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“Bugging you? I can put on that shit-kicker stuff we usually play.”
“Nah, it’s fine. Just curious what it is.”
“It’s trip-hop,” she said. “With dub influences.”
Da
“Tell me,” the foreman said. “You should hear the stuff my kids listen to.”
“So now can I ask you something?” The girl set the bottle down, looking at Da
He shrugged. “Sure.”
“You guys aren’t pla
He squinted at her, surprised. “No, no trouble. Just here for a couple of drinks.” A tingle ran up the backs of his hands. “Why?”
“Because that big guy’s been eye-fucking you since he came in.”
Tension locked his neck muscles. Over the stereo, a woman’s voice whispered something about black flowers blossoming. Slowly, Da
He loomed near the back wall, feet apart like a boxer. His gaze smashed through the cigarette smoke and gruff laughter to hit Da
“Someone you know?” McCloskey spoke with the quiet of a man who could handle himself.
Da
“It’s okay,” he said, not sure it was.
And then Evan was there. Prison had boiled him down, hardening the angles of his face and neck. Whip-cord muscles bulged against his sweater. His curly hair was neatly kept, the sides slicked back.
His dark eyes betrayed nothing at all.
“Long time.” Da
Evan flicked his gaze over to McCloskey, then back again. Da
The foreman drew himself up on the stool. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
The man hesitated, then stood. “You know, I should probably get gone anyway. The wife’ll be expecting me.”
Da
Evan smiled thinly. “Same old Da
“So.”
“So.”
“Bad?”
Evan shrugged.
The granddaughter came over with beer and whiskey, her eyes framing questions Da
“How about you, Da
“I’m good. Better than ever.”
“Yeah?” Evan glanced over with a smile. “You a millionaire, go
Da
“Daley don’t live in Bridgeport these days. Left ’bout the same time I did. Different places, of course.”
“I left, too,” Da
“No shit.”
“No shit.”
“And you’re not in the game anymore.”
“No.”
“Too bad.” Evan took a long pull of beer.
It wasn’t, but Da
They clinked glasses. Da
“You still seeing that same woman, the one you were getting serious about?”
“Karen,” Da
“Long time. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“You know, I thought maybe I saw her.” Evan took out a pack of Winstons, tapped one free, lit it with a shiny silver Zippo. “At the trial.”
Da
“I’d only met her the once, but I’m pretty sure it was Karen. Yeah?”
Da
Until that moment, he hadn’t been sure. Not in his marrow. But when she’d asked him, this half-Italian bartendress with ambitions to manage the place, this woman who knew his past but still trusted in their future, that was it.
He’d promised, and she’d gone to the trial. Watched the pawnshop owner testify from a wheelchair. Looked at photographs of the woman’s face, one eye swollen shut, nose broken, as the police described how they arrived just in time. And when it was all over, her cheeks white and a little tremble in her voice, Karen had made the only ultimatum of their relationship. If he ever slipped, she’d walk without a backward glance.
Now, seven years later, the man she’d gone to watch stared at him with an expression Da
“Yeah, it was her.” He paused. “I asked her to go.”
“You had other plans.”
“They would have made me. The owner of the store, the woman, they would have made me.”
Evan blew a plume of gray smoke. “So why send her?”
“I felt like I owed it to you.” Picking his words carefully. “To have someone there.”
“Seeing as I was taking a solo fall, you mean.” Evan’s eyes hard again. “I thought maybe you just wanted to see if I’d drop your name.”
“I knew you wouldn’t.” And he had, too, known that Evan would do the time cold, even though Da
Evan nodded. “Got that right.”
The music was repeating “I’ve got to get away from here,” and part of Da
Thing was, some nights, lying in bed in his safe neighborhood, he pictured a round metal door a foot thick, like a bank vault. Inside waited a dim room with racks like safe deposit boxes. He’d step in, close the door behind him, slide open one of the little boxes and remember the electric-dicked thrill of drag racing stolen cars down the Dan Ryan at four in the morning. Or the soft, almost sexual yielding of a lock to his picks. His fist in the air in St. Andrew’s, lungs raw with howling as Evan fought in the finals of the Golden Gloves.