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?”
The two old men collapsed against each other in gales of raucous laughter while Angie frowned and shook her head. “Phone bank,” she repeated more loudly. “For Joanna Brady. For the election.”
“Oh,” Archie said. “That’s right. The election. Isn’t that today? You voted yet?”
Everyone in the room shook their heads. For the first time in her life, Angie Kellogg had actually wanted to vote. She had even found a candidate she wanted to vote for-but she had come to town too late to register for this election.
The guy at the booth waved to her again. She went over to him, expecting him to order another drink. “Would it be possible to use the phone?” he asked.
Angie Kellogg studied the man Don Frost had called Burton Kimball. She was gratified to realize her first impression had been right. The man really was a lawyer. At first glance, she had assumed he must be better than the lawyers she had known, the ones who had plied their trade by bailing whores out of jail, their retainers paid by pimps or drug dealers. But she had been wrong. If Burton Kimball was defending a child molester, a man who screwed his own daughter, then he was no better than the lawyers she had known before. In fact maybe he was worse.
Local?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Bobo didn’t generally allow customers to use the house phone. An Outgoing call could be made only from the phone in the back room. Angie’s first instinct was to tell this pervert-loving bastard to take a hike and go make his precious phone call from a pay phone, preferably one in the middle of a busy street.
But then another thought came to her. Hadn’t Don Frost just told her that the attorney’s big-deal trial was due in court the next day? What would happen if the attorney for the defense was too damn hung over to hold his head up? Keeping him out of court probably wasn’t realistic, Angie decided, but she could maybe make him wish he’d stayed home. Even a novice bartender was capable of inflicting that much damage.
“You can use the phone in the back room,” she told him with a beguiling smile. “The number’s on it in case someone needs to call you back. By the way, what’s your name?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before.”
“Burton Kimball,” he said, but he dropped his voice as though he really didn’t relish the idea of other people hearing him.
Angie held out her hand. “I’m Angie. Glad to meet you, Burton. Welcome to the Blue Moon. Care for another drink? It’s on the house. Sort of an introductory offer.”
“Sure,” Kimball said. “As soon as I make this call.”
When he came back, the new Bloody Mary was waiting in his booth. It seemed quite a bit stronger than the previous ones, and hotter.
Angie Kellogg watched with satisfaction as Burton Kimball stirred the new drink with the stalk of celery and swilled some of it down. His eye brows shot up and down and he made a face as though he was surprised by the extra jolt of Tobasco. But instead of complaining about the extra heat or the extra booze, a triple instead of a double, he nodded his thanks.
Angie smiled in return and returned to looking after her other customers, anticipating with some pleasure the moment when, because he was so drunk, she would be justified in throwing Burton Kimball out into the street. With any kind of luck, he’d have to crawl back down Brewery Gulch on his hands and knees.
“Another?”
“Sure,” Kimball said. “As soon as I make this call.”
As HE drove home to the Rocking P, Harold Patterson found himself in a state of hopefulness that verged on euphoria. It was going to work. Holly would see him. The woman named Amy, who was Holly’s therapist or nurse or whatever, had been genuinely helpful. That was something he had never anticipated. He had built her up in his mind, expecting her to be some kind of monster. Rather than throwing him out of the house as soon as she learned who he was, Amy Baxter had been almost cordial.
He had sat nervously in Cosa Viejo’s long, box beamed living room, waiting for Amy to return from upstairs to tell him whether or not Holly would see him. When she first said Holly wouldn’t be down right away, he had been crushed. Then after learning she would see him later on in the afternoon, he was almost ecstatic.