Chapter 9
Ellie
For a Wednesday, the bar was crowded. Weekend regulars crowded the stools and filled the tables. Excitement was high, and the blarney was flying. I was in my element, tossing little verbal bombs into dying conversations and moving on to spike the next explosion of laughter.
Although not everyone was a local.
A woman sat at one of the tables. Slightly unusual. Singles usually gravitated toward the bar so they wouldn’t be trapped. That spoke of confidence. Worse? She’d nursed a light beer most of the night. I stopped by the table while picking up messes and asked if she needed anything.
Instead of answering me, she asked, “I heard you got married.” Her eyes dipped to my empty ring finger.
By now, most of my inner circle knew the wedding was a bust, but it still was a topic of conversation at the pub. Since I hadn’t bothered coming clean, I lied.
“That’s right.”
“Where’s your husband?”
While her tone was kind enough, there was some thread of pressure underneath the words that goaded me into action.
“He’s fucking some chick. It’s an open marriage. I’d be upset if it weren’t for the sleep I’m finally getting.”
Her face barely twitched.
And that’s where the spiders working their way up my nerves started weaving overtime. I scanned her from sensible shoes to business-casual blazer. “Wanna threesome?”
Her eyes dipped to my ring finger again. “Why aren’t you wearing your ring?”
“It’s a bar. Do you honestly think I’m going to be dunking twenty-five carats in dirty dishwater all night?”
Here’s where she pretended to accept my smokescreen.
I cleaned the table next to hers, then leaned over before I left. “If you want to interrogate someone, do it elsewhere, agent. I’ve been followed by the FBI my entire life. And that is not a lie.”
“Ellie Jacobs-Porciello? That’s a mouthful.”
I cringed inside. She was calling me out. If I lied to her this time, I could get in big trouble.
“Just Jacobs, agent.”
“So, tell me, is the rumor of him being hospitalized in Las Vegas on February thirteenth true?”
“Hospital?” While I knew exactly why he was admitted, I was supposed to be clueless about that part.
“And the one about you marrying someone else? What about that one?”
I turned and locked eyes with her. “What’s your name?”
“Bridget, Bridget Perkins.”
“Well, Agent Perkins, here’s how it went down.
I found out Johnny was cheating on me. I sent my sister to cancel the wedding, but she somehow found the love of her life and decided, ‘what the hell,’ and got married so Mom and Dad, and everyone tuned into the live stream got a show.
They were going to get an annulment, but instead, decided to see how it all works.
That’s the whole story. Now, if you excuse me, I’ve got a bar to run. ”
“He checked out of the hospital, against orders, on February fourteenth. No one has heard from him since.”
Maybe if I hadn’t had the wild two weeks I’d had, or maybe if Ringo hadn’t charmed his way into my house last night, I might have had some emotion about that. But all I could think was, “Good riddance.”
“If he turns up dead, you’re the first suspect.”
How convenient. I glanced at the bar. Molly was doing an admirable job closing out orders but it wasn’t her job, yet.
“Suspect? A guy who was supposed to stay in the hospital dying? That would hardly be considered murder, if you ask me. Talk to Casey—he knows the law. And so do I. Unless you got a warrant for my arrest, I’m done talking to you, Agent Perkins. You can leave now.”
But she didn’t. I knew she wouldn’t.
A few minutes before last call, Ringo sauntered in and took the stool on the end. My stool.
I finished filling Tall Bob’s beer and rushed to intercept him before he did something to connect himself to Agent Perkin’s web.
“I’m going to be another hour. Wait in the car or at my house.”
“No.” He was unusually abrupt tonight.
“Ringo, please? It’s not cool for you to be here.”
He glanced around and dismissed the thinning crowd. Unfortunately, he’d mistaken Agent Perkins as harmless. She was anything but. “I’ll stay.”
I quickly shifted subject. “What are you drinking?”
“Whiskey, top shelf, neat.”
