VII - Nightlife Pain & Pleasure
1038 South Hill Street
Los Angeles
- 9:45PM EST -
Amanda had stopped and parked her car down the road of where the nightclub was. Her and Rico step out of the car and walk up the sidewalk leading the nightclub and made it to entrance until they were stopped by the bouncer outside. Rico reached into his back pocket and pulled out the invitations. The 7 foot black bear who was the bouncer took the invitations and looked them closely. The bouncer then nods his head and step out of the way of the entrance to the night club and Amanda walked in followed by Rico.
Rico squeezed Amanda's hand. "Are you ready to have the night of your life dear?"
Amanda smiled at Rico contently. "Hell yeah!"
Amanda and Rico walked in the nightclub then quickly disappeared in the crowded and dark areas of the night club with X Gonna Give It To Ya by DMX being played loudly in the background and strobe lighting effects to match the cocaine and ecstasy fuelled behaviour of the partiers in the nightclub.
1038 South Hill Street
Los Angeles
- 9:55PM EST -
Sonic and Tails were in the car driving to their destination and an eerie silence had filled up the car throughout the entire half an hour journey. All Sonic really did was sigh as it seemed as though Tails no longer wanted to even talk to Sonic anymore, he just wanted to get his money from the mission from the mission a leave Sonic behind. Karma was hitting Sonic hard and he realised it.
"I don't want it to be like this forever Tails. I want us to be friends like we were before. Please Tails, just speak to me."
Tails ignored him and acted as if Sonic had never even talked to him. Sonic sighed and closed his eye is discomfort. After about five minutes Sonic instantly opened his eyes as Tails stopped the car and parked it on the right sidewalk of the road where there snatch-and-grab mission was to take place.
"Here we are Mayan Night Club."
Mayan Night Club
Los Angeles
- 10:00PM EST -
Tails stepped out of the car and Sonic opened the passenger door until Tails motions him to stop, which confuses him greatly.
"You stay in the car and wait for me; I'll go and try to talk a way into to getting into the party, considering we have no official invitations."
"Don't be long Tails; he won't stay in that night club forever."
Tails smiled slightly. "I'll only be talking to the bouncer for only a few minutes."
Sonic half smiled at Tails. "Okay."
Tails closed the driver's door of the car and walked up to the bouncer and began to negotiate a way into the party. Sonic decided to kill time by turning on the radio on a low volume, close his eye, lay his head back and gets some rest.
- 11:00PM EST -
Amanda and Rico were on the main and crowded dance floor of the club dancing with adrenaline fuelled young parties that all seemed no older than 25. They were able to fit in with the frantic and faced paced moves of the other partiers. She was having the time of her life nothing could bring her down. Rico made his through the crowd and grabbed Amanda's arm, which was at first startled her but she instantly became calm after realizing it was Rico. She smiled at Rico who smiled back at her.
"Enjoying the night dear?"
Amanda smiled at Rico. "What do you think?"
Rico smiled and laughed as he grabbed hand and pulled her closer to him and they dance together.
- 12:00AM EST -
After two hours of negotiating with the bouncer Tails finally walked back to car and saw Sonic sleeping and woke him by knocking on the glass window. Sonic rubbed his eyes and then opened them as he go the BlackBerry out of his pocket, looked at the time and then frowned at Tails as he got out of the car and walked with Tails across the road and towards the entrance of the club.
"About damn time! Two hours I've been waiting that car!"
Tails grinned slightly at Sonic. "You're lucky to be even getting in Sonic; this is an extremely private party!"
Sonic and Tails had walked to the entrance and son were inside the party as the bouncer stepped out of the way to let them inside. Sonic are Tails made their way up the stairs were to the indoor balcony they were instantly amidst the cocaine fuelled, ecstasy driven adrenaline pumped parties. Sonic led the way Tails kept especially to ensure that he wouldn't lose him as it felt to him as if there hundreds of people were crowding all around him. And need to make sure he talked loud as the loud bass of Delinquent Habits by Freedom Band was feeding the atmosphere with constant noise and it was difficult to hear people talk.
"What exactly did you say to him?"
Tails gave a confused look. "Who?"
