“Wow. That’s great, Jimmy,” she said, not sounding like she thought it was great in any way, shape, or form. She held up a gold watch as she turned to leave. “Let me know if anyone lost this.”
Jimmy said he would and turned his attention back to his customers. “We have a nice room on two or three with a view of the river.”
“Anything out back?” Gibson asked.
“You want to look at our parking lot?”
“If you have it,” he said. “I like a sunrise.”
Jimmy gave a the-customer-is-always-right smile and checked the leather-bound registry. No computer. Jimmy Temple was old school. Gibson didn’t give a damn about a sunrise. But providing the remaining fire escape was still structurally sound, he liked the idea of having another way out. Just in case. Gibson checked in under the name Robert Quine and handed Jimmy an ID and credit card to match. After Atlanta, and with Jenn Charles still missing, it had seemed prudent to put together a scramble kit in case he needed to disappear in a hurry. They were quality fakes, and Gibson hated to burn them, but he wanted to leave as small a footprint in Niobe, West Virginia, as possible.
Jimmy Temple handed Gibson a key—an actual key, not an electronic key card. Old, old, old school.
“Does the hotel have Wi-Fi?” Gibson asked.
“Only in the lobby, I’m afraid. I’ve been meaning to wire the rest of the hotel, but you know how things are.” Jimmy smiled brightly. “Enjoy your stay, Mr. Quine.”
Lea left the hotel, her false smile melting in the sunshine. She was in trouble and knew it. At least seven new arrivals in the last few days, plus those two clowns checking in now. She couldn’t be sure how many were here for Merrick, but those fifth-floor suits weren’t here for a retreat. One thing was for certain: she might have started ahead of the pack, but they’d run her down now, and she was in danger of being left behind. Unless she adapted, scrapped her plans, and took a realistic look at the situation as it evolved. Beyond that, she needed to decide what she really needed out of this. What she could live with.
After two years in Niobe, planning and biding her time, she ought to know the answer.
So what does she want?
Across the street, Margo stood in the Toproll parking lot signing for a delivery. A full keg of beer weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, but her boss hefted one easily and walked it into the bar. Lea trotted across Tarte Street, picked up a case of longnecks, and followed her inside.
Margo looked back at her. “What did I tell you about hanging out at the bar in your free time?”
“I came to talk to you.”
“Oh? Well, make it quick. Your boyfriend is stopping by in a few,” Margo said. “Trying to get himself unbanned.”
“Tommy Hillwicky? Are you serious?”
“He’ll be sober so he’ll probably say the right things, and then later when he’s drunk again he’ll say the wrong ones again.”
“So why?”
“He drinks a piece more beer than you, flyweight.”
Lea shrugged. “You own the place.”
“Yeah, like the Indians owned Manhattan.” Margo set down the keg and shook her arms out. “So what do you want to talk about? ’Cause you’re not getting a raise.”
“Remember what you said about fighting battles?”
“Vaguely.”
“I might need your help with that after all.”
Margo regarded her with curiosity. “What kind of help?”
“What do you owe on the bar?”
Margo’s eyes narrowed. “Enough.”
“What if there was a way to square yourself with the bank? Would that be something that interested you?”
“I’m listening.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was turning into an ugly night at the Toproll. A festering, hostile energy swirled through the smoky rafters. Lea had seen two fights already, and it wasn’t quite nine yet. Reggie Weir and Cece James, the town lovebirds, had thrown down over nothing at all; Reggie had stormed out, leaving Cece in tears. Not much of a drinker, Cece was in the corner, aggressively nursing her third Long Island iced tea.
Everyone was drinking hard tonight, and that was saying something. Lea scrambled to keep up. She pushed four pints across the bar, took the twenty, and made change while scanning the bar for the next customer. The customer pocketed the bills and dropped the coins heavily, scattering them across the bar. Punishment for Tommy Hillwicky. The regulars had thought it over and found Tommy hard done by. They’d taken turns buying him drinks to welcome him back from his one-week suspension as if he were a returning war hero. Tommy hadn’t seen this much love when he’d gotten out of prison and was three sheets in search of a stiff breeze. He stood at the end of the bar, talking loudly about missing high-school football and the license it gave to hurt people.
“People knew better than to come across the middle, boy,” he said, eyes drifting to Lea. He clapped his hands together to suggest the violence of his collisions and called for another round of shots.
Lea had spent enough time in joints like this to know that bars had personalities, especially ones that depended on their regulars. Moods could take hold and spread from barstool to barstool like a bump in the back with no apology. No one was immune. The regulars were still a little on edge about Tommy, but the mood would have passed by on any other night. Tommy was a symptom rather than the cause.
The cause sat in the back room at Al Reynolds’s regular table. Al Reynolds had hosted a poker game at the same table for eight years. It wasn’t official, but everyone in town knew that come nine p.m., the table belonged to Al Reynolds. The same couldn’t be said for the four strangers from the fifth floor of the Wolstenholme. They’d come in around seven thirty for dinner and sat at Al’s table. The four ordered politely and weren’t bothering anyone, except they bothered everyone. Maybe it was their healthy, square-cut features. Maybe it was that none drank anything stronger than Diet Coke. Maybe it was that now, well past nine p.m., they still hadn’t reached for the check.