“Well, fuck a duck,” I said.
“Can’t,” Woody said. “Hole ain’t big enough.”
3
Dave might not have been a brawler, but he had no issue ramming up into a biker’s face. There were about two inches of air between them, and even from here you could see so much spit flying between them they might as well have been tongue kissing.
The biker Dave had an issue with was older, fifties, with a lumberjack beard streaked full of gray and 180 degrees of frizzed hair. He looked like he was the calmer of the two, his expression even-tempered, while Dave assaulted him with the fury of a snake-handling Pentecostal preacher with a moonshine backbone, with lots of finger jabbing at the air and intentional body movements into the biker’s personal space. The biker didn’t budge, taking it with an amused, almost mocking calmness.
The rest of the bikers weren’t as easygoing. Most of them rose from their chairs, ready for a fight. The frizzy-haired biker raised an open palm and everyone froze where they were.
Everyone else in the bar caught onto what was going on, and individual conversations faded like a distant radio station, attention turning to the rising action in the room. The bouncer stayed at the door, watching from his stool, arms folded across what was probably his chest. This was just another Saturday night for him, and he knew when it would be worth the trouble to move from his spot.
“We’re getting involved in that shit-storm, aren’t we?” I said.
Woody didn’t answer. He was already across the room, moving toward Dave. He pushed his way through the crowd, making it to Dave and the biker, wedging his way between them. Dave tried to get around Woody. I stepped up behind him and grabbed his arms and held him back. Dave’s head swung around, and he stared at me with eyes so furious they’d have burned marks into wood.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dave said.
“Just a guy trying to keep you not dead,” I said.
Woody said to the biker, “Sorry about my friend here. He’s had too much to drink tonight, and he’s got a little attitude about him.”
The frizz-haired biker looked as quiet and contemplative as a Buddha. “We’re cool. Dave and me, we go back. Never could handle his booze. May want to learn that lesson before he gets taught something else.”
“Yeah,” Woody said. “This thing—”
“This is personal business between he and I,” the biker said. “Nothing for you to worry about.” A smile threatened to peek out through the biker’s beard. “You really Dave’s friend, or you one of those guys who gets into things?”
It was Woody’s turn to smile now. “That matter?”
The biker shrugged. “Not in this moment. Other moments, other days, it might.”
“We’ll find out on those days, I guess.”
Dave pulled loose from me. “Fuck you,” he said, and pushed toward the biker. “I’m fucking tired of this shit, Jimmy,” he said to the biker. “You and this whole fucking bunch, you can all suck my dick.”
Jimmy smiled. “Friend, you need to learn how to relax. Why don’t you go on back up to the bar, catch your breath, get yourself another beer, and everyone forget about this.” Jimmy looked around. He was the center of focus in the bar. He smiled like a politician on the stump, making promises he knew he’d never keep. “Hey,” he said in a louder voice, over the din from the jukebox. “Next round, the whole house, it’s on the Saints!”
A cheer rose throughout the crowd.
Except from Dave. Of course. Because Dave was pissed and, if I had to wager, a total asshole. All I knew was that I had got a hold on his arms again, but he had sixty pounds on me, minimum, plus he was shorter, so lower center of gravity . . . Listen, do you really want the physics on this? The facts were, he was a squirrelly little motherfucker determined to start shit, and it was taking Woody and I both to keep him from decking Jimmy.
Woody turned to Dave. “Take the gentleman up on his offer, Dave.”
“Fuck you, too,” Dave said, not even looking at Woody. “I ain’t taking shit from this fuck-tard or his little pussy band of motorcycle pussies.”
I debated saying something about using a variation of pussy twice in the same sentence. Right now didn’t seem the time to turn into a grammar Nazi.
“Let the faggot go and let him and Jimmy settle this shit.” This came from one of the bikers, a guy with a shaved head and lightning bolts tattooed from where his hairline should have started all the way to the base of his skull. “Smack him like a bitch, Jimmy.”
“Hush, Mickey,” Jimmy said. “Nothing to be fighting about here.”
