‘I didn’t, no,’ Josie replied, with a shake of the head. ‘But I was busy with customers. She might have.’
‘Something wrong?’ Vicky asked.
‘Mary,’ Luke replied. ‘I think she might’ve left. I’m not sure. I didn’t see her leave. Did you?’ he addressed Pam.
‘I didn’t see her, either,’ Pam replied. ‘And I was standing here the whole time. If she did, she didn’t walk past me.’
‘That’s quite rude of her, don’t you think?’ Vicky commented, her tone like shards of glass. ‘She could’ve at least said goodbye.’
Pam nodded in agreement.
‘I think she wasn’t feeling too well,’ Luke said before raising a hand at the two G.R.I.T.S. ‘Give me a sec.’ He had a swig of his beer. ‘Let me go check outside real quick.’
As Luke turned around and quickly exited The Whiskey, Vicky shook her head at Pam. ‘What the fuck does he see in her? She’s a bit chubby.’
‘That she is,’ Pam agreed.
Back out on the Broadway, Luke looked left then right, checking the small group of people spilling out of The Whiskey and walking up and down the boulevard.
No Mary.
He walked a little to his right before getting onto the tips of his toes and looking again.
Mary was nowhere to be seen.
He checked across the street.
Nothing.
‘Fuck!’ Luke said, as he finally gave up and returned to The Whiskey.
Nineteen
Across the road, the stranger in the gangster suit watched as Luke came running out of The Whiskey with a concerned look on his face.
The stranger’s eyes narrowed to slits.
He recognized Luke from earlier. He was the guy who had come out to talk to Mary – the same guy who Mary had locked arms with before walking back into the bar.
The stranger straightened up his body and watched as Luke looked to one side then the other, clearly searching for someone.
That can’t be good,the stranger thought, walking out of the shadows and up to the edge of the curb.
Luke got on his tiptoes, searching further down the street.
Is he looking for Mary?the stranger asked himself. Instinctively, he too began searching the crowd of streetwalkers, but he hadn’t seen Mary walk out of the bar. Since she and the guy across the road had walked back into The Whiskey Bent Saloon arm-in-arm, he had kept a close watch on that door. Mary had not walked out of it – at least not through the front door.
‘Fuck!’ The word came out through gritted teeth.
The stranger’s eyes searched the Broadway a little more urgently.
No Mary anywhere.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck… back door,’ the man said, as he rushed across the Broadway in a stop-and-start motion, to avoid beinghit by oncoming traffic, but he didn’t rush towards The Whiskey Bent Saloon – he ran towards the side street to its right, which he knew would allow him to get to the back alley, directly behind that particular row of bars and restaurants. It took him just a few seconds to reach it.
From that end of the alleyway, The Whiskey was the third building along. The back alley was badly lit, and the air was saturated with the smell of stale alcohol and of food gone bad.
No sign of Mary anywhere.
