Seven

Arn entered the Boot Hill saloon and stood to one side of the door. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim light and wished his nose would adjust to the stale smoke of cigarettes, the retching odor of spilt beer too slow in being cleaned up. The Boot Hill was the place to go for a cheap drunk, dating back to the days when Arn worked for the Cheyenne police department. The owner, Flo Martin, had outlasted her eighty-year-old husband to run the bar herself. She’d recently committed to live music every weekend and made sure everything sticky was mopped from the dance floor. So at least the dance floor was clean. And she advertised door prizes for anyone testing over a .20 on her alcohol machine hanging by the exit door.

“What you say, sugar?” Flo Martin wheezed as she walked across the empty dance floor. She stopped in front of Arn, one hand resting seductively on her bony hip, all ninety pounds of her. Her other hand waved the air with a cigarette jammed into a silver holder as she spoke. Ashes flicked onto the floor as she sucked deeply. Her lips pursed in the vertically-lined indents consistent with a woman who has smoked all her long life. “You want a drink?”

“Not at noon.”

“That only means you’ll get a late start.” She tilted her head back and laughed heartily. Which quickly deteriorated into a coughing fit violent enough that Arn worried she’d keel over right there. A passing thought caused him to retch; the last thing he wanted right after lunch was to perform CPR on Flo Martin.

He waited until he was certain she’d live another day before he motioned to the alcohol testing machine. “Is that right? You give door prizes to anyone getting blasted enough to register a .20 BA?”

She nodded and hit her chest with a fist. “We bribe folks with a blender or a toaster, just like the banks do. We want people to test themselves before they leave, make sure they know how wasted they are. Wouldn’t want anyone driving drunk.”

“What about the .20 testers that leave the bar alone? Don’t you worry about them?”

Flo crossed herself. “I worry about all of them, sugar. We tell them not to drive. But what they do when they leave here is none of my business.” She snubbed her butt out in a chipped Grain Belt ashtray and stuck another one into her filter in one practiced motion. She caught Arn eying it. “Filter keeps carcinogens out of these lungs.” She coughed again and lit up. “Gotta stay healthy. Now what can I do for you if you’re not here to drink?” She winked.

“I understand Jillie Reilly hung out here,” Arn said, changing the subject. “She might have been drinking here the night she was murdered.”

“She did.” Flo crossed herself again with a wrinkled hand. “This was her place.”

“Can we sit?”

Flo led Arn to a booth. He sat and she nudged him over to sit next to him. “Married, sugar?”

Arn held up his hand, where a worn wedding ring glinted in the dim light. Although Cailee had been dead for years now, he still wore the ring in her memory. And sometimes—like now, with Flo—it proved useful in other ways. “I’m spoken for.”

“Shame,” Flo said as she took in another long draw of smoke. “What you need to know?”

Arn opened his notebook and took out his pen as if he intended to write. He’d jot his notes down later in the car. For now, he’d sit and listen and judge Flo’s body language, her voice inflections, to see if she was truthful. “Tell me, what was Jillie like last Saturday night?”

Flo looked at the Miller High Life beer sign with broken neons that flashed Mil e High. It made Arn think he was back in Denver. “She waltzed in drunker than usual. But then she usually got snockered-up and wild. It was what made her charming, and attracted cowboys to her.”

“Any cowboy in particular that night?”

Flo chin-pointed to the stage with the instruments still assembled awaiting the musicians gig next Saturday night. “Eddie Glass. He and Jillie danced so many tunes I thought they’d wear their legs out.”

“Her father said Eddie was an old flame?”

Flo shrugged. “Jillie had a fling with Eddie last summer. But then a lot of women around Cheyenne had a fling with him, much to the chagrin of his wife.”

“So, she knew?”

Flo blew smoke upward. It lingered over the booth and she waved the air. “Karen stormed in here one night last month. Got someone to watch their baby while she went out looking for Eddie. I don’t hold to messing around on your wife—it was none of my business. But when she came in raising hell and ragging on Eddie, I told the bouncer to show her the door.”

“Did Karen come in last Saturday?”

“I didn’t see her, but my bartender might have.” Flo craned her neck around and yelled, “Hey Karl, did Eddie Glass’s old lady come in here last Saturday?”

Karl stood from behind the bar, but Arn barely saw him. When he walked around the end of the bar, a towel was draped over his muscular shoulders. Shoulders less than half as large as Arn’s—Karl was a little person. He had a stogie stuck in his mouth that looked way too big for him, and a muscle shirt that showed off his physique. For a wee man, Karl was put together mighty well. “What the hell you want now?”

“This is Mr. Anderson. He’s helping the police find Jillie Reilly’s killer.”

Karl tipped his pork pie hat. “Howdy, old timer.”

“Mr. Anderson wants to know if Karen Glass came in here last Saturday night.”

“Early.” Karl nodded. “She looked around for a minute and then left. I never saw her again. Now is that it, ’cause I got a ton of shit I gotta do before we start getting drinkers tonight.”

