High-Caliber Concealer (9 page)

“Curly fries or wedges?” asked the
bartender, ignoring her attempt at humor.

“Has to be wedges, doesn’t it? Wedge to Red
Leader and all that?” The bartender stared at her blankly. “Curly
fries are fine,” she said.

“Back in a second with your drink,” he said,
tucking the pencil behind his ear and then ambled toward the
kitchen. Nikki surveyed the bar in the reflection of the ornate
Budweiser mirror behind the taps. Grimy would have been doing the
place a kindness. Everything seemed slightly sticky, like the
concept of occasionally washing the bar rag that washed everything
else had never been properly explained to the employees. On the
other hand, if the three patrons at the back of the bar were
anything to be judged by, then this place was a fancy night out for
most of the clientele. The first man wore a grubby John Deere hat
without a trace of Ashton Kutcher irony, a scraggly goatee, and a
pair of Carhartt’s so filthy the only clean space was behind the
knees. Which she could see because he had one leg angled out from
his chair and he was bouncing it with the kind of nervous energy
usually seen on those with a severe caffeine addiction. The second
man was clearly in his Sunday best of acid-wash black jeans and a
blue button-up work shirt with a collar that must have been a hair
too tight, because he kept tugging at it after every sip of his
beer. How either of them had managed to scrape up an association
with the girl who perched uncomfortably on the third chair, her
arms crossed over a green cardigan and white blouse, was probably
one of the mysteries of the universe. She looked to be in her early
twenties, Hispanic, with thick, shoulder-length black hair, and big
dark eyes that Nikki could tell had been crying recently. In
Nikki’s opinion, she was far too pretty, too well-dressed, and too
young to be with either of the men. The two men seemed to be
arguing quietly, but the more they spoke, the further away the girl
leaned and the more she seemed to hunch in on herself, as if trying
to become invisible in her chair.

The bartender returned with Nikki’s drink.
He set it down with the air of one doing his duty in the face of
adversity. “It’s going to be wedges after all,” he said. “Those
guys ordered the last of the curly fries.” He jerked his head at
the occupied table, with an expression that said he’d take the
fries back if he could.

“Wedges are fine,” she said, with a
shrug.

The bartender shrugged back, as if to say
that he couldn’t be bothered with people who didn’t understand the
important things in life.

Her burger and wedges arrived a few moments
later and both were surprisingly tasty. Fattening as hell, but not
the greasy bomb of disgustingness that she was expecting. In fact,
the burger was downright good, bordering on awesome. Perhaps
cuisine was how the Kessel Run stayed in business. If that was the
case, they should double the cook’s salary.

She was savoring the crisp snap of the
pickle on her fifth bite of burger when it happened. The hairs on
the back of her arms stood up as the discussion at the back table
rose in acrimony. The volume didn’t go up, just the intensity of
the whispering. Nikki shifted her eyes to the mirror and saw that
the body language on the girl had moved from hunched to
cowering.

“It’s not my fault,” said the girl, her
voice wavering. She stood up to go, but Carhartt snaked out a hand
and grabbed her by the upper arm.

“Let me go,” pleaded the girl, sounding on
the verge of tears. “It’s not my fault.” She tugged ineffectually
at his hand.

Nikki took a deep breath and let it out
again slowly. She’d really been enjoying the burger. Reaching into
her purse, she dropped some cash on the bar.

Back at the table, Carhartt forcefully
shoved the girl back into her chair and stood up, towering over
her.

“I just want to go home,” said the girl,
tears sliding down her cheek.

“You’ll go when I’m damn good and ready for
you to go,” snapped Carhartt.

Nikki stood up, blotted her mouth with the
napkin, and turned to face the three at the table.

“Gentlemen, I think you should let the girl
go.” She used a loud, calm voice, so there would be no mistaking
her intentions. The bartender, coming out of the kitchen, froze in
the doorway, his eyes flicking between the table and Nikki, his
expression akin to a deer in the proverbial headlights.

“Nobody asked you what you think, bitch,”
said the man in the button-up. Carhartt blinked at her.

“Let me rephrase that,” said Nikki. “You’re
going to let the girl go.”

“Or what?” asked Carhartt smirking.

