Nothing Rod or Dickie—before he got murdered—couldn’t handle.”
“Dickie was murdered?” Riley feigned shock.
Liz snorted, then rotated the stud in her nose. “It happens. Who cares?”
“Did he get murdered here?” Riley pretended to look for crime scene tape and bloodstains.
“No, silly!” Deelia said with a wave of her manicured hand. “People mostly just get punched or sometimes stabbed here. And it’s hardly ever staff.”
Hardly ever. Oh, good.
“Guy got double-tapped in the head at his place,” Liz said, warming to the topic.
“Wow. Recently, right? I think I heard about it,” Riley said.
“Last weekend,” Deelia said, drawing a pretty pout on her lips with a lip gloss wand.
“Guy was a douche. He was basically running this place into the ground and playing around with some nickel and dime betting racket. Who the fuck cares who wins the Dauphin County Over 50 Ping Pong Tournament?” Liz spouted off, jabbing her cigarette in the direction of the bar.
Bingo!
“So someone murdered him over gambling?” Riley feigned concern.
Liz shrugged. “Nah. Probably just stuck his shriveled dick in the wrong vajayjay.”
Riley could tell her line of questioning was wearing thin with Liz. “So, if Dickie owned this place, and now he’s dead, what’s going to happen now that he’s gone? Are we all out of jobs?”
“Business as usual until we hear from Dickie’s partner,” Deelia chirped.
Ding ding ding. Winner winner, chicken dinner.
“If we hear from him,” Liz corrected.
“I’ve been here six months now,” Deelia calculated. “I’ve never seen the partner, just his creepy henchman.”
“That’s because he’s a silent partner,” Liz scoffed.
A silent partner and a creepy henchman? Now, that was a hot new lead. Riley quelled the urge to dance a celebratory boogie in her chair.
“Well, wouldn’t that mean I could see him, he just wouldn’t say anything?” Deelia challenged.
“No wonder you failed out of college.”
“I dropped out. Not failed out. And that’s because I was pregnant. If you don’t start being nicer, I’m taking you to the clinic so they can look at your ovaries,” Deelia shot back.
“Screw Dickie. And screw my ovaries. What I want to know is who’s Tall, Black, and Hot over there by the door?” Liz demanded.
Riley looked up, and Gabe waved to her with a toothy grin that disappeared as soon as he remembered he was supposed to look terrifying. She turned back to the girls. “Oh, him? He’s my boyfriend,” she said.
Liz looked at her with something besides annoyance and borderline disgust now. “How did you—” She gave Riley the once-over. “—land him?”
Every workplace had a Donna.
“I’m really amazing in bed,” Riley announced.
“Good for you! Me, too. That’s how I ended up knocked up,” Deelia said, with a little “what are you gonna do” shrug. She pulled out a phone in a pink, bedazzled case and thumbed through her photos showing Riley a few shots of a chubby toddler. “This is my little snuggle bug.”
“Put the turd maker away,” Liz said to Deelia. “What’s your story, Hot Guy’s Girlfriend?”
“Uh. Not much of a story. I divorced a cheating loser who took all my stuff and got me fired.”
“Men are fucking assholes,” Liz said, stubbing out her cigarette on the tabletop.
“Yo, ladies. Get off your asses,” Rod grumbled from behind the bar.
“Case in point,” Riley sighed.
Liz snorted in appreciation.
By midnight, they were left with a handful of die-hards. Riley was so busy trying not to think about how she had to get up in less than seven hours to go to her actual day job, she failed to dodge the fat hand with the knuckle tattoos that darted out.
Drunk Douche had been aiming for her ass and instead plowed his fingers straight into one of the bruises on her hip.
“Ow! Back off!” Her shouted order brought the rest of the bar to a screeching halt.
Douche thought it was funny and went in for another grab. And that’s when all hell broke loose.
Gabe started tossing tables, chairs, and a patron or two out of his way to get to her. The drunk customers took offense to being thrown like Scottish cabers. But Riley was too busy winding up to pay them any attention.
She swung her beer-soaked tray like a major league batter, catching the idiot in his yellow, gap-toothed grin. The tray connected with a satisfying fwap, and his head snapped back before tilting forward in slow motion.
“No touching,” she shouted over the noise, as the man’s forehead hit the table.
A chair flew past her head, and she ducked. Gabe arrived at her side and hefted the drunk like a sack of dirty,