Dream Guy by A.Z.A; Clarke Page A

for himself, as though he were using an iPod that delivered silence instead of tracks. The dancers throbbed and punched the air, people swarmed about—upstairs, into dark crannies. Lights swirled and flashed, a smoke machine pumped out a mist in which Joe spotted hands groping for thighs or breasts, hips pumping together, feet tangling. A girl in a trance swayed by the side of the dance floor, her arms up, her eyes closed, defenseless and carried somewhere else by the beat.
    Joe sipped his water and saw a man reaching into a handbag and extracting a mobile phone, which he pocketed. Then the thief moved on to another table and another, snaffling change, wallets, a stray earring. It seemed so obvious, but the people behind the bar were too busy to notice and the punters were lost in their world of rhythm and flirtation. The thing was, there were bouncers. They wouldn’t want the club to get the reputation of being a place where you got ripped off. Joe slipped from his barstool and headed to the corridor where more and more people were jammed in their effort to be seen at the right place.
    He reached the door and the night air was a relief after the dense sweatiness of the actual club. He tapped a bouncer on the arm.
    “Excuse me. There’s a guy in there cleaning out people’s bags and pockets.”
    The bouncer turned to Joe, frowning, his eyes old. “What’s he look like?”
    “Twenties, brown hair in a sort of quiff, big nose, dark suit, dark shirt, stringy red tie, black and white shoes.”
    “If we pick him up, will you hang around long enough to identify him?”
    It occurred to Joe that if this ended up in a police statement, he’d have some talking to do. Explaining what a fourteen year old had been doing getting into a club intended for over-eighteens, for starters. Explaining what he was doing in a club when he was meant to be safely in bed. Explaining where he’d gotten a pocket full of cash. But Joe shrugged and agreed to identify the guy. The bouncer summoned two other men with bald bullet heads, tuxedos and bow ties. They cleared their way down the corridor and back into the main club. They fanned out across the dance floor, looking out for the guy Joe had described.
    One found him. The others took him in a pincer movement, hustled him out of the place and into a small back room. Then they called Joe. By the time he got into the office, they’d stripped the guy down and his haul for the night was on the table—three mobile phones, a couple of wallets, the single pearl-and-diamond earring, a lot of loose change and a fistful of notes. The man shrugged, as though he got caught quite regularly. But he watched Joe with chilly curiosity that made them all uneasy. A bouncer got Joe to write down his name and address then took him back into the main club. He led Joe to the bar.
    “Get this guy a bottle of champagne on the house, will you?”
    Smokey came up, each arm around the waist of a girl. One was dark, with heavy eyeliner and a full mouth and the other had auburn hair in a sleek French knot and wore a long, flowery skirt, a matching top and had a brown leather belt resting on her hips.
    She was very pretty, but she shoved Smokey’s arm away as though his fingers stung. She was about to turn away in a strop when Joe held out a flute of champagne.
    “I like your style,” said Smokey, reaching out for a glass. “This is my mate, Joe. Right, mate?” The Red Bull and vodka mix had gone straight to Smokey’s head, and he slurred his words. The dark-haired girl giggled as though he were Matt Lucas and David Walliams rolled into one. She was drunk or stoned or both. “This is Denise, isn’t it?” She nodded and held out her hand for a glass as well. Joe passed her his own. He hadn’t taken a drink from it, and they’d only given him three glasses, but he didn’t care.
    “And this is Angela. That’s right, isn’t it? Angela.”
    Angela with the auburn hair gave him a defensive grin that failed to