Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [37]
“I’ll take a draft Sam Adams,” Lee said.
“Make it two,” Eddie responded. “And do you have some chips or something you could bring over?”
“There’s nachos or chips with salsa.”
“Great. We’ll take one of each. Thanks,” he said, giving her arm a squeeze. To Lee’s surprise, she looked at him warmly, as if grateful for the contact. A lot of men would get into trouble if they tried what Eddie did, but somehow he always seemed to get away with it. Looking at Eddie’s round, smiling face, Lee had an uncomfortable thought. The killer will appear unthreatening to his victims until it is too late.
When the waitress arrived with their drinks and chips, Eddie pressed a bill into her hand.
“Thanks, sweetheart—keep the change.” Lee couldn’t see how much it was, but he had seen Eddie tip twenty dollars on a thirty-dollar bar tab.
The waitress looked at the bill in her hand.
“Th—thanks,” she said, frowning.
“Don’t worry—I’m not hitting on you,” Eddie said, popping a chip into his mouth. “Not that you’re not very attractive,” he added.
“Uh, okay. Thanks.” She raised one eyebrow and walked away, shaking her head.
“A habit left over from my Vegas days,” Eddie told Lee when she had gone. “You take care of the waitstaff there, they take care of you—y’know?”
“So I’ve heard. How’s that going, by the way?”
Eddie fished a small round wooden token from his jacket pocket and held it between his thumb and forefinger.
“Six months this week. Clean…and poor.” He laughed and shoved the token back into his pocket.
“What are you doing for money these days?”
“Oh, this and that. Mostly that.” Eddie grinned. “You know, I was one of a rare breed—a gambler who actually made money. I was good, you know—damn good.”
“I’m sure you were.”
Eddie fingered the cardboard coaster on the table, turning it over between his fingers as if it were a blackjack card. “Those days are behind me. Too bad—I miss it. Any addict who tells you he doesn’t miss his addiction is a liar.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“You know, it’s kind of too bad we ended up in St. Vincent’s.”
“Why?”
“Oh, it’s just that it would have been cool to be in Bellevue, like the crazy people in the old days, y’know? I mean, we still talk about people ending up in Bellevue, but nobody talks about being crazy enough to end up in St. Vincent’s, right?”
Lee smiled for the first time in days. Eddie had that effect on him.
He took a long drink from his pint, the amber liquid cold and bitter on his tongue. It was a familiar and comforting taste, a ritual that took him back through all the years of bars and patio parties, back to his college days, to dorm parties and rugby games, late-night pool halls, back to his sister’s first drink in a bar with him there playing the role of protective older brother…but in the end, of course, he had failed to protect her.
“…so then she asks if she should bring her twin sister in on the deal, and I’m like—hey, are you listening to me?”
Eddie leaned forward and waved his hand in front of Lee’s face.
Just then the door to the bar swung open, and two of the most singular-looking men Lee had ever seen entered the room.
The taller of the two, an African American with coffee-colored skin, had an elaborate swirl of colorful tattoos on his powerful arms, only partially hidden by the sleeves of his blue flannel shirt, rolled up to the middle of his bulging biceps. His shoulders looked as though they had been stuffed into his denim jacket, and his shiny bald head rose directly from his collarbone, without the intervention of a neck. Everything about him suggested enormous physical strength. His face was dominated by thick, sensual lips, set between wide cheekbones, and his deep-set eyes looked yellow in the dim light. Lee estimated his height to be about six foot seven inches.
His companion was at least a foot shorter. Also powerful of build, his body was like a study in Cubism—all right angles and edges, not so much muscular as square. His palms were broad, with stubby pink fingers thick as sausages.