The Prettiest One: A Thriller (28 page)

Josh, Caitlin, and Bix were sitting in the car, staring at the black door across the street, and Josh was about to suggest that they walk over and go inside when two guys rounded the corner and swaggered toward the bar. They looked like they could have literally come straight from prison. Josh wouldn’t have been surprised to see them each dragging an iron ball by an ankle chain. The men opened the black door and pushed their way past a similar-looking guy on his way out. The guy leaving the bar was rubbing his forehead, as though he had a terrible headache . . . or had just been hit on the head with a barstool.

“Have you actually been here, hon?” Josh asked.

“I don’t know,” Caitlin said.

Josh couldn’t imagine Caitlin would actually go inside a place like that. If she had been there, she must have waited in a car outside, watching, hoping to catch sight of One-Eyed Jack or his friend.

“Listen,” Bix said, “I’ve never been here, but this place has a reputation, and it ain’t a good one. It’s in the news a lot because someone’s always getting stabbed here, sometimes inside but more often out on the sidewalk in front. Shots have been fired here, too. Can’t remember if anyone died. The point is, it could be dangerous in there. It’s not a place for you. Maybe you should wait in the car. I’m worried about you.”

“Thanks, but I need to go in,” Caitlin said.

“I was talking to Josh.”

“Knock that shit off, will you?” Josh said. He was getting really tired of Bix. Then again, he’d been tired of Bix the moment he first met him. “Let’s go inside,” he said without hesitation, and in a steady voice that belied his anxiety about entering the Barrel O’ Beer. When he let Bix take the lead as they crossed the street, it was only so he could bring up the rear and keep Caitlin between them.

When they reached the black door, Bix grasped the handle and, before he pulled, looked at them and said, “Try to act like you belong here.”

He opened the door and they stepped into the dark bar.

The bouncer sitting on a stool just inside the door had a head like a chunk of cement sitting directly atop his burly shoulders. No neck that Josh could see. He was chewing something that might have been gum but was equally likely to have been chewable steroids. They walked up to him, and before any of them could speak, the bouncer said, “These guys with you, Katie?”

Josh looked at Caitlin. So did Bix. Remarkably, Caitlin hesitated only a moment before saying, “For now they are. No promises they’ll leave with me, though.”

She winked at the bouncer and sauntered past. Stunned, Josh followed. Bix looked equally surprised as they pushed through a set of black velvet curtains and into a big room full of big men and big-haired women. Music thumped from a low-quality speaker system. Billiard balls clacked. People argued. A glass pitcher shattered. A bartender yelled in the face of a drunk slumped over the bar with his head on the scarred wooden surface.

“What the heck was that back there with the bouncer?” Josh asked Caitlin, just loud enough to be heard over the music.

Caitlin shrugged. “He recognized me. I’ve obviously been here before. I can’t imagine I would have survived here if I didn’t play it tough.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been inside this place before,” Josh said. He also couldn’t believe how easily Caitlin could turn on her wilder side when she needed it.

“Katie girl!” someone called. Josh turned to see an oak tree walking toward them, every square inch of his arms covered in tattoos of skulls. Nothing else, just skulls of various sizes.

“Hey, there,” Caitlin replied in a voice that wasn’t her own, again tapping into whatever persona she had channeled to get them past the bartender.

“Missed you last night,” the guy said. Which confirmed that Caitlin had actually become something of a regular lately. “I was bringing one of these to my lady,” the man said, holding up a bottle of Budweiser in each hand, “but she can get off her ass and get her own beer.” He handed one of the Buds to Caitlin, then took a swig of his own and waited until Caitlin tipped her bottle up and took a deep draw on it. The guy smiled at her, then looked at Josh and Bix and the smile disappeared, his face hardening as though it had been slathered in quick-drying cement.

“Who are these guys?”

“Friends,” Caitlin said.

The guy eyed them with suspicion and naked loathing. “They’re with you?”

“They are.”

