Brand New Me

by Meg Benjamin

  Toleffson narrowed his eyes as he checked out the damage. “Looks like somebody has a real hard-on for you, Ames. You need to tell me who.”

  He pulled out one of the few chairs that was still in one piece and sat, studying Tom from beneath the rim of his Stetson.

  Tom pulled out another chair. At least he had two that were still in one piece. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  Toleffson’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like the sound of that. I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of things around here, not you. And I sure as hell don’t want you causing more trouble than you’ve already got.”

  Tom gave Toleffson his most impassive look. He didn’t figure the chief would be an easy man to stare down, but maybe he’d give it a try. “I thought you had a couple of the guys from last night down at the station. Can’t they tell you who was behind it?”

  Toleffson shrugged. “They gave me somebody, guy named Pat Hardesty. You know him?”

  Tom shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

  “That’s what I figured. As it happens, I know Hardesty—he’s a small-time crook who’d like to be big but doesn’t have that kind of brains. So he didn’t come up with this on his own. No way for him to profit from it.”

  Tom managed to look uninterested in Pat Hardesty and his plans for moving up.

  Toleffson peered back at the bandstand again. “Anyway, I’m betting Hardesty didn’t set this up, but I’ve passed his name on to Sheriff Friesenhahn so we can try to find him. Now I need to know who’s actually bankrolling Hardesty and his buddies so I can figure out how much trouble we’ve got on our hands. I’m asking you again, Ames, who’s behind this?”

  Tom stared down at his feet, trying to figure a way to give Toleffson nothing without ending up in the slammer himself.

  He heard the door from the bar swoosh closed and glanced up. Deirdre was staring at them both with eyes the color of slate. All of a sudden, Tom had the feeling she’d be harder to stare down than either of them.

  “The man who most probably hired these thugs is named Craig Dempsey, Chief Toleffson. But the man who hired Craig Dempsey is my father, John Brandenburg. He’s out of the country right now, but I’m trying to reach him. I’m also trying to find Craig. Either of them could put a stop to this, and once I locate them, I’ll make sure that they do.”

  Toleffson blinked at her. Tom had a feeling he wasn’t accustomed to being caught totally flat-footed. “Why would your father want to put Ames out of business, Ms. Brandenburg?”

  “He doesn’t. He’s just trying to bully Tom into cancelling my lease on the shop next door and firing me from my waitress job. He figures that will make me come home.” Her lips curved up in a remarkably cold smile. “It won’t do that, but he doesn’t understand that it won’t. Tom here is caught in the middle, and he shouldn’t be.”

  “You have proof of this?”

  “No, but Tom does.” Deirdre turned those slate-cold eyes on him again. “Craig threatened him when he wouldn’t promise to fire me. And he told Tom my father would pay him off if he cancelled my lease.”

  Toleffson went on staring at her for a few moments, then sighed. “Well, it’s good to know nobody else in town is going to be hit by this wrecking crew. Your father doesn’t have his sights on anybody else, does he?”

  She shook her head. “Not unless I go to work for them.”

  “Any idea where I can find this Craig Dempsey?” He narrowed his eyes. “I need to have a talk with him. The sooner the better.”

  She shook her head again. “I’m looking for him too, Chief. I don’t think he’s staying here in town anymore.”

  “Where was he staying before this?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I’d guess the Woodrose Inn.” Deirdre’s lips spread in a humorless smile. “He’d want to stay in the most expensive place in Konigsburg.”

  Toleffson pushed himself to his feet. “If you hear from him…”

  “I’ll let you know,” she finished.

  “And don’t try to do anything with him yourself, okay?”

  She frowned. “I want to talk to him, Chief, so I can’t promise that I won’t do that. But I won’t do anything else, although I can think of a few things I’d like to do to him.”

  Toleffson didn’t look like he was too happy with that idea, but he let it go. “Okay, Ames, anything else happens around here, you call me.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll do that.” They both knew he probably wouldn’t, but Tom figured there was no harm in a congenial lie now and then.

