I leaned over the bar and drew two Red Stripes from the tap. My eyes met Sandy’s in the bar mirror and I thought they were about the sexiest damn eyes I’ve ever seen. Ever. I set the mugs down and took a seat next her. “You don’t look too worse for wear. How you holding up?”
Instead of answering me right away, Sandy took three long drinks from her mug and set the half empty glass back down on the bar. Then she turned her head and saw the rest of the investigative team at the table in back. She looked back at me, picked up my mug and started toward the back.
“Hey, where are you going?” I said.
She stopped and turned back. “Gonna see what’s shaking back there. I love working for you, Jonesy. Have I told you that yet? But I’m either in or I’m out, you know what I mean?”
I thought her eyes were made of liquid blue. “Sandy, it’s not that.”
“It’s not what?”
“Well, it’s not…uh, well, hell, I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just sort of thought-“
Sandy walked toward me and leaned in close, her mouth right next to my ear. “I know what you thought, Jonesy.” She kissed me on the cheek, then leaned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Then, almost as an after thought, “You look pretty good your damn self.”
I watched her cross the bar. So did everyone else in the room.
I moved behind the bar and pulled Delroy aside. “A minute ago you said something.”
“What’s that, mon? Delroy always saying one ting or another, no?”
“When Sandy came in. You said, ‘here comes your woman.’
Delroy laughed and shook his head. “I also say it probably not my bidness.”
“Yeah, you did. But she’s not my woman. She just works for me.”
“Yeah, mon. Dat’s all right. You keep telling yourself dat.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Delroy put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m just a happy go lucky Jamaican bartender. What do I know?”
I scratched the back of my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Hah. I tink you do. I grew up wid my family, you know? We live right by the beach. When I was little, after school get out, I’d run and play in the water. Sometimes when I do I see a fish and tink to myself, ‘there go a fish.’ Simple as dat, mon. Plain as day, no?”
“But what did you mean about Sandy?”
“Delroy mean what he say. I say here come your woman, then it mean here come your woman.”
I thought I saw a twinkle in Delroy’s eyes. “But you said my woman.”
“Uh huh. Dat’s true.”
“Is there something I should know, Delroy?”
“Yeah, mon. There sure is. Maybe I draw you a map. You and that one,” he tipped his head toward Sandy, “you were meant to be together. It’s simple. Plain as day. Just like the fish, no?” Delroy made a swimming motion in the air with his hand and grinned at me the whole time.
When I glanced over at the table in back I saw Sandy watching me and Delroy. I thought about going over and joining her and the guys, but then someone else walked in the front door and I discovered my evening was far from over.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the dim light of the bar I couldn’t immediately tell who it was, but it didn’t take long before I recognized his familiar stride. It had been years since we’d last seen each other, or so I thought at the time. Our house band was playing a tune unfamiliar to me and the bass drum thumped through my chest until it was no longer a drum beat, but an explosion from over a decade ago when our HUMVEE was stopped in the sand and I was out in the dark with only my. 45 and a pair of faulty night vision goggles in territory unknown to a young Lieutenant from the heartland who was being ordered to kill on sight, no questions asked. One of my men, Murton Wheeler, had asked to stop the vehicle so he could relieve himself, and when he did not come back, I went looking for him. I found him about thirty yards from the HUMVEE, sipping on a flask filled with whiskey while simultaneously urinating on the body of a dead Iraqi Republican Guard. When the armor piercing round hit our vehicle, the explosion knocked us both to the ground and the smell of phosphorus hung in the air as the three remaining men inside the troop carrier burned to death before they could escape the twisted wreckage. It was the second time in my life I had almost burned to death. Those thoughts hung in front of my vision until I heard his voice, pulling me back.
“Hey, Jonesy, you alright?” he said. “Hey man, how about a double Jack with a beer back?”
I blinked the vision away and looked at the man in front of me. Murton Wheeler stood at the bar and waited for me to speak or pour him his drink. I took a glass from the shelf under the bar and filled it with tap water and set it on a coaster in front of where he stood and said, “This is on the house. You won’t be drinking here, Murt. Not tonight. Probably not ever. Are we clear on that, soldier?”
He sipped the water, his eyes never leaving mine, then set the glass gently on the bar. “It was a long time ago, Jonesy.”
“Not long enough, Murt. Heard you were in Westville. Assault or something like that, wasn’t it?”
He ignored my question as the jab it was and instead looked back over his shoulder at the front door. When he spoke again, his voice was soft but his eyes were rimmed in anger. “Look, Loot, I’ve got some information you should have. I give you what I think you ought to know, and I’m outta here, Jack.”
“You’re taking liberties you do not have when you call me Loot. Everyone calls me Jonesy. You can call me Sir, or Detective Jones. Are we clear on that?”
Murton snapped to attention, saluted and said, “Yes, Sir.”
I wanted to drop him where he stood, but instead I lowered my voice and said, “Knock that shit off. “What exactly is it you want, Murton?”
But before he could answer, the front door opened again and two men walked in together and scanned the bar, obviously looking for someone. It was by chance I’m sure, but they made a mistake when they looked at the tables and booths before they looked at the bar, and that gave Murton the time he needed as he reached for his glass and lobbed it overhand toward the opposite wall. As a diversion, it was very effective. The glass arched through the air end over end like a poorly punted football and before it landed he placed both hands along the brass railing in front of the bar, swung his legs up and vaulted over the top like a gymnast mounting a pommel horse. When the two men turned toward the sound of the glass shattering against the wall, Murton looked at me, winked and said, “Gotta boogie, Jones man. These boys are a little upset with me right about now. I left your tip under the coaster. Keep your powder dry.” He then picked up a cardboard case of empty beer bottles from the floor in front of the freezer and placed it on his shoulder, blocking the view of his face and walked toward the back of the bar and through the doorway that leads to the kitchen.
If it was a mistake for the men to not look toward the bar when they first entered, my mistake was that I stood completely still and watched Murton walk away. Everyone else in the bar was reacting to the broken glass except me and it didn’t take long before the men realized what had happened. By not reacting to Murton’s diversion I stood out in the crowd in such a way that I may as well have held a neon sign with a flashing arrow that said ‘He went that way.’
It would have been easy for me to turn away and let the two men who were following Murton Wheeler chase him through the doorway and out the back. No, that is not quite right. It should have been easy, but as I get older I’ve come to appreciate the fact that nothing is quite as simple as it may seem. The repressed anger I’ve carried with me toward Murton for the last decade is not only because three of my men died during a battle that should never have been waged, it also comes from the fact had he not gotten out that night, I would not have either. The simple truth is, I owed Murton my life. The three men who died that night are simply the vig I pay on a loan which until now I felt unwilling or even unable to repay.