Sue Grafton - F is For Fugitive

The pool hall itself was two pool tables long, with enough space between to allow folk to angle for a tricky shot. Both tables were occupied by bikers: heavyset men in their forties with Fu Manchu beards and long hair pulled back in pony tails. There were five of them, a family of road pirates on the move. The bar ran the entire length of wall to the left, the barstools filled with the bikers' girlfriends and assorted town folk. Walls and ceiling were covered with a collage of beer signs, tobacco ads, bumper stickers, cartoons, snapshots, and bar witticisms. One sign proclaimed Happy Hour from six to seven, but the hand-drawn clock under it had a 5 at every hour. A knee-slapper, that. Bowling trophies, beer mugs, and racks of potato chips lined the shelf behind the bar. There was also a display of Pearl 's Pool Hall T-shirts on sale for $6.99. A leather biker's glove hung inexplicably from the ceiling, and a Miller Lite mirror on the wall was festooned with a pair of lady's underpants. The noise level was such that a hearing test might be in order later.

There was one empty stool at the bar, which I took. The bartender was a woman in her mid-sixties, perhaps the very Pearl for whom the place was named. She was short, thick through the middle, with graying, permanent-curled hair chopped straight across the nape of her neck. She was wearing plaid polyester slacks and a sleeveless top, showing arms well muscled from hefting beer cases. Maybe, at intervals, she hefted some biker out the door by the seat of his pants.

I asked for a draft beer, which she pulled and served up in a Mason jar. Since the din made conversation impossible, I had plenty of time to survey the place in peace. I turned on the stool until my back was up against the bar, watching the pool players, casting an occasional eye at the patrons on either side of me. I wasn't really sure how I wanted to present myself. I thought for the time being I'd keep hush about my occupation and the reasons for my presence in Floral Beach. The local papers had carried front-page news about Bailey's arrest, and I thought I could probably conjure up talk on the subject without appearing too inquisitive.

Down to my left, near the jukebox, two women began to dance. The bikers' girlfriends made some rude observations, but no one seemed to pay much attention aside from that. Two stools over, a woman in her fifties looked on with a sloppy smile. I pegged her as Shana Timberlake, in part because no other woman in the bar looked old enough to have had a teenage daughter seventeen years before.

At ten, the bikers cleared out, motorcycles rocketing off down the street with diminishing thunder. The jukebox was between selections, and for a moment a miraculous silence fell across the bar. Someone said, "Whew, Lord!" and everybody laughed. There were maybe ten of us left in the place, and the tension level dropped to some more familial feel. This was Tuesday night, the local hangout, the equivalent of the basement recreation room at a church, except that beer was served. There was no hard liquor in evidence and my guess was that any wine on the premises was going to come from a jug the size of an oil drum, with about that much finesse.

The man on the stool next to mine on the right appeared to be in his sixties. He was big, with a beer belly that protruded like a twenty-five-pound bag of rice. His face was broad, connected to his neck by a series of double chins. There was even a roll of fat at the back of his neck where graying hair curled over his shirt collar. I'd seen him flick a curious look in my direction. The others in the bar seemed known to one another, judging from the banter, which had largely to do with local politics, old sporting grievances, and how drunk someone named Ace had been the night before. The sheepish Ace, tall, thin, jeans, denim jacket, and baseball cap, took a lot of ribbing about some behavior of his with old Betty, whom he'd apparently taken home with him. Ace seemed to revel in the accusations of misconduct, and since Betty wasn't present to correct the impression, everyone assumed that he'd gotten laid.

"Betty's his ex-wife," the man next to me said, in one of those casual asides meant to include me in the merriment. "She kicked him out four times, but she always takes him back. Yo, Daisy. How about some peanuts down here?"

"I thought that was Pearl," I remarked, to keep the conversation alive.

"I'm Curtis Pearl," he said. "Pearl to my friends."

Daisy scooped what looked like a dog dish full of peanuts from a garbage pail under the bar. The nuts were still in the shell, and the litter on the floor suggested what we were meant to do. Pearl surprised me by chomping down a peanut, shell and all. "We're talkin' fiber here," he said. "It's good for you. I got a doctor believes in cellulose. Fills you up, he says. Gets the old system powerin' through."

I shrugged and tried it myself. No doubt about it, the shell had a lot of crunch and a sharp infusion of salt mingled nicely with the bland taste of the nut inside. Did this count as grain, or was it the same as eating the panel from a cardboard box?

The jukebox sparked to life again, this time a mellow vocalist who sounded like a cross between Frank Sinatra and Delia Reese. The two women at the end of the bar began to dance again. Both were dark-haired, both slim. One taller. Pearl turned to look at them and then back at me. "That bother you?"

"Why should I care?"

"Not what it looks like anyway," he said. "Tall one likes to dance when she's feeling blue."

"What's she got to be unhappy about?"

"They just picked up the fellow killed her little girl a few years back."

I watched her for a moment. At a distance of half the bar, she looked twenty-five. She had her eyes closed, head tilted to one side. Her face was heart-shaped, her hair caught up in a clip on top, the lower portion brushing across her shoulder in a rhythm with the ballad. The light from the jukebox touched her cheek with gold. The woman she was dancing with had her back to me, so I couldn't tell anything about her at all.

Pearl was sketching in the story for me with the practiced tone of frequent telling. No details I hadn't heard before, but I was thankful he'd introduced the subject without any further prompting on my part. He was just warming up, enjoying his role as tribal narrator. "You staying at the Ocean Street? I ask because this fella's dad owns that place."

"Really," I said.

"Yep. They found her down on the beach right in front," he said. Residents of Floral Beach had been telling this tale for years. Like a stand-up comedian, he had his timing down pat, knowing just when to pause, knowing just what response he'd get.

I had to watch what I said because I didn't want to imply I knew nothing of this. While I'm not averse to lying through my teeth, I never do it when I'm apt to be caught. People get crabby about that sort of thing. "Actually, I know Royce."

"Aw, then you know all about this."

"Well, some. You really think Bailey did it? Royce says no."

"Hard to say. Naturally, he'd deny anything of the sort. None of us want to believe our kids would kill someone."

"True enough."

"You have kids?"

"Unh-unh."

"My boy was the one who spotted the two of 'em pulling into the curb that night. They got out of the truck with a bottle and a blanket and went down the steps. Said Bailey looked drunk as a skunk to him and she wasn't much better off. Probably went down there to misbehave, if you get what I mean. Maybe she sprung it on him she was in a family way."

"Hey, there. How's that little Heinie car acting?"

I glanced back to see Tap behind me, a sly grin on his face.

Pearl didn't seem thrilled to see him, but he made polite noises with his mouth. "Say, Tap.

What're you up to? I thought that old lady of yours didn't like you comin' in here."