Bleed on a thing long enough, it stops being what it was, and turns to just a faded brown bar in a bad part of town.
At the other end of the bar, a girl with short-cut hair that had been dyed in every color of the rainbow was holding the hand of a drunk. Evan thought at first she was a hooker, but something about her changed his mind. He couldn’t see her face, but something about the way she held herself didn’t say she was turning tricks.
“I’ll read your palm one time,” said Rainbow Hair. “One time.”
The drunk snorted. He was a big guy, dressed in flannels and jeans that had seen lots of wear. Maybe a dock worker. “Can you really do this?” he said, every other word nearly a mumble.
“I’ve always seen the truth,” said the girl in a tone that was too bright to belong in this bar.
The drunk laughed. “Tell me a lie. Lies are better.”
You got that right, thought Evan. Then he turned away from the pair. They weren’t what he was here for. They weren’t who he was looking for.
“No worries,” laughed the girl. “Whenever people see the truth, they always forget.”
Evan’s cell rang. The ring tone was one Val had picked. He hadn’t changed it yet.
“White,” he said into the phone, the typical answer he gave. He never needed more.
The voice that answered wasn’t that of a lunatic in human shape. Evan didn’t know if he was happy or sad about that. He felt confused, felt like he hadn’t been able to get his head on straight since….
Since Val. Don’t lie. Not to yourself.
Regardless, the voice that came from his cell was a comfortable one, though with a hard edge hiding just behind it. Evan always thought of those old pictures of Japanese samurai when he heard this voice: men who were honorable, who were good. Who moved slowly and deliberately… until it was time to attack. Then, God help anyone who got in their way.
“Anything?” Max Geist was as to-the-point on the phone as Evan was. Part of why they got along, he supposed: neither of them felt a need to pad their lives or conversation with things that weren’t necessary.
Evan sensed motion at the bar’s entrance. He wasn’t sure how – perhaps he glimpsed it in the mirror behind the bar, a reflection torn apart by innumerable bottles in colorful glass. Maybe it was a trace sound he registered subconsciously.
Whatever it was, Evan spun on his seat. His free hand fell to his belt, brushing past the badge clipped there and circling the grip of the handgun holstered directly behind it.
His hand relaxed almost as fast as it had clenched. The movement wasn’t someone entering, just someone leaving. The door to the bar had been propped open – apparently to better allow drunks and flies to find their way inside – and now Rainbow Hair was making her way out.
Ken wondered what she looked like.
He wondered why he cared.
He remembered Val’s face.
He turned away from that thought, turned his attention back to Geist’s question. “Nothing,” he said. “Haven’t seen anything.”
He spun back to the bar. Sipped at his drink.
“Well, it was a long shot,” said Geist. He sighed. “Don’t stay up too late.” And then he hung up. He didn’t say goodbye.
Music had been playing on a juke box behind Evan. The song stopped at almost the same moment Geist hung up. Evan dragged his gaze away from the half-filled drink he had been nursing for what seemed an eternity.
Quarters clinked. He heard that hollow click-clack of jukebox keys being pushed.
And the same damn song started again. It was “You Spin Me Round” by Dead or Alive. Evan had nothing against the song – it was as good as anything from the late eighties could be – but he had heard it enough for one night.
“How many times you gonna listen to that?” he said.
The woman at the jukebox didn’t even look at him.
“How many times you gonna keep listening to cranks?” she said. Her tones were clipped, almost harsh. Angela Listings, she of the Dead or Alive obsession, was Evan’s partner. She was currently wearing no-nonsense jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket bulky enough to hide her service revolver. But no amount of cumbersome, off-the-rack, shapeless clothing could hide her beauty or her attitude.
She was the kind of woman that men pursued… for about a minute and half. But most men didn’t like that she could beat them in a fight of wits or of straight-out fists.
And she was the kind of girl you would take home to mother only if dear old Ma had a strong constitution and found perverse joy in meeting hard-ass bitches.
She turned to him now. Oval face, with a deep tan that couldn’t quite hide the small spatter of freckles across her nose. Eyes that Evan knew could be wide and inviting when Listings wanted them that way. Now they were at half-mast, hooded like those of a bored viper seriously considering a random strike just because-screw-it-that’s-why. She was waiting for him to answer.