He looked up at me. “Oh, hell.”
“How’s Harlan doing, by the way?”
Floyd didn’t quite know how to take that question. “He’ll probably live.”
He started to sit up, but I shoved him back down. “Where do you work, Floyd?”
“Henstrick Construction.”
“What kind of construction do you do? What do you build?”
“Whore houses,” he said, sneering a little.
“Is that so? Where can I find me a girl? All this exercise made me a little anxious.”
“Outside of town,” he said. “A couple hundred yards behind the bowling alley. The Curl Club. Ask for me and I’ll get you a real warm welcome.”
He tried to move away from me. I pushed him onto his back. “Do you want to help your buddy Wyatt?”
“He’s my buddy, ain’t he?”
“Do him a favor. Tell him to keep away from me. In fact, you and him should hop in your truck and take a little vacation. Vegas or something. Go have some fun. Because if I see any of you again, I’m going to spoil your whole fucking day.”
Floyd had come around enough to start getting angry again. He tried to roll away from me but winced at the pain in his ribs. He swore. “Next time I’m going to load that damn gun.”
I couldn’t take that lightly. I slugged him once on the nose. Not so hard that I’d break bones, but enough to make him taste blood. I held up his license. “Floyd O’Marra. 223 Cedar Lane. That sounds like a nice little neighborhood. Am I going to have to come to your house, Floyd? Am I going to have to burn it down? While you’re sleeping there?”
He swore at me again. He was still feeling defiant.
Damn. Floyd just wasn’t getting with the program. I couldn’t let this guy go after he’d promised to kill me. I knew very well how easy it was to get shot.
I stomped on his hands, one after the other.
He howled. Lights started turning on in the houses around the block. I didn’t care anymore. He swore at me some more, and each word was a half sob.
It wasn’t a pretty thing. It wasn’t a nice thing. But I couldn’t have some guy running around after he’d threatened to shoot me. I’m not that brave.
I knelt beside him and lifted him off the ground. I knew it made his ribs hurt. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted him to get his thirty bucks’ worth.
“Shut your mouth,” I snarled at him. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, you’re one word away from being a corpse, because the next thing I’ll stomp on is your neck. Get it? Keep away from me. Next time I won’t be such a sweetheart.”
This time Floyd understood. He nodded frantically, his eyes closed. I dropped him onto the sidewalk and collected his tire iron.
I walked toward the bar. The police car was still parked in its spot, but I circled around the block to avoid passing it again. My hip felt tender where Floyd had hit me with the iron.
On the way back, I saw another black streak from across the street. Damn. The town was full of them.
I pushed open the door to the bar and strolled in like an old friend. Sara’s mouth fell open. She backed toward the cash register, probably wishing she’d kept the door bolted. I dropped the tire iron on the bar. Loudly.
Bill was still sitting there. “Damn,” he said. “Not a mark on him.”
Sara lunged under the counter and pulled out a shotgun. The barrel was several inches too short to be legal. “Get out,” she said.
“I don’t care about you, Sara,” I said. “I don’t care what you’ve done. But I’ve come to Hammer Bay to do a job.”
“What ever,” she said. “Get out.”
She was scared, but not of me. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Does Wyatt buy meth or does he make it himself?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Please. You can’t tell me you don’t know what’s going on.”
Bill chuckled. “Sure she can. She’s a tough girl, but she’s a little napve.”
I turned to Bill. “Which is it, then?”
“Wyatt buys it somewhere south of here, then sells it in the lot at his night job.”
“Are the cops clueless or paid off?” I asked.
“Paid off, I bet,” Bill said. “Considering.”
“What night job?”
Bill laughed. “The Curl Club. He keeps it low-key, though. I don’t think Henstrick has worked it all out yet.”
