took to not be the first person people thought of when Howie Lugano turned up missing or dead.
Janie smiled and reached between Hank and the chemist to grab her drink. Hank glanced up and his eyes met the chemist’s, who was watching the both of them. Hank thought the guy looked nervous, having a woman like Janie that close to him. They could smell her, warm and tropical, coco butter and pineapple, some kind of lotion—not perfume. The chemist raised his eyebrows and gave him a shit-eating grin. Just got to town, eh? Hank nodded to him, gave him a slight wink.
He said, “You make quite an entrance.”
She laughed a little. “Yeah, well, there are only about ten single women in this town, and eight of them are fat.”
“And the other one?”
“She knows better than to come in here.”
“What about you?”
“I grew up here. I went to school with most of these guys, so it’s fine. I’ve been playing this game since the summer my tits showed up. They leer. I tell them to come back when they pull their heads out of their asses and get real jobs. It’s a kind of redneck détente.” She took a sip of the fizzing drink and raised her eyes up at him. The curl of hair she brushed away in her office was hanging down over one eye again. It almost looked posed.
Hank chuckled and sipped his beer. She was coy. Smart. And he asked himself again what in the hell she was doing in a town like this. He supposed growing up there explained it, but it didn’t seem right. There had to be more to it than that. Janie had moved around to the barstool on the other side of Hank, away from the chemist, and Hank turned all the way toward her. He took another drink and leaned his elbow on the bar.
“You seem like an odd person to be running a real estate agency in a town like this.”
“Well, that was never the plan, but life never seems to care too much about my plans.”
Hank smiled at that and thought, she has no idea how right she is. “So what does that mean? What’s the story behind the story, so to speak?”
“Ah, well, nothing too interesting. I was living in San Diego. Dad had split a number of years before, ran off with someone we didn’t know. No explanation, no forwarding address, just dropped off the face of the Earth. Then Mom got sick, so I moved back to take care of her.” She motioned with her head back toward the corner of the bar. “I knew my brother was going to be useless when it came to taking care of things.” Then she shrugged. “Hell, I wasn’t much use either. Mom died about six months after I came back.”
Hank looked back at the two guys she’d spoken with when she came in. “One of those guys your brother?”
“The one with his back to us. Eddie. The other guy is Eli. They live together in a shitty trailer out on the edge of town. I don’t know why my brother spends all his time out there. Neither of them is working anymore, both of them got laid off from the refinery awhile back. Now they just smoke pot all day and look for ways to get in trouble.” She glanced at Hank and smiled, “I look out for him in my own way. Try to make sure the trouble he gets in is relatively safe.”
Hank took a drink and looked back at her. “Well, I suppose trouble is about all there is around here if you’re not working.”
“Yeah, trouble and death by boredom. Living at the end of the world like this, people have too much time on their hands and no hope of ever leaving. It makes people do crazy things.” She glanced back at her brother again. “It’s sad though. I don’t know why he doesn’t get out of here. He’s a wiz of a mechanic—did a lot of work on the old drilling equipment when he was in high school—I’m sure he could make a living anywhere.”
There was his opening. “Maybe he stays for the same reason you do. Why haven’t you gone back to San Diego? What were you doing there, anyway?”
She laughed and shook her head, looking around the bar. “Shit. I guess it’s just inertia.” She smiled at him. “You know, Isaac Newton? An object at rest stays at rest.” Hank gave