Death of an Assassin (Saint Roch City Book 1) (16 page)

“Nice guy,” Thomas says, low. I only nod. “Could he have helped us?”

I shrug. Maybe. “He’s friends with Pete Dawson, I think.”

“The guy who owns that obnoxious house out in the Hills?” He audibly disapproves.

With a grin, I take another sip from my drink, deepening it when Bran turns away. “Figures you’d have a problem with him. Don’t even know the guy, do you?”

His turn to shrug indifferently. “Dad had him over once. I think he was pretty drunk by the end of the night.”

“Yeah, your dad owned some of the buildings around this side of town, right?”

“Probably,” Thomas admits. “Dad owned half the city. Mom used to joke he played Monopoly so much when he was a kid that he never stopped.”

“Well, I guess the business falls to you now, then.”

Thomas snickers. “Yeah, Dad would’ve
loved
that. The kid who wanted to study sea snails running his empire?” Thomas takes a chug of his drink like it’ll get him wasted like I’m attempting to do.

“Sea snails?”

“No. Probably not sea snails. I don’t know. Otters. Or whales, I guess.”

I snap my fingers toward Bran. He ignores a guy called One-Ball Wally―don’t ask―who is going on about the Yankees losing to the Drakes in the next game. He comes over and sets down a bottle of rum next to me. “What can I do for ya, beautiful?”

I smile. “You can hook my friend here up with a drink more befitting a man.”

Bran glances down at Thomas like he might be a flea plucked from his own beard.

Thomas, who looks to be clenching so he doesn’t empty his bladder at the gaze Bran gives him, stutters out a, “No. I’m fine, Layla. Really.”

Bran leans on one elbow toward me, looking Thomas over. “Hmmm. You know, Layla. I don’t believe your
boy
has been in this bar before.” His eyes roll up when he mentions Thomas as my boy.

I nod, knowing the direction this road trip is taking. “I’m pretty certain my boy hasn’t been in a bar, ever.”

Bran grins and grabs a stein from beneath the bar and slides a bottle of stout out from a fridge. He pops the cap off with his thumb and pours it into the glass. Thomas eyes him like a man kneeling over the block, watching the hooded man shine his beheading axe.

Bran sets the glass down, gathers a few bottles of liqueur from behind the bar, and adds them to a stunted shot glass.

“You ever drink an Irish Car Bomb?” I ask, surprised at how amused I am by the turn of events.

“I… um… I’ve had wine at my parents’ parties.” He’s watching Bran work his magic too closely to really pay attention to me.

“Well, Bran doesn’t much care for the original drink. The recipe or the name. So he likes to make a special drink for the college guys and newbies that come in the bar.”

Thomas nods, not hearing me.

I know the drink burns like hell on the way down, and the aftertaste leaves your tongue searing for quite a while after. Apart from the burning, the drink tastes phenomenal. But only if you can finish it all at once. I have no idea how Bran manages it, but he found the perfect drink to test a man.

Being one of the few women to grace the Old Haunt, I can attest to the wonderful brew. Finished it on my first try.

Bran comes back to Thomas, setting the stein down in front of him, murky and discolored. In his brutish hand, he holds a shot glass, separated at varying levels with the liqueur. “Now listen, boy. You’re gunna drop this here drink”—he puts the shot glass down next to Thomas, then clinks it into the stein—“into this here drink. And then you got to chug the whole lot down. You do that, and maybe I’ll let you buy the lady a drink.”

Bran takes a step back and watches Thomas stare between the two glasses, and his gaze darts to me. I can’t see myself in the mirror behind the bar, but I try to keep my face placid and unreadable to the poor boy as I grip my own glass.

“So if I stop drinking this”—Thomas holds up his soda—“and finish off these two, you’ll stop busting my balls?”

The look of vague shock and even vaguer approval flickers over the barkeep. “Well apparently the lamb’s got a bit of wolf in ‘im.” Bran nods to the drinks. “Ya drop the little in the big and drink it in one helpin’, boy. You do that, and we’ll see how busted your little balls will be, yeah?”

The poor boy looks to me, and all I do is watch him, genuinely curious if he’ll walk on the wild side. What with death searching the city for us.

