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“You’re only in the crotch once.”
“You were in the corps?”
“No, I was in the army. That’s not my point. You’re only in the AB once, too.”
He lit another cigarette and bit a hangnail on his thumb.
“I don’t know what you’re saying, buddy, but this is the wrong fucking place to get in somebody’s face,” he said.
A barmaid came in the side door, put her handbag in a cabinet, and carried a sack of trash out the back.
“You’re saying you don’t understand me, my words confuse you?” I asked.
“What’s with you, man? Somebody shoved a bumblebee up your ass?”
“What’s your name, podna?”
“Harvey.”
“You’re treating me like I’m stupid, Harvey. You’re starting to piss me off.”
“I don’t need this shit, man.” He looked out the back door at the men in jeans, cutoff denim jackets, and motorcycle boots, who were drinking canned beer in the barbecue smoke under the tree.
“It’s just you and me, Harvey. Those guys don’t have anything to do with it,” I said.
The barmaid came back inside. She looked like she had dressed for work in a dime store. Her blond hair was shaved on one side, punked orange on the tips; she wore black fingernail polish, a pink top, black vinyl shorts, owl glasses with red frames, earrings made from chromed .38 hulls.
“Give this guy a free 7-Up if he wants one. I’m going to the head,” Harvey said to her.
I waited a moment, then followed him into the men’s room and shot the bolt on the door. He was in the single stall, urinating loudly into the toilet bowl.
“Zipper it up and come out here, Harvey,” I said.
He opened the stall door and stared at me, his mouth hanging open. I stuck my badge up close to his face.
“The man’s real name is Eddy Raintree,” I said. “Now don’t you bullshit me. Where is he?”
“You can bust me, you can kick my ass, it don’t matter, I don’t know the sonofabitch,” he said. “Guys get their mail here. They go behind the bar and pick it up. I don’t know who they are, I don’t ask. Check out those cats behind the building, man. There’s one guy drove a pool cue through another guy’s lung out there.”
“Where’s my man live, Harvey?”
He shook his head back and forth, his mouth a tight line. I rested one hand on his shoulder and looked steadily into his face.
“What are you going to do when you walk out of here?” I said.
“What do you mean going—”
“You think you’re going to make some mileage with my butt?”
“Look, man—” He started to shake his head again.
“Maybe ease on over to the phone booth and make a call? Or take a round of beers to the outdoor geek show and mention that the heat is drinking 7-Up inside?”
“I’m neutral. I got no stake in this.”
“That’s right. So it’s time for you to go. To tell the lady behind the bar you’re taking off early tonight. We’re understood on this, aren’t we?”
“You’re
