“Give it a try.”
“I don’t like jazz or baseball or whiskey or beer, and I’ve never been to the ballet. I’m a lousy cook. I don’t read much that’s not business related. I think everybody should save their money, and I desperately want to fall in love and get married.”
“Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Josie.” To prove it I clinked her glass with my beer bottle.
We sat at the bar and watched the Twins. I nursed the Sam Adams, much to the bartender’s chagrin—hey, I had work to do—while Josie had multiple vodka Collinses. Possibly the drinks loosened her up, because she turned out to be a pleasant companion despite her refusal to accept the sacrifice bunt as a sound baseball strategy. “Why would you deliberately make an out?” At the bottom of the fourth inning I quietly announced I needed fresh air. I returned a few minutes later and informed her that that the third truck had yet to return.
“How long should we wait?” she asked.
“Until all of the trucks are inside and the place is locked up tight, probably sometime during the dark side of midnight.”
“That sounds fanciful.”
“My dad, when I was a kid, he would warn that nothing good ever happened after midnight. The dark side, he called it—stay away from the dark side. I was a Star Wars fan. It made perfect sense to me.”
“Speaking of the dark side.”
I followed Josie’s gaze to a woman who was loitering at the front entrance. She stood alone, a woman built to be of service to men, drawing long gazes from male and female patrons alike, soaking in the awareness like a solar panel—it seemed to energize her. She swung her body as she walked the length of the bar. She expected the audience to follow her, expected to be gawked at.
“Hey, Josie,” she said when she reached us. Her short skirt slid up to there when she hoisted herself onto a stool and crossed her legs. Her legs were made for crossing. Being a gentleman, McKenzie would have averted his eyes. Dyson was no gentleman. “Seen Brian?”
“It’s not my turn to watch him,” Josie answered. There was a chill in her voice that I had not heard before.
“I thought he’d be around,” the woman said. She motioned for the bartender, ordered a beer, and asked that he pour it in a glass. At the same time, she slid a pack of Marlboro Lights out of her bag.
“No smoking,” the bartender said.
“Shit,” the woman replied.
“Not working tonight?” Josie asked.
“I was, but the place is pretty dead, so I only did one show.”
Up close I could see that the woman had large brown eyes that looked a little sad, the way that all large brown eyes do, and that her strawberry hair was tinged with gray at the roots. Her smile was warm, although her teeth were dingy from tobacco.
“You’re Dyson, aren’t you?” she said.
“Hmm, Dyson?” I replied.
She reached past Josie and patted my hand. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”
I glared at Josie.
“Dyson, this is Claire de Lune,” she said. “Claire is Jimmy’s fiancée.”
“He told me everything about you,” Claire said. “From what he said, I thought you’d be taller.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said. I shook Claire’s hand. It was stronger than you might expect. “I hope you can keep a secret better than Jimmy.”
She turned her attention toward the other customers in the bar even as she spoke. “Jimmy and me don’t keep secrets.”
“I do.”
“Don’t worry. I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
A glance into Josie’s eyes told me that it was an opinion not widely shared. “I hope…”
Claire gestured contemptuously as if the topic were undeserving of any further consideration and continued gazing around the bar. “I thought for sure that Brian would be here,” she said.
“Claire de Lune is a very pretty name,” I said. “It means ‘moonlight’ in French, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“It’s also the name of a piano solo by Claude Debussy.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Claire took a cell phone from her purse and headed for the restroom.
“Lovely woman,” I told Josie. “Very gregarious.”
“She’s an exotic dancer.”
“You mean a stripper?”
“Jimmy says exotic dancer.”
“No kidding? She’s a little old for that line of work, isn’t she?”
“How should I know? I only know she’s a decade older than Jimmy. Her real name is Sandra Dawson, but I guess that didn’t have any marquee value.”