Clown Girl - Monica Drake [63]
Nobody made a bet, but a few yodeled, hollered, guzzled. I hoisted my hip on the table again. Leaned in low. Sighted. Took a deep breath, let the crowd fall away and the eighties rock fade. Moved into my zone. I pulled back, cocked the cane, and followed through. The cue ball raced the length of the table, a bullet that struck the one and the four and sent them packing. The cue ball hit the far bumper. It caught air! It flew back at us, in a beautiful clown arc—but it didn’t arc. A line drive! It whipped right at me. I ducked.
The cue ball sailed past like a flying fist. Jerrod ducked. The cue broke the window with a crash. The beer light swung and sent shadows dancing. Our table wobbled, the pitcher spilled.
I said, “Shit.”
Mad Addie barked, “Hey, hey! That’s enough. I’ll call the cops. Happy Hour’s over.”
Jerrod put his hands to his chest, to his badge and uniform, as though to check if he still was the cops. Somebody knocked over another table, a round of beers on the floor. Mad Addie spat out a stream of curses: “Cocksuckersbustingupmyjointaint-thefirsttimeIputupwiththisshit—” She pushed me aside and made her way to check out the damage. Her face was a shar -pei of scowl lines.
Like a kid in trouble, Jerrod leaned down fast to pick up broken glass. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said. “One window, that’s all.”
Behind him the tavern door opened and the light shifted to show a silhouette. When the door closed again, I saw her: Italia. She lifted one hand, looked around the room, and gave a toss. The cue ball! She caught the ball again softly, in her palm.
Shit. I ducked behind the pool table.
Mad Addie, midsentence, said, “Dimwitsandassholes, who’ dafuckingstoppedtothinkthe motherfuckerscould’ vekilledsome pieceofshitonthestreet…where’dthatgetme, yabastards—” She chewed the back end of her cigarillo like a horse chomping an apple. “One a yous get a garbage bag.” She clapped her hands. Nobody moved. “Get! You lazyasssonsofbitches—an’ I mean it,” she said, and clapped again. “Or the joint’s closed, no last call.”
The Sliver, a grifter, and Dukenfield made a tangled dive behind the bar. They came up with six hands on the same plastic bag, a stumbling rush toward Jerrod.
I peered over the edge of the table. Jerrod was on his hands and knees picking up broken glass. Addie loomed over him and pointed out glass shards with the chomped cigarillo, curses falling like ash from her mouth, a bar towel over her shoulder.
When Nadia-Italia flashed the renegade pool ball, someone yelled, “The clown did it!”
“The clown?” Nadia-Italia said. She tossed the cue ball in the air again and surveyed the bar, cool as a Little League champ ready to cream the other team.
I was the other team. Gulp. I ducked down again.
Jerrod turned to throw a handful of glass in the garbage bag and saw me cowering. “Sniff, what’re you doing?” He rocked back on his heels and reached a hand to my arm. “So you broke a window. We’ll fix it up.”
I held a finger to my lips to shush him, tried to brush his hand away. Too late. Italia’s big shoulders moved in like an eclipse. She came around the table. She reached down, knuckles near my face, fingernails a deep purple, and dropped the white cue ball.
I caught it, a reflex.
“Your shot, Clown Girl?” Her lips parted in the shine of plum lipstick.
“Hand it over.” Mad Addie clawed the cue ball out of my open palm.
A date. Nadia-Italia would tell Herman I was there on a date. A date with a cop would get me kicked out of the house—exactly what Italia wanted. It would save her the trouble of “breaking that bitch in half.”
I could barely hear over the sound of my heartbeat, the ocean in my ears. All I could see was Italia. The world narrowed. My pink prop bag rested far away, the strap looped over the back of a chair.
My heart, ready to burst, spoke in the fast Morse code of biology: you’ll die or go crazy, die or go crazy, die or go crazy, die or go crazy…I had seconds to