by Ann Charles
I could clearly remember his squinty eyes and tight jaw when he walked up to our table that evening.
“Anyway.” She gave me a shut-it pinch. “That night, you disappeared during our appetizers.”
“I had to use the bathroom.”
“And you didn’t come back for a long time.”
“Were you timing me?”
She held up her hand. “Doc disappeared at almost the same time, claiming a need to use the restroom, too.”
“We’re all human. Having to go to the bathroom is a natural thing.”
“Truth or drink? Did you two screw around in one of the bathrooms while your date and I waited for you to come back?”
Technically, no, we didn’t screw around in the bathroom. We screwed around in the darkened, empty banquet room located beyond the bathrooms.
I smiled sheepishly and lifted a shot glass. “Drink.”
She watched me with a gunslinger glare as I licked, sipped, and sucked. When I finished pounding on my sternum after the tequila train burned its way down, I blew out a breath. “That’s some good stuff.”
“You’re not going to tell me anything about the early days between Doc and you, are you?”
“You can read it in my autobiography when we’re little old raisins.”
A fleeting wave of dizziness made my head list to the side. I probably should have ordered a burger from the waitress with my tequila shots, something to soak up the liquor. Feeling the need for a kickstand, I leaned my elbows on the table. “My turn to play.” That last word came out a little wet.
“You’re starting to spit when you talk.”
I blew a raspberry at her.
She used a drink napkin to dab off her arm. “I can see there will be no fixing you tonight.”
“Nope. You might as well join me.”
“What’s your question then, you trampy boozehound?”
“Truth or drink? Do you think Detective Cooper is good looking?”
She scoffed. “That’s easy. Truth. Yes.”
“Aha!”
“Aha what? I’ve told you that before. Remember? We had a bit of fun here years back, sharing a drink.” She looked down at her hands. “And then some.”
“Did you kiss him?”
“Yes.” Her gaze met mine. “I told you that, too.”
“Did you do anything else?”
Her eyes shuttered, closing me out. “He rejected me, remember? Said he’s not into local girls.”
I might be two shots deep in tequila, but I was sober enough to know that she didn’t exactly answer my question. I opened my mouth to interrogate further, but she stood.
“Let’s go play some pool.”
“Wait!” I pointed at the shots. “We’re not done yet.”
“Fine.” She sank back into the booth seat. “Truth or drink? What’s more satisfying, selling a house or killing a monster?”
I glanced around the bar, making sure nobody else was listening. “Killing a monster?” I asked in a hushed voice.
She leaned forward, whispering back. “You heard me.”
I frowned, uncomfortable speaking out loud about my other, darker role in life that involved slaying nasty agitators that were out to stir up trouble. It was a heroic role that pinched in some places and chafed in others, not to mention the damned cape, which was too long and kept getting caught under my heels. I had yet to get a handle on who I was supposed to remove and how. I wasn’t even going to touch on the why part.
“Are you talking about the big albino-looking dude at the funeral parlor?” I asked.
“And the others. Truth or drink, Ms. Executioner?”
I winced at the sound of my other name. “Don’t call me that here.”
“Quit stalling, Violet.”
“Okay, okay.” I hadn’t really ever compared the two before. “Truth, I guess.”
“All right, let me hear it.”
“Well, I like making a sale because I need money to support my kids.”
“I didn’t ask what you liked, I asked what was more satisfying.”
“Sex is the most satisfying.” I tried to derail her.
“That wasn’t one of the options and you know it.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, trying my answer on for size before saying it.
Killing was wrong. I’d been taught to be kind and loving and nurturing since birth.
Killing was violent. Besides my daydreams about maiming the kids’ piece of shit father and maybe a bossy detective or two, I really wasn’t a violent person. Even when my sister, the bitch from hell, had poked me with a sharp stick, making me bleed, I’d kept my head and hadn’t lashed out in return.
Killing was not accepted in society. Only psychopaths and lunatics took lives without remorse. Rational single mothers who were members of the Parent-Teacher Organization didn’t jam sharp metal objects into living beings.
But said beings were evil, hurting innocent people, and as my Aunt Zoe had told me after informing me of my real purpose on Earth, someone had to take out the garbage in this town.
With a nod, I opened my eyes. “Killing is the most satisfying.”
“I knew it!” She leaned over the table, wiggling her finger for me to come closer. When I did, she asked, “Does it wind you up the same as sex?”
“Noooo,” I said. “Sex is better. At least with Doc.” Shoot, that detail wasn’t supposed to slip out.
She pulled back, waving her hand in her front of her face. “Wow! You smell like you marinated your tongue in tequila.”
I stuck my marinated tongue out at her. “If you’d stop answering my questions with the truth and drink with me, you wouldn’t smell it.”
“Ask me something I don’t want to tell you.”
“Okay. Truth or drink? When you and Cooper were getting good and friendly that night years ago, did you let him touch you anywhere in the red zone?”
“What is your fascination with Cooper tonight?”
“I’m just trying to get the story straight.”
“I’ve told you the story, we had some fun and then he rejected me because I’m a local girl. The End.”
