Free The General and the Horse-Lord by Sarah Black Page B

twinkling brightly, the whole scene shiny and hip. John and Gabriel walked about five steps behind Kim. He seemed to know every person on the street. He had to stop and kiss a few boys, big smacking kisses that looked like five-year-olds playing, and he let some goon in a white sleeveless tee suck on his neck while he giggled and studied the stars. He reapplied his lip gloss and pushed open the doors.
    “Friend or foe?” Gabriel was studying the goon. John shrugged. They had worked out a code, a “save me code,” as Kim called it. If he dropped his lip gloss onto the floor, he wanted his Uncle John. If he dropped a dollar bill to the floor, that meant he needed emergency egress. Kim had explained these signals so carefully John’s heart cracked a little in his chest, remembering the baby who’d needed to be picked up and carried safely above the world.
    John and Gabriel took up position next to the bar. The main floor of the club had a DJ supplying the music, and there was a second floor with a wide balcony circling the dance floor below. As far as John could see, the balcony was for strolling hand in hand, seeing and being seen. There were stairs to an outdoor rooftop bar on the third floor. Gabriel had checked it out, said it was the place for old guys like them to hang out. The music up there was straight out of 1968.
    John leaned against the bar, studied the balcony, nodded at his guy watching them from above. “Everything set?” Gabriel nodded yes.
    Kim floated over to them, giggling at something one of his friends was whispering in his ear. He leaned over. “I’ll come tell you if I leave the dance floor, okay? Maybe later on we can go up to the rooftop? You’ll like it up there. It’s quieter. I know the music is kind of loud down here.”
    “Come get one of us before you go to the head.”
    Kim nodded at Gabriel, his face troubled. “That’s where he did it, you know. In the men’s room.” His face brightened a bit. “Hey, you want to dance?”
    Gabriel reared back. “God, no.”
    “Uncle John? How about you?”
    “The bodyguards never dance.”
    “You can have some fun too. You don’t have to watch me every minute.”
    “It’ll be more fun watching you than anything else I could be doing tonight.”
    Kim gave him a look like he wasn’t quite sure what John meant, then a quick hug around the waist and he plunged back onto the dance floor. Gabriel ordered them a couple of beers, and John pulled two pairs of yellow foam earplugs from his cargo pocket.
     
     
    I T WAS a couple of torturous hours later when Brian Walker came onto the dance floor. John had seen pictures of him in the faculty handbook, and the PI had taken some photos as well. John touched Gabriel on the shoulder, and Gabriel moved across the floor, disappeared into the crowd on the far side of the bar. John nodded to his guys on the second floor, gave them the thumbs-up.
    The man was good-looking, tall and lanky, with wavy brown hair to his shoulders. He was with a boy who looked very young, so slender he was almost frail, with wispy blond hair and a blue streak like Kim’s. Kim was laughing, his arm around the shoulders of a boy with a multitude of facial piercings, Che on his tee shirt picked out in little crystals. When Kim turned around and saw Walker, he stiffened, and his hand went into his pocket, came out holding his lip gloss. He looked around for John, and his uncle gave him a little “come here” gesture with his finger. Kim hugged his friend good-bye and walked across the room. He had his lip gloss clutched in his fist so tightly that John just opened his arms, gathered him up close.
    “I’m okay, Uncle John.”
    John looked across the room at Brian Walker, then looked over his head to the huge banner that was being unrolled from the second floor balcony. It showed a photo of Brian Walker, and Gabriel had photoshopped a black board below his head, so it looked like a mug shot. His name was picked out in bright