Blood Into Wine by Blake Banner

Author:Blake Banner [Banner, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07N8W1QLN
Published: 2019-02-24T17:00:00+00:00

TEN

We arrived on West 26th at midnight. Dare 2 Dream was located discreetly on the top floor and sported a vast terrace, a lawn, palm trees and even a swimming pool, all under a glass dome annexed to the bar. There was no music as such. It was more as though some electronic god had gone into paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia and we were trapped inside his chest. There were a lot of people, and most of them were bouncing. The ones that weren’t bouncing were leaning into each other’s ears and shouting, then nodding at each other with faces that seemed to say, I have no idea what you just said.

As we squeezed through the press of bouncing, squinting people, I began to notice a third group. These were dressed mainly in black leather. It was not overt, but if you were looking for the signs, they were there. Mainly they were in dark corners, behind palms or partly concealed by groups of voyeurs.

Dehan grabbed my head and leaned in close to my ear. “Is it a gay club? I can’t work it out!”

I shook my head and put my mouth to her ear. “No! It’s a dare to dream club. Whatever you’re into! What Mo would call bacon, lettuce and tomato!”

She shouted back: “You think they cater to straight, monogamous chicks?”

“I hope so. Come on, I need a drink.”

We pushed toward the bar, which was made of translucent blue glass, and found a spot where I could hail the barperson. The barperson had a small knitting needle through her nose and dead people tattooed on her arms. She wiped the space in front of us and said, “Get you?”

“Two Bushmills, straight up.”

She poured them swiftly and efficiently and said, “Forty bucks!”

I handed her fifty and said, “Is Mohamed in tonight?”

In my peripheral vision, I saw Dehan stare at me. Barperson took my money and frowned. “Pal, there must be five hundred people here right now. How the hell would I know?”

I shrugged, and on an impulse I said, “Ali said you knew him.”

“Ali? Mohamed? What is this, Isis revenge? Gimme a break, willya?”

She took the money to the till and rung it up. Dehan leaned over to me and said, “Have you gone crazy?”

“I’m testing a theory.”

The barperson came back with my change. She handed it to me and said, “Ali? What’s this Ali like?”

“Spanish, pretty, short hair…”

“Talks too much?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“She said I knew Mohamed? What else she say?”

I shrugged. “She told me to talk to you.” I turned to Dehan. “What else did she say, honey?”

Dehan winked at the barperson. “She said you would help us, and that you were a tia buena.”

She shrugged her tattooed shoulder and shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you’re hot.”

Now she gave a bashful, lopsided smile and pointed toward a palm by the door to the dome. There was a table in the shadows beside it with several people sitting there. “He usually sits over there. You know what he looks like? Big, six three, tattoos like mine.

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