I doubted they’d have fun, though.
I slid from the booth, unzipped my windbreaker and headed down the aisle between booths and tables and crossed in front of the band and gave them a thumbs-up, poor talentless bastards, and headed into the little restroom alcove. The blond was trying the ladies’ door, but it was locked. A joint like this wouldn’t splurge for more than one stool per can.
The two guys shrugged at each other and leaned against the wall by the men’s-room door, waiting for her. A white guy with a beige Afro came out of the men’s and brushed by the pair and headed into the bar.
That was all I needed.
I moved into the little area, gestured toward the men’s, and asked the denim-cap clown, “Are you waiting?”
His voice was low as he nodded toward the ladies’ room door. “Just waitin’ for some twat.” He jerked a thumb at the men’s room. “It’s all yours, bud.”
“Thanks,” I said, and grabbed him by the arm and hauled him in with me.
The blond said, “Hey!” and joined us. I pushed him past me, kicked the door shut and locked it. Close quarters. A urinal, a boothless crapper, and a sink and a hand drier. No paper towels. I hate that.
“You hit on my sister again,” I said, facing them, back to the door, “and we’re gonna have a problem.”
Both were taller than me, and looked like they were in decent shape under those garish threads. So they were at first surprised and then amused.
“That cunt’s your sister?” the blond squeaked.
I kept my back to the door and they were crowded together, still scoping me out before starting much less finishing anything. And maybe trying to figure out how to beat the shit out of me in such cramped conditions. They had to do it here — out in the club could mean trouble. Taking it outside could mean cops. Nobody wanted that, including me.
“That cunt,” I said, “is my sister. Have you had enough fun with her? Copped enough feels?”
“Fuck you, Charlie,” the denim-hat dude said.
I said, “Duly noted.” I looked at his friend. “That your opinion, too?”
The blond squeaked some more. “We didn’t do a goddamn fucking thing she didn’t beg for, man! And I don’t think she’s your sister, either. You’re just sticking your nose in where it don’t the fuck belong.”
“Fine. But are you done hassling the chick or not?”
The denim-hat guy balled a fist and raised it to chest level and the blond stepped back to give him room and I whipped the nine mil from my waistband and pointed it at him.
The blond swallowed, goggling at me. “Maybe he is her brother, Willy.”
Willy didn’t have time to ponder that because I cuffed him alongside the head with the Browning barrel. His eyes rolled back like he was coming and his feet went out from under him and his cap flew off and he hit his head on the sink as he went down and landed in an ungainly pile, wiping up poorly aimed urine from the floor with his ugly apparel. The denim cap was floating in the crapper.
“You fucker!” the blond said, looking down at what I’d done. But he wasn’t coming at me. He was just concerned about his friend and probably afraid. He really wasn’t a threat at this point.
I smacked him alongside the head with the nine mil barrel anyway. Some lessons can’t be learned secondhand. He knocked back against the pebbled window and slid bumpily down past the sill till he was sitting on the floor with his knees up, since the space his unconscious friend was taking up made it impossible to do otherwise.
Both were out, trickles of scarlet down their left cheeks. They would have made a great subject for a black-and-white art photograph. But what they were was two more shits in this toilet.
I slipped out, shutting them in but knowing they’d be quickly found.
Becky was just exiting the ladies and she smiled and laughed a little when she saw me. “Fancy meetin’ you here, honey.”
“None of us are above nature’s call,” I said. “May I show you something?”
Confused, she nonetheless said, “Well, sure.”
“All I ask is that if you disapprove, you don’t alert what’s-his-name, the bartender, till I’ve been gone five minutes or till somebody else finds them.”
“Finds who?”
I pushed the men’s room door open.
She gasped, a pink-nailed hand flying to her mouth. “Oh my!” And then she giggled again. “Did you do that for little ol’ me?”
That’s what she said. Sue me.
“I just wanted to elevate your opinion of the male sex. Have I succeeded?”
“Sure as shit have, honey.”
I shut the men’s room door; they weren’t stirring yet. “I better slip out. Where can I meet you?”
“Just wait outside. I’ll take off work now. Lou won’t give a damn.”
I did that, hoping she wasn’t suckering me. Shortly I was standing on the sidewalk, thinking maybe I’d really screwed the pooch here, and that the bartender would emerge with a sawed-off or a baseball bat and I’d be off to the St. Louie pokey and out twenty-five grand.
But only she came out, her eyes big and wild as she said, “Somebody just found the jerks. We better shake a tail feather.”
I followed her, because she was on the move, not that she moved very far. She opened the same door between the bar and the hippie dress shop that I’d come out of — the door to the stairs up to Boyd’s lookout pad.
I asked, “Where are you...?”
“Honey, I told you I had somewhere we could go. My apartment’s upstairs. Third floor.”
Howdy neighbor.
Disconcertingly, the apartment was so similar to Boyd’s, he might have emerged from his bedroom to greet us, or maybe shoot us. The furniture was damn near identical, suggesting both apartments were outfitted for rental at the same time, again probably the early ’60s. Really, the major difference was no couch cushion and bed pillow had been moved near the far right window for Boyd to look out at the target. No binoculars or portable radio, either.
She led me through the boxcar layout to the kitchen. I sat at a Formica-topped table identical to the one where Boyd and I had conversed, what, an hour and a half ago? Or was that a lifetime? Still in her white blouse and black pants, she remained in waitress mode.
“How about some Sanka?” she said. “I have instant. No caffeine to keep you up all night.”
We’d apparently run through all the “up” double entendres.
“Sure.”
“You want a doughnut? I got a couple doughnuts from this mornin’ that ain’t too stale yet.”
“Okay.”
She gave me a glazed doughnut on a napkin and did the same for herself, and soon we were nibbling them and having the fake coffee.
Eyes just a little tight, she asked, “What did you do to them two boys?”
The nine mil was still in my waistband, the windbreaker zipped.
“Just took ’em to the woodshed,” I said, hoping that phrase would resonate with this slightly Southern-sounding girl. “Nice pad.”
“Yeah, it come furnished. I ain’t been here long enough to apply any girly touches yet.”
“How long have you been here?”
“In this apartment? Or this here town?”
“Both.”
She shrugged, smirky-smiled. “Well, I guess it’s the same answer either way. I moved to town and into this place three weeks ago.”
Christ, about the same time as Boyd.
“Where are you from, Becky?”
“Down South.”
“Where down south?”
Georgia? Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi...?
She nibbled doughnut. “Poplar Bluff.”