“That wasn’t an either or statement,” said
Nikki. “That was a fact.”

“It’s OK,” said the girl, looking panicked.
“It’s OK. I don’t want to start any trouble.” She licked her lips
and stood up. “Everything’s fine, really.”

Carhartt released the girl’s arm and shoved
her back into her chair. “This is none of your business,” he said,
trying to loom over Nikki. “Go away.”

“I’m making it my business,” said Nikki.
“Now I suggest you sit down while she and I leave.”

“Ain’t going to happen,” he said. “Go away.”
And then he pushed her, a one-handed shove on the shoulder, meant
to send her toward the door.

Instead, Nikki side-stepped, seized his arm,
pivoted and, with a quick twist of the hips, flipped him over her
back and onto the floor. He landed with a hard crack, but promptly
tried to sit up. She dropped her body weight through her knee onto
his head and then bounced back to her feet. His head made a double
clunk as it smacked into her knee and into the floor a split second
later. Button-up was rounding the table at this point, aiming to
tackle her, but instead she spun and drove her fist into his gut.
He doubled over, gaping like a fish, and she seized his head and
drove her knee up into his face. He staggered back, blood streaming
from his face, and collapsed into a table, which tipped over on top
of him. The fight was over.

“Clyde,” said someone from the entrance of
the bar, “you should probably call the sheriff.”

“Yeah,” said the bartender, his hand
fumbling for the phone on the wall, his eyes still stuck on
Nikki.

“It’s OK,” said Nikki to the girl who was
still sitting where Carhartt had left her. “What’s your name?”

“Ylina,” said the girl.

“Hey, Merv,” said the bartender into the
phone. “It’s Clyde over at the Kessel Run. Yeah, I’ve got a couple
of drunks here who picked on the wrong girl. Can you send someone
around to collect them?” He peered over the bar at unconscious
Carhartt’s body. “No, no rush. It’s under control. I’ll put them on
the porch for you. Thanks.” Clyde hung up and stared around the
room at those who were still conscious. “Okay,” he said clapping
his hands together and drawing out the word to multiple syllables.
“The sheriff will be here shortly. In the meantime, can I interest
any of you in another drink or dessert?”

“The sheriff?” squeaked Ylina.

“It’ll be fine,” said Nikki.

“No, it won’t!” Ylina edged around
Button-Up’s legs and started to fumble in Carhartt’s pockets. “You
don’t know what you’ve done.”

“It will be fine,” said Nikki. “The sheriff
will handle it.”

But Ylina shook her head, ignoring them, and
pulled out a set of car keys.

“Ylina,” said Nikki. “Calm down. It’s going
to be fine.”

“No, not fine,” said Ylina, backing toward
the door as if Nikki might try and stop her. “The sheriff’s coming.
Not fine!” Then she turned and sprinted out into the parking lot. A
few moments later, the roar of a car engine could be heard, and
tires on gravel as Ylina floored it.

“Some people got no gratitude,” said Clyde,
picking up Carhartt’s legs. “Jackson, you want to give me a
hand?”

“Nikki did it,” said the man by the door.
“Make her lift them.”

Nikki looked up from Clyde to the man by the
door and for the first time realized who it was. Jackson Tyrell.
She felt her heart skip a beat and suddenly the juke box music
seemed far away. This evening had definitely taken a turn and gone
right off the rails.

“I only wanted a burger,” she said.

“It is a tasty burger,” agreed Jackson.

Clyde looked from Nikki’s frozen expression
back to Jackson. “Well, Nikki did all the hard work,” he said,
picking up her name from Jackson. “So grab his feet. I don’t like
having bodies cluttering up the place.”

“Statements like that make me worry about
you, Clyde,” said Jackson and walked forward to pick up Carhartt’s
feet.

“You go back to your burger, Miss,” said
Clyde.

Nikki sat down on the barstool and stared at
her burger. She took a bite because it wouldn’t do to have Jackson
think she was upset. She chewed mechanically while they moved
Button-Up to the porch as well. She took a gulp of her drink as
Jackson sat down next to her.

“The usual,” said Jackson to Clyde, who
nodded and went back into the kitchen.

