Shay O'Hanlon Caper 04 - Chip Off the Ice Block Murder Read Online Free Page A

that made me breathe a whole lot easier, although I still felt edgy that a bouncer wasn’t working the front door. I wondered if that had slipped my dad’s mind or if he’d been planning on handling that aspect of things himself. By unspoken agreement, both Lisa and I were careful to card anyone who looked remotely on the down side of twenty-one. She was an ass saver.
    I was in the middle of making a screwdriver when someone thwapped me on the shoulder. I nearly pulled a repeat of the Mr. Happy performance on the thwapper before I recognized the shaggy hair and grinning face of my best friend, Nick Cooper, better known to the masses as Coop.
    “Hey!” I leaned forward and stifled a shout of glee. “Thought you were partying with the Beans.” The Green Beans for Peace and Preservation was an environmental organization dedicated to the green cause. Well-intentioned, often jailed.
    He hollered, “Heard you were in a spot. Figured there was no better way to ring in the New Year than to hang out at the Lep.” He looked around. “Pete hasn’t shown up yet?”
    I shook my head.
    “What can I do?”
    Music to my ears. “You wanna card the little girls and boys and bounce whoever needs bouncing? First dibs on the hot chicks.”
    Coop’s grin grew. In the last year or so, my meek friend had turned from a somewhat wussy pacifist into a pacifist who wasn’t afraid to confront trouble with an appropriate level of ferocity. Since he’d recently split ways—on friendly terms—with his enigmatic ex-cartel-running girlfriend, he was more than happy to cavort with potential playmates.
    Into Coop’s ear I said in a somewhat lower register, “Who told you what was going on? Kate?”
    “No. JT called and said you might need a hand.”
    Oh, but I loved that woman.
    “In fact,” Coop said, “here she is.” He stepped sideways and, holy crap on a cracker, there was my girl in the flesh. A purple scarf wound around her neck and was tucked into the front of her navy blue pea coat. Her cheeks were red from the cold.
    I couldn’t help but grin like an infatuated teenager. “Hey!”
    Coop waved a hand and threaded his way to the front door.
    JT wedged herself up to the bar. Wisps of chestnut hair had escaped her once-neat ponytail and floated around her cheeks. “What’s a girl gotta do for some attention around here?”
    Unmindful of the audience, I cupped her face and gave her a brief moment of some very appreciative attention. Apparently the crowd was too schnockered to care, because there was absolutely no reaction.
    She leaned back with a smile. “Coop heeded my cry for help. I tried to rope Kate and her gal toy in, but they had a better offer.”
    I laughed. “Figures.”
    A tall, alcohol-deprived carouser sitting next to JT started getting feisty. The woman had on a cone-shaped New Year’s hat and periodically blew a kazoo at me. Prior to JT’s arrival, I might have ripped that kazoo out of her mouth and tried to shove it down her throat. Now instead bringing a potential lawsuit on my father, I finished making her drink, grabbed the kazoo from between her lips, and dumped it in her martini. I handed it over with a satisfied smirk.
    She slapped a bill on the bar and, with her kazoo-laden drink in hand, backed cautiously away from the insane bartender.
    I returned my attention to JT, who was watching me with an amused grin. “What can I do?”
    “Make the rounds? Pick up empties, wipe tables?”
    “No problem.” JT pushed back from the bar as she unwound her scarf and shrugged out of her jacket.
    I exchanged her winter wear for a bar rag and tossed it to her. She snagged it out of the air and disappeared into the throng.
    I was elbowed back to reality by a well-placed shot from Lisa. She yelled, “Who was that?”
    “Girlfriend,” I hollered.
    “Not bad.” She grinned and moved on to another customer.
    For the better part of the next two and a half hours, Lisa and I worked nonstop. As the countdown neared, I