The bouncer; what did you tell him to get into this party?"
"I had to tell him that I was nephew of Hulk Hogan and then he asked a shitload of questions to prove it was legit?"
Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Hulk Hogan?"
"He wears yellow when he's wrestling and my fur is yellow so it was just a case of improvisation from there."
Sonic chuckled slightly. "Always thinking on your feet, just like the old days. But what can I expect from a person with the IQ of one hundred and eighty."
Tails chuckled slightly. "I'm surprised you still remember after all these years. I know brains may beat brawn most of the time but in this case brawn is pretty much all you going need to solve this problem."
"What problem?"
Tails leads Sonic along the indoor balcony and points to tall and seemingly well-built brown bear wearing a black leather coat, black trousers, black shirt and black shoes talking to a blue female cat in a seemingly private area of the dance floor on the ground floor with many other men and women.
"That's your problem. Okay the guy on the left is Jaleel Johnson. I think he's like the left tackle or something…"
Sonic shook his head slightly at Tails. "Jamal Johnson, defensive end. He's the best defensive lineman Notre Dame's produced in the last 20 years, maybe ever. The brown cat on the left wearing the white hat, black sunglasses and the cream coloured coat is Kambui Jackson, ran for two thousand miles last year, all pro five years in row. The green hedgehog wearing the headband is Fernando Lewis, middle line-backer. Plays a lot like Ray Lewis, only difference is he hits harder."
"Whatever, Sonic I'm not into the NFL."
"Neither am I, I just do my research. The other two guys are Jimmy Coggeshell and David Mulaire. One's from USC, the other one is from Ohio State. Both are strong, tough and seven foot black hedgehogs who take no prisoners on or off the field."
"I'm impressed and all that you have done your research but the guy you should concentrate on is that brown fox wearing the white shite, Quarterback Brian Knappmiller. Throws like Bret Favre, bets like Pete Rose."
Sonic looked at Tails and nodded at him who then nodded back at him in return and made their way down the stairs of the balcony and towards the area where their target was. As they walked through the crowd Tails pulled Sonic's arm and motioned towards the bar in the nightclub and Sonic nodded his head. Tails knew this was a matter that Sonic had to deal with himself. Tails then walked towards the bar and sat on the stool as Sonic continued to walk through the crowd and reached the private area where he saw that Brian was pre occupied with two ladies. The star Quarterback was mingling with two ladies with a white long haired female hedgehog holding his left arm and a purple hedgehog with long violet-eggplant coloured hair holding his right arm.
"So, I'm telling this cat, I'm like, 'Yo, I know it's you that jumped. I know it's you. I saw you jump.
Don't tell me it's not you.' And then he's like, 'I don't know." And then I'm like, 'Dog.' But then he said…"
Sonic cleared his throat "Excuse me."
Brian looked up at the very well dressed cobalt hedgehog with confusion in his eyes.
"I'm sorry to bother you guys. I apologize."
"Hold up, my man. I ain't got any hook-ups to try-out camps. You have to show up like everybody else. You're a big boy though. I think you'll be all right. As I was say ladies, so I'm telling' the cat, 'I don't want to have to sit through..."
Sonic knew he couldn't be brushed off like that because of what was at stake tonight; he had to get straight point quickly and get this mission over with as quickly as possible.
"Excuse me, Brian, I'm sorry. I'm not here to talk to you about try-outs; if I could have one minute of your time."
"Okay I got it. Pass that paper to me?"
Sonic looked quite confused as Brian began writing something on a small piece of paper that was given to him by one of the parties in his 'private' area of the nightclub.
"Who do I make this out to, man?"
Sonic gave Brian a confused look. "I'm sorry what?
"Who do I make it out to? What's your name?"
"Sonic. S-O-N-I-C."
"Sonic?"
Brian began writing something again on a small piece of paper and then gave it to Sonic. "Here you go, man. Knock yourself out all right?"
Sonic put on a fake smile. "Thank you."
