Nesmith raised his eyebrows and turned in his chair to face Clay. He pointed a finger across the table.
“What Buchanan made clear,” he said, “is that Mr. Traynor here is a very capable man, and I’d hate to see him make a very bad decision over some white-trash ass. So consider this your one and only warning. That won’t end well for you.”
It was his turn to stand up and check his watch again. He drained his beer and set the dead bottle on the table.
“I have a meeting at court to get to,” he said. “But feel free to stay and finish your beers. I’ll send someone down who can show you out once you’re finished. And for the record, I was impressed with how you handled the Buchanan situation. So was Fisher. Don’t piss this opportunity up against a wall, gentlemen.”
He walked away, headed back into the house after Fisher.
“So no cake for us?” Clay asked.
Ezra waited until Nesmith was out of earshot and then looked at Clay. “I don’t suppose there’s any way to talk yououtof pissing this opportunity against the wall?” he asked.
“Let’s be honest, Ez,” Clay said as he finished his beer. “You’re going to have a job on your hands talking me out of pissing in the pool on our way out.”
Ezra set his bottle down on the table. “That’s what I thought,” he said. “OK. How about we deal with one fire at a time. We need to get Judge Parker back under control, so talk to Grade and make sure he didn’t fuck anything up. Once this all dies down, we can deal with Fisher’s grudge against Pulaski Senior.”
Clay leaned forward to set the bottle down on the table. His fingers slid down the cool glass of the neck for a moment, and then he stood up.
“You’re going to hand Grade over to them, aren’t you?” he asked.
Ezra didn’t exactly answer. He just set his bottle down right next to Clay’s, close enough that the glass clinked together. Clay’s brain glitched briefly, pushed apart under the pressure, and the table smeared from honeycomb-punched white metal to cheap, scarred-up plastic, the bottles from Carlsberg to unlabeled green glass bottles that were refilled every night in the back of the bar.
Old debts.
“Not if we can avoid it,” Ezra said. “Just remember that I’m your best friend and your business partner, and like you said, Grade is just someone you fuck sometimes. Now let’s get out of here before we have to eat Fisher’s fucking shitty cake.”
Chapter Nine
“This country is going to hell in a handbasket carried by feminist liberals,” the man’s voice ranted out of the speakers as the van’s radio suddenly tuned in to a stray FM station. “They might say that what they want is—”
Grade flicked the radio off. Silence was better.
The sign for the Choke loomed on the side of the road as Grade took the bend tightly. At night the mascot was lit up in flickering orange neon, but by day the sexy chicken lady had to stand on her own merits.
Blocky bright red letters advertised:
Hot Women!!
Hot Water!
Hot Wings!!!
Grade wasn’t exactly the target demographic for any of those, but he took the hard left the arrow directed him to into the Choke’s parking lot. He pulled into an empty space, turned the engine off, and got out of his van. The Choke was open from four in the afternoon until lunchtime.
The daytime trade was, according to Dory, mostly there for the hot water and the hot wings. They also tipped for shit, which is why she never pulled the first or last shifts.
So at three in the afternoon, Grade could be pretty sure he wasn’t going to run into her. Which was the point.
He headed toward the building. The lot was mostly empty, but a few cars were still parked outside. One of the managers would be here and some staff, getting the place ready to reopen and firing up some of those wings. The other cars—Grade glanced into one on the way by and saw a stoner-looking dude in his thirties or hard-worn twenties, passed out on the cranked-back front seat—were mostly patrons either still sleeping off the night before or here early to tie one on.
The big double doors that were the main entrance were chained shut. There were normal locks too, but some of the drunks needed the visual to work out why they weren’t getting in. Grade cut around the side, past the blacked-out windows and the dumpsters that smelled of baby oil, chicken grease, and booze. He stopped at the fire door and hit the intercom, head tilted back so the camera over the door could see his face.
“Who the fuck are you?” an annoyed voice demanded.
“Dory Pulaski’s brother,” Grade said. “I need a word about some guy who’s been bothering her.”
The intercom snorted at him and cut out. He pressed the button again, held it down, and waited. After a long second, it crackled back to life.
