Hair-Trigger Read Online Free PDF Page B

armrests. Showing some pink. A black girl in a dark room had to work.
    Jack raised his glass solemnly. “You’re beautiful.”
    â€œThanks.”
    Afterwards, as she was putting on her lingerie, Derek said, “When you finish tonight you should come out with us for a drink. If it’s after hours we can hit a booze can in Chinatown.”
    â€œWell, I don’t know about that.” She gave them a noncommittal smile as she walked away.
    Marva was talking to a bald regular across the aisle, waiting for Randy to start the next set with another record, when Jack got up and walked past her in the direction of the washroom. She swivelled in her chair and said to the other guy, Derek, “Hey, what up with your friend? Is he always mad at the world?”
    â€œHe’s a pussycat.”
    â€œYeah? He looks kinda scary.”
    â€œYou’re the reason he wanted to come here tonight.”
    The opening of that ZZ Top song she couldn’t remember the name of was on the sound system as the DJ introduced Ginger, who strolled out of the semi-darkness towards the stage. There was some applause from the back. Marva turned to her customer as she slowly got to her feet, and then stood on the platform in front of him.
    Later, after her own final set, she was fixing to call it a night and go change when she paused to talk to Jane behind the bar. Anthony, the bouncer, asked if she wanted to go to his place for a drink.
    â€œI thought you were coming out with us.”
    Marva turned around. That man Derek was standing behind her with kind of a smile, a thumb hooked in his pocket. She found herself blanking as she tried to concentrate.
    â€œUm, yeah,” she said, turning to Anthony. “They did ask me first.”
    He was kind of pissed off, but he was a dead end anyway. As she opened the door to the dressing room she could see it was probably stupid to go with them, but sometimes the Lord led you down mysterious paths. Or maybe it was the four Bacardi-Cokes.
    She paused on the wet sidewalk outside the heavy wooden doors of Cheaters, and did up her jacket. “So, where are we going?”
    â€œSomewhere there’s a band,” Jack said.
    Derek unlocked some kind of muscle car at the meter with a pissed off Woody Woodpecker sticker in the back window. “Well, we haven’t much time.” After he got in and reached over to open the passenger side, Jack opened the door and climbed in after her. Marva noticed the full ashtray in the front, and the pair of furry dice hanging from the rearview mirror.
    South on Yonge a band called The Meteors were advertised on a large sign by the parking lot of the St. Louis, a white bungalow made transparent by huge windows lit by neon beer insignia. It looked like a sports or country bar. “We don’t have to line dance or anything, do we?”
    â€œIt’s R ’n’ B,” Jack said.
    As they pulled in crooked between two parallel white lines, she could see the group playing inside. Derek shifted into park and turned off the ignition. “All right, we’ll still be able to get a drink.”
    They went in. Customers on the right side of the room were sitting at a long horseshoe-shaped bar. Marva followed the men around the corner to a table in the smoking section by the front window. It seemed to be after last call, so she took a seat while they went up to try to get served. After taking off her jacket, she checked herself in her compact and was annoyed to see that she hadn’t covered her spots very well.
    The singer, who looked Hispanic, was playing trumpet to what sounded like James Brown. She never got into that funky brass shit. Some of the older white people dancing looked like they could have been cowboys if they had the hats.
    Jack set a rum and Coke down in front of her as he took the next chair. Derek sat across from them and said, “The bartender knows us.
    â€œSo, you’re regulars.”
    â€œThe