Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

talking over it.
    “Okay ladies, we’re giving away two tickets to tomorrow night’s John Mayer concert. But it’s gonna take skin to win!”
    Same song, same DJ, same challenge to get the girls stripping and the heated men around them drinking more. Danny remembered reading a passage from a forgotten book that home is the place that never changes. No wonder this place is packed with people , he thought. Time stood still in this cramped space tucked deep in a city that seemed to change by the day. But then he recognized something that had, in fact, changed.
    “Holy shit,” he muttered, staring at the Shiner Bock tap handle behind the bar.
    “What is it?” Sydney asked him.
    He grabbed Sydney’s hand. “Come on.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “Back door.” Danny was already pulling Sydney down to the corner at 19th Street. “We’re going to go see the new owner.”

Chapter 68
    Danny led Sydney around the corner of M Street and then up 19th Street. As they passed couples and small packs of yuppies fully engaged in their own private pub crawls, the bittersweet smell of cigarette smoke tried in vain to mask the grungy street odor. Halfway up the block, Danny turned down a familiar alleyway. He remembered it like he had been there only last night. Before Sydney could object, he grabbed her and picked her up.
    “What are you doing, Danny?”
    “There’s no telling what’s on the ground down here,” he replied as he began walking into the darkened alley. “The last thing we need is for you to cut your foot and get an infection. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
    The grimy city smell grew more pungent the deeper Danny plunged into the alley. Sydney seemed to melt into his chest more and more with every step. She leaned her head against his for just a moment. Danny smelled her hair. It was still damp from the Potomac, but it reminded him of past girlfriends, both the ones he merely liked and the only one that he truly loved. He wanted Sydney to turn her head. He wanted their eyes to meet. He wanted to kiss her as he held her in his arms.
    Danny stopped next to an unmarked, metal door. Two college guys were using a Dumpster just a few feet away as cover while they pissed.
    “Dude,” the one said as he tucked himself away and stumbled toward Danny, “you guys just get married or something?”
    “Yeah, chief,” Danny replied. “We just got hitched at the White House. You mind opening the door, so I can take my new bride over the threshold?”
    The guy didn’t move. “What’d you call me, asshole?”
    The second guy moved past his friend. “Don’t be a prick, Tom,” he said in a thick Virginia accent. He opened the door for Danny. “After y’all.”
    “Thanks, man,” Danny replied. He carried Sydney into the back of the Bull Run. The long hallway that led from the packed upstairs bar back to the men’s restroom looked exactly the same. The two guys edged past them. “Chief” stared at Danny with bloodshot eyes the entire time. He knocked against the corner of the wall as the two ambled back into the chaos.
    Danny placed Sydney down as gently as he could. She kissed him on the cheek and said, “Merci.”
    “My pleasure,” he replied. He clamped his hand on hers and thread his way past several twentysomethings, both men and women, standing in line to use the men’s room. They all gave him looks that said, “Who’s the shirtless asshole who smells like shit?”
    The odor of sweat, alcohol, and smoke punched him in the face as Danny emerged into the bar. Bulging DJ speakers hung in each corner of the area that was no bigger than Danny’s living room back in his old house in Dallas. Two bartenders he didn’t recognize were working feverishly, with half-drunk smiles hanging on their faces as they served the impossibly packed room. They simultaneously tilted two and three second pours into their concoctions as they ogled several college coeds in halter tops and young Hill staffers in designer outfits that they couldn’t afford. The bench that extended along the back wall provided an impromptu stage for the girls as they bumped and grinded to the throbbing music. If anyone in the place knew or cared about the plane crash, Danny sure couldn’t tell it by the party going on.
    He led Sydney past the bar and stepped down a short hallway to a closed door that read, “Private.” He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Still nothing. He tried the knob and it turned. He pushed