Cori walked out of the Washroom looking shell-shocked. Her wage had skyrocketed from 8.50 to 10.00 dollars an hour, for reasons which Bill had briefly explained and which she hadn’t heard. What she knew was, according to what Jade managed to get out of her, she could finally think about getting her own apartment. Jade mentioned this, along with an idea she had.

Jade poked me in the side and there was much grinning. Cori had become a pet project. Get her sufficient, build her confidence in her ability to get along in the world, and then kick Elmore in the ass. Get her situated, give her some control and maybe Lehman would see she was trying and quit hounding her.

Jade returned to the floor and I took my place behind the bar again. It was New Year’s Eve at the Corner and the place was a madhouse. Ryan and Bully had their work cut out for them. Bill came out from the back and joined Lehman and Sam. Oh, yeah-rah.

I couldn’t help the profanity, having noted Bill and Sam involved in the complicated business of stoking up a couple of foul-smelling Havanas. There wasn’t much more to be said—most nights in the Corner a person could hardly see for the smoke—but I snarled on principal. If Bill had one habit, I absolutely couldn’t countenance, even though he rarely indulged in it anymore, it was cigars.

I wasn’t going near that.

Lehman looked over at me. The corner of his mouth twitched as he turned away. The longer I knew Travis Lehman, the more I liked him—and the harder it was to watch him drink himself into oblivion. I wished that I knew why he felt he had to do it each night.

Bill parked the stogie in the corner of his mouth, put his feet up on the remaining empty chair, and grinned at me. Sam blew a stream of smoke ceilingward.

The voice was genial. I held up both hands.

Bill and Sam each raised a hand to flip me off.

Intellectually, I could understand them. I really could. They had come of age during a time when Ernie Kovacs would have looked half-naked without a huge black cigar sticking out of his face. The airwaves had been saturated with commercial come-ons. Eydie Adams had invited all big spenders to come on up and see her sometime, the ticket of admission being a pocketful of Dutch Masters or White Owls, I couldn’t remember which. There had been countless skanky broads in cheap evening gowns falling all over themselves to light a Tiparillo or whatever for some plank faced male. They had no reason to believe that a woman didn’t love the smell of a good cigar, and the current cult of the cigar had done nothing to disabuse them. It had only reinforced the way they thought.

It was a fucking shame that the closest they came to this ideal were a couple of evil harpies who promised to injure them if they even though about indulging in the house.

Jade’s announcement was made with self-satisfaction. Her man had more sense than to piss her off with such idiocy. Ryan pulled up behind her and set an empty Guinness bottle down on the bar.

She seemed honestly curious and, for some reason, I was convulsed. Elmore cruised over and replaced Ryan’s empty with a fresh bottle while I hung helplessly onto a beer tap and roared. Ryan was muttering in Irish and was only vaguely mollified by Jade’s habit of lightly butting her head into his shoulder.

Bill had overheard us and entered the conversation in a full throated roar.

He meant Hopper the kitten, who regarded Bill as his personal possession. Bill didn’t take kindly to being owned by a cat, though I suspected he might have taken it better from Tank.

We ignored him. It was all we could do.

Jade eyed me critically, pointedly taking in the swollen ankles and probably the dark circles under my eyes as well. I decided a change of subject might be the ticket.

She was guiding me towards the table where Sam and Bill had conned Lehman into joining them in a cigar. It was probably all right. Elmore had arranged the schedule somehow so that all hands were on. We were both superfluous on New Year’s Eve.

Elmore thumped two glasses of Coke on the table.

Jade and I watched Elmore hustle back behind the bar.

We watched Elmore reaching for something.

I leaned back in the chair, trying to stay upwind of the conflagration.

I sighed and felt myself grinning. I continued, with an effort.

Sam heard me, glanced in my direction.

I didn’t bother with him.

I reached for the glass Elmore had put down in front of me. Coke, as advertised. I drank deeply and felt the soda burn on it’s way down. Jade sipped at hers and made a strange face.

Before I could reach to taste it Jade had knocked back a good half of the contents of the glass.

Jade sat back, a half-assed, goofy grin on her face that I wasn’t accustomed to seeing. The beverage in her glass was dark, but I saw nothing of the aggressive carbonation of Coke. Elmore had been slipping her something, but she didn’t seem to mind. It probably amused him, considering that he knew it didn’t take much to get her drunk off her ass.

Jade took another hit off the glass and gave me another sloppy smile.

I got to my feet and instantly ran headfirst into Bill’s chest. He was hobbling toward the back room, and he had something clutched in his hand.

