Winding my way through familiar faces with forgotten names, I returned glares and scowls with defensive ones of my own and made my way toward the man behind the bar. He gave an odd double take when he saw me, then pushed a beer toward a regular at the other end of the bar. He took the bills offered and stuffed them into the till, then came over to me and leaned an elbow on the bar.
“Been a while since you been in here, Angel,” he said as I racked my mind for his name. Bill. Yeah, that was it. I’d scored Percocet from him a time or two. Bill had pills.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to raise my voice enough to be heard over the din without actually shouting. “It’s been a weird year. Can I get a beer?”
His mouth twisted into a sneer. “I heard you got Clive busted. Called the cops on him.”
Shit. Now I understood all the hostile looks. I narrowed my eyes. “Is that what he told you? That weasely little shitball. I guess he left out the part where he called the cops on me. And I can fucking prove that shit. That’s on motherfucking nine-one-one.”
That took him slightly aback. “He told everyone you set him up,” Bill said, expression remaining accusing.
“Why the hell would I set him up?” I demanded. “I was trying to get clean after fucking overdosing. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.”
A frown started between his eyebrows. “Huh. Yeah, I heard you almost died.” He picked up a rag and swiped at some unknown liquid on the bar.
“You heard right,” I said. Kind of did die, depending on how you defined it. “Clive was a whiny bitch and was all butthurt ’cause I wouldn’t buy from him anymore.” It wasn’t a total lie. Clive had been pissed when I wouldn’t steal confiscated drugs from the Coroner’s Office and pass them his way. “He called the cops on me because he’s a little prick, then when the cops came and wouldn’t arrest me for his bullshit, he fought with them and got his own ass busted.” I couldn’t help but smirk. “And of course he had a car full of steroids, so they busted his stupid ass for that too.”
Bill’s gaze remained hard and distrusting for another moment while the band shifted to a crappy cover of a Garth Brooks song. Finally he reached for a beer, popped the top off and set it in front of me. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”
Doing my best not to show relief, I took the bottle and sipped. “He’s a fucking moron.”
“You still clean?” he asked. He glanced at the bottle in my hand.
“No drugs, no pills in a year,” I said then set the bottle down and gave it a tap. “This is as hard as I go anymore, and not much of that.”
A smile kicked up one side of Bill’s mouth. “That’s cool, Angel,” he said, and I decided he really meant it. “I got my one month chip last week,” he continued, ducking his head a bit as if embarrassed.
“Yeah?” I smiled. “That’s fucking awesome. Must be hard to do while working here.”
Someone called his name from farther down the bar. He held up a finger to him, then looked back at me and shrugged. “Nah. Not as long as I keep my head on straight. Every day I see how fucked up people can be, and it helps me remember why I’m doing it.”
“I get that,” I said.
“Look.” He leaned slightly closer. “You need to watch your back in here. Pretty much everyone thinks you fucked Clive over.” Then his brow furrowed. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I’m looking for Randy,” I said. “I saw his car out front.”
Bill jerked his head toward the back. “He’s playing pool. Him and Carol Ann.”
At the mention of that woman’s name, my face heated in a flush of anger that should’ve been dead. For the last two years of my relationship with Randy, she’d hung on the edge, trying to slide her loser self between us any time we had one of our breakups.
“They’re together?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.
He shrugged. “According to her.”
In Carol Ann’s world, that was all that mattered. “Thanks.” I pushed a couple of bills across the bar to pay for the beer. “Keep the change. And good luck.”
“You too. Watch your back.”
With a parting nod I took my beer and headed toward the pool room. Now that I knew the reason for the hostile looks it was easier to glare right back. The band thumped out the last notes of their pathetic ballad and announced a break.
The crowded pool room off to the left of the stage reeked of old cigarette smoke and a hint of sewage, with a touch of chemical-flowery air freshener thrown in for good measure. A chubby guy with flushed cheeks and a bubba buzz cut casually flipped me off as I descended the two steps to the grimy linoleum, then turned away to fish pool balls from the return on the farthest of the three faded tables. Most of the people in here were too focused on their game to give much of a shit about me, and I didn’t recognize more than a handful anyway. A few gave me quizzical looks, likely wondering why I deserved a middle finger, then apparently decided it would use up too many brain cells to figure out the mystery. A cluster of barely legal bimbos whispered and giggled by the cue rack, eyeing some young stud. A stud by their standards, at least. Hell, a year or so ago I’d have overlooked his slight beer gut and shaggy mullet too.
I took a fake sip of my beer to hide my smile. Damn. At least I had standards now.
A woman with screaming red hair leaned over a table to get a shot, giving everyone behind her a great look at her red thong underwear as her way-too-short jeans skirt hiked up. Carol Ann Pruitt. She hadn’t been “barely legal” in damn near a decade, but she still clung to it with her acrylic nails and over-whitened teeth.
Carol Ann took her shot and missed badly, laughing as she straightened and tugged her skirt down—though only enough to barely cover the cheeks of an age-and-beer-widened ass. She swept a hopeful gaze around, probably to see if anyone was watching her show. Her slightly unsteady looksee went past me, then snapped right back, to my annoyance. Like I had time for this shit.
“You!” She stabbed the pool cue in my direction. “You got some kinda nerve dragging your narc cop-lovin’ ugly ass in here!”
I gave her a lazy look and shrugged. “I needed a laugh and figured I’d come see the chunk of hair on the back of your head that you miss every fucking time you do your color. Seriously, do you even own a damn mirror?”
Titters went through the room in a wave, which didn’t ease Carol Ann’s mood one bit. She tightened her grip on the cue and started toward me with murder in her eyes. Shit. I’d forgotten just how much bigger she was than me.
“I got a mirror, bitch, and I use it to see how much better lookin’ I am than you!” she shouted. “Randy don’t want nothin’ to do with you, so get your skanky ass outta here before I get pissed.”
Behind her I saw the men’s room door open and Randy step out. My pulse quickened as he saw me, but I was too busy having fun with Carol Ann to spare him a second of attention. “Aw, will you turn green and get big and ugly?” I taunted her. “You got all but the color part down already.”
This time the laughter and catcalls were unmistakably in my favor. Narc or not, this was a crowd that loved them some good putdowns. Unfortunately, Carol Ann couldn’t appreciate the finer social points of insult-trading. The only comeback she could muster was a rage-sputtered “Stupid bitch!” right before she swung the cue at me as if she was Babe Ruth driving in a homer.
The air seemed to disappear from the room as everyone sucked in a breath. Logic and experience told them that Carol Ann was about to split my head wide open and probably be arrested for murder—or manslaughter at the very least—after which she’d no doubt end up as the head of her own prison girl gang with a few bitches willing to be at her beck and call in exchange for dubious protection from the other mean girls. It’d be a good step up for Carol Ann, an opportunity for her to take a strong leadership role in a way that she’d never been able to manage as a waitress at Jiggy Joe’s Truck Stop. She wasn’t a smart woman by any stretch, but with a little coaching she could pull off savvy, and after about five years she’d probably get paroled and maybe even go on to speak to underprivileged kids about anger management, being good, and staying in school. Hell, she might be held up as a positive role model—someone who made a terrible mistake in the heat of the moment and then turned her life around to become a good and decent upstanding member of society.