Val stopped so suddenly the guy behind him on the sidewalk walked right into the back of him. He turned and stared at John. “You’re just trying to make me feel better for throwing up at the gym.”
“I’m really not. I had to clean that up.” John rubbed the designer stubble on his jaw. “Look, you did an amazing thing today. Really, truly amazing. So amazing, you shouldn’t have been able to do it. I’m sort of impressed, but I’m wondering when the guy from Candid Camera is going to come out. What you did, well, it’s a bit like the Coyote finally catching the Road Runner. It breaks all the rules.”
Val laughed, a slightly weak and hysterical sound. “You know me. I just keep breaking rules.” He swayed a little, then leaned against a parking meter.
John slapped him on the arm. “It’s okay. You did good. I just — I just can’t really believe it. Even now. I think I need that beer more than you do.”
“There’s one thing I don’t get.”
“Just one thing? What is it?”
“Your friend, the guy who was there?”
“Emilio?”
“Sure, I guess. Why’d he back me to six fifty?”
“Emilio’s crazy.”
“He bet a hundred bucks — our drinking money — that I’d bench six fifty. Just fifty shy of Scot Wosshisname’s record.” Val stared into the sky for a second, then back to John. “If I was a judge of character, I reckon Emilio’s rigged this.”
“Maybe. He’s coming down to drink with us tonight, so you can ask him then. Since we’re sharing though, there’s one thing that I don’t get.”
Val stood up, pushing his bulk away from the parking meter. “What? I’m really thirsty. It’s kind of inhumane keeping me out here like this.”
“How do you know what a Smurfberry is?”
Val chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. “That can’t be what you want to know.”
“No, I really want to know. You’ve got no kids—” And there was that damn memory again, burning as bright as the headlight through the shattered passenger window. Rebekah was looking right at him, grasping his arm. She was begging him to not leave her, What about the baby, she’d said. “—but you know what a Smurfberry is.”
Val shook off the memory. Just a dead relic. “Let’s get that beer.”
• • •
“Now that’s something you don’t see every day.” John stood with arms akimbo, surveying the scene. “Tell me you weren’t here last night.”
A bright yellow line of police tape marked out the borders of the scene, DO NOT CROSS in commanding letters. Officers moved about, talking to each other, hurrying pedestrians along, shouting at reporters. It had started to rain again, heavy cold drops promising a downpour. Val shivered, tugging an arm through a sleeve of his jacket. At least he’d stopped sweating. “Fuck it’s cold.”
John nodded. He wasn’t really paying attention, focused on the scene outside Elephant Blues. “What do you reckon went down?”
“Went down? What, like a mob hit?” Val hunched his shoulders against the rain, shuffling his feet a little. He needed to get inside with a beer. Preferably more than one beer.
“Look.” John’s arm pointed to each item. “Six ambulances. But the lights aren’t on, no one’s rushing. Medics are just wandering about, comparing notes. No hurry there. Whatever they came for, it’s happened and moved on. There’s a billion cops but they don’t look worried — see those two? Talking like they’re out for a Sunday stroll. There’s reporters everywhere. It’s like Al Capone stopped by for a whiskey.”
“I’ve got it.” Val slapped his hands together. “Al Capone came down here with a friend for a beer. But they spent all this time fucking about on the sidewalk talking about the weather, he went nuts, shot his friend in the face, then killed all witnesses. Seriously. You never want to get between a man and his beer.”
John snorted. “Yeah all right. I get it. Let’s go.” He was about to lead them off when a couple of guys, CORONER stenciled big and yellow on the back of their jackets, came back out. They had a gurney, stark steel rails a contrast to the black zippered bag on top. They were having some trouble wrestling the gurney up the steps of the Blues. The black bag jostled unevenly. “Shit, is that a body bag?”
“You watch TV, not me. But I’d say so.” Val held thumb and forefinger of each hand touching in front of his eyes, framing the scene. “Say. If that’s a body bag, there should be a body. But that bag isn’t full of a body.”