Figured. I pulled down our best Jameson triple. I dropped a small rocks glass in front of him and splashed two ounces in the bottom.
He picked it up and examined the glass. “It’s dirty.”
I didn’t have enough fucks in my brain basket to be patient with him. “Exactly. Like a certain someone I know. You really need to wait in your car.”
“You like me dirty.”
My cheeks heated as I retreated to close out tabs and announce the final call.
“Ellie? When did you have your bridal shower?” Molly asked.
“I didn’t have one.” There wasn’t time. Johnny pressured me to elope to Vegas, and I had to scramble to get the arrangements together. I barely had time to talk my sister into being my maid of honor.
“We can’t have that.” She turned to Tall Bob. “What do you think, Saturday, downstairs?”
Like a match to gunpowder, the word spread. These assholes did anything for an excuse to open the basement and embarrass me. “No…” I tried to protest, but the plans formed faster than my lies.
Agent Perkins approached the bar to cash out her tab and listened to the arrangements grow. She smiled wickedly at me and made a suggestion for the decorations.
I tried twice to quell the rabble.
Ringo shook his head and lifted his glass. “To the beautiful bride!”
Traitor.
I kicked a spare case of beer loose from its storage under the bar and stood on it to make my voice carry farther.
“I didn’t get married!”
The chatter stopped. As one, the bar set their attention on me.
“I didn’t get married.”
“We saw you… on the live stream,” Molly pointed out.
“That was my sister. You know… Allie?”
A whisper in the back was quickly shushed.
“I’m… sorry. No party.”
“Bullshit!” Tall Bob called out. “We can still party. We should party. Ellie’s back on the market!”
The roar that erupted was flattering, but also embarrassing. For some stupid reason, I glanced at the end stool. But Ringo wasn’t there. A fifty-dollar bill was tucked under his empty glass. It echoed the hollow part of my heart.
“I got it, it will be an un-wedding party,” Molly suggested.
A patron agreed and added to the concept. “We should dress in black, like a funeral. Except this will be a hell of a lot more fun.”
“Anything with a black label will be on special,” Tall Bob suggested.
That would cut into profits. I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ll be sure to get you something special.” There was an Icelandic schnapps certain to make even the worst alcoholic turn down a free drink. My evil laugh wiped the smile from his face.
Molly theatrically dropped to her knees. “Come on, Ellie. We’re going to cheer you up. Say yes, please.”
I stared at all the familiar faces. “Fine. We need to dust the cobwebs out of the space before next Saturday anyway.” The more I thought about it, I grew to like the idea.
I could gauge the extra inventory needed, and word would get around about the changes I made, further enticing the neighborhood to brave the crowds after the parade.
The bar finally cleared out. Agent Perkins stood at the bar flap, next to the empty chair Ringo had abandoned. “How’d you know?”
I’d had at least a hundred distractions between our conversations, so I was at a loss. “Know what?”
“That I’m an agent.”
That.
“Like I said, I’ve been followed by agents my entire life. My grandfather was Alfred Pulaski, do you know about his file?” I watched her eyes carefully.
“Yes.”
“So, that’s how. Talk to my lawyer. He’s listed in mine.” I tried to walk away.
“Ellie?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry you got cheated on.”
There went my opinion that FBI agents weren’t human. “What would you know about being cheated on?”
She made a face. “First husband, second husband, six boyfriends, and I think my cat left me for a better house.”
I could feel that. But she was still a Fed. “That sucks. Talk to Casey. He’ll tell you that you are barking up the wrong tree.”
“The owner?”
“Former owner. Two years ago, my best friend, Kat, and I bought the place.”
“But you kept him on?”
While Casey didn’t have anything that hadn’t already been dug through at least a hundred times, I got defensive. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“He’s a cop.”
“Was.” I leaned in and stared Agent Perkins in the eye and spackled down a thick layer of truth.
