Jonathon King - A Killing Night

Later I turned down the invitation to spend the night in the guest room. Things had changed in Billy's house. Diane came out of the den to kiss me good night and I was at the door when I stopped.

"Speaking of surveillance," I said, trying to be amusing, something I should have given up long ago, "I suspect you've got some paparazzi in the parking lot shooting film of your fellow residents or their guests."

They both looked at each other. Billy was first to shrug his shoulders. It was unlike him not to ask for details, but no questions were forthcoming. I backed out.

"Just be careful not to wear anything trashy out front," I said to Diane, pointing my finger from the blouse to the sweatpants.

"Good night, Max," she said and smiled, and I turned to the elevator and heard the oak doors lock behind me.

He walked in, let his eyes adjust to the low light, and was pleased to see two open stools at the end of the bar-one for himself and the other for quiet. He'd been here before, a neighborhood place the way he liked. A single, twenty-foot real wood bar spanned one wall, its lacquered surface redone enough times to make the deep grain look like it was floating just below the surface. The lights rarely went to half strength, even during happy hour. Tonight there were two groups of drinkers along the bar: Three guys and a girl in the middle, all friendly and chatty. Three more men at the other end by the windows with shot glasses in front of them and colored liquor on ice at the side.

He sat on the stool at the other end and hooked a heel on the rung of the empty one next to him, staking claim on the space. He knew the bartender who was working the shift alone. She was in her mid-thirties and had lost her figure to the years but her face was still pretty. She came his way and stopped at the thigh-high cooler under the bar and pulled out a Rolling Rock, and uncapped it on her way.

"Hi, how are you tonight?" she said with a pleasant smile and put the bottle on a napkin in front of him. Her eyes were brown and clear and he'd determined when he'd met her before that he didn't like the intelligence he saw inside them.

"Fine, thanks," he answered, being pleasant himself. He took a long drink and looked into the mirror behind the liquor bottles on the shelves behind her. When he focused he could use the reflection of another wall of mirrors on the opposite side of the room and watch the drinkers all down the line. He liked that aspect of the place, being able to watch without being noticed. A television tuned to ESPN hung in the corner above him. The sound was off and one of the wry announcers was moving his mouth around while photos of boxer Mike Tyson flashed behind him.

Christ, he thought, there's your problem. If all your sports shows and media would just make a pact never to mention that asshole's name again, he'd disappear into the fucking alleys or the prison yard where he belonged. Why do they let an animal like that use them?

He tipped his empty at the bartender and then watched the reflection of the girl from the middle group walk behind him and load dollar bills into the jukebox in the corner. He took a drink of the fresh beer and tried to place the first tune, a thing from the past by Journey about a small-town girl livin' in a lonely world and a city boy born in south Detroit. He thought about Amy. On those late- night dates and long intimate conversations she had confided in him. Her parents in Ohio. Her father a drunk. She'd come to Florida to start fresh, had a girlfriend that was supposedly coming to visit but who had never shown up. She probably told him more about herself than she had any of her coworkers. He was a good listener. Women liked that about him. Christ, if she'd only kept her place instead of trying to run him. Hell, he could have loved her. Shit, she hadn't even raised her arm to ward him off when he'd shot her in the face.

He hadn't had to look around or wonder if anyone had heard the report of the.38. The Glades were like that, a few miles out and it was dark and alone. He'd taken a plastic yellow tarp from his trunk and rolled her body onto it and tossed her jeans and shoes on top. Then he'd pulled the load down through the trees and into the wet vegetation some forty yards from the dirt roadway. The moonlight had given him enough light to find a wet depression in the mangroves to leave her. He'd buried the first two and later he wondered why. All that forensics shit you saw on television was useless if they never find a body. And they never did. Other than that old woman running around with the posters of his second girlfriend, no one was even looking.

Christ, had it been a month? Two? He'd stayed out of the bars for a while, especially Hammermills. But he started back, had missed the air, the mix of cigarette smoke and perfume, the subtle sexual electricity-not like one of those strip places where the women were plastic and may as well have sticker prices on their asses. A place like this had real people, girls you could appreciate, women that you could fall for. He'd been growing anxious again, bored with work. The compulsion had come on faster than last time and he didn't fight it. He was lonely. He needed to own someone.

The song ended and he watched in the mirrors while the bartender greeted a new girl. They were changing shifts. The older one was being managerial, introducing her around to the regulars. She did the foursome at the other end, some of them shook her hand. The new girl was small and seemed slightly self-conscious but had worn a short skirt on her first night. She had good legs. She'd be popular in this place, he thought.

"And this is Lou and Tommy and Liz and, I'm sorry, Absolut on the rocks, what was your name again?" said the bartender, introducing the middle group now. The unknown customer reintroduced herself and actually reached out and kissed the new girl's hand.

"And down here at the end is Rolling Rock. Except when he's serious and then he's Maker's Mark," she said and smiled, pleased with herself.

The new girl nodded and smiled. She had blue eyes and curly blonde hair that didn't have to be streaked to be pretty but was. He gave her his polite smile and said hello. While the other bartender cashed out and gathered her tips he watched the new girl. She had two studs in her left ear. Three rings on her hands, one with a blue stone. Her breasts were not large, but on such a small frame they appeared voluptuous. After the other girl left, she busied herself with rinsing and wiping and setting things up her own way and motioned to the empty bottle in front of him. When she extended her hand, he noted that her nails were bitten to the quick.

"Another one?" she said, and her smile seemed easier.

"Yes, please," he said. "And a shot of Maker's Mark on the side." I was up at the beach before sunrise and out on the edge of the Everglades by breakfast. Dan Griggs, the park ranger assigned to the five hundred acres designated by the state as a registered wild and scenic area at Thompson's Point, was cooking eggs.

"I think I got that lunker snook you've been trying to hook over to the west side down by the shade turn," he was saying from the back room.

"Like hell," I answered. I was pouring coffee from the ranger's electric maker in the office section of his dockside station.

"Yeah, I hate to say it. That crafty bastard been teasing you more'n a year now, right?"

He would not meet my eyes when he carried the pan of eggs in and pushed them onto two paper plates at his desk.

"Wasn't my fish," I said, setting his coffee in front of him and taking one plate. "He's too damn wise for you, Danny."

The ranger leaned back in his metal office chair and propped his heels on the corner of his state-issued desk. He was lean and blond and smiling when he dragged the plate of eggs onto his lap.