Meena♓

"Good thing he isn’t one of our big sixes," he replies cheerfully. "He just likes to think of himself that way. Poor thing."

He snickers as Dawson tries to pick himself up only to give up half way through. Motioning to one of the other men, Joe directs them to drag the guy out of the ring and off somewhere to recover. They listen to him without a grumble, used to it despite his youth and their earlier jeering. Whatever their reservations, they know Joe’s under Amos’s thumb and his word is as good. Joe’s been working this place since he was way too young for it.

"Yeah, whale, maybe next time he'll think twice before he starts talkin with his lower brain."  She spares the fallen Dawson one last glance, barely resisting the urge to spout some Godfather-worthy one-liner, but it's probably best she doesn't ruin her newly earned cred by embarrassing herself with puns that aren't her usual forte.

Seems like half-pint over here is definitely the guy to talk to, though, judging by the way everyone else follows his orders with nothing but a little good-natured bitching.  Meenah decides it's definitely her excellent judge of character that made her talk to Egbert first, so she turns fully towards him and hefts herself back out of the pit. 

He’s not disappointed. Her first strike gets Dawson right in the teeth and he’s nearly down just from that. The other men give out jeers and encouragement with mirthful surprise. Even Joe’s grinning like a loon. 

"Attagirl," he murmurs, mostly to himself as he grins.

She hasn't met a basshole this bad at fighting since she was still living on the Naval base, and the way he takes a wild swing at her afterwards isn't doing much to make her reconsider.

She brings up her forearms to block it, and then catches his arm on her downswing, jerking him forward so his crotch makes real good fronds with her kneecap.  She lets him drop, and even if she's pretty confident that he won't be getting back up, she doesn't take her eyes off of him.

Whatever-son looks about as poleaxed as Joe did, but then the look fades into something a lot more patronizing. 

"Aw, come on now, Doll," he croons out with a smirk. "Nothing but a little fun. You’ve got no need to get your dukes out. You want a real battle of the sexes, come join me at-"

He pauses as Joe step up behind the woman, thumbs tucked in his suspenders again. “We’ve got five witnesses and an empty ring, Johnson.”

“Dawson. You’re not serious. Egbert, there’s no way I’m getting into it with a skirt-“

"Then you forfeit?" Joe asks, his voice even and almost bored. "Piker."

Dawson’s eyes narrow. After a moment, he straightens and starts rolling his sleeves up. “You want to get beat by a man so bad, fine. I’m game for teaching you a little lesson in humility. God knows you need one.”

She doubts he could keep up with her in any battle of the sexes, in any case.

She's also going to come out of this with an assortment of new things to call people.  Piker! She can guess it's meaning just by the way Dawson reacts, and the best part is that it's got the word Pike in it.  New fish insult achieved! Shell yeah.

"Bitch, please, I'm too fabulous for humility," She snipes back, hopping into the ring herself.  Nobody said anything about any rules or waiting for the bell bullship, so Meenah falls into stance and then barely lets him get his contrived, free-shot machoism out of the way before she's slamming her knuckles into his face with glee.

And Joe’s getting real irritated with the self assured look that fella wears most the time. Like he’s got something up his sleeve.

"New York, ma’am. Lower East side. ‘Fraid it isn’t a picnic down here but we manage." He hooked his thumbs at the base of his suspenders, tilting his head as he tried to think what a skirt like this might enjoy. She’s lively enough for just about anything, he’s pretty sure. "I don’t know what you’re looking for exactly, but there’s a good saloon down the street where you can get as ossified on panther sweat as you please. Might wanna think of getting some new clothes or they’re likely to take a sheba like you for a quiff or completely nerts, though, and I’m thinking you’d take offense to that."

“I’ll say,” yells whatever-son.

At least it turns out she's still in New York, even if it is so many years in the past.  Knowing where she is doesn't do her a whole lotta good, but at least she doesn't have to add 'geographically lost' to her list of problems.

The look she gives Joe at the jumbled mess that comes out of his mouth, next, could probably full NASA for the next 200 years on incredulity alone.  The only thing she can really pick out of is that ossified hopefully translates to 'wasted as glub'.

And then douchebag mcasking-for-it speaks up again, and Meenah might not know what he's replying to but she knows it's nothing good, and he's pissed her off for the last time, tonight.

"Yes ma’am, sorry ma’am," Joe responded with a nod and he’s grinning wider now. Woman like this, wearing clothes like that, hip to the jive, queerest thing he’s seen in a long time. "This is the Ring. Bare knuckle fights when we’ve got the notion to plan ‘em."

“But you can come anytime you like, Doll!” one of the others calls out and Joe throws a dirty look over his shoulder.

"You want a round with me, Ethel, just keep up the lip!"

The man laughs and waves a dismissive hand. He’s not one of the regulars, some new guy they snagged from Jersey last week, and he hasn’t seen Joe fight or he might know to take that seriously. He thinks his name might be Johnson, Frederickson, Smithson- something son, which is fitting as the most he seems to have accomplished is being born. Joe doesn’t give him long. 

At least he's not treating her like she came in on the coat tails of a bad hurricane, any moor.

"He calls me Doll again, and he ain't gonna have no lips to catcall out of," She mutters back, because she's never been the type to let ship like that go without at least a middle finger or two getting involved.  Even if she does apparently have her very own knight-in-suspenders to try and defend her honor for her, right now.

"I-" And then he’s blushing hard, right to his ears. She’s got choice gams that go on forever and a good figure and he can see all of it, clear as the day she was born, and the set of bubs on display just- Joe swallows and a few of the other guys are giving her a look over with interest but he’s suddenly wondering where the hell the rest of her clothes are. "Ma’am, I- are you all right??"

Did someone mug her for them? She doesn’t seem roughed up, but maybe she’d complied and- Joe turned and then glared right at the group of old man Petrov’s men. “You lot quit gaping! Ain’t you seen a dame before?!”

A few of them look chastised but the rest only smirk. They’re all twice his age, what right does he have to go bellyaching at them. Joe frowns and leans in closer to the woman. 

So it's not the staring that gets her, it's the way this punk bass little cretin in front of her actually has the nerve to gawp at her, and then blush like it's going out of style.  What is he, the son of a nun?  Of all the preconceptions she could have had of him walking up, 'chaste' and 'pure' sure as shell hadn't been at the top of that list.

She gets tired of being treated like some kind of wilting damsel exactly three words in, so she just rolls her eyes as he admonishes the perverts and stuffs her hands in her pockets.  Her posture is terrible.

Did he just call her a dame? That's a checkmark for Mob Movie Scenario numero uno.

"Guppy, those tools ain't lookin at me any different than any basshole in the Ritz would," She says, with an inelegant snort, and then she frowns the more he talks.  Cod, what did she do, slip-n-slide straight back to 1920?

...

Glubbing Dave.

She mashes down the sharp stab of irritation and the smaller flip of panic, because demon or not, it's not like Dave would leave her there if he really did send her back.  The problem is, she's not so sure he understands what an appropriate length of time is socially acceptable to leave your partner in crime in the past (that correct answer is never. It is never socially acceptable).