I slid two fingers down the length of his arm to his hand and felt what he had captive there. The day after we’d been to see Toland, I went to the mall and bought him a black, hardwood cane. It had no silver adornments or fancy scrollwork or engraving, very nondescript. I told him he’d better use it if he were going to galavant all over the place like he usually did, but he’d given me a dirty look. Therefore, his latest goal was to get rid of it.

I indicated the cane.

He was changing the subject, as usual, but before I could complain, Bully Hayes had slipped up next to me and clapped Bill on the shoulder. He had his usual evil grin on his face.

Tom gave me a perplexed look, and I nearly fell down. "The Woodle" was what Jade and I ended up calling the woman he’d been dating, just as an in-joke. I didn’t figure he’d take it too well if he knew.

Harvard kicked in instantly.

He gave me a slightly evil grin, then gave me a huge bear hug.

Tom wandered off after trading a few insults with the testosterone, and I turned to see that Bill had taken off as well, leaving me with Bully.

I elbowed him lightly in the arm.

Bully laughed.

He slammed his hand down on the table.

Bully pulled me into his chest, standing sideways. I couldn’t face him anymore. There was something in the way.

Bully leaned close, way into my space.

Yes, I could.

Bully was snickering with evil intent as he kissed me. He did it with all the passion he might have reserved for a maiden aunt, but it was only to get Bill’s attention, and it worked. Strannix was thundery, and using his condition as a handy excuse.

I wandered fuzzily back to Jade a few minutes later with a bit of disturbing information. Bully claimed to be thinking of leaving the sea, coming to work at the Corner, wearing tight pants and snug shirts and fucking Jade and me up all over the place.

Jade was adamant.

Jade took a huge slug off her glass. Elmore had informed me earlier that he’d been feeding her Long Island Iced Teas, confirming my suspicions.

Shitbird. Elmore was a shitbird.

Ryan, looking stereotypically thirsty, appeared behind her.

He drank deeply, his eyes bulged and he banged the glass on the table.

Cori was giving me a come-on from the kitchen and the small was pretty noxious. I decided to see what she wanted. I walked behind Tom to head for the kitchen. It appeared that he and Lehman and Sam were playing Quarters and, for all any of them knew they were using gold doubloons or hamster flop. It seemed to be all the same to them. I clocked Tom right on his dome.

Cori was holding a familiar object.

I reached out for the simple ebony walking stick.

I headed back out into the barroom with the cane in tow and up to Bill, who had picked a corner spot, near the idiots drinking beer and quarters, where he could see the entire room. He was reading from a manila folder and had his half-glasses perched on the end of his nose.

He looked at me over his glasses menacingly.

I deposited the cane on the table and met his evil look.

I wandered back to the smoke-laden table before he could give me a smart-assed answer.

Lehman flipped a quarter expertly into the glass in front of him. Sam followed suit. Of the tree of them he was probably the least impaired. Tom’s turn came—he missed, and his quarter rolled up against the ashtray. Travis pushed the glass towards him. Tom drank the contents, including the quarters, and belched massively.

I’d heard of the game before but never seen it played. Tom was looking green. I gathered he had a belly full of negotiable currency.

Travis shook his head.

Elmore was refreshing Jade’s glass. Between us we rustled up a floor bucket and a metal strainer. He set this beside Tom’s feet, then tapped him on the shoulder and made sure he knew where it was.

A goofy grin had settled permanently on Jade’s face. I resigned myself to watching the twins the following day. As Tom’s shoulders heaved and he dived for the bucket, Jade stifled a burp and a giggle. She forced a grave expression on herself.

This amused her to no end, and Bill watched her until Bully strolled by. Bill used his cane to jab Bully in the ass. It was one reason I hadn’t wanted to give Bill a stick. He’d find other ways to use it.

Bill was pretty deadly with the cane, as I had reason to know. Since he was in no shape to front the Bailjumpers or anyone else for that matter, Bully had kindly offered to ask a friend from Miami to come help out. In the interests of never hearing ‘Rap Mama Goose’ again in anyone’s lifetime, I’d asked if it would be possible to con this friend into staying on permanently. I’d barely caught Bully’s answer—his friend was usually pretty busy—because Bill had shish-kebobbed my ass. I kept a healthy distance between the cane and myself.

Bully seized the cane from Bill’s hand and waved it around theatrically before planting the tip on Bill’s chin.

Bully tipped me a grin, then made a great production out of returning the cane to Bill. The crippled one pulled on my arm until I resumed my seat.

Elmore turned on the stage lights.

The frontman was wearing a tropical print shirt. There was something familiar about him, but it took Jade, stiffening up and gasping in a goofy, drunken way, to bring the truth out.

Bill wandered up to the stage, in search of his new lead singer.

