Chapter 31
When Sipe got up from the dining area table to go to the bathroom, Bonnie told Quinn to go with the little guy.
“Excuse me?” asked Quinn.
“Go with him.” Bonnie without glasses, her hair loose from its usual bun, pregnant trying to look elegant, an almost attractive woman on the town, but definitely still a bitch.
“Why?”
“Because if one of us needed to go the bathroom, he’d send someone to accompany them. Am I right? Sipe. I’m right, right?”
All the heads on Team Massage turning to look at Sipe, already out of the dining area, standing off the carpet on linoleum at the mouth of the short corridor leading to the serving area, the kitchen, and then terminating at the rest rooms in the back. Sipe looking at the Clay carved totem pole more or less marking The Outpost’s crossroads.
They were seated at two tables pushed into one, the table occupied on one side by Team Hope, backs to the window, the wall parallel to Woodruff Road, the Antler Inn across the street. Facing the windows, facing Sipe, Hope, and Connie (Big Nose), the composition of Team Massage – Bonnie, Bret, Clay, Faye, and due to the size of Clay and Bret, one chair at the table end, angled, Quinn’s seat. Standing beside Quinn the night’s referee, Outpost proprietor, Merritt Lowry, proudly displaying his hip holstered pistol, arms folded over a solid swell of gut, almost like he was trying to outduel Bonnie’s baby bulge. Outside, Bug and $4200 in the truck.
“I got that right, right, Sipe?” asked Bonnie. “We trust one another about the same?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a given.” She looked at Quinn. “It’s fair.”
“Send him.” Quinn motioned at Merritt.
“I didn’t ask him, Quinn. I asked you.” Bonnie smiled. She thought it turned on her face. Made you forget her Toucan Sam nose. Quinn ought to tell her to just fucking use that schnozz, so big, she could smell Sipe picking up a gun or knife or grenade hidden in the toilet.
Sipe said, “I got no problem, someone wants to follow me.”
“See?” said Bonnie. “It’s no trouble.”
“Only thing is,” said Sipe, “you got to send him? I pee, I want to focus on that. I got concerns with that one. Either one of those other two aren’t nearly so light in their loafers.”
Clay laughed. Slapped his palm on the table. The napkin dispenser, the salt and pepper shakers rattled. He was loaded, still twitchy from dealing with Deputy Lueck earlier on in the day. Clay like an over excited dog when he recognized Connie. Did the one-armed hug, back slapping even. Connie could confirm for Bonnie and everyone else what a kickass job Clay had done on Lueck, life saving even, before the ambulance arrived. Each of Clay’s exhalations like a Pabst factory had set up shop somewhere inside his ribcage.
“Hey, Sipe, Snipe, whatever, fuck you.” Still, Quinn standing.
“Keep it civil,” said Bonnie.
“Easy. He’s just joshing you,” said Faye.
“You actually talk? First fucking thing you got to say since we got here, Faye Shmaye.”
She got a look on her face. Quinn had to lash out at someone, Faye probably the wrong target. Faye Shmaye what Sipe called her, doing the introductions for his young pal Connie before everyone sat. Quinn hadn’t taken well to the look Connie gave Faye. Predatory. His eyes shredding her clothes, getting down to the dermis. Quinn having to bite down on the impulse to tell Big Nose all Ms. Shmaye had going for her were the legs. The ass pancake flat and what swell her tits lacked her gut held in abundance.
“You coming or not? An old man’s bladder can’t wait forever, you know?” Sipe out of sight, behind the totem pole, the bird and fish and Indian faces doing double duty as a magazine rack, a hat stand. High up top a price sticker marking the piece of art and commerce at the low-low price of $525. Clay had negotiated with Guy and Racine about using some Auntie’s parking lot space for exhibiting totem poles, but they’d denied him. Still, they had Beepers on the front counters, parked along the top of the vintage Donkey Kong and Pac Man arcade machines, practically coming out of the slushee machine. Fucking double-standard, the Dobbs, the Logans, the Little Creek haves lording it over the have-nots.
Quinn turning round the totem pole, heading after Sipe, the little man from the big city already out of sight, the men’s room door swinging shut behind him. Quinn walked fast, the steps jiggling the glassware stowed on the shelves on either side of the corridor.
Inside, Sipe stood at a urinal, unzipped. He looked over his shoulder at Quinn. Away. Disinterested. Same variety of disinterest on Hope’s face, that pouting, above-it-all teenager thing. Her face looked fat. Hiding out at the cabin-to-be, then stowed away with Bug for another week or so, all her nourishment centered on processed snacks, that double chin threatening to solidify into a frog’s chin bloat. Her cold hot dogs and sour cream and onion potato chips diet hideous. Begging Quinn to bring a microwave out, the cabin wired, she could at least nuke her snacks. Quinn putting that off, at least providing booze to wash out the remnants of her choice snack. He didn’t want that pierced tongue slipping sliding around inside his mouth like a snake coated in debris rained down between bleacher seats.
“Is she fucking you, old man?”
Sipe’s head turned just a little to the left. Still, locked into studying the wall immediately in front of him.
“Just to let you know, it ain’t worth it. She’s crazy. Even going for it for one time, wham bam, in and out, might not be worth it. Way she’s getting porky, bet that pussy has a little double chin now, too.”
Sipe flushed the urinal. Quinn almost certain Sipe hadn’t produced any stream at all, but could be the guy just had the angles all figured out, could pee silent.
Right out of the gate, Bonnie had given Sipe shit. Asked him if he was sure he wanted to sit with his back to the window. Weren’t guys like him patently afraid of someone shooting them from behind? Sipe told her a place like Little Creek didn’t concern him. It was like a vacation. All that was behind his back was the Antler Inn, and from what Sipe had heard, the three drunks that called it home wouldn’t shuffle out of the Up ‘n Up until 1 am or so.
Sipe washed his hands. Pumped the action on the paper towel dispenser and wiped his hands dry. He tossed the towels into the trash. The tin flap waggling on the hinge all the noise in the world as Sipe looked up and into Quinn’s eyes. Sipe raised his right hand. Quinn flinched away from the hand. Wrong thing to do, but it was done.
“Hey. No. It’s all right. It’s nothing.” Sipe lowered his hand. “I just wanted to touch. It pays off, all the work you put into that curly, pretty hair. You hit the salon once a week or you do it on your own?”
“You’re a weird little fucker, you know that?”
Sipe like some robot never issued protocols that lead to the formation of a smile. The machine knew to blink. The pupils to dilate. Pores to widen.
“I ought to pat you down,” said Quinn.
“We already did that. Mr. Lowry did that for everyone.”
“You were in here alone.”
“For five seconds. Maybe six.”
“Yeah. Alone is alone.”
“Because you lollygagged.”
“Still.”
“You’re right,” said Sipe. “You know your stuff. Hours ago, I hid a shotgun under the urinal cake.”
“You know what? In this light, I can see you. I can see how old you really are. You don’t have that much gray hair, but you look old enough you could be someone’s grandpa.”
Sipe took a step back. His arms up, then, even higher, signaling a touchdown.
“You want to pat, pat.”
Quinn just looked at him. Swallowed.
Sipe pivoted, facing the door, his arms still up like he planned on walking through the door, leaving a silhouette, a cut out, his arms up over his head. Finally, he dropped his arms, and opened th
e door and walked out.
Quinn listened to Sipe’s steps on the linoleum. Something fired in his brain and he caught the slow to shut men’s room door before tight hinges allowed it to shut all the way.
The Lipless Gods Page 33