Brian winked at Sonic and then turned back to the purple female hedgehog holding his right arm and began kissing her. Sonic knew he had to be more upfront with Brian because he was obviously not in the mood to talk much with him. Sonic knew he needed to act more bravely, so despite Brian was very much intimately interacting with one of his female 'friends' he sat down in the chair next to Brian and tapped him on the shoulder. This lead to Brian ending the kiss he was having and turning his head to Sonic to give only a serious look of anger and confusion towards Sonic.
"Excuse me; I'm really sorry but..."
"Yo man, what fuck are doing man?"
"A couple of months ago you were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and harassing an officer in the same night. This isn't the first time either that there has been case like this involving you either and because of that when you were prosecuted and faced going to jail a few days ago your bail was set to high for anyone you knew to cover it at the time."
"What up Knappy?"
"It's nothing. Just enjoy your drink Jimmy"
"So as I was saying, you made a deal with one of my associates to prevent you from going to jail in the condition you didn't skip bail and unfortunately, you did. And I'm here to collect the money you owe him which is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Do you remember any of that?"
"DUI? You wanna embarrass me in front my friends about my private and personal life?"
"Don't mean to embarrass you. This is embarrassing to me. I'm a big fan. But two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you do remember right?"
Yeah, I know what talking about man."
Brian went to his pocket and pulled out ten one hundred dollars bills and placed them on the small table in front of the both of them.
"Here's the cash to get me started now you do me a favour, you tell your man I'm gonna see him on Monday with the rest and not to send anybody else to see me, all right?"
Sonic nodded his head and Brian began resuming his kissing with his purple coloured female hedgehog. Sonic sighed at slight frustration because of the lack of cooperation Brian was showing towards Sonic it was time to stop beating around the bust and get the main point knowing what would probably happen, but this way the only way out for Sonic in this bounty hunter life.
"Brian."
Brian ended the kiss again gave Sonic another serious look of anger and confusion towards Sonic.
"I'm going to need some collateral from you…I'm going to need the ring."
Brian looked at the De Beers platinum ring on his ring finger and chuckled but abruptly stopped when he saw the serious look in Sonic's face and gave a look of bemusement towards Sonic.
"Man, are you serious?"
"I'm sorry."
"Yo, seriously…"
"Slip it to me under the table, on the low-low. I'll make sure no one sees."
Brian chuckled smugly. "On the low-low? You want the ring? I'll give it. You want a drink too?"
"Uh, sure, thank you."
Before Sonic could even react Brian through a small glass-full of vodka in his face only to refill the glass with vodka and then threw it in his face again. Sonic was stunned and that not only because the vodka was stinging his eyes badly.
"That's what I think about that. Get the hell out of her, man. Go, man, go! Go!"
Jimmy Coggeshell stood up in concern of the reaction Sonic may give. "You heard the man. Let's go, man. Get up."
All Sonic did in reaction was nod his head and stand up. "Okay."
Sonic began walking away from the private area and began walking through the crowd of frantic dancers as Tails watch the entire episode unfold from and made a motion with his hand to follow him.
"That's right, playboy, walk. Go on, man."
"Get your ass outta here."
Sonic walked behind Tails and followed him towards the bathroom. Inside the bathroom Sonic began cleaning the Vodka off his face by rinsing it out with water from the tap and grabbing tissue from the toilets to wipe it out.
"You all right?"
"That vodka shit burns a lot Tails."
"I can tell."
Sonic reached into his suit and took out his BlackBerry Curve began making a call. All Tails did was watch is confusion.
"Oh, yeah, he's here. We got a problem though. He's got the entire offensive line. The entire offensive line is here. Let me do it another night. How about that? They've got a legitimate shot at repeating their performance this year. I do not want to hurt them. I don't wanna go out…Yeah I know what on the line but I…Okay Shadow, okay."
Sonic ended the conversation and put his BlackBerry back into his inner pocket and looked at the bathroom mirror is stress and contempt. The painful reminder of what was at stake from Shadow made Sonic think deeply about what he was going to do next. Sonic looked at Tails with seriousness in his eyes.
"You know what you have to do Sonic."
Sonic sighed. "I guess tonight actions will speak louder than words. Let's do this Tails."
Sonic walked out of the bathroom and headed back to Brian to confront him one more time.
