to him ordered the chow mein and sipped his beer for a minute without saying anything. Then he started in again.
“So you’re not from around here either?”
“Knoxville.” Hank smiled, and took a drink.
“Really? Just out here on vacation?”
“Work. I’m a surveyor. Out here to take some measurements of the National Monument.” Hank hoped that would satisfy him, but he could see the guy really wanted to have a friendly chat in the neighborhood bar. He didn’t look like a man who got out of the house much.
“Some place to get sent for work, huh? Me too. This morning I was in my office in Long Beach and had no idea I’d end up out here.” The guy stuck out his hand. “Ted Ross, I’m a chemist.”
“Hank Norton.” He shook the guy’s hand and smiled. Then he added, “Thanks for the beer.”
A minute later there was a swell of voices when Janie walked in. Someone hooted. Another whistled. Everyone turned to see what was going on. The guys around the pool table obviously knew her and she waved to them. Then she went over to the two burnouts in the corner and interrupted their summit meeting. She hadn’t seen him yet, but she was carrying a file folder under her arm. Hank watched her walk, and when she stopped walking, he watched her stand and talk to the two guys at the table by the door.
Eli looked up when Janie walked in. “Your sister’s here, man.”
Eddie turned and smiled at her, raising one hand in a half-assed wave as she walked over. “Hey.”
“What’re you two losers doing here? The rats finally run you out of the trailer?” She smiled at them. They were less annoying now that they weren’t coming around the house all the time. Then, noticing the bruise below Eli’s eye, she added, “What the fuck happened to you? Girl must have really had to fight to get away.”
“What’s that?” Eli nodded at the file folder. “Trying to make a list of all the dirt bags you’ve slept with?”
“You’re just jealous you’ll never be on the list.” She sneered at Eli and smacked her brother on the shoulder. “You’ve got a shitload of mail at the house you need to pick up.”
Always the bossy one, Eli thought, looking her up and down—the muscular little body of a rock climber—he would like to be on the list, there was no doubt about that. She talked to Eddie for a minute and Eli just watched her movements, ran his eyes over the curves of her thighs, up through her waist and over the tight shirt that cut low down over the little bit of cleavage she had to show. Yeah, a lot of guys would like to be on that list. Like all the grease monkeys and meth freaks hanging around the pool table. Like Frank, the bartender (who Eli suspected might actually be on the list). Like the old dude sitting at the bar, watching her from across the room.
Then his trance was broken by her voice. “Quit staring at my ass, you fucking perv.” She thumped him on the head with the file folder and spoke to her brother as she walked away. “I don’t know why you spend so much time with him, Eddie.”
Eli watched her walk away, just like he’d been doing most of his life. Then he watched her walk right up to the old dude at the bar like she knew him. “Who the hell is that guy?”
Eddie turned to look. “I dunno.”
“I’ve never seen him around town before. He doesn’t work at Monarch, does he?”
“I dunno.” Then, after a lengthy pause, and as if answering the question for the first time, Eddie added, “I’ve never seen him out at Monarch.”
They watched her give him the file folder and stand there with her hand on her hip, talking to the guy and motioning around the bar with her hand. Eli watched the guy’s face. He seemed interested, not necessarily in what she had to say, but in how she looked, and moved.
“What I can’t figure out,” Eddie said, turning back to face the table, “is what the rush is. I mean, we’ve been working as fast as we can. Those old tanker trucks don’t just fix themselves. Equipment has to be repaired. And there’s only two of us. It can only go so fast. It’s not like we’ve just been sitting on our asses.”
Eddie had broken his trance and Eli shifted his focus back to