“Reams, buddy. Any calls for me?” Morgan heard his own voice loud in his ears. Good. A time to be loud. Let the trumpets sound.
“Morgan?”
“Morgan.”
“Glad you phoned.” Reams woke up, spoke more clearly. “I scheduled a breakfast with a Professor Klein. That one-year job I told you about. Klein runs things over at San Gabriel College. He can get you on the short list.”
“I didn’t ask you about that,” Morgan said.
“What?”
“Did I have any calls?”
“What? Here in the room? No, no calls.”
“Not from-” He almost said her name. That might not be good. They all had to work together in the same department. “Not from a woman? Did a woman call?”
“I told you. No calls.”
“Goddammit.” Morgan hung up. He almost dialed Annette’s room but knew it was a bad idea.
He went back to his table in the lounge. Somebody was sitting there. A man.
“Hey,” Morgan said.
The man looked up. A crooked smile. Jowls. A cheap suit, polyester and wrinkled. Red eyes. “Your table?” he said.
“Yes.”
He stood. “Sorry.” He rubbed his chin stubble with hairy knuckles. “Nobody around this time of night. Nobody to talk to. How about I sit down, buy you a drink.”
“Sure.” Morgan sat.
“I’m Deke.”
Morgan gave his name, and they shook hands.
“Here for the conference?” Morgan asked.
Deke Stubbs shook his head. “Other business.”
Stubbs bought Morgan a martini. He drank beer from a big, green bottle. Morgan asked about it.
“Grolsch,” Stubbs said. “It’s foreign. Somebody put me onto it recently.”
“That’s good. You’ve got to try new things,” Morgan said. “You’ve got to come out of your groundhog hole.”
“How’s that?”
“We all live in little holes,” Morgan said. He slurred his words, swayed in his seat. He took a swig of the martini. Most of it ran down his chin. “Got to come out of our holes and screw and drink foreign beer and run back in before anybody sees us.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stubbs said.
“Something to do with God and life and stationary bicycles.”
“Maybe you’ve had enough.”
“Maybe.”
Stubbs put a cigarette in his mouth. “You don’t mind, right?”
“No. Good idea.” Morgan pulled out one of his cigars, bit the end off, and spit it like Jones had shown him.
Stubbs lit his cigarette, then Morgan’s cigar. Both men puffed. They sat back in a gray-blue cloud of tobacco. A couple of guys enjoying drinks and a smoke. Sudden chums at the end of a long day. Morgan was seized with an irrational fondness for the man. How friendly to buy him a drink, keep him company during his fruitless brooding over Annette Grayson.
“Let’s get some pancakes,” Morgan said.
“Is the kitchen open?”
“We’ll go someplace, get out of this fucking hotel.” Morgan pushed his drink away, stood, almost tumbled over the table. Stubbs caught him.
“We’ll find someplace open,” Morgan said. “Come on. I got a car we can use.”
“Okay, sport,” Stubbs said. “You lead the way.”
Morgan made a point of verbally abusing the parking valet, then felt guilty and tipped him twenty bucks when he brought Dirk Jakes’s Mercedes. Morgan took the wheel, and Stubbs climbed into the passenger’s side.
“That way out of the parking garage.” Stubbs pointed straight ahead.
Morgan maneuvered the car, circled down a level. His steady hands on the wheel surprised him. He knew he was drunk.
“You don’t got any shoes.” Stubbs watched him work the pedals.
“I don’t need any goddamn shoes!”
He circled the garage, followed the EXIT signs. A red vest caught his eye, a guy walking along the edge of the garage, cute little bow tie pulled loose. It was the prick from the gift shop, off work. He was walking toward the big Dumpster in the corner. Morgan hit the accelerator, bore down on him, teeth clenched, eyes blazing.
Stubbs grabbed at his seat belt. “What the hell’s the hurry?”
The prick stopped, turned. His eyes bulged, grew to the size of headlights, mouth pulled tight in terror. He ran.
Morgan followed, honked the horn.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Stubbs yelled.
Morgan swerved, came within two inches of the prick’s knee. The prick dove, screaming fear. He landed in a pile of garbage bags. The Mercedes roared by, tires squealing as it made the turn down to the next level.
Morgan’s face was a mask of feral joy, wicked contentment. He laughed, and it sounded like the devil.
They didn’t go for pancakes.
Deke Stubbs talked Morgan into heading for the Gulf, where he’d seen billboards advertising titty bars near the beach. Since it was a thirty-minute drive, they stopped at a liquor store and purchased nine small bags of BBQ chips, a six-pack of Busch, and more cigarettes for Stubbs.
Stubbs was having a problem. He liked Morgan. Morgan told him all about the prick at the Sheraton gift shop. Stubbs hated little smart-ass guys like that. Morgan told him about Annette Grayson, the sudden boink, the woman’s lightning change of heart. Stubbs hated women like that. So superior. They’d slum with a guy, then try to cover it.
Morgan wasn’t a pompous, know-it-all, snob professor. He seemed to be a regular guy just trying to get some action, have a few laughs, live his life like anybody else. Stubbs would feel real bad when he turned Morgan’s lights out and made off with the cocaine-if he could find it. It would be a shame since Morgan appeared to be a stand-up guy.
These were Stubbs’s thoughts at a dark, corner table at The Shag Hut just outside of Galveston. The marquee boasted 75 Beautiful Women & 3 Ugly Ones. Onstage a woman named Cricket and another woman named Jade seemed unnaturally interested in one another. One of the women-Jade? — was a curvy Hispanic lady, round ass, hanging tits, an enormous pile of midnight hair. The other was willowy, pale, blond, barely eighteen- maybe.
Morgan swayed with the show, chin in hand, elbow on table. His eyelids were heavy.
“I’d sure like to be in between that,” Stubbs said, nodding at the stage show.
Morgan said, “MmmHmmmm.”
“I’m going to take the car keys a minute,” Stubbs said. “I left my smokes in the Mercedes.”
Morgan waved his disinterest.
Stubbs went outside. He smelled the ocean, the Gulf of Mexico actually. It was a good smell. Maybe when everything was settled, he’d move near the ocean. Not right on the beach. He hated the beach, hated sunburn and sand in his ass crack and screaming kids and surfers. But close to the water where he could smell it and get fresh seafood. Maybe near a pier. He’d never fished, but he thought he might like it.