I don’t know how so many people had gotten wind of us coming to Minnesota, but they had, and it was proven to me again when I saw another familiar shape appear in the front doorway. Sam Quint strode in, parked himself alongside Bully, and ordered a beer. If I hadn’t met him before, I wouldn’t have noticed him, he was so quiet. Bully, on the other hand, knew everyone.

They smirked at one another. It was a pleasure to see two men communicating without any kind of undercurrent.

Quint jerked his chin in the direction of the stage.

I sighed.

Quint excused himself and made his way to Sam’s table, leaving me with Bully.

Bully, grinning, continued inexorably.

Bully squeezed my waist and murmured in my ear despite the noise.

When Bully spoke next, I felt his warm breath tickle my ear and his beard the side of my neck.

Bully gave me a squeeze and pushed off. I watched as Tom stood up, swaying dangerously from side to side. Bill reached out and steadied the actor with the tip of his cane. Tom glared down at Bill... the glare was slightly delayed, as though the muddled nerve endings at the source of the poke had to remember how to communicate with the distant brain... had to remember there was a brain to communicate with.

Jade was right there to accompany him and the two of them set off for the foot of the stage, leaning on one another for support.

Travis only looked the slightest bit impaired.

I caught sight of Ryan.

Tom had always fascinated me. He was a man with one foot in two worlds. He could calm his herds with Shakespeare, finish off formal dress with cowboy boots. But now, as Jimmy Buffett launched into "Why Don’t We Get Drunk," he was whooping and hollering like some damn fool at a truck pull. Not for the first time did I think, ‘You could take the boy out of Texas, but not even surgical intervention could take the Texas out of the boy.’

Bill grinned evilly.

I rose—Bill had to help me up, which did nothing for my dignity—and lumbered away into the crowd. I wanted to keep an eye on Jade and Tom.

I stopped dead, but didn’t turn. The voice was behind me. I wasn’t foolish enough to think he would talk to my back indefinitely. Sure enough, I was turned where I stood, to face flat black eyes and a grin that might have been engaging if it wasn’t devoid of human warmth.

I managed a twisted grin. Christ, I was tired, not whipped, and this place was full of my friends.

His lips tightened.

Was it possible I was scoring points on this assfuck? In any case, doing so wasn’t turning out to be such a bright idea because he was rewriting the rules as he went. His hand braceleted my wrist, squeezed the bones painfully. I knew if he yanked me off balance I would fall. I was already teetering when two things happened—the hold on my wrist was broken and two big hands steadied me at the waist.

Bully Hayes, still gently gripping my arm, stepped between me and Cole. The hands maintained their comforting grasp on my middle.

Cole rose slowly to his feet, shot his cuffs. If anything, he looked bored. He reached past Bully and poked me in the stomach.

It was a statement.

I stiffened, stared. Suddenly there was nothing in my world but that evil presence.

His speech was precise, and deadly.

He meant my youngest. Before any of us could move, he was gone.

I was close to panic. I had to find a phone, and I couldn’t seem to add that I could tell him myself. All I could do was repeat myself.

Shit. How does he do that?

Bill never flinched.

Bill, was hobbling his way through the crowd on a straight line for the back before I could even speak. I started to follow him, but Ryan caught me first.

I had seen Jade, bouncing beside Tom. I had also noticed Tom beside Jade, ignoring Buffett and frankly unable to look Jade in the eye on account of the bouncing. It appeared that Tom’s lizard brain had taken control. Jade’s bouncing was wreaking havoc with her balance, so Tom had kindly taken it upon himself to steady her as best he could. His hand was deep in the back pocket of her jeans while his thumb anchored it by having slipped down behind her waistband. If Ryan caught him, Tom would reach the New Year appreciably faster than anyone else in the room.

I found Bill in the Washroom. He was on the phone, and with a curt wave of the hand, motioned me silent. Annapolis was speaking. Something was up.

Bill finished with number three and hung up.

Bill stretched, arching his back and letting his head hang over the high cushioned back of the office chair.

Bill narrowed his eyes at me, then changed the subject.

Bill narrowed his eyes again.

Bill interrupted me dreamily.

Bill sighed and rubbed his thigh absently.

I was longer than Bill in getting back to the floor. I stood in at the prep table for Cori while she stepped outside—she noticed Cole at the end of the service alley and ripped back inside before he could land on her. Next I helped her construct a hamburger of heroic proportions.

Elmore was very animated, and his physical beauty was positively stunning on this New Year’s Eve. Cori had apparently tangled with it once already. She seemed unwilling to push her luck, and mutely handed me the plate.