Flo waved him off, and Karl returned to his chores behind the bar.

“Got him an attitude,” Arn said.

“He’s the best bartender I ever had, or I’d can him.”

“How about your bouncer? Maybe he saw Eddie’s wife—”

“Karl is my bouncer,” Flo said, and she must have read the surprise etched on Arn’s face. “Karl’s a tough little bastard. You ought to see him compete in dwarf-tossing.”

Arn grabbed his pen, as much to get the thought out of his head of Karl sailing through the air like one of the Flying Wallendas and landing on a stained and filthy mattress on the floor of the bar. “Let me get this straight: Eddie and Jillie danced all night?”

Flo lit another cigarette and held the holder away from Arn. “Not all night. Don Whales and the Dolphins had just started their first break—”

“Odd name for a Wyoming band.”

Flo patted Arn’s hand. “We like to think it a … quaint name. Anyways, Bonnie Johns came in and sat in the corner. When Jillie went to the crapper, Bonnie grabbed Eddie as he was sitting catching his breath. They cut a rug, they did, clearing the dance floor, until Jillie came out and tried to cut in. Bonnie shoved Jillie and she fell to the floor. Karl had to give Bonnie the bum’s rush.”

Flo waved her hand, and Karl came over with a mug of draft beer. “You want one, old timer?”

“You got one with a Geritol chaser?”

“A what?”

“Never mind,” Arn said. “I’m fine.”

“And that was the last of Jillie and Eddie for the night?” Arn asked after Karl had disappeared behind the bar.

“Eddie dancing with Bonnie didn’t sit well with Jillie, and she latched onto some other dude sitting at the bar. Then Eddie wanted to make her jealous so he grabbed some woman sitting with her old man. They started dancing, and Eddie was rubbing again’ her pretty seductively. Well, it was Katie bar the door then. Her old man jumped Eddie for dancing with his wife, and Karl ushered them both outside. Eddie came back in a few minutes all bloodied. Said he made the husband wish he’d let him dance with his old lady.”

“And you let Eddie back in after that?”

Flo blew the head off the mug of beer, and it hit the floor with a nasty plop. “What happens outside is none of my business. Besides, Eddie gets pretty crazy when he’s drunk. I didn’t know if Karl could even handle him.”

Arn let that pass. “So how long did Jillie stay? I’m trying to get a fix on her timeline for Saturday night.”

Flo looked at the ceiling fan wafting smoke around the room. “Jillie didn’t stay long. While Eddie and the husband were duking it out outside, Jillie spotted some guy I never seen before drinking by his lonesome in the corner. I figured she wanted to score with the guy just to make Eddie jealous, but all she did was stand by his booth and taunt him. ‘I’m going to tell,’ she said. ‘Just wait until this gets out.’”

“Wait until what gets out?”

Flo shrugged. “I’m guessing he was another married man that Jillie had a one-night stand with at one time. She was known for that.”

“And she hung around taunting him?”

“I figured she was waiting for Eddie to come back so he could see she was interested in the guy.” Flo took a huge gulp of the beer. Some froth spilled onto her chin and ran down her chest. She winked at Arn. “Want to wipe it dry?”

Arn held up his ring finger, and her smile faded as she grabbed a napkin. “The guy tried to make himself small, but Jillie kept pestering him. Embarrassing, if the guy was married. Anyways, when Eddie came in, he saw Jillie leaning over the guy’s table and he started for him. The husband of the woman he’d danced with burst back into the bar then for round two. Between the fight and Karl breaking them up, it gave the poor bastard time to escape Jillie’s nagging. He ran out in the confusion with Jillie right on his heels. Eddie turned to catch up with her, but it wasn’t until he’d waylaid the husband on the dance floor that he could run outside after Jillie and the dude.”

“Did Eddie catch up with them?”

“He might have, ’cause he never came back in. Or else Karen was waiting for him outside.” Flo leaned closer than Arn liked. “If you talk with Karen, you watch your backside. That girl’s got a temper as bad as her old man’s. She’d as likely clear out a bar as Eddie would.”

“I’ll remember that.” Arn jotted down what Flo had told him and tapped on his notebook with his pen. “What did the guy look like that Jillie was harassing?”

Flo paused, her cigarette halfway to her puckered lips. “Don’t rightly know, except he was … plain. Sure, that’s the word I’m looking for, just plain. Not like most guys who wander in here for a beer and a babe.” She chuckled. “He wasn’t flashy like Eddie. Certainly not at all the kind of man Jillie usually took home.” Flo lowered her voice as if Karl were eavesdropping. “She was a looker, Jillie was. She could have most any man she sashayed her cute little ass in front of.”

Arn put his pen and notebook away and gently nudged Flo. “If you think of anything else, please let me know.” She reluctantly slid out to allow Arn to get out of the booth. “One other thing—do you know where I could find Eddie?”

She looked at her watch. “Sometimes he drops into the Fairgrounds to help with the dog class. You might catch him there.”