'They got the story straight?' I said.
'Mostly,' Jeannie said. 'Nobody seems to know about you moving the sign.'
'Good,' I said.
Croy yelled down the counter at me.
'How about Jeannie the Queenie,' he said. 'Have any fun with her in the woods?'
'You shut your mouth, Croy,' Jeannie said.
'Bet you did,' Croy said. 'She hot, Spenser?'
I looked at him silently, the way I'd seen my father do when people annoyed him.
'No sense shouting back and forth,' my father used to say. 'If it's not worth fighting about, then it's not worth a lot of mouth. If it is worth fighting over, then you may as well get straight to it.'
So far it wasn't worth fighting about.
But it was close.
'Look at that, Barry,' Croy said to his friend. 'Spenser the river hero is giving me a cold stare. Hot damn, is that scary or what?'
Barry was not a threat. He was a tough guy by association, hanging around with Croy probably made him feel important. He nodded.
'Scary,' he said.
'I'm betting it's 'cause he don't know what to say, 'cause they did it and he don't want to admit it.'
'I'm betting that too,' Barry said.
'He do it to you, Jeannie Queenie?'
I stood up.
'I'll be back,' I said.
Jeannie's face had an odd flush to it. I walked down to where Croy was sitting and jerked my head at the door.
'What?' Croy said. 'You want to go outside?'
I nodded and kept walking toward the door.
'You little twerp,' Croy said. 'You want to fight me?'
'Yep,' I said, and went out the front door and walked down the three steps and turned and waited. In a minute Croy pushed the door open. His face looked a little tight. He was mostly mouth and probably deep down he knew it.
'You sure you want to do this, kid?' Croy said.
'Yep.'
'I don't want to hurt you,' Croy said.
I put my hands up, like I did every weekday evening with my father and my uncles and had done every weekday evening with my father and my uncles since I was six.
'Good,' I said. 'But I want to hurt you.'
He didn't like the boxing stance. But he was too far into this to back out. People had crowded out of Martin's to watch. He was stuck. He came down the step and walked at me.
I stuck a left jab onto his nose to stop him. It did stop him and it made his nose bleed. He shook his head and