“You know that there is a saying ‘honor among thieves?’ But if you ask around, there isn’t one like that for the police.
Sure, they talk a big game about having each other’s backs and holding that thin little line, but when your partner is a lying scumbag who cheated on his wife with a drug dealer’s second mistress while running more meth through the south side than any real dealer, well…
they get a hard-on about bad apples, even if they’re innocent.
Casey learned just how supportive his brotherhood truly was.
I’m very glad he joined the other side and I will die on that hill, feel me? ”
Something worked across her face before she masked it. “I get it. You were a spoiled kid who never learned there are folks putting their lives on the line to keep you safe.”
“I was safe before all that. What I wasn’t after, was a kid. I couldn’t be because my childhood was one big game of hide and seek with your so-called protectors who liked staring through my window at night. I was eight!”
I hadn’t meant to yell. And I really hadn’t wanted to lose my cool around the nosy agent in sensible shoes.
Tall Bob loomed behind Agent Perkins. “Last call was ten minutes ago. Leave.” He leaned a little, using every inch of his six feet four frame to intimidate.
While I knew he was a pacifist, I couldn’t confirm that a two-A.M.-drunken Tall Bob with a half a crush on me wouldn’t toss a field agent from the FBI right out on her ass if she resisted.
Little Molly hustled up to join him.
And she would toss Bridget Perkins on her ass. That’s why I hired her.
“Get your ass out. I’m not telling you twice,” Molly warned.
The agent stepped away, hands held high. “Apologies. Have a good night.”
It took much longer to get Bob out because he had this mistaken idea Molly and I needed a man around. I’d walked him out, pointed him in the direction of his apartment building, and was trying to talk him down for the fifth time when Ringo rolled down his car window.
“Yo, Bob. I got this. Go home.”
Bob swayed a little and stared at Ringo leaning to the passenger side so he could see his face more clearly. “I know you. You sat in Ellie’s seat.”
“Yeah, he did, Bob. He’s my bodyguard for tonight. You can go home now.”
Bob didn’t listen to me. “Are you trying to date our Ellie? She’s free, you know?”
“Bob, go home.”
My words were drowned out by Ringo introducing himself to Bob. “I’ll see you at the party, Saturday.”
“Hell yeah. Wear black.” And with that, he waved at me, Molly standing in the door, and shook Ringo’s hand a second time. “Take care of our Ellie. But I get dibs on Molly, understand?’
“Loud and clear, Bob. Molly’s yours.”
I checked with Molly, who’d turned pink. She shook her head to deny Bob’s words and then retreated into the bar to finish cleaning.
I leaned into the car. “I’ll be an hour at least. I’ve got to close out the tills and wipe down the place. Are you going to wait?”
“Yes.”
Okay… I didn’t know how to feel about that. Two nights in a row he’d pushed his way into my routine. I should be angry, but I wasn’t. Instead, I was happy he hadn’t abandoned me.
“If the cops come by, drop the name, Rufus. He’s our regular weekend bouncer. They know him pretty well. Say that he asked you to sit here, okay?”
His eyes searched mine. “You’re asking me to lie?”
Yes. Duh. “No, I’m telling you that the cops get really nosy around here. They’ll pull up and have you frisked and cuffed if you don’t know whose name to drop, got it?” I knew these streets.
That earned a smile. “Understood.”
“Good. I’ll make you Chicago street savvy yet.”
I didn’t want to leave, but closing wouldn’t wait. The longer I lingered here, the later it would be until I tugged the sticky door shut and locked the last deadbolt. But Ringo licked his lips. And that motion beckoned me closer. I put my hands on his window frame and crouched a little.
“Ringo?”
“Yes.” He shifted closer, not saying yes in response to his name, but yes to stealing a kiss.
His eyes locked on mine. But he stopped just outside of range. “You gotta breach the distance. I’m not doing all the work.”
I shoved him away and fled inside the bar.
Now I was mad at him.