“How can you tell?”
“Lumpy.” Val lowered his hands. “Look, it’s all wrong. Too fat in some places. Too thin in others. Bits sticking out. I mean, you ever seen a guy with an elbow where his stomach should be? Seriously though, I don’t care. I care about beer. We can actually find out when some helpful reporter puts this on the news tonight.”
Leading them off, Val let his feet wander away from the crime scene, the chaos and lights falling further behind them. The rain was getting heavier, the drops becoming a shower. Sensible people were pulling up hoods, raising umbrellas, bowing their heads against the rising torrent. It felt … familiar. Val rubbed his left forearm. It had begun to ache, adding voice to the chorus of other twinges and pains in his chest and shoulders. They walked a couple of blocks before he stopped, wiping some of the rain from his face.
John pulled up beside him. “Where we going?”
“Hm? Oh, I dunno. How about in here?” The faded wooden sign above the door read Presence Unlisted.
“You been here before? It looks too classy for you.”
“It’s a bar. I’ll fit right in.” Val opened the front door, the brass handle fitting comfortably in his hand. The inside came out to greet them as he pulled the door back, air smelling of warm food and good conversation. They hurried in, shaking drops from their jackets. A couple of stools were still free at the back of the bar. Val moved through the crowd, a practiced conductor through an orchestra of close bodies.
Her name tag said Danny. “Get you boys something?” Despite the busyness of the hour, she still had a spring in her step and gave them a genuine smile.
“Oh God yes. Peroni.” Val looked to John.
“Sure. Make it two.” Settling into the stool beside him, John took out the roll of notes from his pocket, peeling off one and handing it over.
“Thanks.” Val started to peel off his jacket, trying not to elbow anyone in the face as he wrestled with the — God dammit — clingy thing.
“Okay, so what’s on your mind?” John played with a coaster on the bar.
“What? Nothing. What makes you say that?”
“Since the Blues you’ve been pushing through the crowd like a man possessed.”
“Thirsty.” On cue, Danny arrived back with two bottles, the green glass perspiring. She dropped them on the bar with their change, and headed back down to another customer. Val reached for one and took a strong pull. “Oh man. That’s good.”
“So you don’t know what happened at the Blues? I’m surprised you weren’t there.” John took a more measured sip from his beer. “You’re right. That is good.”
“Didn’t say that.”
“You were there? What the fuck happened?”
Val rubbed his left forearm again. “Well, shit. I don’t know if I was there.”
“How can you not know?”
“I had a few last night.” Val’s forearm was really aching now. “Christ. This exercise thing will never catch on if it hurts like this after every session.”
“Harden up, Tinkerbell. You got so wrecked last night that you can’t remember where you were?”
Val took another pull from his beer. Damn, but those Italians knew how to brew a good lager. “John, I woke up without pants, all right? I like to think I must have had a good time somewhere. Orgies don’t just start themselves, you know?”
John laughed. “I’ll drink to that.” They clinked their bottles.
“Still.” Val hesitated.
“Still what?”
&nbs
p; “Something about it seemed real familiar.”
“What do you mean? Of course it’s familiar. You drink there seven nights a week.”
“No, not like that, like—”
“Hey, it’s him!” The shout came from just to the right, a couple of fit looking young guys crowded around a phone. “Check it out!” They came over. The one with the phone held it out towards Val and said, “My man. Is this for real?”
The phone’s screen showed a frame of Val, on a bench. An impossibly large amount of weight was on the bar above him. The guy pressed a button on the phone and the movie played forward, showing Val pressing that weight down and up — and then throwing up on the floor afterward. Val turned away. “Shit.”
“Nah man. That was awesome! Hey, what’s your name?” And — impossibly, simply — like that, Val was the center of the group, being clapped on the shoulder, his hand being shaken, young guys high-fiving around him. He looked to John for help.