The guy frowned before turning to Caitlin again. “You owe me a dance, Katie. The other night, you promised me another one, and then you were gone.”

Had Josh heard that right? His wife had danced with Mad Max here?

“Not sure I’m gonna be here long tonight,” Caitlin said. “Just came in for a drink with my friends. Rain check?”

The guy glowered at Josh and Bix again before nodding and lumbering off.

“Should we head to the bar?” Caitlin asked. “That’s where they always start in the movies when they need information.”

She headed for the bar across the room. On the way . . .

“Whassup, Katie?”

“Yo, Katie.”

“Didn’t see you in here last night, Katie.”

“Katie, check out my new tattoo.”

Finally, they reached the bar. It wasn’t a long walk. The place wasn’t that big. But it seemed as though every guy they passed had words of greeting for Caitlin and distrustful glares for Josh and Bix. To Josh, passing through the bar felt like walking through the jungle-cat section of a zoo with the cage doors all left open.

“Guess there’s no doubt that I was a regular here, too,” Caitlin said.

“Looks that way,” Bix said.

When the bartender saw Caitlin, there was a perceptible brightening to the scowl on his face. He came over, ignoring several guys at the bar who didn’t look used to being ignored, and said, “The usual, I assume.” He smiled, exposing a nearly complete set of teeth.

Caitlin smiled back, and Josh saw that it was a smile different from her real one. This one was friendly but contained an element of mischief. As the bartender stepped away to fill a glass with beer from a tap, Josh said to her quietly, “You’re getting good at this.”

“Trying to fit in,” she replied just as quietly. “I’m scared out of my mind.”

“Don’t worry,” Josh said. “I’m right here.” Reluctantly, he added, “So is Bix.” He felt a bit silly, to be honest. It was pure bravado on his part, because while he knew that he would die to protect Caitlin, he also knew that a confrontation with anyone here was unlikely to end any other way.

The bartender returned and slid a beer in front of Caitlin. Josh opened his mouth to order one for himself, but the bartender leaned his brawny arms on the bar and ignored him, just like he ignored everyone else looking for drinks.

“You didn’t show last night, Katie,” he said. “I got worried about you.” He smiled again. It was a smile that only a mother could love . . . and even that would require a very special kind of mother.

“Worried about me, huh?” Caitlin said.

“Sure. You come in every night for a couple of weeks, then you don’t show. We were wondering what happened to you.”

“We?”

“Sure, me and some of the guys,” the bartender said, jerking his head to one side to indicate a group of toughs sitting a few feet away. Josh saw them each give a nod to Katie when she briefly turned their way. What the hell had she been doing here?

Caitlin smiled that mischievous smile again and said, “Nice to know you care, but I’m fine.”

“Never said you weren’t fine, Katie,” the bartender said with another smile. “Give me a second, will you?”

He turned and yelled something loud and profane at the patrons who had been impatiently trying to get his attention. One by one he gave them drinks, along with an insult, and took their money.

“Looks like you’ve been making a lot of friends lately,” Bix said quietly. He seemed amused. Josh was not. Katie coming here alone could have ended very badly for her.

She shrugged.

“You seemed to figure out how to fit in,” Bix said, obviously impressed. “Guess there’s a wild child in her after all, huh, Josh?”

Josh found that ignoring Bix was often preferable to acknowledging him. He also ignored the constant contact of the guy to his left, who kept bumping Josh and acting as though he held the deed to the tiny spot of real estate on which Josh was standing. Josh looked around the dark bar and tried to look inconspicuous doing it. He was searching for a blond guy with an eye patch.

Quietly, he said to Caitlin and Bix, “Anyone see One-Eyed Jack?”

Bix, who had also been scoping out the place, said, “No.”

Caitlin shook her head, too, and they all continued to survey the people in the room. As Josh scanned the faces at the bar, his gaze caught a pair of eyes that seemed to be looking at Caitlin. They belonged to a guy with a scraggly, thin goatee in desperate need of a trim—or better yet, Josh thought, a total shave. The man was sitting by himself at the other end of the bar, apparently squinting at Caitlin. When he noticed Josh looking at him, he quickly dropped his eyes to the beer in front of him.
Probably just another guy who likes the way Caitlin looks
, Josh thought.

