Page 2 of Just Dare Me
“Don’t give me that crap, Nora. What did you see?”
“I can’t see your thoughts, I swear. I can only hear them.”
“Oh, good, so much less invasive.”
“It really is, trust me.”
“You know I trust you. Now c’mon, what did you hear in my thoughts just now?”
She thinks about it for a moment. There’s a slight breeze out here on the balcony. The sounds of the river in the darkness below us. “Well,” she says finally, “it was you and…”
“Yes? Me and…?”
“And him. You were having a talk just like the one we’re having now, only it was you telling him you wanted to run away.”
I take a long drag on the vintage cigarette holder. Pink, sparkly vapor fills my lungs with warmth and my mind with relaxation. It’s just enough to keep despair at bay, take that edge off, enough for me to force a thin smile. “That’s right. I told Jay the same thing you just told me. Let’s run away. Get outta here. Far away from anybody and anything. Just the two of us. Isn’t that all that matters?”
“Exactly. And what did he say?”
“You didn’t get that far?”
“No. Honestly.”
I nod for a long moment, buying time to wrangle my emotions, to control my breathing. “He said…he couldn’t take me away from Detroit. He couldn’t do that to this city.”
Nora gasps. “He said that?”
“Yep. And trust me, that’s theleastof the sappy shit he says.”
She presses her hands to her heart. “What a sweetheart. Charlie is swooning from all the way back home. I can feel him feeling me right this second.”
“C’mon, you know how that kind of talk triggers my gag reflex.”
“We’re going to get him back, Shayne. Wewillfind him. He’s out there, just waiting for you.”
I turn away to hide sudden tears. Jay’s out there, all right. Out there in the hands of the most cruel, most vicious monsters of Detroit’s underworld. They need him, so they can’t kill him—yet—but is that any consolation? I remember how damaged and broken Jay was when I first met him. What he’s going through now is worse than that. Way worse. So I have to wonder: even if we do find him, will there be anything left of the Jay Brenner I know?
My temper flares. Every second is vital. We need to make our move,now. But to do that, we need to be alone on this balcony, and some white-bearded, shit-faced sorcerer in a five-thousand-dollar suit is taking his sweet-ass time smoking a cigar. Oblivious to us, he croons, off-key, to a sultry cover of Hall and Oates’ “Maneater” playing in the club. “Uh-oh, here she comes. Watch out boy, she’ll chew you up.” He hiccups, belching thick cigar smoke into the frigid night air.
The Motown Rouge is a local riff on the infamous Moulin Rouge of Paris. Same filthy-rich patrons, same lurid cabaret courtesans, but instead of a red windmill on the roof, you get a giant radiator fan, because…Detroit. The club is perched on stilts at the point of a peninsula overlooking the confluence of our two most famous rivers—to the east, the Detroit River, lined with glittering downtown city lights; to the west, the dark Rouge River winding inland past countless relics of the industrial age—water treatment plants, oil refinery plants, automotive plants—any kind of industry requiring access to shipping lanes.
I take Nora by the elbow. “Come with me.”
“Wait, what?” She lowers her voice to a hiss. “Shayne, why are we going over to this guy? This isn’t the plan.”
“No, look, I just want to show you that we’re not as bad off as you make it sound. We arenottotal sad sacks. We can have perfectly normal conversations with nice folks.” I deposit Nora on one side of the gentleman, while I step to his other side. I tap his shoulder. “Hey, Alfred. Bum a ciggy off ya?”
Startled, the man inhales cigar smoke too quickly and erupts with a fit of coughing. When I start pounding him on the back, he shrugs me away, annoyed. “Enough, stop that! Good gods, woman, you pack some wallop. You must be half ogre…” His voice trails off as he gets a look at my face. Disgust curls his lips into a sneer. “You!” he growls, and he backs away, bumping into Nora. He stares at her, mouth agape. “You!”
“Sorry,” she says awkwardly, with a cute little shrug. “Enjoying your night?”
The cigar drops from his lips. His voice is raspy with fright. “Yes, fine, the night.” When Nora smiles at him, the man leaps backward with a terrified squeak, bumping into me.
“Uh-oh, here she comes,” I sing along. “Watch out, boy, she’ll chew you up.”
Nora, desperate to put him at ease, pulls at the man’s arm. “Sir, really, we didn’t mean to—”
“Unhand me!” he screams. “Don’t touch me! Don’t talk to me! Ah, my ears!” He clamps his hands over his ears.
