The men had merely glanced at me, found me uninteresting, and looked away. Karen they studied with the intensity of an astronomer encountering a new celestial body. An unescorted woman in Lehane’s? I doubted they could believe their luck. “Hey,” said the guys nearest the door as she passed. One of them patted his pocket, no doubt mentally counting his money, wondering if he had enough to pay her fee.
Karen spoke first to the bartender. The volume on the TV was up, and I couldn’t hear the conversation. They spoke for a long time. Or maybe it was just me counting the seconds. More and more I began to feel that visiting Lehane’s wasn’t the best notion I ever had. If it hadn’t been for Victoria, for my dismal failure at learning anything more about where she was and who took her, I would never have done it. Desperation makes fools of us all.
Karen made the rounds after she finished with the bartender, speaking first with the pair of jokers at the door, then the pair at the opposite end of the bar, and finally the men at the small table in the corner. I watched her the way a parent watches a small child at a crowded park while pretending not to, giving the kid her freedom, yet ready to pounce at the slightest provocation.
None of the men blew her off—I wouldn’t have, either. They all smiled when she approached, all sat up straighter when she asked her questions, and none of them seemed remotely hostile. Yet all of them looked her up and down and licked their lips as if she were an ice cream cone and it was a hot day. The men nearest the door in particular—they stared at her breasts when she spoke to them, not her eyes, and when she left they tilted their heads so they could get a good look at her ass as she walked away. Instead of smiling, they leered. They called to her when she settled in with the bartender a second time.
“Hey. Hey, honey.”
Karen glanced over.
“What you doin’ lookin’ for this Mr. T asshole when you could have a real man?”
Karen averted her eyes.
“Seriously, me and Marky can help you out if you’re lookin’ for a good time.”
“I’ll go first,” Marky said. He nudged his pal in the shoulder. “Joey here, he likes sloppy seconds.”
“Fuck you, man,” said Joey.
The bartender chuckled loud enough to be heard over the TV. He said something and laughed some more. Karen smiled weakly. The boys at the end of the bar kept at it. The one called Marky told a joke about the difference between a good girl and a nice girl that cracked up his pal and the bartender. Karen draped the strap of her purse over her shoulder as if she were about to leave.
“No, no, don’t go,” said Joey. “How ’bout you let me buy you a drink?”
At the same time, Marky slid off his stool and casually moved to the door.
The bartender backed away from Karen, as if giving his customers plenty of room.
“No, thank you,” Karen said. Her voice was steady and clear.
“What? I ain’t good enough for you to drink with?”
“No, thank you,” Karen repeated. She slid her hand inside her bag.
“You fuckin’ look at me when I’m talkin’ to you.”
Karen didn’t look. If she had, she would have seen Marky sliding the bolts at the top and bottom of the door into place.
“Who do you think you’re dealin’ with, bitch, treatin’ me like that? Like I ain’t even worth lookin’ at?” Joey said. He came off his stool and approached Karen from the edge of the bar. “You ain’t friendly at all.”
Marky swung wide so that he could come up on her from behind. The other four men watched from their seats. None of them were looking to get involved in the action, yet I knew that none of them would turn it down when their turn came. As for the bartender, he seemed bored, his arms folded across his chest, his eyes half closed, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.
Marky was about three steps behind Karen, who kept looking straight ahead. Joey was an equal distance to her left. They were closing in.
“You know what you need?” Marky said. “You need a good fuck.”
“Hey, pal,” I said.
Marky turned. I was behind him. He had forgotten about me. Everyone had.
He said, “Wha—”
That’s all he said.