Page 8 of Femme Fatale
“You check for ovaries, too?” I said, smiling with all my teeth. He didn’t, and he didn’t ask about the blade taped to my boot, either. He just jerked his head toward the stairs.
The underground smelled like old beer and sweat. The cage was sunk in concrete, surrounded by three rings of seating. The crowd was mostly men, but not the fun kind. These were dead-eyed, hungry types, the kind who’d sell their own mothers for an easy ten grand. The only women were the ones who couldn’t leave or didn’t want to.
I spotted Joker before she hit the ring. She was warming up in a corner, stretching her arms behind her back until the shoulder blades touched. The tattoos on her forearms were new and showed a string of playing cards on one, a grinning skull with a broken jester’s cap on the other. She didn’t make eye contact, but I could feel her watching me, just the same.
They called the first round, and Joker stepped in. Her opponent was a slab of meat named Big Eddie, a former semi-pro wrestler, two hundred and eighty pounds if you counted the cinderblocks he called fists. The fight wasn’t fair, but Vegasnever is. Vegas had changed me since my arrival. I now had an edge because, for a woman to be successful, she had to have an edge, a mean streak that people respected.
They circled. Eddie tried to crowd her, but Joker’s footwork was ballet-like, quick in, quick out, hands low, and taunting him. She let him land a jab, took it on the chin, then slipped sideways and caught him in the ribs. The crowd howled. She danced away and grinned wide. That’s when I knew she was a good choice.
In the second round, Eddie was sucking wind. Joker toyed with him, letting him grab her, then turned the hold into a flip, slamming him on his back. The third round lasted twelve seconds. Joker fainted left, then right, then landed a knee between Eddie’s eyes. Lights out, just like that. The crowd erupted.
I watched her post-fight. She didn’t celebrate. She knelt by Eddie, checked his pulse, then handed the ref a five. The gesture said everything. It was no hard feelings, just business.
I waited for her in the locker room. She entered with a towel over her head, still sweating, face streaked with blood. Her eyes flicked up to me and held. They were hard and cold.
“If you’re a fan, I’m not signing your tits,” she said.
“Not my style,” I said. “But I am hiring.”
She peeled the towel away, nose already swelling. “What for? You need a bodyguard, or you just like broken noses?”
I tossed the VP patch on the bench. She looked at it, then back at me, not touching it. “You want me to be your second.”
“I want someone who’s not afraid of losing,” I said. “Someone who doesn’t get rattled when the big dogs bark. Come to think of it, I want someone who is a big dog.”
She snorted and spat a bloody glob in the sink. “Plenty of tough bitches in Vegas. Why me?”
I shrugged. “Because you’re not afraid to win, either.”
A thick silence settled in for a few minutes.
Joker leaned in, hands bracing the counter, face inches from mine. “What makes you think you’re president material?”
“Because nobody else is fucking crazy enough,” I said. “And because I don’t need a second who agrees with me. I need one who’ll tell me when I’m about to eat shit.”
She laughed, a barking sound that was honest and sharp. “You don’t want respect. You want trouble.”
“I want both, in that order,” I said.
She stared at the patch, like it was a loaded gun. “You know my background?”
“I know all about you,” I said. “I know you broke a guy’s arm in three places and didn’t flinch when he pissed himself.”
Joker raised an eyebrow. “You do your homework.”
I nodded. “Every test, every time.”
She wiped the blood off her face with the towel. “Let’s say I take this. What’s the first order?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Recruitment. We get a crew. You want to run this town, you need people who know how to bleed.”
Joker smiled then, a thin line. “I’ll need a bike.”
“You’ll get one,” I said.
She took the patch, ran a thumb over the embroidery, then tucked it into her gym bag. “You got yourself a Vice President. But if you fuck me over, I’ll knock your teeth out.”
“Deal,” I said, and offered my hand.
