German beer called DAB and say, “Evening.” His eyes were surprisingly mild, but maybe that was because he was working.
“Evening,” Keenan agreed. “I believe I’ll have a draft.”
“Bud or Coors Light?”
“Bud.”
McWhitney went away to draw the beer, and Keenan thought how strange it was, even in a joint like this they offered you a light beer. The world was filling up with people, it seemed to him, who pulled their punches everywhere they went in life. Light beer, decaf coffee, low-sodium seltzer. About the only thing along that line that hadn’t found a market was the grass cigarette.
McWhitney brought the Bud, and Keenan slid a ten onto the bar. McWhitney picked it up, tapped the bar with a knuckle, and went away to make change. When he brought it back, Keenan said, “I’m lookin for a fella.”
McWhitney paused, hand above the dollar bills. The eyes got less mild, more concentrated. Moving his hand down to his side, he said, “Yeah?”
“Mike Harbin. I was told you—”
McWhitney leaned back, holding on to the edge of the bar with one hand as he looked left and right at his other customers and called out, “Anybody here know a Mike Harbin?”
The grunted nos that came back seemed to rise from people who were asleep. Before McWhitney could relay that response, Keenan grinned at him, pals together, and said, “No,
The eyes now were not mild at all. They peered at Keenan as though trying to read behind his eyes, into his brain. “That’s who I am,” he said.
“Well, then,” Keenan said, grinning as though there were no tension anywhere in the room, “you’re an old pal of Mike Harbin. I’m Roy Keenan, by the way. Nick Dalesia told me you know where I could find Mike.”
Puzzlement entered McWhitney’s expression—puzzlement and something else Keenan couldn’t quite read. “Nick
A small voice inside told Keenan this might be a mistake he was making here, but he’d started now, so he kept on with it: “Sure. I talked to him on the phone yesterday, at his place up in Massachusetts.”
“You’ve got Nick Dalesia’s phone number.” Said flat.
“Right here in my pocket,” Keenan told him, patting the pocket. “Why, you need to call him, check up on me?”
“I don’t need to call Nick Dalesia,” McWhitney said. “But he told you, did he, I know where Mike Harbin is?”
“Sure. He said you could help me. I mean, there’s no trouble for anybody in this, I’m just looking him up for a friend.”
McWhitney leaned back again to look at his other customers, then came closer to say, “I’ll be closing pretty soon. Stick around, drink your beer, we’ll talk after I close up.”
“Fine.”
Keenan sipped his beer and wondered if he should call Sandra to come in. To switch the radio in his pocket on and off would make one click on her radio, and she’d know from that to come in but not to know him, to be just another customer.
No, the problems with that were too many. A beautiful woman walking into this place at this moment would be just too strange. McWhitney would have to know that he and Sandra were connected somehow, and their pretending not to be connected would make him even more suspicious than he already was. And he wouldn’t be able to shut the place if he suddenly had this new customer.
No, the thing to do was leave her out there for now, sip his beer, and wait for the other customers to realize it was time to go home.
Which took about fifteen minutes, during which time the drinkers at the bar peeled off one by one, calling, “Night, Nels,” on the way out, and McWhitney responding to each by name. After the last one wandered out, McWhitney went around to lock the front door, and Keenan got off his bar stool to say, “You know your customers.”
“I know most people who come in here.” Done with the door, he turned away and said, “Come on in back, we can get more comfortable. Lemme show you the way.”
“Sure.”
McWhitney led the way to the end of the bar, where he paused to click off the lights behind them. Ahead were the restrooms and, on the left, a third unmarked door. McWhitney went to that one, pulled it open, and said, “Shut it behind you, okay?”
“Sure.”
Keenan saw a small, cluttered living room as McWhitney switched on lights, then turned to shut the door. He turned back, and the baseball bat was just coming around in its swing, aimed at his head. He flinched more than ducked, so that instead of hitting his cheekbone and ear, the bat slammed into bone higher on the side of his head.
He staggered rightward, against the wall, throwing his arms up to protect himself, yelling, “Wait! No! You got this wro—” and the bat came around again, this time smashing into his upraised left arm, midway between elbow and armpit, snapping the bone there, so that the arm dropped, useless, and amazing pain shot through him.
McWhitney stood in a tree axer’s stance, not a baseball stance. “So Nick Dalesia’s got a big mouth, does he? Thinks he’s a comical fellow, does he?”
“No, no, not like that! Let me—”
