Peaceable Kingdom (mobi) (42 page)

“I won’t. See you tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here.”

She finished her salad. Hell, she’d wolfed the damn thing down. You got busy, you didn’t have time to eat. Then you forgot to eat. Pretty soon you were starving. It was high time she had a shot and a Marlboro. She poured a double Cuervo neat and lit up and let the smoke slide down deep.

“Hey, Willie. Last call.”

“Hmmmm?”

She watched the heavy eyelids slide up and then down again—what her father used to call the Long Blink.

“Willie. Hey.”

“Hmmmm?”

“Time to go.”

“Oh yeah, ’course. Okay I finish this?” He smiled.

“Sure.”

She watched his fingers toy with the neck of the Heineken, literally feeling around for the thing, and then grip it and pour. He had about a third of a glass left. She took a hit of the Cuervo and another pull on the cigarette and walked around the service station and then down the bar past him to turn off the central air over by the plateglass window and then heard the sounds of the city rush in to her left as the man opened the door and stepped through. The man nodded and smiled and took off his thin brown leather gloves and she thought,
shit, why does this always happen to me?
because she was supposed to stay open until one if there were any customers at all, that was the rule in this place and here it was twelve forty-five and it would be just her luck and she was just that new on the job that the boss would come around to check up on her if she told this guy she was closed already.

The man was tall and wore a good brown three-piece suit and he put his brown leather briefcase down on the bar eight stools back from Willie, just in front of the register and smiled again and said,
evening
.

“Evening,” Willie said.

The man just looked at him.

She had to laugh.

“I’m just about to close,” she said. “So this’ll be last call. But what can I get you?”

If he knew about anything he knew about bars and barflies and he could tell from the way the fat guy was sitting on his stool that he was about to drop, that she sure wasn’t going to serve him again so that was when he’d made his move. He’d walked across the street from the flower shop where he’d been pretending to admire the window display and through the door. From where he stood he had a perfect view of the street and the corner of Columbus and 70th. Nice easy monitoring.

“What’s on tap?” he said and she told him. He said he’d take the Amstel.

The Amstel came in a frosted mug. He liked that. He took a sip and watched her rinse a few glasses and dry her hands and then walk over to the fat guy in the corner. He liked the way she walked. It was assertive, very New York.

“Hey, Willie. Wake up, Willie.”

“Huh?”

“Finish your beer.”

“Right. Okay.”

He tilted the glass and drank and set it down again.

“Tomorrow’s another night, Willie. Finish it up.”

“Okay.” He did. “What I owe you?”

“You already paid me.”

“I did?”

“Yep.”

“Tip?”

“You left a good one, Willie. Thanks.”

“Pleasure,” he said and smiled and waved at her once like he was the goddamn Pope bestowing a drunk benediction and slid off the barstool. He tugged once at the collar of his faded grey raincoat and straightened up and managed not to stagger as he walked out the door.

God, he hated barflies. Fucking disgusting.

She went back to the dishes again.

“He’s really a very nice guy,” she said. “But with all that weight he’s carrying I worry about him. I’m afraid he’s going to have a heart attack or something right in the middle of my shift. Then what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t blame you. But say it did happen, what
would
you do?”

She shrugged. “Call 911 I guess. I’ve seen CPR but I’ve never, you know, actually done it.”

“You’ve seen CPR?”

“Movies, television. Not in real life.”

“Oh. I’m Larry by the way.”

He put out his hand. She smiled and dried hers on a towel and took it.

“Claire. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, Claire.”

He looked around while she went back to the glasses in the sink and thought, hell, as good a time as any, slipped on the surgical gloves out of her sightlines beneath the bar, unlatched the briefcase and opened it and pushed it aside with the top open so that it would block any view from the street and lay the gun down softly on the bar.

“Claire?”

She looked at him first and then at his hand spread over the gun and he watched her face change. He always liked this moment.
Revelation-time
.

“Here’s what we’re going to do, Claire. We’re going to pretend we’re a pair of old friends, maybe we even dated way back when, who knows? and I’m here closing up with you, so you do what you do every night, only I’m here. You lock the door and hit the lights outside and dim the
ones in here. Only difference is that once you’ve done all that you empty the register into this briefcase. Me, I’m just having a drink. You understand?”

She nodded.

“Okay, now go on about your business. And Claire? Don’t even think about trying to run out that door. I know you really want to very much right now but here’s the thing, it takes too long to open the door, throw it back and then go through. Believe me, I know. You’ll be dead before you hit the sidewalk. And I’m already up for Murder One in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut so it won’t mean a thing to me one way or another.”

He clicked off the safety.

“Do we have a meeting of the minds here, Claire?”

“Yes.”

“Good. You know what you’re supposed to do?”

“Yes.”

“Then go.”

“The keys are in my bag. The door keys.”

“So? Get ’em.”

He watched her, trying to gauge her reaction as she stooped down to the floor for her bag and set it in front of the speed rack and opened it and fished out her keyring. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled for the right one and that was good. Her color was off and that was good too.

But she kept glancing up at him—just before she stooped to retrieve her bag and then as she set it on the speed rack and then again as she turned the corner at the service station and a fourth time as she passed him headed for the door. He thought,
this one’s a wiseass, she’s trying to memorize what I look like
, but there were ways to minimize that possibility and ways to wipe it out almost completely.