“No, it’s not.”
“What does that mean?”
Oops, I wasn’t supposed to let that secret out of the bag. “I mean, I don’t think that’s the end. I suspect there is more you aren’t telling me for some reason.”
She frowned in reply.
“Truth or drink, Nat? Was there red-zone touching from him or not?”
She stared over at the pool table for a few breaths, and then she turned back and grabbed a pinch of salt. “Drink.” She followed the salt with tequila and lime, setting her shot glass down hard. “He rejected me,” she said when her pucker face cleared up. “Like I told you before, ‘end of story.’ Now let’s go hit some pool balls around before I’m too drunk to beat your sorry ass.”
Three Tequila
Ten minutes later over at the pool table …
“I just don’t understand why you won’t come clean about what happened that night with Cooper.” I frowned across the table at Natalie, who was chalking up her pool cue.
I’d swung by the jukebox on my way to the pool table and popped some quarters in to keep the tunes cranking, selecting some oldies but goodies to keep us company as we played. Currently, Boston was singing about having “More Than a Feeling.” I could relate, being pretty damned certain deep in my gut that Natalie was hiding something about Cooper.
She set the chalk on the side of the table. “Yeah, well, I don’t understand why you’re not telling me what really happened between Doc and you either.”
We’d reached a deadlock, it appeared. I leaned on the edge of the pool table. That second tequila still had me heated up from my throat to my stomach. Its lingering effects added a slight blur to everything in the Purple Door Saloon—from the stained-glass pool table chandelier to the flashing colors on the jukebox to the blur of patrons and wait staff moving here and there. I could fe
el my eyes move as I looked around, a sure sign that I was on my way to numb lips soon.
“Whose turn is it, anyway?” I asked.
“To shoot or ask questions?”
“Ask questions. I’m not so drunk that I can’t keep up with the table play.”
“Not yet anyway.” She hit the cue ball into the racked balls, sinking the twelve ball and three ball. “I’ll let you pick.”
“The next question?”
“No, stripes or solids.”
“Stripes,” I said. “Always. You know my issue with solids.”
She smirked, shaking her head at me. “Truth or drink? Do you enjoy looking at the dead bodies Coop and Detective Hawke show you?”
“Now why in the world would I enjoy looking at dead bodies?”
“I’m just checking to see how much this new executioner gig has affected your moral compass.” She lined up her next shot. “Five ball in the corner.”
“My moral compass is still pointing north when appropriate.”
“Did you actually answer my question?” She sank the ball.
“No, I do not enjoy looking at dead bodies no matter how many times Cooper and Hawke make me. I still cringe and wince and sometimes even gag a little.”
“That’s good to hear.” She walked around the table, sizing things up. “What’s your next question for me?”
“Truth or drink? Who’s better with a tool, you or Claire?”
Claire Morgan was Natalie’s cousin. I’d grown up in the house next to the Morgan family down in Rapid City, which is how I came to meet Nat at such a young age. Claire and Natalie both followed in their grandfather’s footsteps, swinging a hammer for a living. Whereas Claire had taken a shitload of college classes without ever quite landing a degree in addition to working with her hands, Natalie had focused solely on furthering her tool-toting career.
“Truth,” Natalie said. “Claire is better. I have to study to learn certain building techniques. Her skill with her hands is innate.” She leaned over the table. “Seven ball in the side.”
I watched her sink the pool ball with ease. I might as well hang up my pool cue. Natalie wasn’t drunk enough yet for me to even have a chance at getting a single shot. She would run the table in no time.
“Truth or drink?” she asked, coming around to join me. “Did you have any idea this was in your bloodline?”
“You mean my love for the Ramones?” I asked, bobbing my head along with “I Wanna Be Sedated,” which was now blasting from the jukebox.
“You only ever listen to this song by them.”
“Still, I love it.”
“You know what I mean. Don’t make me ask again.”
“Truth. I had no idea this was in my bloodline. It wasn’t until after I moved up here and started having nightmares and visions and all kinds of crazy experiences that I even realized I was anything other than a dud.”
“You are far from a dud, babycakes.” She sank the one ball without calling it.
“Hey, you forgot to call it. My turn.”
She shrugged. “I was getting tired of playing alone.”
“Whatever, show-off. Get out of my way.” I hip bumped her to the side.
As I sized up the playing field, she leaned back against the wall. “You know you need to actually touch the cue tip to the ball in order for them to move across the felt. Or have you now developed the ability to move balls with your mind alone?”
“Truth or drink, mouth? Did you go all the way with Jeff Wymonds back in high school?” I pointed at the thirteen ball. “I’m putting that pretty lady in the far left corner.”
“You sure you can handle that one?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Truth. No.”
I looked up from lining up the pool cue. “I thought you said something once about screwing around in the backseat with him.”
“I let him get to second base, sure, but he had football on the brain.”
“What’s that mean? He left you to go play a game?”
“No, there was a game on the radio when we were screwing around and he was so distracted that he couldn’t get his quarterback up off the bench, if you get my meaning.”
