The folks throwing cold water on Los Alamos whistleblower Tommy Hook's assault story are going to love this.

"A dancer at the topless bar Cheeks said Tuesday afternoon that Tommy Hook had received a lap dance inside the club earlier the night of the beating," today's Albuquerque Journal says.

Hook... told his wife from his Santa Fe hospital bed early Sunday morning that he was lured to Cheeks by a mysterious late-night call from someone who said they had information about fraud at the Los Alamos lab...

When the alleged caller didn't show after more than an hour, Hook made his way to his car parked near the exit at about the time the club closed at 2 a.m., Hook told his wife.

Susan Hook and [attorney Bob] Rothstein said four to six men pulled Hook from his car before he could drive away, told him to keep his mouth shut and beat him to near unconsciousness.

But according to a Cheeks dancer, Hook did more than just wait by the bar. "He did get a lap-dance from the waitress," Jeanette McCalip, a dancer who was working at Cheeks on Saturday night, said of the whistle-blower.

McCalip said she saw Hook when she got off work Sunday lying beat up on the ground outside the club's door, surrounded by customers who were leaving. McCalip said she recognized Hook as the same man who got a lap-dance from a waitress inside the bar, because it is her standard practice to keep an eye on all the customers.

Could be. But it seems like it'd be awfully tough to pair up the busted mug above with any face in a darkened club. Hooks must've looked a whole lot different before his beating than he did after, right? Anyway, we'll see what facts emerge.

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Rothstein said a private investigator got an entirely different story when he interviewed several Cheeks employees.

"We've had a private investigator who interviewed the manager, the bartender and two security guards," he said. "All four of them confirmed that Tommy sat at the bar, he was drinking light beer, didn't have any interactions with the girls who were dancing there..."

Montoya, the club owner, said Tuesday that law enforcement officers instructed him to not speak about the incident, but he did say Hook probably wouldn't have lived if it weren't for a Cheeks security guard who helped disrupt the fight.

"My security employee did save the guy's life," he said.

THERE'S MORE: As Nick notes, the Santa Fe New Mexican has an awfully different account of the awful night.