That in itself seems to be enough for him to grab the shot glass and hold it over the stein, while his other hand, unsteady though it is, slips around the hefty mug. He takes a deep breath, and part of me―or maybe even all of me―hopes it’s for the oxygen more than the courage. The rest of the bar falls silent as they all turn to see what’s going on with Bran and She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Touched. Only the TV, playing highlights of the recent baseball game, makes noise, and even the announcers seem to have broken the fourth wall to watch.

Clink.

The shot glass drops before I realize it, and Thomas has lifted the drink as the liqueur mixes with the brew, chemistry classes I never attended making Bran’s concoction of amazing flavor or vile illness. It all depends on how many seconds you hesitate, letting the drink mix and turn sour as liquor gets too friendly with beer.

Thomas, the champ that he wants to be, is chugging for all he’s worth, tilting the mug higher and higher. Despite his efforts, a few trickles of the drink escape and slip over his lips to the floor. Even I had the same result. But he drinks. And drinks. And drinks. The barflies’ dull gazes follow the mug to the ceiling. Bran’s impress is mounting, but I can only tell this through my periphery. Because I can’t help but watch Thomas guzzle the drink with earnest I’ve never seen, certainly not in myself.

There’s no paycheck at the bottom of that drink. No job to complete. Nothing really.

Except he can buy a drink for the girl.

He slams a hand to the bar top as he tilts the stein farther back, bringing it almost vertical as the last few gulps of booze fall into his mouth. With a hearty gasp, he brings the stein back down, nothing but froth clinging to the glass. Thomas stands up, sliding the barstool back as he breathes heavy. His eyes are wide as he takes a deep inhalation and stifles a burp as the drink mixes even further in his stomach.

He shakes his head, and I remember chasing the same high he’s riding now. Flavors of insane spectrum ends swirling to taste horrid and wonderful at the same instant. The alcohol is the secondary cause of intoxication when it comes to Bran’s drink-making abilities.

Bran lets out a deep chuckle and shakes his head. “Ya may be a pup of a boy, but I don’t think I could put a dent in them brass ones you got knocking down there.”

Thomas nods as he regains some composure and circles his hand. In a raspy voice he says, “A round for the house.”

One-Ball Wally cheers at this. A few of the other frequent fliers tip their mugs and bottles to Thomas or nod in appreciation and just a touch of disbelief. The rest ignore him and simply slide their empties forward.

Thomas stumbles back to his chair and slides it forward before climbing aboard. Bran, somewhat more subdued now, holds his hand out to Thomas. The handshake is weak on “my boy’s” part. In his defense, it’s likely more out of delirium than an actual lack of strength. His voice clearer and eyes only hinting at watering―the slight bit of chili powder in the drink finally hitting him―he speaks a little louder now.

“Bring her the bottle.” He glances at me, and I can’t tell whether his eyes are showing me admiration or pity. “She needs it.”

Bran sighs and nods. “Ya got me there, boy. Never said how many drinks after the first you could buy the girl.”

I smirk and look up to the Scot as my face slides down my hand and I give him puppy dog eyes. He picks up my favorite bottle and sets it in front of me.

“Try to take it easy, though, eh?”

I roll my eyes. Thomas settles up with Bran as the man walks away, leaving me with my mark.

With a grin, I look at the boy and a giggle escapes me. I hope it’s from the booze I’ve already got in me. “You did good for someone so green.”

Thomas nods. “I’m seeing two of you right now. Is that normal?”

“Nope. It’s not normal.” I grip my bottle and pull off the rubber cap to fill my glass. “Here,” I say with a gesture to Thomas’s stein. He fishes out the shot glass, still soaked in remnants of his drink, and passes it to me. “We’re gonna drink until you can see four of me at minimum. And I’m gonna drink until I see two of you. If there’s two, I can cap one and collect the bounty!”

Thomas laughs, and now I know he has come to terms with the enormity of the pile we’re trapped in. Only the truly sane and accepting can laugh at their own imminent death.

“That sounds like a plan.” He raises the shot glass like it’s a toast and downs it. “You know, I’ve never actually been drunk.”

I raise my glass and drink about half of mine. “Great. Let’s pop that cherry, Tommy.”

He pushes his shot glass back to me and clinks it on the bottle. “Who’ll be the designated driver?”

I laugh. “What are we going to drive, and where could we even go?”

Thomas shrugs, arms limp as the alcohol starts to make more of the decisions than his brain. “No idea. We’re pretty fucked, aren’t we?”

“Very.” I fill his glass. “So let’s get plastered until we don’t care.” I fill mine and raise it to him. He mirrors and we both down our shots.