“The fuck there isn’t,” Dave said. “If every one goddamn person in here wasn’t pussies, they’d be over here with me, pounding you into the goddamn ground.”
Mickey smirked. “Come over here, old man, and say that shit again. You wanna dance? Come on.”
Jimmy shot Mickey a look of anger. Bravado and ignorance faded off his face. “Stay out of this shit.” To Dave, he said, “Friend, it’s Saturday night. All anyone should be doing is having a good time. Why don’t you lay off and do that? Have a good time.”
Woody looked at Dave. “It’s time to go home, don’t you think?”
Some wind seemed to drop out of Dave’s sails. His body went slack, his arms loose, and I lost my hold on him.
Jimmy nodded. “Okay, folks, let’s call all this shit good and go home, huh?”
Woody said, “Yeah, let’s do that.” To Dave, he said, “We do that?”
“Sure, sure,” Dave said.
Which was when Mickey said, “Go the fuck home, old man, and suck your wife’s dick a while.”
Because while Dave was probably an asshole, Mickey, he was definitely an asshole.
Dave came across the table and had his hands clutching Mickey’s cut in a heartbeat. It took a moment to register with everyone what was going on, and when it did, they swarmed Dave. Some of them pulled at him, others punched at him. Mickey beat at the top of Dave’s head with his fists. Dave slugged him in the nuts, and Mickey gave a howl like a scalded cat, his body folding like a camp chair. Dave jerked him forward and head-butted him. It sounded like coconuts rolling around, and Mickey went limp and Dave let him go, watching him melt into a puddle on the floor.
Another biker reached for Dave. Woody got a hold of the biker’s wrist. The biker shot Woody a look, Woody shot him back a smile in return and wrenched the biker’s wrist backward. There was a harsh snap, and the wrist bent to an angle that was more an answer on a geometry quiz than how the human body should flex, and the biker screamed.
Someone came up behind Woody. A young biker. Kid must have transitioned out of juice boxes at lunch straight into Pabst Blue Ribbon. There was a glint of light, and I saw the switchblade in his hand. I stepped forward, and he saw my movement and jerked the blade in my direction. I slammed the heel of my boot into the top of his foot, shattering a few of those small bones. He screamed and swung the blade wide at me. I dodged backward and felt the breeze of the metal inches from me, pushed myself straight, popped him two or three quick jabs in the face, enough to disorient him, then threw a left and right into his gut. He dropped the knife and it clattered across the bar floor. I grabbed his head and drove it down as I brought my knee up and listened to his nose pop. Blood gushed, then I threw him to the side as someone ran toward me.
Things got a little crazy from there. There was plenty of screaming. The bikers scrambled on top of us. Dave pushed himself off the table as another biker swung a beer bottle at his head. Dave caught the swing in mid-air and twisted the biker’s arm hard, spinning him backward. He jerked the beer bottle from his hand and pounded it across the back of the biker’s head, and the biker dropped like someone had lopped him off at the knees.
Knuckles grazed across the side of my neck. I swerved to the side and pivoted on my right foot, leading with a steeled-up left fist, and I didn’t care where it landed. I made contact with an old biker slightly smaller than a city block. My fist hit straight in
his gut, and his fat caved in, swallowing up my hand enough to make the entire situation even weirder. He doubled over as I pulled my fist loose and caught him with a right cross to the jaw. His head snapped as he was bringing up a left hook, so physics won out for him and he got me along my face.
What marbles I had, rattled, and everything turned fuzzy and I gave my head a hard shake to readjust. It took longer than it should have, but it was enough time for the old biker to get his shit together and come back with two quick blows to the right of my skull.
A pair of him took up my entire field of vision. All around me, I heard the other fights going on. The music on the jukebox shifted to Lynyrd Skynyrd and “Freebird.” If you need a soundtrack for a bar fight, you can’t go wrong with a classic.
