THE BARTENDER WAS ABOUT forty years old, two hundred pounds, totally bald. He wore a checked gingham shirt and blue jeans. The flesh of his face was pale and flabby; the bulge of his belly overhung a wide, silver-buckled cowboy belt. His disinterested eyes were colorless, his nose misshapen, his mouth indeterminate. His voice was hoarse: “Help you?”
“Bourbon and water,” Nick answered. “Bar brand.”
Grunting, the bartender made the drink, put it on the stained mahogany bar. Nick laid down a five-dollar bill, swallowed some of the bourbon, set the glass aside, and turned on the barstool. Like the sign outside, the Boots and Saddle was tacky: a few split rails, a few dusty saddles hung from fake rafters, several rodeo posters tacked to the barnwood walls. Of the four booths, only one was occupied. Five customers sat at the bar: three men, two women. The two women were talking quietly together; the three men, scattered along the bar, were silently drinking. Watching himself in the mirror behind the bar, Nick drained half his glass, felt the welcome warmth of the liquor. At two dollars a drink, he could buy the beginnings of forgetfulness for a ten-dollar bill.
As he drained the glass and signaled for a refill, he caught one of the women’s eyes in the mirror, a quick, appraising glance. Just as quickly, she looked away. But, still, she’d let the suggestion of an invitation linger. She was a brassy blonde, probably in her late twenties, early thirties. If he’d been with someone, another man, and if they could agree on who wanted who, they could probably move in on the two women, the blonde and her friend. Several drinks later—thirty, forty dollars later—they might leave together, one couple in the women’s car, he and the blonde in his car.
No. Not his car. Betty’s car.
No, not his apartment. Her apartment.
And the money in his pocket, that was hers, too.
He was aware that he was avoiding the thought, pushing it aside, consciously blanking it all out, especially the awareness that he was eyeing a woman in a bar while he was paying for a drink with another woman’s money. There was a name for men like that—a name he couldn’t allow himself to remember.
The mind, they said, was like a computer: an incredibly complex computer, millions of electrical terminals switching on and off. But computers could be controlled, and so could the mind. And he’d learned, long ago, the secret of mind control, of complete, utter concentration. So, even now, even here, he was able to control his thoughts, able to plan, able to see the big picture.
The big picture…
God, it was one of his father’s favorite expressions.
His father the salesman—the bowling ball salesman.
Even today, remembering, he smiled at the expression. “What’s your dad do?” a friend would ask, usually a high-school friend. And he’d smile, playing it cool, and he’d say his dad sold bowling balls. They’d smile, too, his friends. Because they knew his father must make good money, better money than he could make just selling bowling balls. Their house was split-level, and their car was always new. And in Milwaukee, at Central High, if you played football, that was all you needed: a split-level house and a new car you could get on Friday nights and parents who knew enough to stay upstairs, whenever his friends came over to play records in the recreation room.
But then came the merger.
And, surprise, his father wasn’t selling bowling equipment anymore, wasn’t selling much of anything, really. Drinking a lot, and playing around, probably—and disappearing for days at a time, sometimes. But not selling much of anything, not bringing in much money.
Their house had never been a happy place, not really. But it hadn’t been unhappy, either, not until the merger.
He finished another drink, put a dollar bill beside the one already lying on the bar, signaled for another drink. It was time to begin with the switches again, arranging his thoughts, getting himself aligned. He’d let his thoughts wander away, off the leash, back into the past. And so, as they so often did, his thoughts had betrayed him, left him high and dry, trapped by ancient defeats, puzzles without answers.
But it was the future, not the past, that could betray him now. Defeat lingered in the past, a constant, bitter goad. But danger threatened in the future—
—danger, and death.
Lifting the drink to his lips—his third drink—he caught the blonde looking at him again. This time he smiled.