Nothing—no sounds from behind the door.
I knocked again, louder.
After the third set of knocks, sounds emanated from inside, and the door opened to the length of its security chain.
Rash decision or not, right decision or not, I was committed now.
“Debbie?” my bleary-eyed ex-boyfriend, Willy, asked.
Chapter 10
Luke
Friday night, Pete’s Country Club was more packed than usual when I arrived, and I had to sit one table farther from the action than usual. I was later than I should have been for a weekend night.
“Hey there. What’ll it be tonight, big spender?” Cindy asked when she came over to take my order.
“Cyn, at least I tip well.”
She cocked her head. “I’ll give you that.”
“And I don’t grab,” I added.
“Don’t like girls, huh?”
“I got one,” I lied. “And one is enough.”
She put a hand on her hip, giving me the I-don’t-believe-you look. “Then how come you always come in alone?”
My little lie could get out of hand if I wasn’t careful. “She works nights.”
Her face showed that my lie had held up. “So? Chicken or no?” It was nacho night, and the only variable in my order was whether I added chicken on the nachos I ordered with my Corona.
“With the chicken. I’m a big spender, remember?”
She rolled her eyes and walked off.
Two hours later, I was almost to the bottom of my nacho plate and still hadn’t picked up anything of interest in the conversations going on around me. Then I heard a distinctive voice.
“Ready to lose some money?”
It was Cliff again. I’d been focusing on the far pool table, trying to make out their conversation, and missed his entrance. I could claim to have already wrestled once tonight, but the regulars here knew that wasn’t true. He slapped a hundred on the table.
I pulled out my wallet and put down my twenty. “Twenty is my limit.”
“Pussy,” he spat.
“Poor, is all,” I explained.
“He is a pussy,” Sammie said from one table over. “He never bets more than twenty.” At least his statement backed me up.
Cliff sat down opposite me. “I say you’re too scared you’re gonna lose. Put down a hundred, or it’s off.”
I slid my hand over to take my twenty back. “Now who’s scared.”
He slapped his hand over mine before I pulled my bill back. “Leave it.” He let go and put his arm up in the stance. “Twenty it is, pussy.”
I scooted my chair up and braced before taking his hand. “Call it, Sammie.”
“On three,” Sammie said. “One…two…three.”
Cliff was big and strong, but obviously too lazy to pump iron the way I did.
We grunted and groaned, neither gaining much advantage over the other. His face reddened from the exertion, and his veins popped.
I gave him three inches, then let him win. He was the type to be a sore loser, and underhanded enough to try to take it out on me in the dark of the parking lot.
He hooted his victory. “Sucker! Nobody beats Cliff.” He grabbed my bill from the table and stood. “Anybody else wanna try?” Nobody stepped forward. “I’ll give odds.”
The crowd dissipated. There weren’t any takers.
He sat back down with me.
I offered my almost-finished plate of nachos. “Chip?”
He took one. “Sure. You were in Augusta, right?” We’d already been over this. He didn’t seem to have much of a memory. I remembered everybody I met on the outside who was a fellow ex-con. It wasn’t a brotherhood to be proud of, but it was a shared background others couldn’t understand.
“Yeah. You transferred into my cell block just before I got out.” I munched on another chip.
“You remember a guy named Franks? Tall, ugly, red-haired bastard.”
Franks had been the head of one of the gangs in my block. “I remember Franks, but he was short and blond—missing a finger on his left hand.”
Cliff laughed. “Yeah, that’s the guy. Broke his fucking arm cuz he dissed me.”
I wouldn’t be good to react to that, so I shrugged and took the last chip. “Must have been after I got out.”
He put his elbow down and his hand up. “Wanna rematch?”
“I only wrestle once a night.”
“Yeah, you said that.” He stood. “Well, maybe another time..”
I lifted my beer to him. “Another time.”
After he started a game of pool with one of the regulars, I went over our conversation in my head. He wasn’t as stupid as he seemed; he’d been testing me to see if I’d actually been in Augusta, and the comment about busting up Franks had been meant as a warning. He didn’t seem to be moving on, so he might be my next lead for Riggs, and I needed one if the Howlers were out of town for a month.
I asked Cindy for some more nachos and went back to listening.
All I got for my effort tonight was a guy who planned to teach a lesson to a kid who’d toilet-papered his house because his daughter turned him down for a date—hardly material for Riggs.
On the way back home, I focused on my encounter with Cliff and what I’d told Riggs about him: if he stuck around, something was going down.
But I hadn’t heard a peep out of him all night that even hinted at what he might be into, or planning. Then again, I could have him pegged wrong. Maybe prison had taught him a lesson.
I slapped the steering wheel. Fuck me, I’d had the opportunity to get his last name straight, and I’d forgotten in my rush to get him away from my table. This guy was bad news. He reeked of it. Next time. Next time I’d get his name.
Slow and steady was the name of the game with the skittish ones and the dangerous ones. Cliff fell into both categories.
I pulled up to the stop sign, but before I could go ahead, that same VW with the unpainted fender pulled up on the cross street. It had to be Little Miss Distracted again.
There couldn’t be two cars like that in the state. Once burned, there was no fucking way I was getting in front of her again to get rammed. I waved her forward through my windshield, but she didn’t budge. Rules of the road be damned. I was waiting until she crossed.
A car pulled up behind her and honked when she didn’t move.
That woke her up and got her to drive through ahead of me.
I couldn’t see, but I’d bet she’d probably been reading her Instagram feed or some such bullshit.
Debbie
“What are you doing here?” Willy asked through the crack of the door.
“I need help,” I answered.
He closed the door. The security chain rattled, and he opened it wide.
I slid in through the doorway with my backpack slung over my shoulder.
He closed the door behind me, and his pale blues raked over me, lingering—as they always had—at my chest. “What kind of help?”
I shuffled my feet, embarrassed by my simple request. “I need a place to crash tonight.”
“Why?” His eyes weren’t the kind ones I’d expected.