Chapter 18 - Bodie
BODIE
The Refuge looked different in the rain: more cozy, less cold. Maybe it was the red-tinted windows that were original to the bar, even if half of them were gone. It was still enough, though. Those windows beckoned you in from the street on a gloomy afternoon like this, with their warm, fuzzy glow.
I found Carter exactly where I expected to; standing behind the bar, bent over two giant piles of mail. The larger of the two stacks had those cellophane windows, that looked like bills. And that’s because they were bills, if we were being honest.
“It never stops, does it?” I smiled.
“No,” he answered without looking up. “No, it doesn’t.”
I took my normal spot at the bar, nodding to Grizz as I sat down.
As usual, the old man barely acknowledged me.
Grizz was a Marine sniper with over fifty kills, or he was a decorated Green Beret, and an expert at hand-to-hand combat.
Or he was a daredevil chopper pilot, who’d served four consecutive combat tours. It all depended on who you asked.
No one really knew the truth, and whenever he was asked about his service, Grizz would only smile through a mouthful of missing teeth and cackle.
Whatever he’d once been, the man was now scrawny and old, and completely innocuous-looking.
But it was his eyes that were most interesting to me.
Heavily-lidded and turned nearly gray with cataracts, there should’ve been a bone-tired weariness to them.
Instead, those eyes were oddly youthful, and full of life.
They also seemed to be everywhere at once; constantly shifting around the bar as if gauging and assessing everyone in it.
Carter continued filing through the mail as I took stock of things.
Though its dusty beams were barely holding the old roof up, the bar still had strong bones.
In most places it was well-lit, clean, and inviting.
There was one thing missing though: the usual stream of music emanating from the now broken jukebox.
“Want me to file a claim for that?” I asked, pointing at the darkened machine. “Insurance might cover it.”
“Yeah, and they’ll raise my rates,” Carter said bitterly. He shot the jukebox a sideways glance of his own. “No thanks, man. I know a guy who knows a glass guy when I’m ready to get it fixed.” He sighed and dumped another three bills on the pile. “It’s just gonna take a while.”
We’d only been away for a weekend, but the stack was larger than I expected it to be. I, of all people, knew exactly how deep he was.
“Give me all that when you’re finished,” I told him. “I know I can work a deal with at least two of the suppliers. And you overpaid on one of the balanced billing cycles,” I added. “Maybe we could claw that back, apply it toward something more pressing.”
“Yeah,” he said wearily. “Sure. Thanks, man.”
“Hey, that’s what CPA friends are for.”
Carter slid me a pint glass, without me asking. At this time of the day, I didn’t have to look down to know it was filled with crushed ice and diet Coke.
“Too bad you’re not a banker,” Carter added. “You could get me a loan.”
We both knew I could definitely get him a loan. We also both knew it would be a really bad idea.
“You talk to the boss since you got back?” Carter asked.
I frowned and wrapped my hand around the glass. “He’s not my boss.”
“He’s someone’s boss,” he countered. “Lots of people, actually. And since you’ve been doing his books…”
Carter let his voice trail off, before it became admonitory.
“I’m doing him a favor. That’s all.”
“Yeah, and you’ve been doing that favor for almost five years now,” he pointed out. “And for some reason, he’s the only client you never charge.”
“Not the only one,” I grinned, and shot him a wink.
We’d had this discussion before. He didn’t like me ‘doing math’ for the Visconti family regardless of my repeated non-affiliation with them. But they were old family friends. The blood ties on my mother’s side ran several generations deep.
“Still,” Carter finished, “I don’t like the idea of them owing you. It doesn’t sit right with me.”
“Better than owing them,” I countered. “Besides, things are different now. The old man’s harmless.”
“Yeah,” Carter sniffed, rolling his eyes. “Right.”
I took a long pull of cold soda, rather than answer. The burning, fizzing bubbles tickled my nose and throat.
“So, have you heard from her?” Carter asked abruptly.
“Heard from who?”
“Yeah,” he shook his head. “Like we have all these girls we hear from on a consistent basis. You know who. Hayden.”
Of course I knew who.
“No,” I answered. “I haven’t.”
“Think we spooked her?”
“Maybe,” I allowed. “I mean, something sure did. Could’ve been us, or her, or a guilty conscience…”
I really didn’t want to think that was it. We’d grilled Sawyer of course, to see what he’d said to her in the mini-mart. But he’d claimed their entire conversation was limited to, of all things, beef jerky.
In any case, we’d driven straight back to New York, after a quick stop to lock up the cabin. Once there, Hayden wouldn’t even go in. We shut down the hot tub, turned off the lights, and sped home in record time. All with her slumbering away across Sawyer’s lap, deep in the back seat.
We woke her up outside her apartment, even though we were loathe to let her out.
It wasn’t safe. We offered to pick up a few things and let her stay with us for a day or two, until the whole thing with her asshole boyfriend had been settled.
Hayden politely refused. She thanked us and headed inside, assuring us that everything would be alright.
After staying ten minutes, we were forced to reluctantly pull away.
We were worried that maybe we’d freaked her out.
Overstepped our bounds. Something was seriously strange, though.
Her laughter, her flirtatiousness, her attitude; everything had done such a one-eighty in the few paltry minutes it had taken Carter and I to pump a tank of gas.
One minute she was running inside for snacks, looking happily forward to our last night at the cabin, and the next she was demanding to be taken straight home.
That’s when I reminded myself: I never was any good at understanding women.
“Think we should call her?” Carter ventured. “I mean, we can’t just let her go. Not like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m talking about the Blond Berserker!” cried Carter. “That asshole’s been riding around, harassing her friends, and out looking for her all weekend. Now that she’s finally home, what do you think he’s going to do when he finds her?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “And I don’t like it any more than you. But Hayden’s a big girl. She’s tough. For some reason, I think she can handle it.”
Carter scoffed, and pointed at the door. “A monster like that?” he argued. “You think she should be left to handle a guy that big, that psychotic, that out of his fucking mind totally crazy—”
And just then, in a cosmic moment of cataclysmically bad timing, the door opened…
… and the Blond Berserker walked straight into the bar.