“No. But I dig Merle Haggard.”
“My name’s Ken.”
I shook his hand and said, “Nick.”
Wanda served our pig’s feet on paper plates set next to plastic forks and then poured Ken a shot of rail whiskey. Ken knocked back half of it posthaste and cupped his hand protectively around the glass as he set it down on the bar. Billy ignored the fork, picked up the pig’s foot, and began to chew meat off the bone. I tasted a sliver of mine, rejected the texture, and pushed the plate in front of Billy. The juke was playing Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” I lit a cigarette and ran my hand back through my hair.
Two men stood by the kitchen door at the far side of the room. One was heavy and dark-skinned and wore an eggshell apron stained brown around his waist. The other was tall and lean and wore Wrangler jeans and {ler heavy a brown flannel shirt unbuttoned once to expose a triangle of white T-shirt at the base of the neck. Both of them stared at me until I looked away. When I looked back their attention remained fixed. I turned to Ken.
Ken said, “You like Randy Travis?”
“Uh-uh.” I said. “You ever listen to Gram Parsons?” Ken’s eyes traveled back up to the ceiling as he thought it over and shook his head. “How about Rodney Crowell?”
“That’s that boy married to Johnny Cash’s girl, right?”
I nodded. “Had a great single on the country charts, seven or eight years back-‘Ashes by Now.’”
“Yeah,” Ken said. “I remember it. He’s pretty damn good.”
I turned my head to the left. Billy dropped what was left of the pink-and-yellow pig’s foot to the plate and wiped a paper napkin across his mouth. He chin-nodded the two by the kitchen door. The tall one nodded back without emotion.
I said, “I don’t think those two like us.”
“They’re all right.”
“You know ’em?”
Billy had a long, even taste of the bourbon and winced. He set the glass back down on the bar. “Black dude with the apron’s named Russel. Local boy, knew April when they were young. The tall hard guy’s Hendricks-a state cop. Grew up in Nanjemoy on the other side of Three-oh-one. Rides out of La Plata but spends a lot of time around the island. Don’t take it personal. It’s me they don’t like.”
“Maybe I should talk to ’em.”
“Suit yourself. Want an introduction?”
“No.”
I killed my bourbon, stubbed my smoke, and picked up my beer. Ken suggested another round, but I ignored him as I pushed away from the bar and followed the curve of the U. I swerved by two old guys with winter sunburns and dirty hands and was clapped on the shoulder by one of Flattop’s crew as I passed his back. His crossed eyes zeroed in on my chest as he sang, “I’m gonna stick… like glue.”
The one with the apron, Russel, turned on his heels as I approached. By the time I reached the end of the bar, he had retreated into the fluorescence of the kitchen. That left me and Hendricks.
Hendricks looked in my eyes evenly and for a long time. I studied his as he did it. He had the clean, open face of a man who works hard every day and likes it. His eyes were dark blue, framed by short bursts of lines and set wide; his broad mouth stretched out across a stone jaw. I put him at about my age, though weathered by the elements.
“How’s it goin’?” he said.
“It’s goin’ good.”
“You about done nursin’ that beer?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s have another.”
“Sounds good.” I finished off the bottle. “But I’m buying, okay? Makes sense to buy the local cop a beer when you’re in his county.”
Hendricks grinned just enough to lift one cheek. “I won’t stop you,” he said.
“My name’s Nick Stefanos.”
“Hendricks.”
I signaled Wanda with a sweeping victory sign and had her serve another shot to Ken. Billy was off and talking to a huge bearded man in a Red Man cap who stood blocking the front door like a bear in overalls. The bearman’s narrow eyes were obtusely pointed to the floor as Billy talked. When the beers came I raised mine to Hendricks and had a swig. The floor tilted somewhat beneath my feet. I wrapped a hand around the curved lip of the bar.
Hendricks said, “Which one of you lovers is drivin’?”
I pointed the neck of the Bud at Billy. “We’re not going far. Sleeping at April Goodrich’s farm tonight.” I closed one eye a bit to focus on Hendricks. “You know her?”
“Knew her before she was named Goodrich,” he said.
“Seen her lately?”
“That what you came down here for? Lookin’ for April?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s it about. Personal?”
“It is for him.” I glanced quickly toward Billy and back to Hendricks. “For me it’s a job.”
Hendricks said, “You’re no cop.”
I shook my head. “Private.”
Hendricks thought about that over a long, slow pull of beer. He placed the bottle softly on the bar, looked my way, and relaxed his shoulders. “So what happened to your face?”
I rubbed it and felt the swell. “To tell you the truth, I don’t remember. We made a night of it, I guess.”
“It’s not a bad face,” Hendricks said frankly. “But you can’t tell a thing about a man when you meet him on a drunk. And right now I don’t know nuthin’ about you but your name. You want to talk to me, I’ll be around the island tomorrow.”
“Fair enough.” I shook his hand.
“You take care, now.”
Just then Hank Williams, Jr., roared out of the juke and Ken began to yell, from across the bar, “Bocephus! Boceeeephus!” He was pointing at me and smiling and with one hand keeping the cap on his head as he bucked like a rodeo clown on the red vinyl stool. I weaved recklessly across the smoky bar, past Flattop and his send-off crew (his uncle or father appeared to be holding {o bn the young man upright now at the bar), and made it over to Billy. Ken was off his stool and at my side by the time I reached Billy and the bearman.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Billy tried to focus one eye. A block of his blond hair had fallen over the other. “Had enough?”
“Yeah.”
“One more stop, though.”
“Where?”
“Place called Rock Point.”
Ken let out a small whoop and I thought I saw the bearman break a tobacco-stained smile. I handed Billy some bills and he put those together with some of his own and left them all in a leafy heap on the bar. Wanda flicked her chin at him and then at me by way of thanks. Hank Williams, Jr., was still pumping out the bar-band jam as the four of us proceeded to fall out the front door. When I turned around for one final glance at the joint, Russel and Hendricks were standing in the entranceway to the kitchen. They were talking to each other, but they were looking dead straight at me.
The four of us crashed like a wave into Billy’s Maxima and headed north on 254. I handed a tape I had lifted from the Spot over the seat to the bearman and had him slip it into the deck. Steve Earle’s “I’m the Other Kind” immediately boomed out of the rear-mounted speakers like some Wagnerian, biker-bar anthem. The bearman turned up the volume and clumsily moved his head to the beat. I watched it bob from behind like a hairy, floating melon. Ken sang the romantic wind-road-and-bike chorus (in between screaming praise about Earle’s band, the Dukes-he called them the “Dee-yukes”) and passed beers all around.
At 257 Billy turned sharply right, spit gravel, then recovered his course onto a crudely paved road that soon