'Who's Sam Verdreaux?'Junior asked.
Freddy's mouth tightened down to a white line Junior recognized from his football days. It was Freddy's Ah f**k, we're behind look. Also his Ah f**k, that was a bad call look. 'You've been missing the better class of Mill society, Junes. But you're about to get introduced.'
Carver was saying, 'I know it's past nine, Sammy, and I see you've got money, but I still can't sell you any wine. Not this morning, not this afternoon, not tonight. Probably not tomorrow either, unless this mess clears itself up. That's from Randolph himself. He's the new Chief - '
'Like f**k he is!' the other voice responded, but it was so slurry it came to Junior's ears sounding as Li-fuh bizz. 'Pete Randolph ain't but shitlint on Duke Perkins's ass**le.'
'Duke's dead and Randolph says no booze sales. I'm sorry, Sam.'
'Just one bottle of T-Bird,' Sam whined. Juz one barf T-Burr. 'I need it. And, I can pay for it. Come on. How long I been tradin here?'
'Well, shit.' Although he sounded disgusted with himself, Johnny was turning to look at the wall-long case of beer and vino as Junior and Freddy came up the aisle. He had probably decided a single bottle of Bird would be a small price to get the old rumpot out of his store, especially since a number of shoppers were watching ard avidly awaiting further developments.
The hand-printed sign on the case said ABSOLUTELY NO ALCOHOL SALES UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, but the wussy was reaching for the booze just the same, the stuff in the middle. That was where the cheapass popskull lived. Junior had been on the force less than two hours, but he knew that was a bad idea. If Carver caved in to the straggle-haired wino, other, less disgusting, customers would demand the same privilege.
Freddy Denton apparently agreed.'Don't do that,' he told Johnny Carver. And to Verdreaux, who was looking at him with the red eyes of a mole caught in a brushfire: 'I don't know if you have enough working brain cells left to read the sign, but I know you heard the man: no alcohol today. So get in the breeze. Quit: smelling up the place.'
'You can't do that, Officer,' Sam said, drawing himself up to his full five and a half feet. He was wearing filthy chinos, a Led Zeppelin tee-shirt, and old slippers with busted backs. His hair looked as if it had last been cut while Bush II was riding high in the polls. 'I got my rights. Free country. Says so right in the Constitution of Independence.'
'The Constitutions been canceled in The Mill,'Junior said, with absolutely no idea that he was speaking prophecy. 'So put an egg in your shoe and beat it.' God, how fine he felt! In barely a day he had gone from doom and gloom to boom and zoom!
'But...'
Sam stood there for a moment with his lower lip trembling, trying to muster more arguments. Junior observed with disgust and fascination that the old f**k's eyes were getting wet. Sam held out his hands, which were trembling far worse than his loose mouth. He only had one more argument to make, but it was a hard one to bring out in front of an audience. Because he had to, he did.
'I really need it, Johnny. No joke. Just a little, to stop the shakes. I'll make it last. And I won't get up to no dickens. Swear on my mother's name. I'll just go home.' Home for Sloppy Sam was a shack sitting in a gruesomely bald dooryard dotted with old auto parts.
'Maybe I ought to - 'Johnny Carver began.
Freddy ignored him. 'Sloppy, you never made a bottle last in your life.'
'Don't you call me that!' SamVerdreaux cried. The tears over-spilled his eyes and slid down his cheeks.
'Your fly's unzipped, oldtimer,' Junior said, and when Sam looked down at the crotch of his grimy chinos, Junior stroked a finger up the flabby underside of the old man's chin and then tweaked his beak. A grammar school trick, sure, but it hadn't lost its charm. Junior even said what they'd said back then: 'Dirty clothes, gotcha nose!'
Freddy Denton laughed. So did a couple of other people. Even Johnny Carver smiled, although he didn't look as if he really wanted to.
'Get outta here, Sloppy,' Freddy said. 'It's a nice day. You don't want to spend it in a cell.'
BUt something - maybe being called Sloppy, maybe having his nose tweaked, maybe both - had relit some of the rage that had awed and frightened Sam's mates when he'd been a lumber-jockey on the Canadian side of the Merimachee forty years before. The tremble disappeared from his lips and hands, at least temporarily. His eyes lighted on Junior, and he made a phlegmy but undeniably contemptuous throat-clearing sound. When he spoke, the slur had left his voice.
'Fuck you, kid. You ain't no cop, and you was never much of a football player. Couldn't even make the college B-team is what I heard.'
His gaze switched to Officer Denton.
'And you, Deputy Dawg. Sunday sales legal after nine o'clock. Has been since the seventies, and that's the end of that tale.'