So I’m used to it, you know. I’ve had twenty years to get used to it. To get used to the judgment, the harsh glances, the repulsion. Strangers gawk. Kids cower. Most are afraid to look me in the face, like I’m something out of their nightmares.
But while I might be used to it, that doesn’t mean I like it. Doesn’t mean I’m not tempted to gouge their fucking eyes out and ask them how it feels.
“What can I get for you?” the bartender asks.
“Rum,” I tell him.
“A shot?”
“A bottle.”
He hesitates, like maybe he’s thinking about not getting it for me, which would be a mistake. With the mood I’m in tonight, I’m liable to hop behind the bar and personally take it. He obliges, though, unknowingly saving his own ass some trouble, considering I’d be inclined to knock a few teeth out of his mouth if he made me serve myself.
Grabbing a half-empty bottle of rum from below the bar, he slides it in front of me before handing over a shot glass.
He walks away to tend to someone else.
I carefully pour myself a shot and toss it back.
I shudder. It burns. My insides are coated in flames as I swallow the liquor down. I can feel it thawing me out, smothering the coldness. It’s the cheap shit, so bottom shelf that it doesn’t even deserve a spot on the display along the mirrored wall behind the bar. It’s so vile, in fact, that it’s probably eating away at my insides as we speak.
“You’d be better off just drinking paint thinner,” a voice says. It’s playful and feminine with a tone that makes me think of home. Not that we talked like her in Florida, no, but her voice reminds me of warmth. It reminds me of sunshine. It reminds me of starry nights and cloudless days.
That’s way too sappy, I know.
Don’t tell anyone I said that shit.
My attention drifts to the source of it, diagonally across the corner of the bar, just a couple seats away, meeting a woman’s gaze.
She’s young—early twenties, I’d say—with wild brunette hair, the kind that looks like hands have been running through it, like someone wrapped it around their fist and held on for dear life as they fucked her senseless. Her face betrays that, though, with a set of wide brown eyes, innocent eyes, and a quirky smile, almost sheepish with the way only one side seems to curve. Blood red color shines from her lips, matching the skin-tight, long-sleeved red dress she wears. Either the girl is classy, like a modern day Marilyn Monroe, or she’s the type that’ll suck my cock in the alley if I buy her some liquor.
I’ve found there’s really no middle ground for a woman who wears that much red out on the town.
“You know what they say,” I tell her. “That which doesn’t kill me—”
“Only makes me stronger,” she says, finishing the sentence.
“I was going to say isn’t trying hard enough, but that works, too.”
Her smile grows, genuine amusement crossing her face as she looks at me... really looks at me.
She isn’t turning away. Huh.
Maybe this night isn’t completely fucked.
I eye her and the dingy pint glass she holds onto, half-filled with what I assume to be whatever’s on tap. She doesn’t look like a beer drinker. I would’ve taken her for a tequila girl, if anything. Margaritas. Body shots. Salt. The whole fucking pizzazz.
“So, what’s a woman like you doing drinking cheap beer at a dive bar all alone at this hour?”
She regards me for a moment before saying, “What makes you think I’m alone?”
I look to either side of her. The guy on her left, wedged between us, is so drunk he’s passed out in his seat. An empty stool sits to her right. It’s been empty since I walked in. If she isn’t alone, whoever she came with sure as hell isn’t concerned about her well-being. “Because a guy would have to be a fool to leave you sitting here by yourself, looking how you do, considering he’s liable to lose you.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, without a doubt. I’d steal you in a heartbeat.”
Color rises into her cheeks. She blushes, soft pink accentuated by the crimson on her lips as she tries to fight back a smile but loses... miserably. “Smooth. That line usually work for you?”
“Every single time,” I say, “but I wouldn’t call it a line. It’s true. If you don’t take good care of what you’ve got, someone will be more than happy to take it away.”
She lets out a light laugh, shaking her head as her gaze goes to her beer. “Tell me about it.”
Before I can take the conversation any further, the door to the bar opens and the guy from the dock steps in. Took him long enough. I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to come, that I’d been wrong about his balls, that his boss had already confiscated them.
As much fun as playing with the pretty brunette would be tonight, there’s still business to attend to. I know, I know… my cock is mourning, too.
Sliding off the stool, I snatch up the bottle of rum and the empty shot glass, nodding to the brunette before strolling the guy’s way. I grab a small two-seater table by the door, sitting down in a flimsy chair as I motion to the one across from me. “Sit.”
He listens. He’s obedient. He’d probably roll over and beg if I barked those commands, all in his quest to please his master. Who’s a good boy?
“So, uh, like I was saying,” he mumbles, picking back up right where we left off. “These card games are important to my boss. The people who play in them... they’re important, too. All this trouble that’s been happening is scaring the guys away, so my boss wants to make a deal with you.”
“He wants to make a deal with me,” I say, pouring myself another shot, splashing liquor out onto the table. “What kind of deal are we talking?”
“He’s willing to cut you a share of the profits.”
“How much?”
“Ten percent.”
I nearly choke on the rum as I swallow it down, coughing, the burn taking my breath away. Ten percent. The fucknut is offering me ten percent of practically nothing. Pennies. “Let me get this straight. Your boss got a little problem with thieves busting up his card games. So in exchange for ten percent of what he makes off of it, he wants me to, what? Provide protection? Security? This ain’t a fucking rent-a-cop service I’m running. What does he want from me?”
He pauses. “He wants you to stop robbing him.”
I stare at the guy. Hard. I stare at him until he starts fidgeting, and I wait for him to retract that statement, but he says nothing.
He’s not taking it back.
“You calling me a thief?”
“I’m not calling you anything. My boss is.”
“Like I said… your boss is a fucking fool.” I rip the plastic pouring spout out of the bottle of rum and toss it onto the table, giving up all sense of propriety. Not like people expect it, anyway. Who needs manners when you’ve got a face like mine? They expect the worst, and what can I say? I don’t like to disappoint. “I have no interest in his petty little games of Go Fish with the brats he does business with.”
“Yeah, I told him as much,” he says. “Told him it wasn’t your M.O.”
I take a swig straight from the bottle before pointing it at him. “What do you know about my M.O.?”
“I know it’s not about the money to you,” he says. “The money’s a plus, of course, but that’s not why you do it. For you, it’s about the power. It’s about the respect. You’re not going to waste the energy on something that isn’t worth attaching your name to.”
Huh. He’s got me there. I do happen to be a fan of grand gestures. Go big or go home. He might have more balls than I gave him credit for out on the dock, but it’s obvious, looking at him, listening to him, that his boss takes that for granted. Georgie sent him out here tonight knowing there was a good chance he wouldn’t survive to see sunrise. He’s expendable, a simple go-between, and despite the cliché, everyone knows I’m the type to shoot the messenger.
“Tell me something.” I take another swig of rum. “What did your boss give you for coming here? How’s he compensating you?”