Reaching in his pocket, Chimney brought out a twenty-dollar gold piece and slapped it down on the bar. Pollard stared at it for a moment, then drew a beer from a tap and poured two skinny fingers of whiskey in a glass he’d rinsed in his mop bucket a couple of hours ago. He should have locked up, he thought. After pulling off one of the lieutenant’s ears with a pair of tongs—goddamn, he didn’t think it would ever come loose!—he had just decided to snip the other one off with a pair of wire cutters when he heard the front door squeak open; and now he felt a bit put-upon by this sonofabitch, the same as if he’d been a normal person interrupted in the middle of making love to a woman he’d just met out catting around, but whose husband was due home by nightfall.
Chimney overlooked the bartender’s surly attitude; he recalled the fucker had acted the same way the last time he was in here. Instead, he sipped the beer and studied himself in the mirror. He’d always known that he wasn’t what the women called handsome—God knows, the fucking newspapers had made that clear enough—but he thought if he gained some weight and grew a mustache, maybe he’d look good enough for a whore to love. Once they got to Canada and quit all the running, maybe he’d even buy a set of those Indian clubs he’d seen in a store window uptown, start building up his muscles. He figured there wasn’t anything a man couldn’t do in life if he put his mind to it and didn’t allow silly everyday shit to distract him.
Pollard wiped his hands on a wet rag and made the boy’s change. He stared at his tan duster, the purple shirt, the striped pants, the hat cocked back at a jaunty angle. If he didn’t already have one chained up in the back, he’d love to work on this little bastard stinking of shaving lotion and store soap. Another goddamn ladies’ man. Images of the shopgirl laughing at him flickered in his head like a picture show, and it suddenly occurred to him that there was no reason he couldn’t do two at the same time. Let this one watch while he made the other skirt-sniffer small enough to fit into a bucket. Who knew? It might be nice to have an audience.
“Looks like things is kinda slow,” Chimney said.
Pollard ignored the remark and looked out the window. “That Ford out there, does that belong to you?” he asked Chimney.
“Yeah, it’s mine.”
“How much it cost ye?”
“I forget.”
“Well, you better keep an eye on it,” Pollard said. “Lot of thieves around here since they opened that goddamn army base.”
“He be a sorry sonofabitch whoever tries to steal from me.”
“Is that right?” the bartender said, suddenly lighting up. “You talk mighty big for someone your size.”
“I ain’t afraid to fight, if that’s what you mean,” Chimney said.
“Well, then, tell me what you’d do to them.”
Glancing up from his whiskey, Chimney took note of the hateful glare in the barkeep’s eyes. Tardweller had looked much the same that day he held him by the shirt collar and booted his ass in front of those women like someone would do to a little kid. As Chimney remembered the greatest embarrassment of his life, his heart started beating faster, his hands began to sweat. He was right on the verge of telling Pollard to step outside when he thought about Matilda. Within a couple of hours, if everything went as he hoped, he would have her all to himself, and there wasn’t any way he was going to allow this fat bastard to fuck that up. “Ah, just give me another one,” he said, pushing his whiskey glass forward.
“But you ain’t answered me yet,” Pollard said. “What would ye do to him, someone who stole your car? Why, for that matter, what would ye do if I was to reach over and slap that stupid hat off your head? I bet ye wouldn’t do a damn thing, would ye?”
“Like I said, just give me another drink.”
“Two dollars.”
“It was fifty cents ten minutes ago.”
“That was before I knew what you were,” Pollard said.
Chimney stared straight ahead as he reached into his pocket for the money and laid it on the counter. He had been willing to let a little bit slide, but this fat cocksucker was going too far. “There,” he said. “There’s your damn two dollars.” The lamp flared for a second, then dimmed again. He thought again of Tardweller, of how good it had felt to split his head open in the barn that night. Pushing the duster back, he rested his hand on the Smith & Wesson tucked inside his belt. “So you think you know what I am, huh?” he suddenly said, just as Pollard started to pour the whiskey.
“Sure, I do,” Pollard replied, a maniacal grin spreading across his face. “I know what all ye pussies are like.” The hell with it, he thought. Why worry about waiting on the right time for this puny piece of shit. He’d lay him over his knee and break his spine first, then roll him like a wagon wheel to the back room. Tossing the drink to the floor, he walked quickly around the bar to the front door, slid the lock bolt in with a loud bang. “You’re fucked now, boy.”
“One of us is, that’s for sure,” Chimney said, watching in the splotchy mirror as the barkeep started to come toward him with his fist raised and his teeth shining yellow in the lamplight. Then he pulled the hammer back on the gun and spun around on the bar stool.