Chat - Archer Mayor [64]
She stood also. “You down here because of those two dead men I saw in the paper?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it bad?”
He smiled slightly. “Right now it’s just confusing. Might get bad, though. We’ve only started digging.”
She escorted him to the pocket doors and out into the cooler, darkened room beyond. “I open next Friday, if you’re going to be around.”
He cast her a look and draped his hand on her shoulder, enjoying the warmth of her through her shirt. “I can rarely make promises with my schedule, but I’d love to be there. What time?”
“I open at six, but things probably won’t warm up till nine or later.”
“You expecting a crowd?”
“God, I hope so. It would be a killer to have nobody show up on opening night. I’ve been spreading the word the best I know how, but in the end . . .”
He retrieved his coat from where he’d dropped it onto a nearby box, and opened the door to the landing before turning to face her. Now he placed both his hands on her shoulders. “You are so good at what you do, Lyn. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
She took advantage of his gesture to step into his arms and give him a hug. “Thanks, Joe. I hope you can make it, but I’ll understand if you can’t.”
He leaned back enough to look down at her. Under his open hands, he felt where her ribs came in to join her spine, just above her waist, and briefly imagined what it might be like to have only bare skin to explore.
“I’ll try my best,” he murmured, and kissed her, feeling her lips softening under his, then parting to let him in for the first time. His hands moved up her back, taking inventory, discovering that she wasn’t wearing a brassiere.
He enjoyed her body being pressed up against his, and hoped this would eventually lead to where, he now realized, he was finally ready to go.
“This is nice,” he said softly as they broke apart.
“For me, too,” she whispered. “Come back whenever you want.
JMAN: U hav a bf?
Mandi144: no. had 1. loser
JMAN: Y?
Mandi144: 2 yung
JMAN: for wat?
Mandi144: wat do u think?
JMAN: u r hot
Mandi144: I feel hot
JMAN: wanna do something about it?
Mandi144: duh
JMAN: Where in Vermont?
Mandi144: Brattleboro. U?
JMAN: not far – Erving
Mandi144: kool. U sur Im not 2 yung 4 u?
JMAN: ur just rite
Chapter 15
Willy slouched down in his battered pickup truck and pulled his soiled wool cap farther down above his eyes. Across the parking lot, barely visible under the single light over the bar’s entrance, the famed E. T. Griffis, a bulky, big-bellied man in insulated overalls and unlaced snowmobile boots, slowly got out of a vehicle much like Willy’s and shuffled across the hard-packed snow toward the door, greeting an exiting patron with a joke and a laugh before vanishing inside.
Willy bided his time, waiting for the second man to get into his car and leave, before entering the freezing night air himself and heading for the bar.
It was about what he was expecting—crowded, noisy, none too clean, and filled with the kind of people he’d come to see as extended family. For decor, the walls were lined with hubcaps, and the windowsills with empty bottles. The thin carpeting crunched underfoot with debris. It was the type of bar Willy had called home for years before realizing, at the very last minute—and with Joe’s then much resented help—that he was facing an alcoholic’s version of suicide.
He selected a spot at the end of the bar, near where E. T. had planted himself between two similar-looking men, who were still greeting him. They weren’t effusive in style, reminding Willy of a pair of walruses congenially making room for one of their own, but there was an element of respect, as well. True, E. T. was visibly older than his mates, but, outward appearances notwithstanding, he was being awarded a muted homage for his elevated social status.
Willy wasn’t surprised. Before he’d headed up here—he was in the Thetford area’s primary workingman’s bar—not only had Joe briefed him on E. T.’s history and neighborhood standing, but