  He watched Toleffson step back through the door. Deirdre stayed where she was, staring at him, her gaze defiant.

  He managed to keep his voice level, a considerable feat given how pissed he felt at the moment. “You shouldn’t have told him all that, Deirdre.”

  “Why? So you and he could go on playing John Wayne with each other? That code of the west crap? Why keep it a secret? I figure the more help we have in finding Craig, the sooner he’ll stop.”

  And the less chance I have to wring his friggin’ neck before anybody else does. Tom took another in a series of deep breaths. “It won’t do any good. Even if Toleffson finds Dempsey, he’ll just deny it. It’ll be my word against his. Nobody else heard him.”

  “Maybe Hardesty will say it was Craig.”

  “My guess is Hardesty is long gone. And even if he isn’t, he’s been paid to keep his mouth shut. I wouldn’t put much money on him as a witness against Craig.”

  “I still don’t see why you think it’s a bad idea to tell the chief about what’s really going on.”

  “Well, first of all because, like I say, it won’t work. There’s nothing Toleffson can do about Craig Dempsey without more proof than I’ve got.”

  “And second?”

  Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. “Because it sounds like I can’t take care of you or my own damn place. Bad enough that I can’t. I don’t want to talk about it with Toleffson. The Faro belongs to me, not him.”

  Deirdre stared at him for a long moment, her mouth firming to a thin line, then turned on her heel, stalking away from him. She pushed open the door to the main room, then turned back to look at him again. “You, you…guy,” she snapped.

  Tom sat watching the doorway where she’d been standing as the door swung shut behind her. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why that sounded like an insult.

  Deirdre spent the rest of the day cleaning up and avoiding Tom. She wasn’t sure exactly why she was so angry at him—in fact, she suspected that she was really angry at herself for being the cause of so much misery.

  Clem kept trying to convince Tom to open for lunch, and Tom kept telling her no. After a while he escaped to the beer garden to avoid her. A few of their regulars stopped in to check things out. Deirdre was momentarily amazed that they actually had regulars. Rhonda Ruckelshaus stood in the doorway for a few moments shaking her head. “I guess y’all aren’t serving today.”

  “No.” Deirdre managed a slightly flat smile. “Check back with us tomorrow or the day after, though. We should be doing lunches again by then.”

  Rhonda grimaced as she surveyed the room. “If you say so.”

  Clem emptied a load of glass into the dumpster. “Goddamn it all to hell! I could have put something together. BLTs or gazpacho or grilled cheese. Something simple. We could have opened. It would have shown everybody they couldn’t kick us down.”

  “We don’t have a bar, Clem. There’s no way to serve beer. And without beer, there’s no Faro.”

  Clem’s mouth was a thin line. “So? We serve beer out of a wash tub full of ice. We don’t let them beat us. Ever!” She turned on her heel and stalked back into the kitchen.

  Deirdre stood leaning on her broom, staring at the kitchen door. We don’t let them beat us. Ever! Behind her she heard the main door open again.

  “No lunch?” someone asked.

  She turned to see Elsa Carmichael, the owner of a weaving shop several blocks down Main.
>
  She didn’t think she’d ever seen Elsa in the Faro before, but maybe she just hadn’t been on the right side of the room. “Not today. But we’ll be open tomorrow or the next day for sure.” This time her smile felt more genuine than it had before.

  Elsa nodded. “Well, good. I’ve been hearing lots of nice things about your lunch menu. Figured today would be a good day to try it out.” She gazed quickly around the room, the muscles of her jaw firming slightly. “And I’ll be back whenever you open. You can count on it.”

  Deirdre’s chest tightened, her throat clenching. “Thank you,” she managed.

  Elsa gave her another smile, then stepped back into the street. Deirdre turned back to sweeping with a sudden burst of energy. There was a lot more to be done before they opened the place that evening.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Tom was never exactly sure how it happened. He knew for a fact he’d still been resisting Clem and her efforts to push him into opening for lunch. Then the insurance adjuster had arrived and he lost track of what was going on around him other than the clicking of the keys on the man’s BlackBerry. At least the adjustor had promised him a check, although Tom was fairly certain it wouldn’t cover all the damage and his rates would now go into the stratosphere.