It was called shock therapy.

The night had turned chilly and David was unprepared for that, dressed only in a light tan jacket and even with it
zipped to the chin the wind off the river along West End Avenue was enough to send him immediately east all the way across to Central Park West where the packed-together rows of high-end residentials blocked it. He walked from 63rd all the way up to 78th Street wondering what he was doing, keeping to the west side against the buildings both for the shelter and because you never knew about Central Park and who you might encounter this time of night. It was a lonely stretch though pretty well lit—a few people out walking their dogs or on their way home from somewhere or other and light two-way traffic. He supposed the street matched his mood.
Lonely and at least half-lit
.

At 78th he crossed three blocks over to Broadway though her bar was back on Columbus. He meant, he guessed, to describe a wide circle around her and only then, if he hadn’t managed to shake this feeling by then, narrow in. He hoped the feeling would just go away. It was stupid, what he was doing. Even just standing across the street from the bar watching her through the plate-glass window would be stupid because if he could see her then there was also the possibility that she’d see him. Never mind that it was easily as humiliating as standing under her apartment window. To go inside and try to talk to her, which was what he really wanted to do, which was what he was aching to do, was bound to cause more hurt for both of them.

There could be no good ending to this.

But he was doing it anyway.

He headed down Broadway, hands shoved into his jeans against the cold. Some of the bars were still packed mostly with kids in their twenties and he heard music and loud laughter and other bars were still and dark, closed already or just about to close and the thought came to him suddenly that he had no idea how business was over at her place. She could easily have locked up and gone home by now. It was a definite possibility.

The thought filled him with a kind of dread and he
picked up his pace so that by the time he crossed against the red and passed Gray’s Papaya at 72nd Street his heart was pounding so he slowed again. It wouldn’t be good for her to see him this way, if he was going to be seen at all. He still wasn’t sure about that. Wasn’t sure what in the hell he was going to do.

But this feeling hadn’t been mitigated being out here. The night air hadn’t cleared his head or cured him. Not by a long shot.
He was so close
. To seeing her at least. To something.

He turned east at 70th and walked slowly toward Columbus.

She was going to keep this under control. He wouldn’t use the gun.

He wanted the money, that’s all.

Fine.

“I cashed out already,” she said. “The money’s in back.”

“What’s in the drawer?”

“Two hundred startup money for tomorrow.”

“Put it in the briefcase. Cash box or safe?”

“Cash box, locked in the desk. They wouldn’t trust me with the safe. I’m still new here.”

“Oh? You’re not trustworthy?”

“I’m new here.”

She stacked the money in his briefcase. She watched him sip his beer.

“You already said that. But what I asked you is, are you trustworthy?”

“Y-yes.”

Stop that
, she thought.
Shit!
You don’t want to show him fear. Not the slightest
bit
of fear.

“Should I trust you to go in back there and get the box for me?”

“Up to you.”

He smiled and looked her up and down and she wished
she’d worn something a little less clingy than the thin scoop-neck blouse.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’re a woman. And I wouldn’t trust a woman on a short leash with her fucking legs cut off. Nothing personal. Walk me back. And keep your hands down at your sides. Move.”

She walked back through the tables and chairs stacked for the night back to the office and opened the office door and thought of slamming it in his face but that was only a thought and nothing she’d consider for a moment because all he wanted was the money. She found the right key for the drawer and opened it, took out the cash box and put it on the desk beside the printer and computer.

She turned.

And he was so close
. The gun only inches from her chest. She lurched back and her hip hit the desk. It hurt. Her mouth was very dry all of a sudden.

“You want me to . . . I mean, should I open it? Or you want to just take it as it is?

“Open it. I like to see what I’ve got.”

He was smiling again and the brown eyes seemed to jitter back and forth and she thought strangely of
ants or bees, of insects
.

And there was no smile in the eyes at all.

It was a relief to turn back to the desk. Not to have to look at the eyes. She used three fingers against the box to steady her thumb and forefinger and finally found the keyhole and turned the key and turned and stepped away a little to her left. He lifted the lid.

“You had a good night, Claire.”

He shut it again and took one step toward her, his face only inches from her face, directly in front of her.

“You really don’t know CPR?”

“What?”

“You really don’t know CPR? Just from what you see on television?”

“I never . . .”

“So what happens if some customer throws a fit or something? I’m just curious. Aren’t you supposed to be
in charge
of this bar, Claire? Isn’t that you? It’s not the waiter who’s in charge, it’s not the fucking busboy. Is pouring a goddamn beer the only thing you’re good for? What about responsibility?
Suppose I pitched a
fit
or something!
What would you do for me? Call 911 while I’m dying here? Jesus Christ!”

He’s crazy, she thought. He’s a goddamn fucking lunatic and God knows what a lunatic will do.

Maybe it isn’t just the money.

And for the first time now he really scared her.

He had her now, he could tell by the look on her face, time to put the real fear of God into the bitch and see if she remembered anything
but
fear after that. He put the gun against her temple and backed her ass to the desk again.

“Open your mouth.”

“What?”

“I said open your mouth. Do it, Claire.”