“Sure. I buy my bait and tackle at his store,” Rory said, moving down the bar to fetch beers for the newcomers.
That was something to delve into at a later date. I hitched my bag over my arm and tried to pick up my feet when they briefly stuck to the floor on the way back to Bernie, who’d already sat up to watch us approach.
Hoyt puffed out his chest. “Rumor has it you want to kill me.”
Bernie’s eyes were so bloodshot they looked swollen. He tried to sit up straighter, but his chest ended up sinking in more with his shoulders hunched. “You set me up, you fucker. I know it was you.”
Hoyt’s chin lifted. “You’re crazy, old man.”
I edged closer to Bernie. “Set up? What do you mean?”
“He knows,” Bernie slurred. “It was a normal poker game and then it wasn’t. I know what you did.” He coughed, the sound phlegm-filled.
Now I took a step back. There wasn’t time in my schedule to get sick right now. Although it was probably the whiskey and smoke attacking Bernie’s lungs.
“I didn’t do anything,” Hoyt snapped, snow still dotting the shoulders of his down jacket. “You and your ex-wife set my father up and then killed him. Thought you’d get rich and take that Vegas trip you’d always wanted, right? You won’t. I’m telling you, I’m taking you down. Santa or not.” He leaned in, his expression ugly. “We both know what happened to the coffers last year, don’t we?”
Bernie bounded to his feet, surprisingly quick. “That wasn’t me. Your gambling debts have ruined everything. How is Gutter, anyway?”
I could swear that Hoyt paled. “When I’m done with you and that gold-digging bitch—”
Bernie threw a half-empty bowl of nuts at Hoyt’s face and then lunged over the table, knocking the nearest chair into my leg. I went down, scrambling for my gun as the two men collided.
Gasping, I stood, my hand shaking.
But it was already over.
Rory had Bernie by the scruff of the neck and Hoyt by the wrist, which had been twisted in a way that made Hoyt remain on his knees with a snot-bubble poking out of his nose.
I blinked and shoved my gun back where it belonged. Yeah. Someday I was going to find out what cousin Rory did when he wasn’t at home.
But not tonight.
Chapter 14
Iglanced over at the passed out senior citizen snoring in my passenger seat as I drove away from the bar, my headlights cutting through the snow. Bernie’s coat smelled like mothballs and mold, and when he farted, I nearly tossed him out into the snowstorm. Instead, I shoved him in the arm. “Bernie. Where do you live?”
He snorted loudly and jerked, opening his eyes. “What? Uh? Where am I?” He tried to sit up and farted again.
I flipped the wipers to a faster speed. “In my car. Where do you live?” I slowed down for a stoplight.
“Oh.” He wiped his hands down his face. “Um, on Nineteenth Street. Just take a right at the next light.”
If Timber City had a bad part of town, Nineteenth Street would meander right through it. The homes were run-down, the vehicles rusted out, and the meth busts a part of life. There were also hard-working people just trying to work out some financial problems, and I had no doubt many of them would love to leave Nineteenth Street.
I drove farther away from the lake, from the main part of town, and along mature trees nobody seemed to tend. The snow clung to their arching bows, giving them a romantic look that contrasted starkly with the crumbling homes on either side of us. The streetlights were new and boldly illustrated the run-down and depressing neighborhood. “Where?”
“Two blocks down. First white apartment complex.” He dug his hat out of his pocket and sat it on his head. The white ball at the tip drooped sadly to his shoulder.
I drove around a dirty chunk of ice that looked like it’d fallen off a large truck. “What was Hoyt talking about? That something happened to the coffers?”
Bernie watched the darkened homes flow by outside. “Money went missing from the Kringle fund. I figured Lawrence took it to help Hoyt, but I don’t know.” He sighed, the sound weary, and his breath a mellow whiskey scent. “Maybe it’s our fault. We’ve played poker for money for decades, and I remember the first time Lawrence brought Hoyt to a game. The guy was just a kid.”
That was sad. I pulled to the curb next to an unshoveled sidewalk in front of an older apartment building with a floodlight casting a wide net across the snow. The paint was more gray than white after age, and the metal railing on the steps leading from sidewalk to walkway hung haphazardly to the icy ground.
“Bernie? What did you mean that Hoyt set you up?”
He turned toward me in the quiet car, even his white whiskers looking limp. “Don’t you get it? I got really drunk at a game, somehow ended up in bed with some woman named Sharon Smith, and then she’s in Lawrence’s will? The same Lawrence who just proposed to my ex-wife? Obviously, it was a setup.”
