work on the beer chaser, hoping that the boilermakers would work tonight. Enough liquor would kill the sunset and put out the fire. It worked before. It had to work this time.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye, not wanting to but not able to help himself. She was small—a good head shorter than he was, and she couldn’t weigh half of what he did. But the weight she had was all placed just right, just the way he liked a woman to be put together.
Her hair was blond—soft and fluffy and curling around her face like smoke. Her yellow sweater was just a shade deeper and brighter than her hair, and it showed off her body nicely, hugging and emphasizing the gentle curves.
The dark green skirt was tight, and it did things to the other half of her body.
He looked at her, and the ball of fire in his mind burned hotter and brighter every second.
Twenty or twenty-one, he guessed. Young, and with that innocent look that would stay with her no matter what she did or with whom or how often. He knew instinctively that the innocence was an illusion, and he would have known this if he saw her kneeling in a church instead of looking over the men in a logger’s bar. But he knew at the same time that this was the only word for what she had: innocence. It was in the eyes, the way she moved, the half-smile on her full lips.
That was what did it: the youth, the innocence, the shape, and the knowledge that she was about as innocent as a Bowery fleabag. That did it every time, those four things all together, and he thought once again that this was going to be one hell of a night.
Another double followed the beer. It was beginning to take hold now, he noticed with a short sigh of relief. He rubbed a callused finger over his right cheek and noted a sensation of numbness in his cheek, the first sign that the alcohol was reaching him. With his constant drinking it took a little more alcohol every night, but he was getting there now, getting to the point where the girl wouldn’t affect him at all.
If only she’d give him time. Just a few more drinks and there would be nothing to worry about, a few more drinks and the numbness would spread slowly from his cheeks to the rest of his body and finally to his brain, quenching the yellow fire and letting him rest.
If only…
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her eyes upon him, singling him out from the crowd at the bar. She took a hesitant step toward him and he wanted to shout “Go away!” at her. She kept on coming, and he wished that the stool on his right weren’t empty, that with no place for her to sit she might leave him alone.
He finished the chaser and waved again for the bartender. Surely, inevitably, she walked to the bar and took the stool beside him. The dark green skirt caught on the stool and slithered up her leg as she sat, and the sight of firm white flesh heaped fresh fuel upon the mental ball of fire.
He tossed off the shot without tasting it or feeling any effect whatsoever. The beer followed the shot in one swallow, still bringing neither taste nor numbing peace. He winced as she tapped a cigarette twice on the polished surface of the bar and placed it between her lips.
The fumbling in her purse was, he knew, an act and nothing more. Christ, they were all the same, every one of them. He could even time the pitch—it would come on the count of three. One. Two. Thr—
“Do you have a match?”
Right on schedule. He ignored her, concentrating instead on the drink that had appeared magically before him. He hardly remembered ordering it. He couldn’t remember anything anymore, not since she took the seat beside him, not since every bit of his concentration had been devoted to her.
“A match, please?”
He pulled a box of wooden matches from his shirt pocket without thinking, scratched one on the underside of the bar, and held it to her cigarette. She leaned toward him to take the light, moving her leg slightly against his, touching him briefly before withdrawing.
Right on schedule.
He closed the matchbox and stuffed it back into his shirt pocket, trying to force his attention back to