  He figured he’d get the window replaced tomorrow. Then he could maybe reopen the day after that. Maybe.

  When he got back to the main room, Deirdre was directing Leon as he hauled in a large galvanized tin tub from parts unknown. Tom watched, frowning, as Leon loaded it with ice and then as Deirdre began jamming in bottles of beer. Behind the bar, Harry lined up the few bottles of liquor that hadn’t been smashed, along with a selection of water glasses to replace the highball glasses that had gone down with the bottles. Miraculously enough, the frozen margarita machine appeared to be intact and loaded with mix.

  Tom leaned back against the bar, feeling tension snake across his shoulders. “What’s going on?”

  Deirdre shrugged. “We’re getting ready to open.”

  He gazed around the room. The debris had been removed. There were fewer tables but enough for a moderate-sized crowd. Leon dragged in two more chairs from the beer garden as he watched—each table looked to have at least three.

  “We’ve got no lights,” he snapped.

  “It’s a bar. It’s supposed to be dark. Besides, we got the lights over the pool table fixed. All we had to do was replace the bulbs, although we’re going to need new shades.”

  Tom glanced toward the table. The two dangling bulbs made it look a little like an operating room in a very dubious hospital. On the other hand, that end of the room would be well-lit, probably to the point of glaring in the eyes of half the customers. At least the felt on the tables wasn’t too scarred.

  He sighed. “I can have some new shades for those by tomorrow. Plus the insurance guy was going to send over somebody to fix the window tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be in better shape to open tomorrow night, assuming I can get the cooler fixed.”

  “That’s good.” Deirdre took off the apron she’d been wearing, folding it into a neat triangle. “But we’re still opening tonight.”

  Tom raised an eyebrow. “We are? Who is this we? I own the place, and as I recall, I told you no.”

  “We are me and Harry and Leon and Marilyn and Clem. And we have decided we will be goddamned before we let a blithering moron like Craig Dempsey put us out of business. We’ve all decided to go for it. And we figure you’ll thank us when you’ve had a chance to think about it.”

  She firmed her jaw, raising her chin. She looked a little like General Patton rallying the troops. Leon and Marilyn rested on their brooms behind her, while Harry leaned his elbows on the bar, all of them waiting for him to cave.

  He chest tightened. His bar, his place. He made decisions like this, not his employees. And he’d already refused.

  “Tom,” Deirdre said softly, “it’s okay. Let us help. We want to.”

  He took a breath, ready to give them a list of the reasons they obviously couldn’t open tonight, then stopped. All of a sudden, he couldn’t remember any of them.

  Deirdre still watched him with that conqueror-of-nations look.

  He took one more quick survey of the room. It looked like shit. If they were lucky, they might pull in two or three near-sighted customers, not enough to pay for the overhead. Of course, staying closed didn’t exactly cover the overhead either. Still, he shouldn’t need Deirdre and the others to get things going. He should be able to do that himself. He rubbed his eyes. If he weren’t so freakin’ tired all of a sudden.

  The front door swung open and the Steinbruners swaggered through. Denny had a butterfly bandage over one eyebrow. Harold looked slightly lumpy around the jaw. Billy Ray had a few bruises on the side of his face that were turning the color of eggplant.

  “Hey,” Denny nodded at him, then caught sight of the pool table. “Cool lights. Now we can see the balls better. Just what the place needed.” He headed toward the far end of the room, grabbing one of the undamaged cues from the wall rack.

  “Hey, that’s my cue,” Harold called after him. “Yours is that one with the blue mark on the side.”

  Billy Ray paused to collect three bottles of Corona from the washtub. “Nice set-up,” he muttered. “Easier to get to the beers.” He flipped a five and a one onto the bar, then turned back to join his brothers.

