Protector - Laurel Dewey [34]
Jane checked the time. 5:10 p.m. She needed to escape. RooBar was finally open. If she walked down there—just over a mile—she could be playing pool at her favorite table by 5:30. She strapped on her Glock, grabbed her beat-up leather jacket and headed down Milwaukee Street. When Jane arrived at RooBar, the place was empty, save for two guys at the bar and a young couple playing pool. Supertramp’s “Dreamer” played loudly on the CD jukebox. RooBar reminded Jane of a cave, albeit a cave with dim lighting, red vinyl booths, purple pool tabletops, dark walls and flooring and television sets perched in every corner. It was a cocoon of security—something she needed right now. Once ensconced in a game of pool at her favorite table on the landing away from everyone else, Jane felt safe and able to zone out the madness. For Jane, pool was like meditation—a Zen-like endeavor, a game of chess with a stick and fifteen balls. She set down a row of twelve quarters on the edge of the table; a universal signal that she “owned” that table for at least twelve games. She played eight ball and she always played alone unless Mike was with her. The waitresses didn’t know her name but they knew her pattern. They’d bring her a basket of hot wings and a slice of pizza along with two shots of whiskey. Jane lit a cigarette, racked them up and was just about ready to break when a largeboned, flannel-shirted fellow lumbered up the steps and set his beer down on the pool table. Jane looked up at the guy, sizing him up.
“How ’bout a game?” he said with a cockeyed grin.
“No, thanks,” Jane said, irritated.
“Would a hundred bucks change your mind?” he asked, licking his lips.
Jane stood up and assessed the guy as if he were a suspect down at DH. “You got a hundred?” she asked.
“Right here,” he said, patting his shirt pocket and then covering his mouth with his hand. “It’s all yours if you win two out of three.”
Jane knew the guy didn’t have a hundred dollars in his pocket. His body language gave him away. He covered his mouth when he spoke and licked his lips, two signs of deception. “Well, I say you don’t have a hundred bucks in that pocket or any other pocket.”
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, tapping his shirt pocket, “I’m tellin’ the truth.”
Jane pulled back her leather jacket to reveal her Glock pistol in the shoulder holster. “And I’m telling you that you’re lying.”
The blood quickly drained out of the guy’s face. He put up his hands as if surrendering. “Oh, shit. Sorry to bother you,” he said, walking quickly away from the table.
Jane turned her attention back to the table and smacked the cue ball hard, sending the five, ten and twelve balls scattering into the side and corner pockets. By 6:00, Jane had played two games and was starting her third when the waitress came by to drop off a new basket of wings and two more shots of whiskey. As she gathered up the empty shot glasses, she looked up at the muted corner television set directly above the pool table. It was the start of the local Denver newscast. The words “TOP STORY” were splashed across the screen, followed by “DEATH AND INNOCENCE.”
“Hey, Billy!” the waitress called out to the bartender. “Turn up the sound! Maybe they found the killers!” Jane finished racking the balls and tried to ignore the waitress. “That poor little girl,” the waitress said quietly as she watched the TV. “I guess they’re not showing her face to protect her. What she must be going through.”
Jane chalked up her stick as she felt her jaw tightening. Keeping her back to the TV, she knocked back a shot of whiskey and slammed the glass on the felt.
“It is still not known how much the nine-and-a-half year-old girl witnessed in the horrific Washington Park murder that occurred two nights ago,” the newscaster reported with a dour look on her face. “The girl’s parents were stabbed to death in a downstairs living room while the child slept upstairs.”
Jane turned to the TV and said under her breath, “While she slept?”
“Oh, my God,” the waitress said,