“Hey, don’t look at me. You deserve this.” He cleared his throat. “Guys, this is my friend Val…”
The crowd around Val started to grow. People shared the phone with the video. Someone worked out how to put it up on the screen behind the bar, showing Val’s massive lifting effort from earlier in the day. People bought him beers, clapped him on the back like old friends. They wanted to know how long he’d been lifting for, what his secret was. There were cries of disbelief when he admitted it was his first day in the gym.
“So it’s a fake then?” The guy with the phone looked crestfallen. He looked down at Val’s belly. “Figures“.
John stepped up then, putting a hundred dollar bill on the bar. “No fake. I’m confident in my buddy here. So confident that I reckon he’ll take anyone here in an arm wrestling match. Right now. So confident that I’ll put up this hundred against your fifty.” The crowd quietened then.
Val looked around. “John, what are you doing—”
“I’ll take that bet.” Working his way towards the back of the bar, the newcomer was young, cocksure. He was muscled, lean, and moved like a wrestler. A table was quickly cleared, and Val found himself very alone in the center of a crowd, his opponent already with his elbow on the table.
“What…” Val swallowed, feeling panicked.
John came up behind him, put his hands on Val’s shoulders. Leaning forward, he said, “Don’t worry. You got this. Just grab his hand, take it to the table.”
Tentatively, Val reached out, putting his elbow on the table. It was slightly rickety — one of the legs must have been shorter than the others. The top was coarse, veneer roughened by the passing of glasses and plates and God knows what else over its surface. He looked at his opponent, taking in the bulging bicep and muscled forearm. The predatory, mocking grin.
Something inside Val — something hungry — made him reach forward, and they clasped hands. He answered the mocking grin with one of his own.
Val’s opponent wanted the win — that grin said he knew he was going to get it. He tried a vice grip on Val’s hand, applying pressure before giving a savage wrench and slamming Val’s arm to the tabletop. At least, that’s what he thought was going to happen. As soon as he used that pressure, trying to crush Val’s hand in his, the game changed. That hungry thing inside of Val noticed the change, felt the point where this stopped being a game and started being a fight. Instead of his arm slamming to the tabletop in defeat, it stayed upright.
Val’s arm didn’t move an inch.
Val’s teeth were still showing over the top of their clasped hands. He began to apply pressure of his own, inexorably pushing the back of his opponent’s hand towards the tabletop. The motion was slow and smooth, no trembling of exertion.
Like that, it was over. The back of his opponent’s hand touched the table. Val hadn’t realized how quiet the bar had become until people started cheering, clapping him on the back. A beer appeared in front of him, and he chugged it thirstily. His opponent kicked back his chair, pushing savagely through the crowd. Jeers followed him to the anonymity of the night outside.
John reached forward. “Another fifty. It’s going to be a long night.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What?” Her head cocked at him, the small bar having become so loud that it was hard to hear yourself think, let alone get an order across.
“I said — hell — sorry! Peroni!” Val was almost shouting at her across the small bar top. The place had become almost rowdy, but in a jovial way — good people, good times. Val’s kind of crowd. At least, this was how he imagined his crowd was, if he could remember it in the morning.
She held up two fingers, head tilted to the side. Val nodded. “Sure!” And then those amber curls jounced away to the frosted door of the beer compartment. Val watched as she pulled the beers out, and with a practiced swipe pulled an opener from her back pocket. Two quick motions and the caps were tossed somewhere behind the bar, thrown in with the litter of another busy night.
Danny. That was what the name badge said. “You running late for work this evening?”
She leaned closer. “What?”
Val pointed to the badge. “Your badge. You swipe it from one of your pals?”
She looked down at it, then laughed. “Nah. My Dad always wanted a dog named Daniel. Wait a sec!” And like that, she was off down the other end of the bar for an order. Val watched her go. There was something about her, a feistiness in her grin — and dimples — that spoke out to him.