Coming out of the kitchen I had a clear view of the area at the foot of the stage. Firstly I saw a Long Island nestled close to a bottle of Budweiser, then I found the owners. Buffett was doing ‘Come Monday’ and Jade and Tom were slow dancing to it. Well... Tom was slow dancing, anyhow. I couldn’t tell for sure what Jade was doing besides trying to stand. Tom was holding her up and wearing a look that said something had died and gone to heaven. He had shoved both hands deep into her back pockets—it held her up. She was holding on to his neck for dear life. They were rubbing noses and grinning foolishly about it.

A burst of movement caught my eye and I snapped my head around to catch it. Ryan, on a rampage. But before any damage could be done, an amusing little maneuver was made. Bully and Quint seemed to materialize out of thin air. Bully slammed Ryan on the back to get his attention. Quint spun him around and jammed a Guinness in his hand before leading him away to break up a fight they were about to start.

I brought Elmore his hamburger, dropped the plate onto the bartop and gave him the old hairy eyeball.

I regarded the mushrooms and jalapenos with horror.

Somehow the picture of Ryan calming his ass down was so absurd as to be funny. If I’d intended my words to sting, they failed miserably.

I signed, snitched a french fry. Elmore made me sit down.

There was a third broad back over at Lehman’s table. I recognized it only after a minute or two of thought.

Ryan did like Father Joe, especially after he called the parish priest in Farmington an arsehole of an Orangeman and moved the entire family to All Saints in Lakeville.

We didn’t know much about Father Joe except what he’d told Elmore. He was an associate priest at the Basilica of St. Mary over on Lowry Hill, Elmore thought there might have been disciplinary issues involved. He didn’t come around often but when he did, the common wine was a bit of the hair of the dog that bit him. But he was in the house tonight, and looking like he wanted to catch up big time. Drinking with Lehman, who was hollow-legged, wasn’t just an adventure, it was a job.

Buffett finished up his set and told the now racociously partying crowd that he was taking a short break. He had a dry throat, he added, with an arch grin. He made his way to the bar and asked for a tequila shot with a Surge chaser. Jade and Tom stumbled up in time to hear the order, and to watch Buffett drink it down.

I was fighting an urge to jam my head into the bar sink and she looked interested, if disconnected from reality. I wondered if he had ever in her life had so much to drink. I didn’t wonder for a minute how she would feel the following day.

He grinned at her and she melted all over Tom.

I started to laugh. This was going to be a wonderful joke. Jade often admitted to a love of teasing Ryan. This would be a lulu.

That, on the other hand, was not going to fly. I opened my mouth to stop it, but Elmore had served it up and she had consumed it before I could seriously intervene. She grinned recklessly up at Tom.

Lehman elbowed his way to the bar and stood on the other side of Jimmy.

Ah, yes... Lehman had reached critical mass. I could always tell. He moved with the speed and grace of a troglodyte and his speech grew more precise and labored. Elmore plied the Cuervo and Surge again. Gravely, Lehman drank.

He set the glass down with great care, then turned and ponderously, so as to maintain his balance, returned to his chair.

Father Joe’s dark head reared up. Married? Somebody getting married? A priestly function, right up there in importance with confession and making sure the wine wasn’t wasted.

Bill slipped up beside me.

I snickered into my hand.

Buffett had seen Ryan on his way across the bar. Jimmy was also watching when Quint ran into Ryan’s back, knocked him ass over end, and accused Bully of doing it. This required attention, and took Ryan’s mind briefly off the happy couple.

Bill didn’t have time to answer. Elmore was handing his Bartender’s Guide across to Father Joe—the blind would ‘marry’ the blind with this as Bible—and the couple was squaring up before the exquisitely slopped priest.

With that, Buffett stepped beside Jade and put his best genial drunk grin on. Elmore had kept the Storm Surges coming and while far from drunk, Buffett was reaching that fabled pointless state. Travis Lehman elbowed up next to Tom, and thus by default became ‘best man.’ Bill pushed me around to stand up for Jade.

Protesting in vain, I took my place. Father Joe belched gently and a wave of whiskey-sodden air washed over us. I wasn’t drunk, but if I stood in the middle of all this exhaust, I would be. Beside me, for some reason known only to himself, Buffett began ‘finning.’ Jade joined in and when I turned round, the entire bar was doing it. The Parrotheads among them were providing the words.

Father Joe made a sound like a man who had swallowed an angry beaver. The ‘finning’ ceased instantly and the daffy grins resumed. Except for Tom. He looked like he had a cramp. But that was no special indicator of his mood. He always looked like he had a cramp.

Elmore reached across and turned the book so that it was upside down.

Tom began to look vaguely troubled. Jade was finning again.

He burped again.

Lehman grabbed him and held him up by the beltloops.

Father Joe collapsed against the bar. Tom bent Jade nearly double and gnawed on her neck. Something came in low and outside sending Tom and Jade flying. That was when Bill dragged me out and sent me home.