad things for Monk’s immediate future).
Before Monk could answer, Lee cut in and said to Monk,
“You agreed to the procedure.”
“I agreed but I had no idea it’d be this tight, take that long at the door. The Gypsies are a solid act but there were people leaving the line and goin’ home. That’s me losin’
money, I don’t like losin’ money.” Monk, stupidly, wasn’t backing down.
“You stil got a line outside and you’re over capacity. You aren’t losin’ shit,” Vance threw in.
“Turn ‘em away, close the door and thin the f**kin’
crowd. I want fifty people ejected before the next set,” Mace demanded.
I watched Monk and it was like in the cartoons when dol ar signs rol ed in character’s eyes. You could see Monk calculating the loss at the bar, not to mention the cover charge he’d have to return if he ejected fifty people.
“That’s not gonna happen,” Monk told Mace.
Mace leaned in and it was not a friendly, shiny-happy-people lean.
Definitely not good.
Okay then, time for me to intervene.
Okay then, time for me to intervene.