A bruiser walked past, zipping up his fly for some reason with one hand and carrying a pool cue in his other. As he passed, he said, “Gonna give me a chance to get even tonight, Katie?”

She turned on that Katie-in-the-Barrel-O’-Beer smile and said with a sexy wink, “Don’t have the time tonight. You’re too far in the hole. Maybe next time.”

The guy snorted and lumbered on.

“You’re a little too good at this, Caitlin,” Josh said quietly.

“You’re a natural,” Bix added.

Caitlin shrugged. “Maybe I really have had some of this party girl inside me all along.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying, Katie,” Bix said with a grin. Then he looked over Josh’s shoulder and said, “I’ll be right back.”

Bix shouldered through some lugs slouching at the edge of the dance floor, watching other lugs dancing awkwardly with their she-lugs. He zeroed in on a big guy leaning over the pool table, lining up a shot. On the table in front of him was a small stack of bills. Bix stopped short of the table and watched the guy sink his shot and snatch up the money with a cocky grin.

“You almost scratched,” Bix said.

“But I didn’t,” the guy said, then extended a fist, which Bix bumped with one of his own.

“Hey, Bix,” the guy said.

“Hey, Longo.”

The guy’s name was Davey Longordo, and Bix knew him from when they’d worked construction together a few years back. Longo fit right in at the Barrel O’ Beer. He took shit from nobody. But Bix and he had always gotten along. They’d even fought together, side by side. They were jumped one night behind a bar after a day of hard work followed by a night of hard drinking. Four against Longo and Bix. Davey took care of three of the guys and Bix took care of the fourth one, although—as Bix made clear to everyone who heard the story—his guy was the biggest. Anyway, a night like that . . . a fight like that . . . creates a bond between guys. He hadn’t seen Longo for at least a year, but neither doubted that he had the other’s respect.

“Never seen you in here before,” Longo said.

“Never been here before. It kind of sucks, doesn’t it?”

Longo laughed. “Sure does. Terrible vibe. But that’s exactly why these guys come here. They’re looking for trouble, hoping like hell they’ll find it, or at least be around to watch when it happens.”

“Why do the women come here?”

“Because they like the kind of guys who come here. Go figure, right?”

“How about you, Longo? Why do you come?”

Longo shrugged his thick shoulders. “I like the energy, I guess. You never know what’s going to happen, but something just about always does.”

“You a regular?”

“I’m here most nights, so I’m as much a regular as anybody here, I’d say.” He paused, then added, “Except for that chick over there. The hot little redhead by the bar.” Bix followed Longo’s eyes to Caitlin, who looked perfectly comfortable in this hellhole of a bar. Beside her stood Josh, who didn’t. Longo added, “Other than last night, maybe, she’s been here every single night for the past few weeks, I think.”

Bix nodded. “She is hot, isn’t she?”

Longo shook his head. “Forget about it, bro. Katie’s way out of your league. Besides, every guy in this place has hit on her multiple times and she’s rejected every single one, every time.”

Bix was relieved to hear it. “Isn’t that pissing everyone off?”

“You know,” Longo said, frowning as though the thought hadn’t occurred to him, “you’d think it would. Something about her, though . . . somehow she does it in a way that seems all right. She’s just a really cool chick.”

It was time to fess up . . . or brag a little. “She’s with me, Longo.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, seriously. She’s been living with me for months. We’re engaged.”

“Bullshit.”

“No bullshit.”

Longo squinted at Bix for a long moment. “Hell, bro, you’re doing something wrong then, ’cause she’s spending every night here.”

Bix replied, “That’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime over beers.”

“You buying?”

“I’ll arm wrestle you for it.” Which they both knew meant that Bix would be buying.