and settled into their usual places at the far end of the counter nearest the door. Angie brought two vodkas along with Coors draft chasers without bothering to ask. They always ordered the same thing anyway, and it was too hard waiting for them to stop yammering long enough to get a word in edgewise. The two old guys, both former underground miners, had been retired from Phelps Dodge for at least twenty years. They were relatively harmless maintenance drunks who had to keep a certain amount of liquor in their systems to keep from dipping into DTs. Their ongoing arguments never caused much trouble, although Angie always hoped the conversations would steer clear of politics or religion.
If it had been just the two of them, Angie might have tried to grab a few more minutes’ worth of study time, but they were joined by another noon time imbiber, Don Frost, who meandered in out of the Gulch and settled onto his usual barstool. Don, part of Bisbee’s arts community, was a sculptor specializing in what he called “Mixed Media Dreg Art.” Frost’s pieces consisted of hunks of discarded junk, glued and/or welded together Sometimes, on a good day, they were even painted. Although Don Frost’s work was prominently displayed in galleries around town, they seldom ever sold. He subsisted on monthly checks from some kind of trust fund that allowed him to drink and eat as long as he lived in a $150-a month apartment above an abandoned Mom-and Pop grocery store up Tombstone Canyon.
Sometimes, toward the end of the month and toward the end of that month’s money, Don Frost would come into the Blue Moon and hit up Bobo for a loan to tide him over. Bobo was always careful to ask for an accounting at the beginning of the next month.
“It’s good business,” Bobo told Angie with a sly grin, “Sure I lend him money, and he always pays me back from the next check. And that keeps it all in the family-he borrows here and drinks here too.”
Twenty-three-year-old Angie liked working as Bobos relief bartender, her first-ever nonhooking employment. It was honest work that enabled her to keep up the payments on a modest two bedroom house that had once served as company housing. It allowed her to indulge in her new found hobby of bird feeding while still maintaining most of the cash nest egg Joanna Brady had helped her finesse away from Adam York and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Most of the time Angie enjoyed her job, but some of the customers got to her-Don Frost most of all. An obnoxious loudmouth and self-appointed expert in everything, Frost freely shared with Angie his encyclopedic knowledge of mixology and was forever offering her unsolicited advice as she struggled with learning the intricacies of her new job.
Don Frost landed himself quite a catch, always hinting that there was a whole lot more money where the trust funds came from, and whatever woman was lucky enough to land him would be in for quite a ride. Since Angie was literally the “new girl in town,” Frost maintained a constant barrage of what he regarded as flirtatious banter. He had even gone so far as to bring in one of his recently completed works of art for her approval. Angie Kellogg’s taste in art was fairly unsophisticated. When Don assured her this was a five thousand dollar piece, she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to pay that much money for a chunk of painted garbage. Had Angie still been working the streets, one dose of Don Frost would have been more than enough. But here he was one of Bobo’s regulars, someone whose daily presence contributed to both paychecks and tips. So she made the best of it.
With a sigh, Angie plucked the driver’s training manual off the counter. As she slipped it into her purse and stowed it under the bar, Don noticed. “So when do you take the exam?” he asked.
“Soon,” she replied.
The stranger in the booth caught Angie’s eye and waved to her. “I’ll have another,” he called.
Angie left Don Frost sitting at the bar and went to mix the bloody Mary. “When you make up your mind,” she said over her shoulder, “let me know.”
When she came back from delivering that drink, Frost was ready to order his early-in-the-month Kahlu’a and coffee. By the end of the month, he’d be down to beer spiked with occasional shots of tequila.
“Why do you suppose Mr. Burton Kimball is out slumming?” Frost demanded morosely, nodding toward the stranger in the booth as Angie put the chipped coffee mug down in front of him.
“I’ve never known him to set foot in the Gulch.”
“Who’s Burton Kimball?”
“If Bisbee had a Mayflower, Burton Kimball’s family would have been on it. It’s his uncle’s case that’S supposed to start in Judge Moore’s court tomorrow. You’ve probably heard about it. The daughter claims her old man liked to play hide the salami with her when she was little. Now she’s hired herself a lawyer, and she’s taking his ass to court, suing him for damages.”
“Good for her,” Angie said, and hurried down the bar to bring Willy and Archie another pair of beers.
“You got something against men?” Don Frost asked, when she came back past him.
“Only ones who mess with their daughters,” she replied.
“You’re not one of those feminists, are you?”
“A what?”
“Don’t you ever listen to Rush Limbaugh?”
“Who?”
“That jerk on the radio. I don’t listen to him either,” Don Frost said, pushing his cup away “He makes me sick. Give me another.”
Angie poured herself a cup of coffee at the same time she made Don Frost’s drink. “Let me give you some advice about when you take the driving part of your test,” Frost said. “Signal for every thing. And keep checking the rearview mirror. They mark you off if you don’t check that enough. Do you know the manual forward and backward?”
Angie shook her head. “I should have spent more time studying over the weekend, but I was busy with the phone bank.”
“Fun bank?” a puzzled Archie McBride called from down the bar. Years of setting off dynamite blasts and loading ore cars underground had left Archie very hard of hearing. His twenty-six-year old hearing aid had finally given up the ghost and he refused to buy another.
“How the hell does a fun bank work?” he demanded loudly. “And where do we sign up? Right, Willy?”
