Read Tango with a Twist (Smashwords edition.) Page 43
#scenebreak
Someone nudged my leg with a shoe.
“Ethan Fox?”
Male, and not a friend of mine because my friends called me Foxtrot.
Except that I had no friends now, because I was a supervillain.
“Wake up, Fox.”
I gurgled. “Foxtrot.”
“Are you drunk, too?”
Too? When I rolled to my stomach, pain split my skull and nausea filled my gut. “Ah, crap, again?” Who the hell hit me this time?
“You are drunk, you son of a bitch.” He yanked me to my feet, which was not only mean, but foolish.
“Fuck me!” I yakked all over Officer Friendly’s uniform.
He cursed, too.
“For Christ’s sake, someone knocked me out.” I stared at the puddle at my feet. “She’s going to kill you when she finds out you made me throw up on her ugly carpet.”
He pushed me against the bar. “How long you been passed out here, Fox?”
I gripped the rail and ignored the desire to repeat his words to him in my Cartman voice. “I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here unconscious, Officer Warren.”
He knocked my feet apart and commenced to frisk me. When he heard a rattle in my pocket, he shoved his hand into my sweats.
“Jesus, dude, don’t you have a class in cop school that teaches you how to frisk a man without jingling his bells?”
“Shut up, Fox.” He held a set of keys where I could see them. “You like Juicy Couture, Fox?”
I did my best to focus on the keys. “What? No, those are Tango’s. Her mom’s car is outside. The engine was running when I got here. What time is it anyway?”
“I’ll ask the questions.”
“What the hell’s going on?” I demanded. “You can’t arrest me for trespassing. I have the code to the lock. If you look right here on the log, I’m on the list—”
“I can arrest you for whatever I want, Fox. Don’t play dumb. You know what’s going on.” He yanked one of my hands behind me. Cold metal clacked around my wrist and he reached for the other.
“What the hell?”
“You have the right to remain silent.” The other cuff clicked into place tight and he jerked my arms.
“Fucking ow!” My ribs screamed at me, and I dropped to one knee. “You’re arresting me? Seriously? I get knocked unconscious—again—and I’m the one in trouble?” I should’ve kept my mouth shut, but it’d been a really bad day. “What do you do for real criminals? Give’em a bubble bath and a happy ending?”
He forced me to my feet. “Explain how you got her keys.”
“I told you, her car was running when I got here. I took her keys so she wouldn’t waste gas.”
He pushed me into the glass door and then opened it. “You’re just a freakin’ gentleman, aren’t you?”
Notice he did not read my full Miranda rights? I noticed.
The cool morning air woke me up a little. Enough to see that Tango’s car was no longer in front of the dance studio. “What the hell? It was right here. Where’d it go?”
Wait, did she hit me? No. No matter how mad she was, she wouldn’t clock me from behind. She’d want to see my face when she smacked me. Also, how could she leave if I had her keys?
“Why don’t you tell me, Fox?” Officer Friendly said in his small-town-smarmy voice. “Why don’t you tell me down at the station?”
The lights from his car blazed and flashed in the early morning sun. A small crowd had gathered, and they all whispered and muttered when Warren stuffed me into the squad car. Most of them held Starbucks. The aroma of coffee, chocolate and butterscotch filled the air. I really wanted the caffeine in a mochachino. Trenté. Quadrenté.
Then the reality of the situation managed to crawl its way through my fuddled, most-likely-concussed brain: Tango was missing.