The Truth of the Matter Read Online Free

seated at booths or tables, and four or five men at the bar. Though he was sure they wouldn’t appear as they had so many years ago, Roebuck was reasonably certain that no one in the lounge could be either Ingrahm or Gipp. The dampness outside seemed suddenly remote from the lounge’s warmth and opulence. Roebuck walked to the bar and mounted a stool.
    “Bourbon and water,” he said to the bleached blonde barmaid who came to take his order. “And make it double strong, honey.”
    She glanced halfway back over her shoulder and he glimpsed the flattered look of mock annoyance on her heavily made-up face. She was about Alicia’s age, her mid-thirties, and her figure was just beginning to go. She would look like hell in another five years, Roebuck thought, but she wasn’t half bad now.
    “Bourbon and water,” the blonde repeated, setting the glass in front of him.
    “Thanks, honey.” He flicked a five-dollar bill from his wallet and laid it on the bar.
    “You know, you look something like John Wayne,” she said as she returned his change.
    “Matter of fact,” Roebuck said, “I used to be his double in a few movies. Of course, that was some years back.”
    “No kidding!” The blonde was obviously impressed, but she had to move off to take another customer’s order. Then the red-vested bartender called her over to the other side of the large lounge where they sat in a booth and began talking about something in the evening paper. Another bartender took over behind the bar. An excess of help, Roebuck thought. Apparently the weather was hurting the Crest Lounge’s business.
    He sat sipping his drink, half listening to the drone of conversation around him, and his eyes were drawn to his reflection in the back bar mirror. Sad that a man had to get older, he thought, that the machine had to wear down. Things didn’t change that much on the inside, or the outside, for that matter. Sometimes it came to Roebuck in brief flickers of thought that he had the same aspirations and dreams that he’d had as a boy, that the world was essentially the same, that nothing really changed while his reflection was aging in the mirror.
    A hand touched his shoulder gently and he jumped, spilling part of his drink.
    “How are things, Lou?”
    It was Ingrahm, thinner-haired, older, more lined, but it was Ingrahm.
    They shook hands. “You look good, Bob,” Roebuck said.
    “Thanks.”
    There was a silence as each man studied the apparition from his past.
    “The Kid’s over at a table,” Ingrahm said, motioning with his hand.
    So Ingrahm still called Gipp “the Kid.” It had been a long time since Roebuck had heard that. They walked across the lounge toward the small, hard-looking man seated at a table by the wall.
    Gipp stood as they approached and shook Roebuck’s hand. Even the faint light of the lounge was captured in his rimless spectacles.
    “You were right,” Gipp said to Ingrahm.
    “Sure,” Ingrahm said. “I told you it was him. I recognized him by the boots.”
    “So you still wear cowboy boots, huh?” Gipp said, and all three men looked down at the polished toes of Roebuck’s Western boots.
    “Most comfortable thing there is,” Roebuck said.
    “I remember now.” Ingrahm smiled. “They had a hell of a time getting them away from you in the army. Threatened to throw you in the stockade or something.”
    “Good memory,” Roebuck said. “A lieutenant and myself made a little deal about me giving up my boots. You didn’t see me on KP too often after that, did you?”
    “Come to think of it, I didn’t.” Ingrahm winked at Gipp, who was smiling mechanically.
    The blonde barmaid came over and they sat down and ordered. Ingrahm and Gipp had martinis and Roebuck ordered another bourbon and water.
    “You sure don’t look like you did when you were eighteen or nineteen,” Ingrahm said to Roebuck.
    “A long time ago,” Roebuck said. “But we saw each other in Little Rock ten years ago. That’s probably why