Bishop was in Shotgun Alley the next night, and Honey came in alone. She was wearing hip-hugger jeans and a lacy tank that left her midriff bare. Her hair swung soft and free around her fine-featured face. She scanned the bikers at the tables quickly. Then she spotted Bishop at the bar.
It was Tuesday, early evening. The roadhouse was quiet. Bishop was on a stool back in that gnarly corner where the Outriders liked to be. He was drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette. His eyes met Honey’s eyes. She came toward him. His gaze traveled down her as she moved. She smiled, shook her head.
“You’re gonna lose those eyes if you don’t take better care of them,” she said, pulling up to the rail. “Bottle of Rock,” she told the barmaid. She looked back at Bishop. “Where d’you think you’re going with this, Cowboy? Huh?”
Bishop grinned. Took a lazy drag off his Marlboro. “You never know.”
“Yes, you do. You know. I know anyway.”
“Nah.” The smoke drifted up from his mouth as he spoke. “You just think you know, Honey. Could turn out you’re wrong. Could turn out I’m the next big thing in your life.”
She blushed. Even in the dim bar light, Bishop saw it. It startled him, reached him down deep. For a moment, she resembled the girl she’d been, the schoolgirl in the snapshots on her vanity table back home. Bishop felt something shift inside him. His ache for her shaded over into longing. It was a strong feeling. Too strong. It irked him. It made him want to hurt her somehow.
The barmaid clapped a beer bottle down in front of her. Honey swiped it up a little too casually. She leaned back against the bar. Studied the big room as if she was done with Bishop for the night. “Excuse yourself,” she said. “You’re dreaming out loud.”
Bishop laughed. “That’s good. That’s funny. Only I’m telling you: It’s not right.”
“No?”
“Uh uh.”
“All right,” she said. “Enlighten me.”
“All right,” he said. “I’m gonna have you, Honey. I’m gonna take you away from Cobra and I’m gonna have you.”
She lost the blush, went pale. She lost the bored look and whatever was left of her smile. She turned her face to him. “What are you, fucking nuts? How about I tell Cobra you said that? What d’you think’ll happen then?”
Bishop’s Marlboro box was on the bar. He lifted it, shuffled a stick out at her. She took it. ‘Thanks.” He held his lighter up, struck the wheel. He waited until their eyes met across the fire.
“You won’t,” he said softly then.
She drew the fire into the weed. Let him smell the smoke on her exhale. “I might.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“Oh right. You’re not afraid of him.”
“No,” said Bishop. “Are you?”
Honey went back to her beer bottle. “You know what, Cowboy? Fuck you,” she said. She swigged her beer hard.
Bishop smiled. He watched her hand on the neck of the bottle. Her painted red fingernails against the green glass.
“You know, I got a theory about you, Honey,” he told her.
She made a noise, rolled her eyes. But he didn’t go on. So she had to ask him, “All right. What’s your big theory?”
“My theory is you’re in too deep.” She came out of another swig of beer. Glanced at him, her blue eyes hot. He went on smiling. “My theory is you got yourself into something ’cause you thought it would be cool and now it’s not so cool and you can’t get out.” He could see her teeth between her lips. He could see she was seething. “You keep telling yourself you want to be here. You keep telling yourself how exciting and rebellious it all is. But right there”—he tipped his beer toward her exposed navel—“in the pit of your belly, you know you’ve crossed the line. I think right now you’d sell your soul to get the hell out of here.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s my theory.”
“And let me guess. You’re the guy who’s gonna take me away from all this.”
“I might,” he said. “If you’re lucky.”
Her laugh was harsh. She leaned in toward him, close, with her teeth bared and her eyes flashing. “You wanna hear my theory, Cowboy? My theory is I tell Cobra your theory and he cuts your heart out and uses it for an ashtray. That’s my theory.”
Bishop shook his head. Never took his eyes off her. “Yeah, but, see, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Oh? Won’t it? You think so? Why not?”
“Because Cobra’s over, Honey.”
“Oh!” she said thickly. “Oh yeah. Oh right. Now it’s you, huh?”
“That’s right,” said Bishop. “Now it’s me. From now on, in your life, it’s all me.”
“Where do you get this shit?” she asked him. She leaned back against the bar again, her elbows on it. “You’re so fucked now, it’s not even funny.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah. I should feel sorry for you.”
Bishop nodded, with that wry expression of his. He took a good long time tamping his smoke out in the bar’s black ashtray. “Only here’s the thing,” he said.
“You tell me the thing,” she said. “You tell me.”
“The thing is, your boyfriend did the Bayshore Market, and he’s going down.”
She turned fast. He could look right into those hot eyes and see the anger die and the fear come up from underneath it.
“If you were there, Honey, even just there, it’s felony murder. The same as pulling the trigger.”
“What are you—? Who are you?” she said.
“That gets you life in a cell about the size of your bathroom back home, Honey—if they don’t just march you down the death house aisle for show.”
The fear flared brighter. Oh yeah, she’d thought about it, all right. She had the picture of it right there in her mind. The cell, the death house—she had it all in her mind already. Which was just the way he wanted it.
Her whisper when she spoke again was dry and faint like a little puff of dust. “Who are you?”
He planted a fresh cigarette in his lips. Lit it quick. Squinted at her through the lighter’s flame. He felt tight inside, tight and pulsing all over. He liked this, doing this. He liked to see her with all the bullshit gone and the fear showing naked.
“They just might, you know,” he said. “A rich, pretty white girl with all the advantages. They just might give you the needle, just to show they would. I hate to think of you on that table, Honey—”
“Stop.” She choked on the word. Her eyes misted over with terror.
Bishop couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman more. He felt wild inside, out of control with the feeling. He didn’t know what would happen next, what he’d do, what he’d say—even he didn’t know.
He lifted his hand. He brushed her cheek with his fingertips. She was too shocked, too scared, too uncertain, to pull away. He spoke around the cigarette in his mouth. “So you can tell Cobra, if you want to. And he can kill me. Or he can try. But in a couple of days, a week, maybe two, there’ll just be another guy.” He took his hand from her. Plucked the cigarette from his lips. Gestured at her with it. “And he won’t be nice like me. He won’t be willing to get you out. I am.”
She stared at him. She didn’t answer, couldn’t. He watched her breathe. He watched her swallow. She was wearing a pink glossy lipstick that made her mouth look wet, but it was really dry, and he watched her dampen it with the tip of her tongue. She stared and stared at him.
Then the roadhouse door banged open and in strutted Cobra. In strutted Shorty in his wake with his heavy arm slung over the narrow shoulders of his little redhaired girl, Meryl. Then the tough-featured Steve came in and Charlie, the muscle boy, followed. And then the door swung shut behind them.
And then it banged open again. And then in came Mad Dog, last of all.