Day duty isn’t so bad. Mostly married businessmen on business trips who had wives back home who had gotten fat. They come in for a drink and a look-see, and maybe later they could get it up enough to jerk off back at the motel.
My boss, Billy Joe James, was sitting at a table auditioning a new girl who was dancing pitifully to a tune playing on a cheap recorder. She had about as much rhythm as a stick. She didn’t look bad, however. She was mostly ass, titties, and a dull expression. Looked about thirty, but a good thirty. She had a watery-looking tattoo of a red heart on her ass, and a red and blue tattoo that might have been a parrot, but could have been most anything, on her ankle.
Billy Joe saw me and Leonard, smiled at us. He waved the girl from the stage. She came down the steps like her feet hurt, which considering a large part of her outfit was a pair of tall red high heels, was likely. The rest of her had on a red G-string that was mostly up her twat.
When she came over to Billy Joe’s table, he said something to her and slapped her on the ass. She shrieked like it was all in good fun, grabbed her shirt off his table, and went away. She passed us, pulling on her long shirt, and the expression on her face told me she wasn’t having any kind of fun at all.
We went over and sat at the table and Billy Joe smiled at me. Billy Joe had a fat face any mother would love to hit. Many times. He said, “You ain’t come for money, I hope.”
“Actually, I have.”
Billy Joe nodded, wiped fingers through his oil-slicked brown hair. “Figures.” He looked at Leonard. “How’s it goin’, Pine?”
“It’s goin’,” Leonard said.
“You know I don’t pay nothing until Saturday morning,” Billy Joe said. “It’s always Saturday mornin’ that I pay.”
“Well, you know,” Leonard said, “right now, it’s bound to be Saturday mornin’ somewhere in the world, don’t you think?”
Billy Joe laughed a little, not like he thought the joke was all that goddamn funny, but like maybe a good yuk might take some of the seriousness out of Leonard’s looks.
“I got a little emergency here,” I said. “And I’m quitting.”
“Quitting? You can’t quit.”
“I just did.”
“Oh, shit, man, you’re my main bouncer. You can’t quit.”
“Just said I did.”
“You can’t.”
“I believe you’re not listenin’ to the man,” Leonard said. “Sounds like he’s quittin’ to me.”
“Shit.” Billy Joe looked at Leonard. “What about you, Pine? You lookin’ for work?”
“Not here I’m not.”
“You got a rep too. You’re one hell of a bouncer.”
“Not anymore. I’ve given up that profession. That and rose field worker and lay preacher are no longer on my resume.”
“I pay pretty good, and hey, you get to look at a lot of titties.”
“I’ve seen titties and they don’t interest me much.”
“You some kind of fag?”
“Actually, I am.”
Billy Joe studied Leonard for a moment. “Yeah. Really?”
“Really,” Leonard said.
Billy Joe looked at me. “You and him? You know … you and him?”
“Only if my latest relationship with a female doesn’t work out,” I said. “Then, I got to consider it. I might even consider some bestiality. Come on, Billy Joe. I need my money and I need it now.”
Billy Joe nodded. “All right. But you decide you want to work again. Or you want to work, Pine. You come see me, okay? It don’t matter to me you’re queer. No offense. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” Leonard said. “I know what you mean.”
“We want to bounce,” I said, “you’ll be our first contact.”
Billy Joe pulled a wad of cash from his pants pocket, counted out the bills as if he was pulling each one from his intestines. I took my money and we left.
Out in Leonard’s truck, Leonard said, “Now I know why you take a long hot shower every mornin’ you come home from work.”
Back at Leonard’s I packed a suitcase, went into town to see Brett. I took her out to dinner on some of my money, told her our plans, then we went back to her place, sat on the couch and shared a nonalcoholic beer.
I told her about Haskel and the guns, about Leonard and the armadillo. I showed her the notepad with Leonard’s and my names on it I had taken from Haskel.
I took the pad over to her sink and set fire to it. We talked while it burned on the porcelain. When it was finally all gone, I flushed the ashes down the drain and turned on the garbage disposal. Brett got us another beer, and we sat on the couch and passed it back and forth.