Hours later, the bottle is an empty husk of its former self. Thomas, for all his insistence of purity, is holding his liquor pretty well. Even my heightened system is having trouble keeping itself together under the weight of it.

Thomas is leaning on the bar, counting the pickled eggs in the nearby jar while Bran is telling a pudgy broker that it’s closing time and he needs to finish his beer. The man, only slightly less inebriated than me and my boy, tries to get one more drink for the road. A stern look from Bran shoots that pleading dead, and the man drops a handful of crumpled bills on the bar before shambling to the door and going out to meet the setting moon.

Bran grumbles, unfolding the bills before opening up the cash register to put them in. The ding of the machine makes Thomas and me jump and sober up for half a moment before we descend into chuckles and giggles respectively.

“Layla, sweetie, this boy has done what I never thought possible. You’re out of your wits, ain’t ya?”

I cradle my glass in my hand even though it’s been dry for quite a while, the world looking a bit more like a watercolor than reality. I’m grateful for that. “You know, I think I just might be.”

Bran grumbles again. “Ya didn’t drive here, didja?”

Thomas shakes his head. “Nope. No car to take. They could find us then.”

I set down my ghost drink. “Thas the safe way to travel. On foot. Can’t track ya on foot here in the city.”

“Aye,” Bran says, “that’s how my forefathers got across the isles back home. But they used a horse. You make good time with those. And you’re not likely to be mugged while riding a horse. Why don’t the two of you stay in my back office for the night? Sleep it off?”

Sleep. The idea is more than appealing. Lying down. Drifting off into true unconsciousness. At least that way when someone slits my throat, I’ll go peaceful.

“No,” Thomas says, going right back to softly muttering the egg count.
Seven. Eight. Nine.

“It’s no trouble,” Bran insists.

Thomas shakes his head vigorously like a little kid might. “We kin find ‘nother place to sleep,” Thomas says, his drunk talk falling well below the standard of usual discourse between me and my favorite Scot.

Bran shakes his head and slams the cash register shut while Thomas and I stumble back from our stools to our feet and compose ourselves.

“Do appreciate the hospitality, Bran,” Thomas says, a hint of an apology.

I grab Thomas by the arm. “It’s not a bad idea…”

Thomas leans over and whispers just loudly enough that I’m almost certain Bran will hear it. “And he’ll end up just like your other friend.”

For the first time, Thomas sets my heart racing. Bran dead? Malcolm was somewhat of a friend, sure. He was also a bit of a dick. But Bran is a teddy bear.
My
teddy bear.

I gather up my hoodie and toss it on, and Thomas does the same with his coat. “Bran, don’t tell anyone I was here tonight, kay?”

Bran waves his burly hand. “Yeah, yeah. I know the drill, girl.” He goes back to wiping down the bar as we walk toward the door. I sigh and walk around, then put my arms around the big man and give him a squeeze. The movement doesn’t do anything for me, but I don’t want Bran feeling put out.

“Thank you.”

Bran pats me on the back, a little startled by my show of affection. Even more so than I am. “All right, girl. You be safe, y’hear? You want me to call you a cab?”

I shake my head. The need to get away from the man before someone realizes his connection to me is all I can think about now. “We’ll be fine.”

Thomas already has the door open as I walk away from the bushy red man and give him a final wave as we leave the Old Haunt.

Stumbling around the city in the depths of night is how I spend many evenings. But most of those end with a dead body. And so far, one hundred percent of the time, it hasn’t been mine. Those are good odds, but tonight, I’m pretty sure I won’t be winning.

Thomas shuffles beside me, more disheveled than he’s ever been in his charmed life, I’m sure. His exhaustion is showing as we round a corner, leaving the bar behind. His foot absently kicks at the sidewalk as we walk in silence. The sounds of faraway bangs crack the night, either from a gun or a car backfiring. Neither of us flinch at the noise or question the other as to where we think it came from.

“Ideas?” Thomas asks.

I shrug, because I really can’t think of a single place we’d be safe now that wouldn’t endanger someone. He watches me and shrugs back before stopping and sitting down on the curb to stare across the street.

“Good a place as any,” he mumbles.

Lacking the energy to get him on his feet, and the reason for why he should keep walking to nowhere, I study the graffitied brickwork of the building behind us, admiring the work of whoever thought to draw a pair of genitals over the mayor’s latest campaign sign.