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you she works in a Goth bar. And she didn’t give you my name, either. Clever girl.” Rorke turned away from me to pitch her empty bottle in the trash. “Doesn’t surprise me. She’s always going on about chance. You want another?”
    “Beer? Or chance?”
    Our eyes locked.
    “I think I might need something stronger,” I said.
    She leaned on the bar, and her lips twitched into a smile. “Aw, come on, Nick. I know you’re not mad.”
    “Do you?”
    She grabbed two more beers and two shot glasses. “From what I understand, you guys have traded lives. For better or for worse.”
    I nodded.
    “So Paige is shacking up at your pad and working your job. At a pub, right?”
    “The Air Square,” I said.
    “Well, this gig’s a little different. She works the door here most nights.”
    I nearly spit beer down the bar. I couldn’t help it. Everyone has their limits. Mine have a lot to do with riding a register, pinned under the eye of a leather-clad Meatbone with nothing between us but a slim counter and a tip coffin.
    “Do I get to wear a corset?” I said, straight-faced. “Will I get to stamp little ankhs on hands of many a club kid?”
    “Not that I wouldn’t mind seeing you in spikes and batwings, Salem, but lucky for you, I struck you a deal. Evilyn’s working the door. You’ll be back here with me. I hear you used to be a real badass.”
    She took a long tug on her beer.
    “Speaking of,” I said. “She jailed me in your office.”
    “Come again?”
    “The dormouse. Evil Lyn. She tossed me in the clink.”
    Her pause was just a little too long. “No shit?”
    “None whatsoever.”
    She watched me, waiting for me to say more. Finally, I did. “The gray room is Paige’s, isn’t it?”
    “What tipped you off?”
    “Not a fucking thing,” I said. She started grinning again, and I lit another smoke. “Fess up, bartender. You’ve gotta gimme the dish, or I won’t last another night in this funhouse, and you know it.”
    She leaned forward, got so close to me I could almost taste her. “That I do,” she said. She was staring at my mouth.
    Then she took my cigarette. She pushed back and poured two more shots with it dangling from her lip, hopped the bar, and sat down beside me. I had a feeling I was going to be ripped to the tits just in time for my first night behind a bar (again).
    “It’s nice in here, isn’t it?” she said. “Before we open, I mean.”
    I looked around. She was right. It was cold and dark, and the place still smelled like bacon. The AC had been pumping all night, minus several hundred bodies, and the only light came from the candle nooks and Rorke’s coffin cooler. The DJ booth and the dance floor were in total darkness. Portishead was thumping so low I could feel it more than hear it.
    “I just noticed there are no neon beer signs.”
    “Nope. No pinball machines, either.”
    “Disco ball?”
    “Bite your tongue,” she said. “The only disco ball is in Ash’s bathroom, and it’s got horns.”
    I had absolutely no response to that.
    “It’s all right, Salem. I don’t think it can get down.” Rorke sighed and kicked back in her chair. “So you wanna hear the story, huh?”
    I nodded.
    “How much time you got?”
    “I don’t know, boss. You tell me. Does it exist here?”

Chapter 7
     
     
    Ages ago, before I cut my own piece of the pie, I was just another regular. This was the first place that ever felt like a home to me, so I started hanging out here all the time. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, or anything else to do. Eventually, I got to know all the employees and most of the other regulars. After spending a rainy Thanksgiving night alone with the owner, I knew I had to find my way into the family. Somehow.
    Back then, the bar was owned by another woman. The papers called her Mommy Fearest. Mofet, if you were her friend. She had this killer smile that made you feel like you were the only one in the room. She liked to wear kimonos over silk pajamas.