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riffing about a guy named Hank who walked with the devil.
“That woman needs a pill,” the waitress said.
Luntz disagreed. “Man,” he said, “she breaks your heart.”
Once in a while Luntz went out to smoke a cigarette under the stars. The rest of the time he stood by the cash-out playing the scratch-off instant lottery, rubbing one by one at the numbers in a stack an inch thick, tossing the losers on the counter till he had quite a pile. He spent eighty bucks and made back sixty-five.
By 1:00 a.m. she’d cleared the place out and was just drinking and muttering into the microphone while the waitress chatted with the barmaid.
“I believe,” the woman said into her microphone, with plenty of reverb, “that’s Frankie Franklin over there. He’s piling up them lotto tix.”
He raised a hand high and gave her a thumbs-up.
“What is Frankie about to do with them lotto tix? Make himself a little bonfire?”
She punched buttons on the machine and after thirty seconds of music jumped onto the chorus—“Come on baby light my fi-yer! Come on baby light my fi-yer!” She stopped singing and her gaze drifted down and sideways, and she smiled at nothing.
Luntz walked over. “Can I ask a favor? I need a ride.”
“You do?”
“I do. I really do.”
“Where’s Frankie’s Cadillac?”
“Oh. The Caddy. Yeah.”
“I saw you by the river, Frankie. Remember?”
“I wouldn’t forget seeing you.”
“Caddy end up in the river too?”
“It was a loaner. So how about a ride to my motel?”
“Call a cab.”
“I was thinking you’d be quicker.”
“Which motel?”
“The Log Inn over there.”
“Across the parking lot? Very funny.”
“I’m witty, too, just like you.”
“The Log Inn. Doesn’t the wood stink when it’s wet?”
“So how about a ride?”
“I don’t drive a cab. Hey, Frankie. Let me buy a round. What are you drinking?”
“This is a Diet Coke.”
“Don’t you drink?”
He paused for a good little while before he answered.
“I gamble,” he said.
“And what about for a living? If it’s not too forward of me. What do you do?”
“I gamble. I gamble.”
“What’s the point of gambling?”
“I didn’t realize there had to be a point.”
“This is starting to sound like one of those messed-up conversations,” she said.
“You could get me a can of beer, but I probably wouldn’t finish it. My stomach burns easy. I can’t even drink coffee.”
She raised her mike to her lovely mouth and looked over at the waitress and said, “I better have some coffee myself. Black, please.” Up close, in somber light, he couldn’t say if she was supposed to be a Mexican or Hawaiian or some semi-Filipino mutt.
“Where are you from originally?”
“The rez.”
“What?”
“The reservation.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
The waitress brought her a Styrofoam cup and she dribbled half the coffee down her blouse and was completely unapologetic about it. “I don’t need coffee anyway. I can’t sleep anyway lately.”
“You too? Me neither.”
“I didn’t sleep for two days, and then I had a nap.”
“Two days? Why?”
“Because I didn’t have a bed, Frankie. What about you? Why can’t you sleep?”
“Too many plans on my mind. It’s been one heck of a day.”
She peered at him. “You too?”
“So, anyway,” Luntz said.
She stood up, said, “Thank you very much! I love this town!” and walked out the door into the night.
Luntz went after her because he just couldn’t stand it.
She stood out front digging in her purse with one hand, nearly choking herself with the strap.
“I’d throw everything away for a woman like you.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said, and walked with considerable difficulty the twenty feet to her little hotrod.
He stood and watched while she searched for the driver’s seat with her beautiful ass. She saw him watching and gave him the finger and slammed the door.
Luntz headed in the other direction, toward the end of the building and the parking lot across which waited the