“Good to see you too. You don’t know how good. That guy was starting to scare me.”
“Forget the bastard. Someday he’ll pick up the wrong lady, know what I mean? Where we headed?”
“You know Ellsworth Road? Just outside of town? I’m living over there now.”
“Sure I do. No problem.”
She watched the road ahead wash away beneath their wheels. The pause between them was only momentary but still a little awkward. She really hadn’t known Marion well in high school. They’d traveled in wholly different circles. Janet was definitely college-bound. Marion hadn’t been. She wondered whether or not she’d ultimately made it there anyway but decided that at least for now it would be wrong to ask.
“Listen. There really is half a bottle in there.” She pointed to the glove compartment. “That jerk give you the willies? Open it up and have a hit or two. Good for the nerves.”
“No, thanks.”
“Go on.”
“Honestly. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, really.”
“Well, dig it out for me then, okay?” She laughed again. “Seventeen years! Jesus!”
She really didn’t want to. Not only was it against the law but it was dangerous as hell. She’d seen the results of drinking and driving plenty of times. Enough to know what a fundamentally stupid thing it was to do. But Marion was saving her ass here, for all she knew in more ways than one. And she hadn’t smelled any liquor on her breath thus far so this one might well be her first. It was still illegal but she guessed it was safe enough so long as she kept it down to one or two. She pressed the button to the glove compartment and watched the door fall open and the light come on inside.
She saw the flat pint bottle of Kentucky Bourbon. And behind it the. 22 revolver.
When Ray Short leaned back in his chair and neatly lifted the wallet from the baggy jeans of the passing Saturday Night Cowboy, Emil Rothert was almost finished with his fifth beer and just drunk enough not to be seriously pissed at him for waving it around the table like some kind of goddamn trophy, smiling, looking for Emil’s approval, and Billy’s too, he guessed. Even though the barman could have seen him or any one of the five guys sitting at the bar or the four in back by the pool tables. Not seriously pissed but still pissed.
He had to give him his due, though. Ray was good with his hands.
“Put that goddamn thing away,” he said.
“Yeah. Jeez, Ray, you want to get us comprehended? ”
Rothert sighed and shook his head. Sometimes Billy amused him and sometimes not. Sometimes he thought Billy Ripper was a spaceman only just learning how to appear human.
Ray’s smile faded. “You guys are no damn fun at all.”
“We’re drunk, Ray. What do you want from us?”
He finished his beer.
“I’ll have another, though. You’re buying.”
Rothert watched him walk to the bar. Sitting to his left was a guy in a rumpled gray suit drinking what looked like whiskey neat. The guy was facing straight ahead into the rows of bottles but he still hoped Ray had sense enough not to pay out of the stolen wallet.
“Three more,” he heard him say to the bartender, and then the bartender said something back that must have been three more what? because Ray said beers and then the bartender must have asked him what kind of beers? because Ray turned around with a look of annoyed confusion just as the girl walked in. He saw her register on Ray’s face- one helluva looker -and he turned and she was a looker all right and too young he thought to be walking into a place like this alone, probably underage in fact, long blond hair and cutoffs and tank top straining across her tits. Yet here she was, alone, moving past his table toward the back like she owned the joint.
Willie Nelson stopped singing “Blue Hawaii” and the place went silent so that he could hear the bartender and Ray.
“… we got Bud, we got Schlitz, we got Miller, we got Miller Lite. We got Heineken, Heineken lite, we got Coors. We got Tuborg, Becks and I can piss in this bottle for you if any of this don’t interest you.”
“Huh?” Ray still had his eye on the girl.
“Forget it.”
The bartender started to move away and Ray finally got it together.
“Buds. Make it Buds.”
‘Three Buds.”
And then it was Elvis singing “Blue Hawaii” good god as the bartender opened the beers and put them on the bar and sure enough, Ray pulled out the stolen wallet and started counting out the bills. I got me a reckless fool on one side of me, Emil thought, and a complete fool on the other.
Ray handed them their beers and sat.
“See that?”
“I’m still seeing it,” Emil said.
“I think you should go over,” said Billy. “Buy her a drink. Talk to her. I think she looks like someone who’d appreciate to talk to you.”
“I’m thinking about it.” He drank from the bottle.
Billy smiled. It wasn’t a nice thing to see.
“I’ve always liked a girl like that. Y’know? Somebody who can exist themselves to a function where they can manipulate.”
Emil and Ray just looked at him.
Emil thought that sometimes this boy just plain scared him.
The pint bottle rested between Marion’s legs and she’d only had two sips, but Janet still wished she’d put the thing away. She was driving slowly though, and carefully. She had no real reason to complain.
“Your parents still live in town?” Marion asked her. “No. Florida. My dad retired, sold the house. My mother says she’s a golf widow now. Yours?”
“Passed away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s okay. They were never much with us anyhow. So who do you still see? Anybody?”
“Nobody. I used to call Lydia Hill once in a while.” “Lydia Hill?”
“Tall? Blond? Always wore long-sleeved white cotton blouses and minis? You know, the kind with the button-on suspenders.”