He was bigger than she remembered. Or maybe
he wasn’t. In high school, he had been small, only a few inches
taller than Nikki—just enough so that when she wore heels for a
dance he was still an inch or two taller. Everyone knew that he was
small. They had been the cute little couple. No one could change
his height, so why did he look bigger? Nikki squinted at him,
trying to place the difference.

Dark blue T-shirt, naturally faded jeans,
shit-kicker working cowboy boots, and dark hair that stood up at
the cowlick in back. Same as forever. He hadn’t changed the uniform
much since they were twelve. The scar on his face was new. It
started below his left ear and cut to the mid-point on his jawbone.
It looked like someone had taken a razor blade and sliced it down
his face. He was tan and his hazel eyes had a few early wrinkles
around them from squinting into the sun. Always strong for his
size, his forearms now looked as if they had been carved from oak.
His hands, large and callused, curled loosely around a glass of
beer. He was leaner than she remembered. He had taken on the
compact, wiry look of a Thai boxer. There was nothing but muscle to
the man. All the excess had been trimmed away. And at last, Nikki
nodded. This was what the difference was. She was seeing Jackson
for the first time with nothing in the way.

“Were you planning on just sitting there?”
she asked.

“You had it under control,” said Jackson,
looking around the room, as if surveying her work.

“I meant, were you going to sit there,
without saying hello or anything?”

“Oh.” He looked sheepish. “Hi.”

There was a silence after that and Nikki
stared at Jackson. Jackson stared back. For years, she’d been
carrying around a speech in her head, a litany of the pain he had
caused, and now faced with the chance to speak, she found the words
wouldn’t come. The person she was sitting next to wasn’t the same
person who had hurt her. The Jackson she remembered could never sit
still. He had been a chair swiveling, toe-tapping, paper tearing,
bundle of energy. This Jackson never twitched. He didn’t even twist
the bar stool back and forth.

“So what have you been doing with yourself?”
asked Nikki. “You broke up with me, dropped out of college, then
what?”

Jackson blinked. Whatever he had been
expecting her to say, it hadn’t been that.

“Short story or long?”

“Short,” answered Nikki decidedly. She
wasn’t sure how much she wanted to torture herself. If he turned
out to be happily married to a blonde with tits the size of
pumpkins and three doe-eyed children she might have to go back home
and slit her wrists.

“I ran away and joined the rodeo.”

Nikki nodded. That fit.

“I won a few things, but it got to the point
where I could see I wasn’t going to be the best.”

“And that would never do for you,” said
Nikki.

He grinned. “But I was hard-headed and I
found I’d developed a taste for blood and bullshit, so I became a
rodeo clown.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Not too bad,” he said in his old,
understated way.

“Are you the best at it?” prodded Nikki.

“I do all right,” he said and took a sip of
his beer.

“Meaning you are or close enough to the
best,” said Nikki. Jackson shrugged again, which Nikki took to be
an agreement with her statement.

“How about you?” asked Jackson, setting down
his beer. “I talked to Donny earlier this week. Said he ran into
you down in LA and that you looked good.” Nikki kept her body
language relaxed, but she felt a nervous tingle in the base of her
spine, and wondered what else Donny had told Jackson. And if any of
the things he had mentioned were Z’ev.

“He didn’t say much more than that,” said
Jackson, “but I got the impression that he was worried about
you.”

“About me?” said Nikki with a disarming
smile. “Can’t think why.”

Jackson looked pointedly at the table that
Button-Up had crashed through. It was still laying on its side. the
chairs pushed away at awkward angles.

“Neither can I,” he answered. There was a
glimmer in his eye that Nikki remembered, and it occurred to her to
wonder what he was seeing in her for the first time.

Nikki took a quick stock of herself. Red
hair, grey eyes, maybe a few more muscles. There reached a point in
a girl’s life where the metabolism of high school turns to the ass
of college and she must either hit the gym or buy larger pants.
Nikki had gone for the workout and although her pants size had
remained virtually unchanged, the soft quality that characterized
Nikki’s appearance in high school and college had disappeared.
Nothing else had changed. Had it?

“So…” said Nikki.

“So,” agreed Jackson and that annoyed
her.

“That’s all you have to say to me?” she
asked, feeling a flare of the old anger. “That really is it?”