Page 71 - WTP Vol. VI #4

know someone who might have.”
pounds of greed and self-absorption. With arms like blimps, he leaned in and scooped-up his gains. His shaven head glistened, and he bel- lowed. And still no one had noticed what just happened.
The bar was dark and quiet. Three drunks were passed out at a table near the back. A bartender rinsing glasses behind the counter stopped now, his attention locked on the spectacle of his bounc- er thrust into the bar; the dolt was right in front of him with a gun stuck in his back, and some old guy was waving a picture.
“Gentlemen!” said Jedediah.
“Have you seen this man?”
The bartender nodded.
“Good.” Jedediah withdrew the shotgun, held it
Everyone turned around; the laughter stopped. He brandished the shotgun then pointed it at the fat man’s face. “If Mr. Byrne and I could now please have the room?”
“The old man got up, lunged for the gun
rack, grabbed hold of a double-barreled shotgun and cracked it open, bent the firing pin beyond all hope of repair. . .”
The big man affected delight; he chuckled. He sat down again, slapped his huge hands on the table and laughed a second time. It was a deep and throaty gurgle, like water down a plug-hole. “Mr. Arkansaugh,” he said. “How may I help you to- day?”
vertically across the barrels. “Now, suppose you show us where.”
“Out,” said Jedediah, glaring at the others. There’d be no need to say it again; chairs toppled back- ward on the floor as the men bumped into each other. These men cursed, too, some still with cigars in their mouths. They were barely sober. They tugged at their pants, stashed lighters in their pockets, grabbed at bottles and tried to put on their jackets and hats, and generally jostled and tripped over each other’s feet. Jedediah mo- tioned them out the door and into the darkened bar-room. Anybody within reach of him got a smack of his shotgun’s fine mahogany stock.
He shoved the sorry pair through the door to the poker room. Some men guffawed, others groaned, none had noticed what just happened; there was a stench of beer and smoke and sweat, and all the men were fixated on a stack of chips, a Rolex and a mountain of hundred-dollar bills at the far end of a card table.
“And you,” he growled to the bouncer and the bar- tender. The last he saw of them was their puzzled faces as he slammed the door and locked it. “Mr. Byrne,” he said. He pivoted now to look back along the card table. “It would appear we have the room.”
Jedediah peered through a cloud of cigar smoke, and he glimpsed enormous pale hands, their palms wet with sweat. The winning cards were tiny in those hands, and he watched while the floorboards rumbled and the table shook; the vic- tor was standing up. The man was five-hundred
Lochlan Byrne hadn’t so much as budged. He sat there in the smoke cloud, impassive. His hands had remained on the table, just where he’d slapped them down. But he’d stopped laughing. His bald head was big as a watermelon and it shone with sweat; that head was motionless, confident, set upon a short thick neck atop the massive body. Jedediah noticed an unopened bottle of beer be-
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