The fat biker steadied himself to take a couple more shots at me. I swung wild at him, my knuckles connecting with his skull, and he bobbed a little. I followed up with fast rabbit punches straight to the head. My vision cleared, and I saw he had a good twenty years on me, though none of those years had to have been good. He looked old and worn out. He took the hits like a motherfucking champ, though, his head snapping back each time my fist met with his face.
He had an unsteady stagger to his stance, and he swung widowmakers at me. I pulled back before I gave him a left-right in the gut. As he bent forward, I brought my right arm up and around, smashing my elbow into his ear. He grunted and hit his knees, and I planted my boot on top of his head and pushed hard, putting him on his ass.
Beating up an old guy—a dude who ordered off the senior’s menu at Shoney’s—that’s not a thing I take particular pride in. But neither is getting the shit beaten out of me in a redneck bar. Choices were made.
Folks around us opted to join the fun. No clue why. Maybe they were just stupid like that. Maybe they needed a reason to feel manly. Might have been they thought they had too many teeth and needed to lose a few. I’ll never understand what makes someone seek an ass-kicking. But for whatever reason, they were taking swings at the bikers, and the bikers were more than happy to swing back.
Other people stood back and watched. Cell phones were out. This would be on Facebook in the morning. Goody.
We were about sixty feet from the door. Woody and I threw glances at one another, nodded, and made a rush for it. I was four steps ahead of Woody. I checked over my shoulder and saw Woody grab Dave and drag him behind us.
The bouncer moved toward the door, trying to block us. I reached into my boot and pulled out the four-shot and raised it toward him. You could actually see his eyes for a moment, and he stepped aside.
We were out the door and outside while behind us, the bar erupted into a free-for-all.
4
Dave was quiet once we dragged him out of the Dew Drop Inn and loaded him into the Jeep and drove off with the sound of police sirens approaching the bar. He sat between us with a furrowed brow and clenched teeth and a scowl like a five-year-old pissed off about the toy in his Happy Meal.
We drove out of town and to the parking lot of Chandler County High School. The main building for the high school was a leftover from the Depression, one of those Roosevelt projects that put people back to work before they got sent to fight a war. It was scarred black from years of dust from passing coal trucks and nearby mining projects, and kudzu had half enveloped an entire side of the building. We all got out of the Jeep to give each other sufficient glaring space.
Dave paced back and forth like a lion in a case. “What the fuck was that about?”
“You tell me,” Woody said. He and I leaned against the hood of the Jeep, Woody smoking a cigarette and watching Dave like Dave was an idiot. “You have a reason you want to die?”
“There’s a fight there almost every goddamn weekend,” Dave said. “Tonight wouldn’t have been any different.”
“Except there was one of you and a whole hell of a lot of them,” I said.
“I can handle my shit, thank you very fucking much,” Dave said. “Whoever the fuck you are.”
“I’m a friend of Sheila’s,” Woody said. “She asked me to get you out of the bar.”
“You got a name, friend of Sheila?”
“Woody.”
“Woody what?”
“Woody.”
“Don’t give me that shit. How do you know my wife?”
“We go back. Before you and she married.”
Dave’s face turned blotchy and red. “You and her fucking?”
“We are not.”
“Then who the hell are you that my wife calls you to do shit for her, you and her aren’t fucking?”
Woody took a drag on his cigarette and blew out some smoke. “Who the hell I am, Dave, is the gift horse who you shouldn’t be staring at in the mouth. Sheila knew damn good and well you planned to stir shit, and fuck if you did not succeed handsomely. Did you plan to fight the entire bar by yourself?”
“Fuckers have it coming.”
“Them ganging up and beating your ass? They got that coming?”
The two of them stared at one another for a while, not saying anything. I looked at my shoes and wished I’d stayed home.
The sudden sound of a police car siren broke the tension the way only a police siren can, followed by headlights coming up the four-lane. A Chandler County sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the parking lot, and a man in a sheriff’s uniform got out. He was inching toward retirement years, his white hair slicked back and shiny and the comb marks visible, with the start of a spare time sprouting around his middle.
“Evening, gentlemen,” he said in a tone so sweet you could have poured it on pancakes. I mean, if you’re a weirdo that way.
