I pushed in front of Mace and pressed my back into his front in an effort to hold him back.
“You don’t do it, we don’t go back onstage,” I said to Monk.
“You don’t go back onstage, you don’t get paid,” Monk said to me.
“You don’t pay, I break your legs,” Mace joined the exchange.
“Awesome,” Pong muttered from behind us.
Pong had always liked the idea of us employing muscle so we wouldn’t get cheated by club owners (which happened a lot). Unfortunately, we’d never been able to afford it and even though Hugo had volunteered to kick some ass, I was worried he’d break a finger or something doing it. We needed his fingers, fingers were kind of important for a saxophone player so I forbade it.
Lee got in closer to Monk.
“You eject fifty people and you shut down the door. We got five cops in the club and they’l cal in the code violation if you don’t. Then they might feel inclined to cal the TTB, just for shits and grins.”
At this, Monk paled.
“What’s the TTB?” I heard Leo whisper from behind us.
“Fuck knows,” Pong muttered.
“Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau,” Hugo answered.
“Oh jeez,” Leo breathed with more than a hint of panic.
“Relax, it ain’t the DEA,” Buzz threw in.
“Thank God for that,” Leo said with relief.
“And anyway, that bag of grass you got in your guitar case ain’t shit to the DEA,” Pong declared.
“Yeah, they got bigger fish to fry,” Hugo pointed out sagely.
I made a quick prayer for deliverance from a band who would talk openly about one of their members in possession of a bag of marijuana after having just heard five cops were in the crowd.
When no deliverance was forthcoming, I twisted and looked around Mace’s body to the boys in my band.
“Would you guys shut up? ” I snapped.
They al just stared at me with expressions that said,
“What?”
My effing band.
I turned back around to Monk.
“So?” I prompted when Monk didn’t speak.
Monk’s expression twisted into one that made him look like he’d just sucked on a lemon. It was not attractive. At the best of times Monk was not attractive so one could say this was more like, really not attractive.
“I’l close down the door and thin the crowd,” Monk gave in.
I looked at the ceiling. “Thank you, God.” My eyes came back to Monk when he started speaking again.
“Stel a, you continue to be this big of a pain in the ass and this ass**le stays connected to the band,” Monk jerked a thumb at Mace, “I’l have to rethink my schedule.” Okay, there it was again.
Proof that my luck sucked.