I didn’t think Jeff had that problem these days, at least not the way he made it sound. “Good.”
“You don’t want me to have had sex with Jeff? He used to be super good looking back in high school and had that whole small-town football hero thing going for him.”
“I’d prefer you weren’t one of the girls he bonked in school—his words, not mine. I don’t think I could handle listening to his sordid tale of the deflowering of my best friend.”
“Ah, aren’t you sweet. You really do like me.” She pointed her pool cue at the table. “Are you going to take that shot sometime before I die?”
I nailed the thirteen ball, sinking it. “Happy?”
“Not yet, but after this third tequila I will be.” She took a sip. When I protested, she held up her finger. “Just a sip to wet my big, inner-tube lips.”
I rounded the table, lining up the fifteen ball, which I informed her was destined to end up in the side pocket.
She scoffed. “That’s an easy one. Question time. Truth or drink? Do you think this will be the end of us?”
“You mean this pool game?”
“No, spaz, this executioner shit and all it entails.”
Oh, that. Still, I played dumb. “The end of our friendship?”
That earned me a scowl. “Are you being dense on purpose?”
“Hey, I’m two tequilas to the wind here. You need to spell it out for me.”
“You suck at spelling.”
“B-I-T-E-M-E.” I took the shot, but the damned fifteen ball bounced off the corner of the cushion.
Natalie laughed. “That’s what you get for trying to spell and shoot at the same time.” She came around and nudged me out of the way. “Now, truth or drink? Do you think your new job is hazardous to our health, meaning mine, Doc’s, Harvey’s, etc.?”
I sat down on a tall stool at one of the bar tables near the wall, or more like fell onto the stool. The weight of her question and the fear the answer invoked deep in my gut made my knees want to give way. “I hope not.”
“Do I hear a but in there?” She leaned her hip against the pool table, her focus on me, not the balls.
“But I don’t really know the answer. It certainly didn’t end well for the last executioner and her family.”
The bloodbath that had ended her reign as the town’s trash cleaner-upper still haunted my nightmares.
“Yeah, but you told me once that your Aunt Zoe said what happened to the last executioner may not happen to you. That nothing is certain in this game.”
“True, but Prudence was a better executioner than I am.”
“Says who?”
“Prudence.” Or rather her ghost.
“She was a narcissistic killer.”
“Maybe. But look at all of her trophy teeth.” Prudence had liked to play tooth fairy with her prey. I recoiled at just the thought of sticking my hand in some stranger’s mouth, let alone yanking out their teeth.
“Did she work alone?” Natalie asked.
“I think so.”
“There you go.”
“Where am I going?”
“You have a team.” She pointed her pool cue at me. “You aren’t fighting alone. The team will make you stronger than she was.”
“I’m putting all of your lives in danger.”
“If we didn’t want to play in your sandbox, Vi, we wouldn’t be here.”
“Maybe, but you don’t know what’s hiding under the sand.”
“Neither do you.” She called her shot and then took it. The two ball fell into its designated pocket. “You’re up.”
“You made the shot.”
“I mean with questions.”
“Oh. Okay.” I blinked. It took some concentration to lower and lift my lids. The tequila was working its magic, takin
g the sharp edge off the truths I was telling, making it easier for them to slide off my tongue and slip out through my lips. “Truth or drink? That night with Cooper here at the bar, did you touch him in the red zone?”
She didn’t even hesitate, grabbing her shot glass and tossing it back, skipping the salt and lime entirely. “Drink,” she said after setting the shot glass down.
“Come on,” I berated. “Can’t you just give me a few minor details?”
“You’re not asking for minor details.”
I stared at her, trying to read if she was avoiding answering out of stubbornness, or if there was something deeper that had hurt her more than his rejection. Something she was hiding. “How’d that last one go down?”
She grinned. “Smooth as turpentine.”
“Are you afraid to answer my questions because Cooper will arrest you for telling on him?”
“No.”
“Did you perform some secret blood pact with him that night?”
“No.”
“Then what’s with making it such a big secret?”
“Why are you making it such a big deal? What’s done is done. I’ve moved on. He’s moved on. Life has moved on. So should we here tonight.”
Only Cooper hadn’t moved on, and the more she held out on me, the more I was dying to hear the truth so I could figure out why she was trying to keep it hidden.
“Fine!” I growled. “Just shoot, would you?”
She aimed, shot, and missed.
We both stared at the pool table in surprise.
I finally grasped the situation. “You missed.”
“I know.”
“How come?”
“Because I’ve downed three tequila shots.”
I grinned, sliding off my chair and floating over to the pool table. “Move over then, lush, and watch me kick your hiney.”
“Oh yeah, trash talker?” She crossed her arms over her chest, standing across from where I was trying to line up my shot first with just my right eye open, and then only my left. When I tried the two together, a wave of dizziness made me list to the side.
“Remember that night I saw Doc and Tiffany in the parking lot behind his office,” she started, “and I thought they were back together?” At my cautious nod, she continued. “I went home to nurse myself back to happiness with Humphrey Bogart.”