Last Call Lounge Read Online Free Page B

pick up an eight ball for me?  I’ll pay you back at Jenna’s.”

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    FRIDAY
     
    THREE
     
    It was hot outside, even at three a.m. The August-thick air streamed in through my open window and the cigarette smoke clung to my skin. The a/c in my little rice-burner truck didn’t work, but I had it cranked up to full anyway. At a red light, I pulled out my phone and called Sarah. She didn’t answer. She never did, when I called that late.
    I stopped for gas and a pack of cigarettes at the gas station near the highway. It was three a.m. and all but one of the pumps were full.  I pulled up behind a guy in a jacked up 4-by-4 Bronco with big flood lights mounted across the roof.  He was filling up four red, plastic gas cans lined up on the concrete.  I swiped my credit card, started the gas pumping, and went inside.
    The store was bright and loud and as cold as a walk-in refrigerator.  Two or three people waited in line, buying ice and bottled water. It took me a minute to realize they were stocking up – to evacuate, or to hunker down. I couldn't think of anything I needed, so I bought a carton of cigarettes.
    Back out at my truck, the guy in the Bronco gave me a clenched-jaw grin.  He was a big guy with a security-guard haircut and a round gut hanging over the belt of his cargo shorts.
    “You ready?” he asked.  I waggled my carton of cigarettes at him.  “You better get ready, son,” he said, loading the gas cans into the back of his truck.  “This shit’s coming right at us.”
     
    Worm had agreed to meet me at my house without any question. I’d always been a pretty reliable customer and I’m sure he saw this as just another sale.
    My house was cool and dark and smelled clean, like Freon. Most of the furniture was stuff I had inherited from my Dad. A long purple couch, a square recliner, a heavy dining room table. Nothing that matched, as far as I could ever tell. I kept the place neat, clean. Hospital corners, shoes in a row. I did almost three years of active duty, minus a little jail time, before my knee gave out. You don’t lose those habits easily.
    I grabbed a beer and sat down on the couch. Under the couch was a carved wooden box that I pulled out, put on the coffee table in front of me. In it was a baggie of fairly good pot. I didn't smoked pot myself, but I always kept some around for guests. I rolled a tight joint, put it on the ashtray on the table. Like most drug dealers I had ever known, Worm was lonely. He could never be sure if his friends really liked him, or if they just liked him because he could get them high. You had to chat with him first. If you tried to jump right into business, he’d get his feelings hurt. He’d still sell you the coke, he’d just pout while he did it. I leaned back on the couch, closed my eyes, sipped my beer, thought about what I was going to say.
    About three-thirty, I heard Worm pull up, a wobbly V-8 with some muffled rock anthem shaking the windows. Worm’s truck was his pride. A big white Chevy half-ton with an aluminum toolbox bolted in the bed and a winch on the front grill. Worm had worked construction for a year or so, right out of high school, kept a love for the trucks.
    I opened the door before he knocked and we did our standard handshake-fist hug. At thirty-four, he was still dressing like a frat boy, like he pictured a frat boy would dress. White t-shirt, hemp necklace. Like a prep-school kid on a beach excursion. Girls often said we looked a lot a like, but he was shorter than me, a little thinner, and I was darker. He was wearing an Astros cap and it occurred to me that he might be going bald.
    He was nervous. As I closed the door, he moved to the window and pulled the curtain back to look at his truck. He shuffled his fingers across his thumb, breathed through his teeth. He had dark rings under his big round eyes and his face was gray pale. He had a fresh scrape on his temple and purpling bruises around his neck. He was