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Tucker used to be a regular. Go figure.
The lodge was large yet gloomy. A bar took up most of one side, an (unlit) stone fireplace took up most of the other, and tables and chairs were cluttered around the rest of the room. Fringed lamps lent a dusty light to the place. Moose and reindeer antlers decorated the walls, alongside a few yellowed vampyr skulls. Incongruously, raggaeton music played a little too loud from a speaker somewhere. The whole place smelt of stale beer and fresh urine.
At just before lunch, it was almost entirely empty. Probably the weather, although even in Tucker’s day it was never bustling. Aside from him, there was only one other person at the bar. A woman, smoking a cigarette and nursing a beer. She wore a sequined black-and-white dress with cowboy boots and a tasseled waistcoat. Bright orange hair cascaded in curls down her back.
Tucker walked up. “Buy a girl a drink?”
She turned. Up close, the hair was obviously a wig. Her face was creased with heavy lines, thick makeup caked into them. Crinkled eyes were thickly lined with kohl and painted with blue eyeshadow. Her lips, as always, were coated in bright red lipstick.
Twenty-five years ago, Tucker wouldn’t have put Margot at a day under seventy. Now, she didn’t look a day under ninety.
The lips drew into a smile, revealing yellowed teeth. “Well, look what the devil dragged in. Jensen Tucker. I heard you were dead.”
Her voice when she spoke was the throaty rasp of a dedicated thirty-a-day nicotine addict.
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Tucker said.
Margot stood, somewhat shakily, and embraced Tucker in a surprisingly hard hug. Her head barely reached his chest.
“You feel good.”
“Thanks.”
“You want to make an old lady feel good?”
“Maybe after a drink.”
She laughed, which then morphed into a hacking cough. She thumped her chest.
“Okay. Beer?”
Tucker took a stool. It creaked beneath his weight.
“Thanks.”
It was early and he was driving, but this wasn’t the type of place where you ordered a spritzer. He waited, resting his arms on the bar. It felt sticky.
Margot walked behind the bar, grabbed a bottle of Bud out of the fridge and plonked it down in front of him. “I’d say on the house, but this house needs every dollar it can get.”
“That’s fine,” Tucker said, reaching for his wallet. “How is business?”
“Booming, as you can see.”
“Thought that might be the weather.”
“Not much better most of the time. A lot of the old crowd got sober or cirrhosis. Folks have more choices. You know there’s a brewpub opened up in Talkeetna?”
“Things change, I guess.”
“Yeah, and not always for the better.” She took the note he handed her and stuffed it into the till. No change. Then she took a drag on the cigarette. “What are you doing here, Tucker?”
“You hear about the kid that was killed?”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“Well, I’m helping with the investigation.”
Her tattooed eyebrows raised.