  Marilyn and Deirdre stood watching Tom. He took another deep breath, then shrugged. “Okay, boys and girls, looks like we’re back in business. Sort of.”

  That business wasn’t exactly brisk, but it wasn’t as bad as Tom had been afraid it might be. After a while, he stopped bracing himself every time the door opened. Most of the people who came in were familiar, and the few first-timers were obviously tourists. The first-timers tended to leave fairly quickly, but the regulars stuck it out. Deirdre and Marilyn kept the tables stocked with beers and the occasional margarita. After a half hour or so, Clem emerged from the kitchen with some plates of shrimp nachos and chipotle chicken quesadillas that she placed on the bar for the customers. Tom had a feeling she’d have gone on giving them away if no one had ordered them, but a couple of the larger tables put in orders and she spent the rest of the evening in the kitchen.

  Around seven, Sylvia stepped through the door, followed a moment later by Chico. He was limping, and bruises covered one side of his face. His expression was even surlier than usual.

  Tom felt like kissing him. Which would, of course, have meant instant death.

  Chico nodded, a little painfully. “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself. How do you feel?”

  “How do you think I feel? Like somebody used my head for football practice.”

  “Why don’t you go home, then, get some rest.” Tom shrugged. “I can handle this.”

  Chico surveyed the room with narrowed eyes, then shook his head slowly, as if the motion hurt. “Fuck that. I’m working.”

  He placed his stool beside the beer garden door, then sat, leaning his back against the wall. For a while, Sylvia fluttered beside him until he growled something that made her stomp off toward the kitchen. She returned with her tray and spent the rest of the evening ignoring him, which seemed to have little effect on Chico’s general outlook on life.

  Nando appeared around eleven. “Didn’t think you’d open tonight.”

  Tom shrugged. “Bills to pay. More of them now than before, in fact. You any further along finding the guy who hired them?”

  “Dempsey?” Nando shook his head. “We’ve got some reports that Hardesty’s still around. The sheriff’s got some guys on his trail. If we pick him up, he may be able to lead us to Dempsey.”

  Tom nodded absently. Chico looked like he was dozing on his stool. He should probably send him home. On the other hand, he had a feeling Chico wouldn’t go quietly.

  “Any problems tonight?”

  Tom checked the room again. Nobody but locals, most of whom, he realized, were regulars. Somehow he’d fai
led to notice how many regulars they had until now. “Nah. Real quiet.”

  “Right. I don’t figure they’ll be back since we’ve got a couple of them in jail and cops looking for the others. Takes all the fun out of it when some of them get arrested and start squealing on their buddies.”

  Tom blew out a breath. “Well, that’s something. Of course, Dempsey may find another bunch of guys.”

  “If he does, Toleffson’s going to be really pissed. Which means Dempsey’s ass will be grass when he finds him.”

  Not if I find him first. Tom managed not to say it out loud, but it was close.

  “You check your mail today?”

  Tom glanced at him. “No. I had other things to worry about.”

  “You might want to look it over. Could be something interesting there.”

  Tom frowned. Nando didn’t sound like interesting meant good. He reached behind the bar for the pile of mail he’d tossed there earlier. Mostly bills—about what he’d expected. Toward the bottom of the stack he found an official-looking envelope with the address of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission in the upper left corner. A drip of ice water coursed down his spine.

  Nando watched as he slit the envelope with his pocket knife and unfolded the letter inside. Tom licked his lips. “Notice of a hearing on my liquor license. They’ve received a citizen complaint. Fuck.”

  Nando nodded. “Margaret Hastings, like I said. She launched the complaint after the first fight. Now she’ll use this one to show the Faro’s back to its bad old ways, a menace to the neighborhood.”

  “Hell, Margaret Hastings isn’t even in this neighborhood. Her store’s at least ten blocks away and she lives at the other end of town.”

  “She’s probably found somebody who does live around here to be the person whose name is on the complaint. Margaret’s pretty thorough. And she’s been after the Faro for a while.”