Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

Jasmine the barmaid glanced in their direction, recognized Will as a cop, and hurried to the far end of the bar.

That’s kind of snooty, denying us service, Sunny thought until she saw Jasmine grab a guy by the arm and whisper—or was that shout quietly—in his ear, nodding toward the newcomers. Her friend stared at Will, and the sloppy-looking cigarette dangling from his lips suddenly disappeared into his mouth. He squeezed his eyes in pain as he gave a convulsive swallow.

Val obviously caught that byplay, because she grinned. “Nice bunch. And a really jumping place.”

She stepped up to the bar, and now Sunny had to grin at the reaction from the regulars. On the one hand, Val moved like a cop. On the other, she was a good-looking, unfamiliar female. A sort of push-pull effect ran its way through the scruffy-looking guys lining the bar.

Will stood beside Val and pulled Sunny onto a stool on his other side. Guess he wants to be surrounded by bait, she decided.

Jasmine the barmaid continued pretending to ignore them. For Sunny’s male classmates, Jasmine had probably been a greater draw than cheap beer. An English major had described her as an exotic flower rising in the middle of a squalid swamp. More like an exotic dancer, Sunny thought. Jasmine specialized in outfits that combined brevity and astonishing engineering to give the impression of ripe fruit about to—but never quite—spill out.

These days, Jasmine was more on the overripe side. Fifteen years of beer and cigarette smoke had not done wonders for her figure or her skin. A strip of gray always showed at the part of her unnaturally black hair. And somewhere along the way she’d lost a tooth. But she still kept up her femme fatale act . . .

Sunny blinked. Something had been nagging her subconscious, and now she realized what it was. Jasmine was wearing one of her signature seriously-strained tops, but she was wearing it over what looked like a leotard. Sunny leaned over to Will. “Is Jasmine suddenly worrying about the cold?” she yelled.

The answer came from a guy lounging against the bar on the opposite side. “Her old man don’t like her showing off so much.”

Sunny gave him a once-over. The stranger had a hatchet face with too much nose and chin, a wisp of mustache between them, and a pair of beady, greedy eyes. “Came along and ruined the one good thing about this bar.” He glared at Jasmine. “It sure wasn’t her beer or her personality.”

Somehow, Jasmine must have caught the conversation, because she came charging over. “Don’t make a bigger jackass of yourself than you need to, Scab. She’s with the cop.” Jasmine jerked her head in Will’s direction.

Bingo, Sunny thought.

“It’s a free country. I can say whatever I want,” Scab blustered.

“And Bear can kick your scrawny butt from here to Augusta, even if he is all banged up,” Jasmine told him. “You want me to ask him and find out?”

Scab stepped away from the barmaid and headed down the bar, gravitating in Val’s direction this time.

Jasmine grimaced. “What can I get you?”

“Beer.” Will brought up a good, yeasty burp. He nodded toward Val. “I’ve got a friend in town, and we’ve been hitting all the bars.”

“Yeah, and on a cop’s salary, I guess you want to keep it cheap.” Jasmine got busy below the bar. In a moment she came up with three plastic mugs of beer, about half of it rapidly disintegrating head.

Val took her mug, drained it, and handed it back. “Thanks.”

That surprised Jasmine, who refilled it and then took the charge out of the twenty Will put on the bar.

“I miss all the exciting news,” Sunny said. “How long has this Bear guy been around?”

Jasmine’s expression softened a little. “Just a while.”

“He’s got Scab jealous.”

Jasmine responded with a scornful laugh. “Scab. All he does is look down my tops.”

I thought that’s what they were designed for, Sunny thought, but she didn’t say that out loud.

“Bear is . . . different.” Jasmine leaned forward, as if she were happy to find a female she could confide in. “Oh, he’s got his rough edges—he wasn’t an angel. But he respects me—and wants me to respect myself more.” She gestured to the cover-up she was wearing under her tawdry-looking top.

Sunny grinned. “Yeah, but I bet it cuts down on your tips.”

Jasmine winced a little. “To tell you the truth, the tips haven’t been rolling in lately. Bear is—was—a biker. He’s got a really cool Harley, but he came down here from the other end of the state to leave that life behind. He’s a great mechanic, fixed up my old wreck. Once he finds a job around here . . . well, I think I’ll be saying good-bye to O’Dowd’s.”

“The place won’t be the same without you,” Sunny said, surprising herself to discover she meant it. “I hope it all turns out right.”

“Thanks.” Jasmine smiled, then turned to head down the bar to where another patron was holding out his mug.

Sunny turned her attention to the conversation proceeding on the other side of Will. Scab Scabetti was puffed up like a toad, telling Val what he would do if Bear so much as looked at him cross-eyed. “Aaah, he’s big but slow,” Scab said. “I’d be in and out, before—”

“Before he still kicked your butt from here to Augusta,” Will interrupted.

Scab gave him a dirty look. “Look, buddy, you already got a girl. Why do you have to get all up in my face?”

“Hey, it’s just business,” Will replied. “You were up that way recently, weren’t you?”

“Ummmm—maybe.” Scab’s beady eyes got wary.

“A little buying trip, I hear.”

Scab began to get alarmed, but Val draped an arm over his shoulders. “Oh, wow, this sounds interesting. What were you buying? Something dangerous?”

Scab’s male hormones kicked in again. “Guns,” he said, swelling up once more. “There was a gun show up north, and a friend took a bunch of us.”

Val’s eyes went wide. “You bought guns? Do you have one on you? Can I see it?”

That’s all we need, guys bringing guns into booze joints like O’Dowd’s. Sunny glanced around. Then again, we don’t have the sharpest tools in the shed on display here. Doesn’t Scab realize that he’s spouting off in front of a cop—about something that’s supposed to be illegal?

A thicker than usual cloud of smoke came wafting past, making her cough. Oh. Right.

Scab deflated a little and shook his head. “No, they’re with my friend. I think he’s gonna make a big killing—” He broke off with a glance at Will. “I mean, make a lot of money. If he took all the guns we got down south to Massachusetts, he could get twice as much as he paid, maybe more—”

Val brought her lips close to Scab’s ear. “You know what else he’d get?”

Scab looked a little dazed. “No, what?”

Val’s voice hardened. “A federal rap for illegally transporting guns across state lines.” She reached under her coat and produced a leather case. “Know what this is?” She opened it up to display her badge.

The sight of that left Scab a little short of words—and maybe breath. He managed to squeak out a no.

“That’s a federal marshal’s badge, as in federal rap. Now, do you want to go in as an accessory before the fact?”

“Think!” Scab gabbled. “I said I think he was going to go there and sell them! I don’t know! I don’t know nothin’!”

“Tell us how it went down,” Will said, his voice as hard as Val’s.

“This guy comes in here, asks if I want to make an easy fifty bucks. He’s got two carloads of people going up to Vincentville for this show. A couple of guys from here, and some of his drinking buddies from a bar down by the waterfront. We go up there, he looks over the different tables, then he sends us around to make purchases.” Scab snickered. “He spent so much, he had to go to the ATM and withdraw money to pay us.”