He stared down at his Peroni, watching the perspiration bead on the glass, then took a pull from it. He was sure he’d drunk his bodyweight in beer, but he only had a long smooth high, like the bottle couldn’t touch him. Not tonight. If only his left arm would stop aching.
“Why the hangdog face?”
He looked up to find her back. He dragged up a lopsided grin. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to teach myself Italian all night, can’t seen to get past ‘superior beer.’ At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what it says.”
Danny grinned at him. “Where’s your friend?”
Of course. None of the pretty girls really wanted to talk to Val. It was John they were usually after. “Hell, I don’t know. I think he went to the…” Val looked around. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen John in a while. He’d been swapping manly stories about a Russian tennis game last time Val had seen him.
“Hey, wait a sec!” And like that, she was gone again. No surprise really. Like he thought, they were usually after John. Val didn’t mind, he wasn’t jealous of John — after all, John had the looks and the body to match. That body took effort, and Val was honest enough with himself to know that didn’t come for free. You needed to earn it, work for it, really want it.
He looked up at the TV behind the bar. There was some story on about the Blues. Or at least, the backdrop for the scene was the Elephant Blues, yellow Police tape flapping in the rain. The sound was either turned down or too low for the noise in the bar and he couldn’t hear any of the details, but a bold banner marched across the bottom of the screen proclaiming, “MASS MURDERER LOOSE IN CITY… POLICE HAVE NO SUSPECTS… EYE WITNESSES BEING SOUGHT…”
She knocked on the bar in front of him, startling him. “Oh hey! I didn’t think you’d be back.”
“Why not? I said I would be.”
“It’s nothing! Say, want a beer?” The second beer for John was still on the bar, untouched.
“I’m working! But thanks! Maybe later.” She was leaning forward over the bar again so they could hear each other.
Val tapped a finger in the ring of water left by his Peroni, tracing the circle. “Okay, I’m confused about something.”
She looked back at him. “Shoot.”
“Actually, it’s three things.”
“Three?” She grinned at him again. “You can have any answers without numbers in them.”
“Fair enough. So, three questions. First, what’s it short for? And secondly, why not just have the whole thing on there?”
“You sai
d three things.” Danny tilted her head to the side, her cheeks dimpling.
“We’ll get to the third thing in a second.”
“All right. Well, you’ve got to trade me. Shit. Wait a second.” She went back down the bar to get another order.
Val watched her go. Picking up his Peroni, he finished it off. It had been a little while since anyone had bought him a beer, his moment of stardom fading out as the alcohol blurred the sharp edges of the afternoon into unfocused memory. Stories had been shared, they’d all sworn to stay in touch, he even had a couple of numbers on his phone. He’d probably delete them in the morning. It just wasn’t really his style. This whole thing, it was more John than him.
They were a great team that way. John made a great front man, Val brought the brains. Just like at school.
“Okay, so I’ve got three questions.” Danny had arrived back, wiping her hands on her apron. “What would be on your name badge? And what do you do when you’re not warming that bar stool?”
“You said three!”
“So did you. So we’ll trade our third one later.” She grinned. “It’s only fair.”
“Sure. It’s only fair. Okay. I have to go first?”
“You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, yeah I do. There’s a rule about it somewhere.” Danny nodded in mock solemn agreement. “Okay. My name badge? It’d say Val. And right now, I guess you could say I’m on a sabbatical.”
She nodded in exaggerated slowness. “Sabbatical. You’re not a musician?”
Val snorted. “Shit no. I can’t even dance.”
“Thank God. There’s that many dead beat musicians arrive in here, they all try and hit on me.”
Val sensed a trap. “I guess it’s lucky for me I can’t play. After I decided to leave Juilliard, I became a software engineer.”
“A what?”
“I write programs. On computers.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think I prefer musicians.”
“Shit. Would it have helped if I said I was a tax accountant?”
She thought about it. “I think so. I think I know what one of those is. Are they — do you scrape those off your shoe sometimes after it rains?”
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 5
