That got a little ripple down the bar. Nobody laughed, but three men in the corner straightened up, hands sliding to where their knives probably slept. I raised my glass in salute and drained it.
Vin’s voice came down the bar, low and flat. “We don’t get many passers-through. Not since the construction ended.”
I looked at him over the rim of the glass. “Then I’ll be gone before you miss me.”
He smiled, just enough to show a gold incisor. “Nobody leaves Lexington without a reason.”
Red leaned in, dropping her voice to just above a whisper. “You got a reason, Axel?”
I met her eyes, then Vin’s, and let them both see that I wasn’t here by choice. “I’m looking for work.”
That was honest, in its own way. I’d been running long enough to know that if you didn’t give people something true, they’d make up something worse. I wasn’t interested in that.
The bar went quiet for a second, all the tension of a lit fuse just waiting for the gasoline.
Red cocked her head, weighing me. “You any good with your hands?”
I flexed them on the bar. “Better than most. Never met a Harley I couldn’t fix.”
She smiled, not friendly, but not hostile either. “We’ll see.”
Vin finally got up, pushing away from the bar in a single, predatory motion. His boots hit the wood floor like thunder. He didn’t speak to me right away. He just stood there, looking me over like I was a piece of produce with a bruise nobody else could see.
“You got balls,” he said. “But you got a head to match?”
“Depends what you need,” I answered.
He snorted. “We need people who don’t fold under pressure. You ever fold, Axel?”
I looked him dead in the eye. “Not for free.”
He laughed, and the whole bar seemed to exhale. Even Red looked impressed.
Vin stuck out his hand. His grip was crushing, but I squeezed back hard enough to make him blink.
“You might just fit in,” he said, and then he was gone, back to his stool, back to his whiskey, like he’d never moved at all.
Red poured me another, no longer on the house.
The rest of the bar noise crept back in, but the hierarchy was set. I wasn’t at the top, but I wasn’t at the bottom, either.
The next complication showed up like it had been waiting for a cue. Guy was built like a dump truck, red in the face and sloshing with whatever shitty lager had been on tap. He staggered up to the bar, leaning heavy on his elbows, and barked at Red for a refill.
She didn’t even blink. “You’re cut off, Donny. Go home.”
Donny didn’t like that. Not even a little. He slammed his glass down and snarled, “Don’t be a fucking bitch, Red. Pour.”
She kept cleaning a glass. “Not tonight. Try tomorrow, if you can still walk.”
He reached across the bar and snatched her wrist, yanking her halfway over the counter. She never flinched, but the tendons in her neck stood out like guide wires. The whole bar went quiet, even the shitty music from the jukebox hit a beat of silence.
I was three stools away and moving before I thought about it. My left hand clamped on Donny’s forearm. The first knuckle of my thumb pressed a nerve just above his wrist, and his grip on Red vanished like magic.
“She said no,” I said, calm as reading the weather.
He turned to look at me, bloodshot eyes full of mean and wet. “You wanna get fucked up, hero?”
I shrugged. “Not particularly. But you’re not giving me much choice.”
