T. Bunn - Winner Take All

“Sir?” The sweet young dolly was probably a college student, she had that look. Chestnut hair in a ponytail, not a trace of makeup, perfect teeth, shining skin. “Would you like another scotch?”

Sephus leaned both elbows on the table, moving in as close as close could be. “Tell you what, dolly. How about you letting me have a taste of something I bet’s a whole lot sweeter’n what I got in this here glass.”

She caught a good strong whiff of him. It backed her up. No surprise there. Her eyes skimmed down the fine duds he’d picked up in the Big Apple, landing on the jailhouse art on his knuckles. Sephus grinned up at her. “You like? Here, lemme show you something.” He undid one sleeve, rolled it back far enough to show the crimson lady dancing upon the daggers, the woman with snakes for hair and eyes of blue fire. “I got pictures on places you don’t even know how to name.”

The sweet young face hardened several notches. “Don’t bet on it, buster.”

Sephus watched her spin that ponytail in an arc and stalk away. That was the problem with your basic modern woman. No interest in living up to a guy’s fantasies.

As he pulled his sleeve back down, his eye was caught by a newer, moon-shaped scar. The white imprint where she had bitten him cut directly across the crimson woman’s neck, slick as a knife. Sephus Jones buttoned the sleeve and thought how sweet it was going to be, meeting up with that particular blond-haired fantasy again.

A pair of secretaries in their evening grab-me gear started to go for the table closest to him. The nearer one caught a whiff and did the backtracking. Sephus smiled and waved them away. He’d been wearing the signature scent so long he rarely even gave it any thought. It was something he’d started on in the third of his juvenile joints. Looking for a way to stand out, basically. Make a stand in a place where they did all they could to grind the boys down to nameless sameness. He’d stolen a bottle of the stuff when mopping down the guards’ shower room. Gotten a beating for it, then a scrub-down with wire brushes and two weeks solitary when he doused himself from head to toe. But they never found the bottle. He took to hiding away at shower times, waiting until he had trouble walking around in his own stinking skin, then applying the bottle like varnish. Which gained him some serious pain from the guards. Sephus raised his sleeve, took a slow drag. Twenty-three years and seven prisons later, those early beatings were still closer than yesterday. Which was why he kept to the habit. Far as he was concerned, the odor was as close as he could come to pure rage.

“Excuse me, sir.” The bartender hovering by his table was a college football heavy, all shoulders and clear eyes and about as dangerous as a TV commercial. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Sephus swiveled his chair about. Propped one steel-toed boot on the table. Cradled his drink with both hands. Showed the guy just how worried he was. “Let me guess. Tight end. No, no, you swinging with the dolly there, it’s got to be king of the field. Am I right?”

“The drink’s on the house, sir. Please go.”

“See, I’m interested on account of how you plan on playing once I do a number on both your knees.”

The guy started to shift back, but eyes were on him now. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Then you’re messing with the wrong table.” Sephus pointed with his chin to where the waitress was using the corner of the bar as a shield. “Scuttle on back over there and have your dolly bring me another round.”

The man he was here to meet chose that moment to scurry over and glare down at him. “This is the way you keep to a low profile? Shame!”

Sephus inspected this fat little German sausage squeezed into twill. And those glasses. And that accent. “Man, you were made to make me grin.”

“This is no smiling matter!” Reiner Klatz spun about and poked a finger into the quarterback’s chest. “You please go now.”

“Not until this gentleman has left the premises.”

“Yes, of course. He is going with me. You leave, he leaves. So simple.”

Sephus drained his glass, rose to his feet, and faced the quarterback. Just looked at him. Showed him what was there. Sephus Jones had a way with looks. Anybody did, they wanted to come out of the places he’d been in one piece. Just showed him a trace of the secrets. Usually he’d think one tight thought, just enough to ram the rage in hard. Like how he’d managed the guards’ beatings because they weren’t so bad, not really, compared to what he’d been through at home. Like that.

The quarterback was scared. But he stood his ground. Sephus had to give him that.

“No, no, this is too wrong.” The fat little German squeezed in between them and shoved Sephus back. “We are please to be going now.”

“Okay, Adolf. Anything you say.” He gave the dolly a smile and a wave, then said to the quarterback, “See you around.”

Wilma Blain brought him a fresh coffee while they waited for Skyler Cummins to be brought up from the cells. “Everything all right?”

No way was he going to add more smoke by talking about Dale. Or taint the sparkling memory by mentioning his conversation with Kirsten. “Fine.”

“How are you enjoying our little show?”

“You played James well.”

“It’s what I do.”

“Where’s the subject?”

“Waiting in the interview room.”

Blain accompanied Marcus back to his tight little chamber. Together they inspected the prisoner through the one-way glass. Skyler Cummins was every inch the heavy. He had what Marcus classed as a biker’s build-two hundred pounds of muscle coated by another hundred pounds of flab. Fighter’s hands, broken nose, scar rising from his gray-brown beard. Another old wound ran around his neck, clipped off the bottom third of his right ear, then disappeared into his shoulder-length hair. Custom snarl.

Blain held the file so that Marcus could read over her shoulder. Skyler’s age was put at thirty-eight. His sheet was twelve pages long. “I believe we’ll leave the manacles on this one.”

“Maybe have the guard hang around as well.”

“We’ll see.” She flipped through the arrest warrant. “Says here our Mr. Steadman clocked them both using just a lamp and his fists. Remind me never to get Dale mad.”

The deputy popped his head in. “Hamper Caisse just arrived.”

“He well cooked?”

The deputy grinned. “Snorting and breathing fire.”

“Show the man in.” Wilma pointed at Marcus. “You see anything out of the ordinary, call out the guards.”

“Don’t worry.”

As she closed him into the observation room, Marcus observed a furious Hamper Caisse come striding into the chamber on the glass’s other side. Hamper wore one of his custom courtroom suits and the expression of a man sorely put out. He glared at the prisoner. “What are you doing here?”

“Me?” Skyler Cummins rattled as he wheeled around to face his attorney. He was rigged in what sheriffs classed as traveling gear-yellow one-piece prison coverall, gray socks, plastic slip-on sandals. His cuffs and ankle bracelets were chained to his canvas belt. “Who’s the one they got tied up like a crazy man?”

The guard opened the door a second time, and Wilma Blain entered the room. “Stay close,” she told the deputy.

“With you all the way.” The deputy shut the door, then unlatched the faceplate and planted himself before the wire-mesh window.

Hamper Caisse offered Blain a furious sneer. “So you’ve finally decided to deal?”

“Oh, you thought this visit was for plea bargaining? I do apologize.” She crossed to the table’s other side, seated herself, then pointed to the chairs opposite her. “Have a seat, Mr. Cummins.”