“Roscoe was a bulldog. Died before I was born.”
“I’ll wait out here.” She turned and saw that the man who had been on the corner was standing across the street in the window of another bar, staring at her. When she looked into his eyes, he averted them. She opened the door to Roscoe’s and slipped inside.
“Lock it back,” the boy called from behind the bar.
“You have a phone?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said. “Pay phone.”
My purse is in my book bag! Erin reached into her pocket, but it was empty. She heard the sound of pool balls clicking in a back room and laughter. “Aren’t you closed?” she asked.
He turned his head toward the back room and then back to her. “My brother and some of his friends. Waiting for my dad for a handout. He’s gonna kill me for letting them in. They’re assholes.” He placed a quarter on the bar, and she took it. “I’ll pay you when my boyfriend gets here.”
“No prob,” he said.
She dialed the number Eric had given her. It rang and then a woman picked it up.
“Hello,” she said.
“Is Eric there?”
“Eric is taking his music lesson.”
“Where?”
“In the den. Who is this?”
“This is Erin Masterson. I’m a friend of Eric’s.”
“Might I take your number and have him call you after the lesson?”
“Could you get him to the phone for a second?”
“Sorry, Erin, I can’t interrupt.”
“How long is the lesson?”
“It’s over at four.”
“He must have forgotten the lesson, I guess?”
“No, the lesson is every Tuesday and Thursday. Is there a message?”
“No. Wait. Yes.” She thought for a minute, anger building at the betrayal. “Tell him he’s a liar. No, tell him he has no honor.”
Erin hung up, and when she turned, there was a beer on the bar between her and the boy who was busy cleaning glasses.
“You want the beer?” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “But I’m presently undercapitalized.”
He looked at her and tilted his head slightly.
“Broke.”
He smiled crookedly. She took a swallow, and her eyes teared from the cold, alien bite.
“He ain’t coming, huh?” the boy said. “It was me, I’d come.”
She thought he was sort of cute except that his head was all but shaved, his ears were big, and his unevenly spaced eyes were slightly different sizes. But he had a nice way about him. He was a boy with adult responsibilities.
“I don’t think so. Screw him.”
“Jaaaaackieee rat!” a voice boomed from the other room. The bead curtain parted, and a large man in his late thirties dressed in a black leather vest and jeans came into the room. His chest was filled with thick black hair. “You fuckin’ punk. Bring us a round. Well, well, well, little brother. You want to introduce me to your sweetheart?”
“This is my brother. He’s not really a doctor, he just looks like one.”
The man laughed out loud. His hair was black stubble. His skin was blue-white, and there were numerous homemade tattoos on his arms and chest. He moved up to stand beside the stool Erin was seated on, his unfocused eyes pinned on her.
“Buy you a drink?” he said.
“No, I have to go,” she said. He was scaring her.
“Stick around.”
“No, really. I have to go.” She moved.
“Come on, I insist. One little drink and you can go.”
Erin watched as the bottle arrived. The boy started to pour a jigger, but the man slapped it away, reached over the bar, and picked up a freshly washed mug. He poured three inches into the bottom and pushed it to her.
“I’m tellin’ Dad. That shit’s like forty bucks a bottle, wholesale.”
“I don’t drink whiskey,” she said.
“Leave her be,” the boy said.
“That’s a solid suggestion,” a voice said.
Erin looked up to see Woody standing in the doorway that led to the back room. The two other men who had been playing pool were standing behind him holding their cues. He walked out into the room. The two men followed menacingly, their eyes blurred by drink and drugs. Woody stopped three feet from the bar. The taller of the men behind Woody had a large ring through his nose. The agent didn’t even look at them.
“She’s old enough to do what she wants,” the biker said.
“Actually, she’s only fifteen,” Woody said.
The men moved farther into the room.
“He came straight in through the back door like he owned the place,” one said.
Woody crossed to the front door, unlocked and opened it for Sean. The agent walked in, glaring at Erin.
“What you guys want with her?” the biker at the bar asked.
Sean opened his badge case, and the biker looked at it.
“I don’t want to go home,” she said.
“Oh, DEA! Nice badge, but there’s no drugs here and the kid don’t wanna go. No tellin’ what you got planned for her. I know how you feds operate.” He put his hand behind his back as though he was reaching for something. Sean put a hand on the butt of his weapon inside the jacket.
“I’ll bet you do,” Woody said. “Why don’t you just sit on your hands? I? you’re thinking about pulling whatever you got back there, I have to warn you that I’m going to disarm you.”
The other two had moved up beside Erin and the biker.
“We don’t want any trouble,” Sean said.
“I’ll go,” Erin said weakly.
“You don’t gotta,” the biker said. “These cheese dicks got no authority here. This ain’t a federal deal.”
Woody moved to Erin, his face inches from the biker. “Erin, get up and walk to the door.”
The biker at the bar cut his eyes at his friends, and as he did, he swung his left hand, which held Erin’s mug, toward Woody’s face. With one fluid motion Woody caught the man’s wrist and allowed the swing to continue until the man was off balance. Then, using the man’s weight and the motion of the swing against him, he reversed it and there was a sickening pop as the bones in the wrist broke. The biker was left holding his limp hand in his right one like a sleeping puppy.
The other two men stepped back with their pool cues upraised defensively. “Jesus!” the larger one said, stumbling.
“Jesus!” Erin repeated.
Then Woody turned to the biker, slapped him hard across the face, and when the man turned from the blow, Woody lifted the large hunting knife from behind his belt. Woody looked at the blade for a second, then lifted the knife over his head. The biker collapsed against the bar as the blade came down in an arc and was driven so deeply into the bar’s surface that little more than the handle was showing.
“Hot damn!” the boy behind the bar said, amazed. He reached out and touched the handle tentatively. Then he gripped it with both hands and pushed and pulled for a few seconds with everything he had, but the knife wouldn’t waver.
The other two men had backed up all the way to the door leading to the pool room.
