Constable Roberts wanted to ask why the bartender had a beef with him, then decided he didn’t care. Some men were automatically opposed to the law, except when it suited them. He was sure the bartender was more than fine with any law he handed down himself.
“Okay,” the constable said, pushing away the empty dish in front of him.
The bartender looked like he felt a little bad. “Sorry. Makes you seem like you think you’re too good for us, you know.”
“What does?”
“That you so rarely come in.”
I got a wife and kids, the constable wanted to say, but he knew most of the men there could say the same. He wasn’t out to shame anyone. “Don’t want to get in your business,” he said, finishing his Pepsi. He could already feel the chili dog doing a number on his insides. “Besides, if I see a crime, I got to do something, right?”
The bartender laughed and picked up the dish, wiping underneath it.
“Yeah, you’re right about that. But that fellow, he seems harmless enough. Just a big asshole. Got plenty of those down here, thinking since they know one end of a gun from another, they’re the man. Never once seen him with a woman, you know. Just sits here, alone, mostly, complaining about the cost of a pint until it’s time for him to go home, wherever that is.”
“Never talks about work?”
“Never.”
“Talks to Brett sometimes?”
“Yeah, but who doesn’t, when that man gets in your face? Wish someone would buy him a toothbrush.”
“It ain’t his teeth; it’s inside him,” the constable said, paying for his meal. The bartender didn’t argue. No one in Wheel Stone offered comps—it would be the end of them, and the constable preferred it that way.
“Come again,” the bartender said.
It was late, and Ike was tired.
“You go on,” Martha told him. It had been a long day, starting with the visit from the constable, and then more boys than they had evertreated in one day before. It seemed Martha wanted to treat more and more kids over time. She was getting harder with them, too, but maybe that was for the best. She knew best.
“You sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure.” She looked sweaty and disheveled, with a fresh bite mark on her forearm where one of the boys, panicked at going once again into the rug, had bit her. She had been a little tough on that boy, Ike thought. And he was no stranger to toughness.
“I’ll finish up here,” she said, smiling at him. She had applied lipstick that morning, before the constable came, but it had long since worn off, into a faded rim around her mouth. It made her look strangely hostile.
“Okay. Don’t work too hard, ma’am.”
“I’ve just got this one more boy,” she said. The boy in question was already in the room behind her, waiting.
Dennis and the other boys were in the dining room. One of the newer staff members was trying to teach them card games. It wasn’t going so well. Dennis let the cards flutter from his hands, like they were poison or something. It irked Ike, but he wasn’t on shift anymore. Let the evening staff handle it.
He left, crossing the parking lot, feeling ill at ease. Most of the cars were gone for the day, including the cook’s. The night watchman would be on his way in. It was later than Ike had thought, and Martha was still there. He turned to look at the dark building, feeling troubled.
He climbed into his creaking truck. It had room for whatever he wanted it to hold. Hunting gear. Once, a dressed elk. He liked being in the woods, on his days off. He had never learned hunting as a boy, but he was learning it now.
25
Larry had never wanted to be a detective. Detectives showed up after the worst had happened. As an officer, Larry sometimes got to be the person who prevented the bad thing from happening at all.
But then, times and the bureau had changed. It had never been perfect—not by a long shot. They had cops every bit as racist as the ones today. What they didn’t have, Larry felt, was the sort of bristling defensive anger that ran, hot as an electrical current, through the newest generation of police officers. In his days, brutality was a given. But there were still a lot of men like him, cops who took satisfaction from a normal workday or night, and the call of sirens was not a call to arms.
Now here he was, playing detective with Amanda, leaving a hot rental car agency outside a small southern Arizona airport, traveling across the desert. Every few miles, they passed a white jug of water, sweating in the heat.
“What are those for?” Amanda asked.
“In case we break down. So we don’t die of thirst.”