Dave stepped back from Woody and looked at the man. “Evening, Sheriff. How you doing?”
“I’m doing just all right, Dave.” The sheriff looked at Woody, then me. “These guys friends of yours?”
Dave seemed to consider that for a moment. Finally, he said, “Yeah, they are.”
I hopped off the back of the Jeep and extended a hand toward the sheriff. He had a good grip. It was the practiced shake of a politician. I wondered if he’d done any police time before getting elected sheriff. “I’m Henry Malone, and that’s Woody there.”
“I’m Sheriff Travis Gibbs,” he said. “Woody got a last name?”
“He does,” Woody said.
“You one of those one-name types, like Madonna, or Prince?”
“Beyoncé, too,” Woody said.
“Yeah, her too. She’s one of those colored singers, right?”
A small huff of exasperation exhaled through Woody’s nose. “She’s a singer, yes.”
“I don’t keep up with that these days. I’m a little old to be following ‘Tops of the Pops’ or whatever they call it.” He looked at Dave with the knowing expression of a father who caught his kids in the liquor cabinet. “You been drinking?”
“Sheriff, I don’t think you’re here because I’ve been drinking. Why don’t you tell me what you want.”
“There are a few things, Dave. One, there’s a law against public intoxication. Two, you’re trespassing on county-owned property right now. And three, folks said you were at the Dew Drop tonight and started a fight with the Saints.”
“The Saints?” I said.
“The Highway Saints,” Gibbs said. “The bike club at the bar.”
“I don’t know those guys are what you’d call a ‘club,’” Woody said. “No one’ll mistake them for the Shriners.”
“Most days they don’t cause trouble and they get along with everyone, so they can call themselves whatever they damn well please so long as they keep the racket to a minimum, which I understand they were doing tonight until Dave here had a few words with Jimmy.”
“All we did was talk, Sheriff,” Dave said.
“You can say that, but I got five people at Chandler General ER, a half dozen in lockup, and cell phone footage that shows you taking the first swing at Mickey Nevada.”
I laughed. Didn’t even realize
I’d done it until everyone else was looking at me. “Sorry, but that asshole calls himself ‘Mickey Nevada.’”
Gibbs aimed a thumb at Woody. “Yes, and this guy doesn’t have a last name, so watch what shit you throw.”
There were blue lights in the distance that got closer and closer, and another cruiser pulled up behind the sheriff’s vehicle. A lanky guy unfolded himself from behind the steering wheel, six-four, without an ounce of fat on him. Not much muscle, either. The deputy’s uniform didn’t fit him right, with the pants too short at the cuffs, and the hem on the short-sleeved shirt drawing up on his arms, exposing strips of fish belly–white skin that turned football leather–brown because he wore shirts that fit better on other days. His hair was black and short and parted on the side and he had a mustache like Burt Reynolds in Gator.
He walked up beside Gibbs. Gibbs threw him some side-eye; there wasn’t a sense that his presence was appreciated.
“How’s things back at the Dew Drop, Deputy Oates?” Gibbs said.
“Fine. Just fine.” The deputy hooked his thumbs over the waist of his pants and let his open palms rest there. He was probably the guy who shuffled through life acting like he knew secrets on everyone, but in reality, no one gave a shit. He threw Dave one of those little nods, like they were best buddies. “How you doing there, Dave?”
“I’m king of the motherfucking world, Holland.” Dave’s tone wasn’t much better than hocking up a gob of phlegm and spitting it out.
“Glad to hear it. Now you mind telling us what you were doing, starting that fracas at the Dew Drop?”
“Wait,” I said, and pointed at the deputy. “Your name is Holland Oates.”
He tensed and tried to exude a tough-guy vibe, but he ended up looking like an asshole in polyester. “There an issue with that?”
I shook my head. “I can’t go for that,” I said. “No can do.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Who the hell are you assholes?”
“We’re private eyes,” I said and threw in a handclap, because I could.
Friend of the Devil Page 2
