air, catches it, and closes his fist on it. He holds out his clenched fist to Zoe. “What side my coin be comin’ down on? Be it heads, you go home with me. Be it tails, you go home with Big. You call it, bitch goddess.”
Zoe shrugs her shoulders and laughs. “You can keep flipping that coin until it loses its shine. I’m not going home with either of you.” She quickly scoops up Hard’s and Big’s beer bottles. “Time to leave, guys. No more telling each other true lies.”
Hard shifts his gaze to the end of the counter, where Hogfish sits alone, his head jerking erratically to music pumping through iPhone earbuds. Hard turns back to Zoe and gives her a mocking wink. “I gets it now. You be savin’ yourself for the Hog. That guy can barely make a bologna sandwich with what little pink meat he’s got between the legs.”
Big belches in Hogfish’s direction. “What’s left of his brain has been boiled like a lobster in a pot.”
Zoe moves down to Hogfish and leans across the counter to him. “Sorry, camper. Two o’clock at night. I want to close up shop. You’ll have to leave.” Hogfish’s glazed eyes roll; he doesn’t look at Zoe. She pulls the earbuds out of his ears. “I said you have to go.” He snatches the earbuds back from her, jumps off the barstool, and runs for the door.
Hard hoots as the door slams behind Hogfish. “That sucka be a spook! Spookier than his crazy ol’ man!”
Big slaps his open palm on the counter and hooks a macho grin at Zoe. “If Hog ever hassles you, give Big the word. I’ll snip his balls off and run them up the flagpole.”
Zoe walks back along the counter and stops in front of Big. “I don’t need you to protect me, not from Hogfish, not from anyone.”
Big’s grin widens to a belligerent smirk. “I’m serious as a triple heart bypass. Hog gets a weird-on with you, just nod in Big’s direction and he’s dust.”
Zoe pushes away from Big. “Hogfish isn’t hassling me. Leave the poor guy alone. It’s Hogfish that’s being hassled. Hassled by the world. That’s what happens to these vets that come back from wars they didn’t start. I know. My father got the same treatment when he came back from Vietnam, treated like shit or ignored like a freak. Cut Hogfish some slack or this bitch goddess will scrape those blue eyes out of your head with her pretty fingernails.”
Big throws his head back and shouts up at the fan blades cutting the air, “Goddamn, ain’t nothing sexier than a sassy woman!” He looks back at Zoe. “You’re a spur under my saddle, but I still want to ride you. Ride your gorgeous ass right into the sunset!”
Zoe steps outside beneath a neon BOUNTY BAR sign glowing blue above her in the humid night air. She locks the bar’s front door, puts the key in her purse, and zips the purse up. She tucks the purse under her arm and starts walking away. She stops, hearing shuffling from the other side of the deserted street. She looks across the street and stares into the shadows of a tall night-blooming cactus tree. She sees no movement. She glances up at the hanging orange lantern of the moon with halos of light thickening around it, indicating rain is close. She continues walking, heading along empty palm-lined streets snaking between century-old white clapboard houses with wraparound balconies and widows’ walks, once inhabited by ship captains and harbor customs men, now tarted up in shiny new tropical colors and surrounded by the electrical drone of motors powering air conditioners and backyard swimming-pool pumps. The houses are constructed cheek by jowl; their tall pitched tin roofs lean into one another as if to block any hurricane winds that might come rushing unannounced through the streets.
Zoe hears the fall of footsteps behind her. She stops beneath the leafy canopy of a woman’s-tongue tree. She spins quickly around and looks back to surprise whoever might be following her. She sees no one; she waits. She hears above her the rattle of seeds in the long pods dangling from the woman’s-tongue tree. The air brings the scent of a rotting dead rat. She hears footsteps again. She stays still. Her breathing becomes faster, her heart pounds. She smells her own fear exuding with the perspiration from her exposed skin. She jolts at a sudden screeching. She hears a thump