Don Winslow - Way Down on the High Lonely

“Knock it off!” he yelled.

Dave Bekke was rolling on the floor gripping his crotch just as Randy Carlisle got up and charged at Neal. He hit him in the midsection and drove him back to the floor. Craig had Steve bent backward over the bar and was cocking his fist for the coup de grace.

“I said that’s enough!” Hansen hollered.

Steve reached up, grabbed Vetter’s fist, and pulled back like he was flipping a calf to the ground. Both men went over the top of the bar and landed with a crash on the floor. Neal had managed to pull Randy’s denim jacket over his head, trapping his arms. As Steve and Craig got up punching, Hansen pulled a pistol from his belt and shot a hole in the ceiling.

The roar stopped them all in mid-punch, and they looked sheepishly over at the rancher.

Hansen surveyed the damage and said, “You need to leave me with a hand or two, Steve.”

“Then you need to teach ’em some manners, Bob.”

“I expect you’re right about that.”

Hansen looked quizzically at Neal.

“Carey coldcocked Cal from behind, Mr. Hansen,” Carlisle accused.

“That right, Neal?” Hansen asked.

“You bet.”

Hansen holstered his pistol. “Seems we have us a few things we need to get resolved.”

You ain’t kidding, Neal thought.

Cal Strekker pushed himself up onto his knees. He shook his head a few times as Carlisle and Vetter grabbed his arms and helped him to his feet.

“Let’s get going, boys,” Hansen said. “We got work to do tomorrow. Neal Carey, I’ll be talking to you.”

Neal nodded. And I’ll be talking to you, he thought. Because it looks as if we’ll have to speed things up a little bit.

Hansen looked around at the broken glasses and the pool of blood on the floor where Strekker had been taking his nap.

“I’ll take care of the damages,” he said to the bartender.

“No you won’t,” Steve Mills said. “We will-me and Neal Carey.”

“You’re a traitor,” Carlisle snapped to Neal as he walked out.

I wish you hadn’t said diat, Neal thought. I really do.

The band started up again and Steve threw his arm around Neal’s shoulders.

“Goddamn, it’s been a long time since I been in a fight like that!” he whooped. “Goddamn that was fun! But you shouldn’t have hit him with that stool like that. I would’ve held my own with him.”

“Aww, I know. I’ve just been wanting to hit him with a stool for a long time. Seemed like the right moment to do it.”

They were back at the table now and the women were looking them over for damage. There was a lot to look at. Steve had a split lip, a nasty cut over one eye, and a cheek that was swelling up like a squirrel’s in the fall. Neal’s right eye was beginning to close and a lump was starting to rise up from his forehead.

“Barbarians,” Peggy muttered. “Karen, we’re sleeping with barbarians.”

“That has yet to be seen,” Karen answered. She had a severe, schoolteacher frown on her face.

“Which part?” Steve asked. “The barbarian part or the sleeping-with part?”

“I don’t think there’s any question about the barbarian part,” Karen answered.

Steve winked at Neal. “Uh-oh,” he said. “I believe we’re in trouble.”

But Peggy was looking over his shoulder at Neal and mouthing the words “Thank you.”

“Let’s get these barbarians home,” Peggy said aloud. “I’m married to one, but the other is optional.”

“I’ll take him,” Karen said. Then, in a lower tone to Neal, “Besides, I have some questions to ask.”

Uh-oh.

Joe Graham watched as the pretty boy prostitute settled on a price and got into the front seat of the Mercedes. The car sped off, leaving the sidewalk in front of the True Christian Identity Church empty. Graham slipped into the alley and shuffled through the garbage and the stench of stale urine until he came to the fire door.

He looked around once, then pulled a thin metal strip from his coat. The lock gave up without a fight and Joe Graham was inside the building. He listened for a second, heard no human or animal sounds, turned on his flashlight, and headed up the stairs.

He had the place pretty well memorized from weeks of coming to the damn services, drinking the weak coffee, and eating the cake at the social hour afterward. The price you pay, he thought. He’d heard more damn Jewish jokes than he would at a Catskill weekend.

He found Carter’s office with no problem. The door was unlocked, so he walked right in. Trust in the Lord is a wonderful thing, he thought.

There were three horizontal file cabinets plus the vertical files in the desk drawers. None of them were locked, which Graham found discouraging. He was looking for something that Carter had to hide.

There was another door in the back and it opened to a smaller room with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a safe.

That’s more like it, Graham thought. He knelt down beside the combination lock and got to work.

“Why did he call you a traitor?” Karen asked Neal as she placed a cold washcloth on his eye.

“I dunno. He was drunk.”

“He wasn’t that drunk. And why did that one with the beard ask you whose side you were on? And how do you know those guys, anyway?”

Neal took the washcloth from her and held it himself. “Jesus! Are you sure you don’t want to shine a bright lamp in my eyes? Beat me with a rubber hose?”

“Maybe.”

“Lay off.” Because I’m in a tough position here, Karen. By the strict rules of the game I should have let Cal do a number on Steve back there, but something in me couldn’t let that happen. So I stepped in and committed a cardinal sin-I compromised my cover. And I have to figure out how to put that back together again. Then those assholes had to open their big dumb mouths and undermine me on the other side.

“Just tell me the truth,” Karen said.

Which is just the thing I can’t do. To tell you drags you into it, puts us both at risk. “Shit, Karen, they live next door.”

“Two miles next door.”

“It’s still the next door,” Neal said grumpily.

She had made up another ice pack and held it to the lump on his head as she sat down next to him on the sofa.

“Are you hanging out with those guys?”

Never deny what can’t hurt you, Neal thought. There’s nothing worse than getting caught in a lie you don’t have to tell. Save your lies for the important stuff.

“We’ve had a couple of drinks together,” he said. After knocking over a whorehouse or two.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Did you learn that from Peggy?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Bad company.”

You bet. “Anyway,” he said, “they probably won’t be too friendly after tonight.” Which is something of a problem, actually.

“Don’t bet on it,” Karen said. “Out here, little brawls like that don’t get in the way of being men together. Just a little bloodier-than-usual male bonding. You know, shake hands and laugh it off. ‘Boy, you really hit me a good one there, har-har-har.’ That sort of thing.”

“You sound pissed off.”

“I guess I’m just jealous. I want you to do your heavy-duty bonding with me,” she said. She reached down to his lap by way of illustration.

Neal groaned. “Karen, not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment, but my eye hurts like crazy, my head is throbbing, and my ribs feel like someone took a hammer to them.”

She kept stroking him and said, “Aw, the poor baby. You know, if you’re going to be a rootin’-tootin’, two-fisted drinkin’, barroom-brawlin’ cowboy, you’ll have to learn to climb back in the saddle after you’ve been thrown.”

“Really?”

His voice was strangely high-pitched.