me good night and I was at the door when I stopped.
“Speaking of surveillance,” I said, trying to be amusing, something I should have given up long ago, “I suspect you’ve got some paparazzi in the parking lot shooting film of your fellow residents or their guests.”
They both looked at each other. Billy was first to shrug his shoulders. It was unlike him not to ask for details, but no questions were forthcoming. I backed out.
“Just be careful not to wear anything trashy out front,” I said to Diane, pointing my finger from the blouse to the sweatpants.
“Good night, Max,” she said and smiled, and I turned to the elevator and heard the oak doors lock behind me.
CHAPTER 6
He walked in, let his eyes adjust to the low light, and was pleased to see two open stools at the end of the bar—one for himself and the other for quiet. He’d been here before, a neighborhood place the way he liked. A single, twenty-foot real wood bar spanned one wall, its lacquered surface redone enough times to make the deep grain look like it was floating just below the surface. The lights rarely went to half strength, even during happy hour. Tonight there were two groups of drinkers along the bar: Three guys and a girl in the middle, all friendly and chatty. Three more men at the other end by the windows with shot glasses in front of them and colored liquor on ice at the side.
He sat on the stool at the other end and hooked a heel on the rung of the empty one next to him, staking claim on the space. He knew the bartender who was working the shift alone. She was in her mid-thirties and had lost her figure to the years but her face was still pretty. She came his way and stopped at the thigh-high cooler under the bar and pulled out a Rolling Rock, and uncapped it on her way.
“Hi, how are you tonight?” she said with a pleasant smile and put the bottle on a napkin in front of him. Her eyes were brown and clear and he’d determined when he’d met her before that he didn’t like the intelligence he saw inside them.
“Fine, thanks,” he answered, being pleasant himself. He took a long drink and looked into the mirror behind the liquor bottles on the shelves behind her. When he focused he could use the reflection of another wall of mirrors on the opposite side of the room and watch the drinkers all down the line. He liked that aspect of the place, being able to watch without being noticed. A television tuned to ESPN hung in the corner above him. The sound was off and one of the wry announcers was moving his mouth around while photos of boxer Mike Tyson flashed behind him.
Christ, he thought, there’s your problem. If all your sports shows and media would just make a pact never to mention that asshole’s name again, he’d disappear into the fucking alleys or the prison yard where he belonged. Why do they let an animal like that use them?
He tipped his empty at the bartender and then watched the reflection of the girl from the middle group walk behind him and load dollar bills into the jukebox in the corner. He took a drink of the fresh beer and tried to place the first tune, a thing from the past by Journey about a small-town girl livin’ in a lonely world and a city boy born in south Detroit. He thought about Amy. On those late- night dates and long intimate conversations she had confided in him. Her parents in Ohio. Her father a drunk. She’d come to Florida to start fresh, had a girlfriend that was supposedly coming to visit but who had never shown up. She probably told him more about herself than she had any of her coworkers. He was a good listener. Women liked that about him. Christ, if she’d only kept her place instead of trying to run him. Hell, he could have loved her. Shit, she hadn’t even raised her arm to ward him off when he’d shot her in the face.
He hadn’t had to look around or wonder if anyone had heard the report of the .38. The Glades were like that, a few miles out and it was dark and alone. He’d taken a plastic yellow tarp from his trunk and rolled her body onto it and tossed