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The man dropped into a seat too heavily, catching himself with a hand on the table at the last moment. In the other hand, he was carrying an empty glass, and the smell of hops and malt rolled over Auggie. Underneath the spray-on, his face looked flush, and his eyes struggled to track Auggie, as though Auggie were deking and juking instead of planted in a straight-back.
“Kid,” he said again through that yeasty cloud. “You look like that joke about the nun.”
Kid, Auggie thought. Eyes a little wide. Brow furrowed. Only a trace. Because he was still scared. But curious, too. God, he was curious.
“The bike’s got no seat,” the man said. “And she says, ‘I was a virgin when I started.’”
He burst into laughter. The cross slid over his polo, light winking along the gold. The lizard with his little smile stared back at Auggie, so Auggie laughed too. A little. He was confused. He tried to paint that into the sound. He was just so confused.
“Gid,” the man said and stuck out his hand. His skin was tacky with drying beer.
“Gus.”
“Gus. I like that.” Gid sat back—a little too far, the chair wobbling before he caught himself on the table again. He hitched a thumb behind him, where someone had turned a black light on the stage. A different woman was dancing, and handprints glowed ultraviolet on her skin next to the white string thong she was wearing. When she bent over to say something to a hawk-nosed man, the inside of her mouth lit up like a fungal colony. Gid was still looking at Auggie, still hitching his thumb. “You ever seen titties before, Gus?”
Auggie didn’t have to answer that because Gid was laughing so hard about his own joke.
“Lemme guess.” Gid leaned in. “You never been anywhere like this before?”
Auggie shook his head.
“Didn’t think so. Lemme break it down for you.”
He smiled, then—white, even capped teeth that must have cost a fortune—and Auggie caught the vibe. He’d grown up with big brothers, had seen them (especially Fer) go through that phase where they had to explain everything to you, even if you already knew it. Maybe especially if you already knew it. He’d dealt with agents who wanted you to think they were your buddy, at least until they didn’t need you anymore. He’d heard, more times than he wanted, an aging bro in an expensive suit explain Auggie’s career to him—usually, right before Auggie fired him. More recently, he’d had to deal with corporate types, the ones who talked to Auggie like he’d been born with his head on backward. All of which meant Auggie had a lot of practice at nodding and looking interested.
“Let’s see, let’s see.” Gid sucked his teeth. “That’s Martha over there at the bar. We call her Big Martha.”
“She’s not that big.”
That earned Auggie an indulgent chuckle. “She’s got a daughter named Martha too. Don’t mess with Martha or any of the other women working here, the ones who aren’t dancing, I mean. They don’t appreciate it, and the rest of us look out for them.” He touched the heavy cross around his neck without seeming to think about it. “Martha, you are worried about many things.” He said it like it meant something, and then he laughed.
Auggie smiled and drank some beer. His phone buzzed, and he ignored it. When he shifted slightly in his seat, Theo came into view, shoulders tight as he hunched over his phone.
“Now, this place has some pretty rough customers,” Gid said. “So, you want to watch your manners while you’re here. You don’t bother anybody, and nobody’ll bother you. You cause a fuss, though, well…” He let it trail off. “You don’t have anything to worry about, though, because you’ve got me, and I’m looking out for you.”
“Yeah, man,” Auggie said with an internal eye roll. “Thanks.”
“Some of these assholes, pardon my French, they don’t know who they’re talking to sometimes. They don’t know one fucking thing they’re saying, pardon my French.”
And that was it, Auggie understood. That was the key that unlocked this whole bizarre encounter. The disagreement that Auggie had witnessed, Gid pushing back from the table in a huff, his stooped posture and scurrying movements—he’d gotten run off, tail between his legs. And then he’d seen Auggie, spotted his chance to be the big man again, and locked on to him. Which was great and useful and all that until it wasn’t.
Glass shattered, and laughter erupted over the music. On the far side of the room, a sharp-jawed woman looked down on a man. He was on his knees, shaking his head, one hand on an empty chair like he was still thinking about getting back up. Blood and beer made a web on the side of his face; Auggie knew it was beer because the brown glass of the bottle littered the floor. The man seemed to consider the possibility of standing for another moment, and then he dropped to the floor and didn’t move.
More laughter erupted from the woman and a circle of cronies. Auggie had lived in Wahredua long enough to know the type: a man with a red and black swastika tattoo on his arm; a man in a biker’s cut, the denim covered in patches Auggie couldn’t read from a distance; a man with a shamrock on his neck—prison ink, Auggie guessed.
The woman, though, held his attention. Auggie had a good sense of people, and right then, he could tell she owned that little knot of bodies. She wore her blond bob gelled, and her Carhartt shirt and jeans were clean but well worn. Same for the boots—silver tooling, but plenty of miles on them. She didn’t do any dirty work, not with those boots, but she dressed like she might. That was interesting.
“You don’t want her to catch you staring,” Gid said, the moistness of his breath on Auggie’s cheek. “Ingra would cut you open before she let you near her, and then she’d let her pack of dogs fuck you to death. How’s that sound for a night on the town?”
Auggie dropped his eyes and shook his head. But he sensed the opening. Toying with his glass, he risked a look at Gid before letting Gid catch him and pulling his eyes away. “Is, um, there anybody else I should watch out for?”
Gid snorted. “Me, dumbass. I’m the dangerous one here.”
Auggie risked another look, this time with a half-smile. But Gid was trying to look dangerous, so Auggie let the smile drop off his face. He wondered if a big, dramatic gulp would be too much—he figured for Gid, probably not. He gulped.
Satisfaction glimmered in Gid’s eyes. He twisted in his seat, waving his arm to catch one of the waitresses; after one of them nodded at him, he dropped back down and looked at Auggie. “Anybody you should watch out for? Kid, what are you, eighteen? Nineteen?” Auggie opened his mouth to protest, but Gid spoke over him. “Look, I don’t care how you got in here. If you’re cool, everybody else will be cool too.”
Auggie nodded.
