“He’s problem-free,” I said.
The guy continued staring at Angie’s breasts with eyes that looked as if they’d been zapped with a lightning bolt and seared of life.
Dave brought his beers, and the guy picked them up.
“These two are asking about Helene,” Dave said.
“Yeah?” The guy’s voice was so flat it was hard to tell if he had a pulse. He pulled his two beers in between our heads and tilted the mug in his left hand so that some beer spilled on my shoe.
I looked down at my shoe, then back up into his eyes. His breath smelled like an athlete’s sock. He waited for me to respond. When I didn’t, he looked at the mugs in his hands and his fingers tightened around the handles. He looked back up at me, and those stunted eyes were black holes.
“I don’t have a problem,” he said. “Maybe you do.”
I shifted my weight slightly in my chair so that my elbow had more leverage on the bar in case I had to bob or weave suddenly and waited for the guy to make whatever move was floating through his head like a cancer cell.
He looked down at his hands again. “Maybe you do,” he repeated loudly, and then stepped out from in between us.
We watched him walk back to his friend by the pool table. His friend took his beer, and the guy with the shaved head gestured in our direction.
“Did Helene have a big drug problem?” Angie asked Big Dave.
“The fuck would I know?” Big Dave said. “You implying something?”
“Dave,” I said.
“Big Dave,” he corrected me.
“Big Dave,” I said. “I don’t care if you keep kilos under the bar. And I don’t care if you sell them to Helene McCready on a daily basis. We just want to know if she had enough of a drug problem that she was in deep to somebody.”
He held my gaze for about thirty seconds, long enough for me to see how much of a badass he was. Then he watched some more TV.
“Big Dave,” Angie said.
He turned his bison’s head.
“Is Helene an addict?”
“You know,” Big Dave said, “you’re pretty hot. You ever want to go a few rounds with a real man, give a call.”
Angie said, “You know some?”
Big Dave looked back up at the TV.
Angie and I glanced at each other. She shrugged. I shrugged. The attention-deficit afflicting Helene and her friends was apparently widespread enough to fill a psych ward.
“She didn’t have no big debts,” Big Dave said. “She’s into me for maybe sixty bucks. If she was into anybody else for…party favors, I’d have heard about it.”
“Hey, Big Dave,” one of the men down the end of the bar called, “you ask her yet if she blows?”
Big Dave held out his arms to them and shrugged. “Ask her yourself.”
“Hey, honey,” the man called. “Hey, honey.”
“What about guys?” Angie kept her eyes on Dave, her voice clear, as if whatever these assholes were talking about had nothing to do with her. “Was she seeing anybody who might be pissed off at her?”
“Hey, honey,” the man called. “Look at me. Look over here. Hey, honey.”
Big Dave chuckled and turned away from the four guys long enough to put a fresh head on his beer. “There’s chicks who can make you crazy, and chicks you’d fight over.” He smiled over his pint glass at Angie. “You, for instance.”
“And Helene?” I said.
Big Dave smiled at me as if he thought his come-ons to Angie had me worried. He glanced down the bar at the four men. He winked.
“And Helene?” I repeated.
“You saw her. She’s all-right looking. She’d do, I guess. But one look at her, you know she ain’t worth much in the sack.” He leaned on the bar in front of Angie. “Now, you, I bet you’ve fucked guys in half. Right, honey?”
She shook her head and chuckled softly.
All four guys at the bar were fully awake now. They watched us with high beams in their pupils.
Lenny’s son came off his stool and walked over to the door.
Angie looked down at the bar top, fingered her grimy coaster.
“Don’t look away when I’m talking to you,” Big Dave said. His voice was thicker now, as if his throat were clogged with phlegm.
Angie raised her head, looked at him.
“That’s better.” Big Dave leaned in closer. His left arm slid off the bar and reached for something below.
There was a loud snap in the still bar as Lenny’s son turned the bolt on the front door.
So this is how it happens. A woman with intelligence, pride, and beauty enters a place like this and the men get a glimpse of all they’ve been missing, all they can never have. They’re forced to confront the deficiencies of character that drove them to a dump like this in the first place. Hate, envy, and regret all smash through their stunted brains at once. And they decide to make the woman regret, too-regret her intelligence, her beauty, and, especially, her pride. They decide to smash back, pin the woman to the bar, spew and gorge.
I looked at the glass front of the cigarette machine, saw my reflection and the reflection of two men behind me. They approached from the pool table, sticks in hand, the bald one in the lead.
“Helene McCready,” Big Dave said, his eyes still locked on Angie, “is a nothing. A loser. Means her kid woulda been a loser. So whatever happened to the kid, she’s better off. What I don’t like is people coming in my bar, implying I’m a dealer, running their mouths like they’re better than me.”
Lenny’s son leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Dave,” I said.
“Big Dave,” he said through gritted teeth, his eyes never leaving Angie.
“Dave,” I said, “don’t be a fuckup here.”
“Did you hear him, Big Dave?” Angie said, a hint of tremor in her voice. “Don’t be stupid.”
I said, “Look at me, Dave.”
Dave glanced in my direction, more to check on the progress of the two pool players coming up behind me than because of what I’d said, and his head froze as he spotted the.45 Colt Commander in my waistband.
I’d moved it there from the holster at the small of my back the moment Lenny’s son had walked over to block the door, and Dave raised his eyes from my waist to my face and quickly recognized the difference between someone who exposes a gun for show and someone who does so to use it.
“Either of those guys behind me takes another step,” I told Big Dave, “and this situation’s going nuclear.”
Dave glanced over my shoulder and shook his head quickly.
“Tell that asshole to move away from the door,” Angie said.
“Ray,” Big Dave called, “sit back down.”
“Why?” Ray said. “The fuck for, Big Dave? Free country and shit.”
I tapped the butt of the.45 with my index finger.
“Ray,” Big Dave said, his eyes locked on me now, “get away from the door or I’ll fucking put your head through it.”
“Okay,” Ray said. “Okay, okay. Jeez, Big Dave. I mean, jeez and shit.” Ray shook his head, but instead of returning to his seat, he unlocked the door and walked out of the bar.
“Quite the orator, our Ray,” I said.
“Let’s go,” Angie said.
“Sure.” I pushed my bar stool away with my leg.
The two pool players stood just off to my right as I turned toward the door. I glanced at the one who’d spilled beer on my shoe. He held his pool stick upside down in both hands, the hilt resting on his shoulder. He was stupid enough to still be standing there, but not so stupid he was going to move any closer.
