The ox grinned at the mirror, and his missing tooth made him think again: Shelby the wolf. The fact was, Shelby Pate didn’t care what happened to him. Not anymore. He’d become … transformed.
He turned on his stool and faced the monster looming over him. He said, “Kin we jist have our shooters, dude? Kin we do that without you goin turbo?”
“Sure you kin,” the bearded biker said. “Down the avenue with the other Messicans.”
The ox looked around for a moment. He was a nodding acquaintance of most of the bikers and rednecks in the bar, but this guy was the new gunslinger in town. Everyone watched with rapt anticipation, especially a pair of biker mommas in dirty T-shirts sitting at a corner booth. There’d be no taking sides. Nobody cared one way or the other who went to the E.R., just as long as somebody did.
Shelby said, “Tell me, Big Kahuna, how do your friends over there feel about it?” Shelby pointed to a group of neutral pool shooters who were watching and waiting.
The bearded biker turned his face toward the pool table and said, “Everybody here feels just like …”
He didn’t get it out. The ox rose up with Abel’s full bottle of Carta Blanca and smashed it across the eyes of the bearded biker. Shards of glass and beer pelted the pool players. The bearded biker grabbed his face and toppled back in one piece, crashing down like a boulder.
“You’re mine,” Shelby said calmly.
He kicked the bearded biker three, four, five times in the upper body. Abel heard ribs break with the second kick. The next one was in the kidney and the bearded biker screamed in agony, jerking his hands away from his bloody face, trying to protect his body. The next kick only made him whimper.
Then the bartender said to Shelby, “That’s enough, dude. You learned him about life ’n times. That’s enough.”
“You kin pay the bill, Flaco,” Shelby said, stopping the attack. “I need what I got fer some brews. I’m all overheated.”
When Shelby and Abel were walking out of the bar, they heard the bartender say to the supine biker, “You want me to call nine-one-one or can you get your own self to the hospital, dude?”
After they were outside, Abel said, “Le’s go, ’mano! Le’s get away!”
“Go on home, man,” the ox said to him. “Take my pickup. I gotta git cranked.”
“Get sleep tonight,” Abel said. “We got bees-ness in T.J.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about me,” Shelby said, turning to go back inside.
“Buey!” Abel cried. “Joo crazy? Don’ go back een there!”
“Why not?” Shelby said. “Did you see them Harley honeys back in the corner? Them two with dirty hooters from hangin on the backs a bikers? They’re gonna be all wet from seein that blood on the floor. I bet they both gimme a blow-job before the night’s over. That is, if I kin score some cringe fer them.”
When Shelby swaggered back into the bar, the bloody bearded biker was in a fetal position, and a customer was phoning for paramedics.
The ox showed the bartender his gap-tooth grin and said, “I fergot to ask. Do you validate parking?”
CHAPTER 19
After he made a U-turn in front of the main gate, Fin watched in the rearview mirror as she sprinted across the street in her little red-leather pumps. Of course he revved the Vette, figuring that a kid like Bobbie would appreciate a muscle car. He leaned across to open the door, but she swung it open and lowered herself into the seat in a move as smooth as ice cream. Her cheeks were showing color from the offshore breeze.
“Cool ride, sir!” she said, with a smile that broke his heart.
What happened to it? His youth? What the hell happened? “It’s a mean machine, all right,” Fin said. “Whadda you drive?”
“I got a little Hyundai,” she said. “Gets me around, is all.”
“Wanna go down to that Irish pub in Coronado?” he asked. “Whatever it’s called?”
She shook her head and her blond bob swung saucily, revealing flat tiny ears pierced with gold studs. “Too many sailors,” she said. “I know a nice neighborhood restaurant up near Hillcrest. It’s not a saloon though, if a saloon’s what you wanted.”
That surprised him. He thought she’d want to go to the nearest bar, humor the old geezer, and get the hell back to the barracks or wherever she lived.
“I got it up to here with saloons,” he said. “Let’s go uptown.”
She directed him to a restaurant at Fifth and Hawthorne, where downtown bleeds northward into an older residential neighborhood, then farther uptown into the artsy and gay district of Hillcrest. It was too early for the dinner crowd, so Fin was able to park at the curb next to the canopy awning. Other than two couples drinking at a little entry bar, Fin and Bobbie were the only customers.
She’d surprised him by choosing an up-market, cozy restaurant, and she surprised him again when after they were seated in the dining room, she said to the waiter, “Bombay on the rocks with a twist.”
“The same,” Fin said. Then to Bobbie, “Detective Doggett, you do astonish me. I thought a sailor’s cocktail’d be a bottle of Mexican beer with a lime sticking outta the neck.”
“I drink my share a beer,” she said. “But I had this boyfriend recently, he lived pretty good and taught me a lot about drinks and good restaurants. It’s kinda neat to order a cocktail where there’s a tablecloth and a flower and a candle on the table, right?”
“What happened to him?”
“Went back to his wife.”
“I’m not married,” Fin said, but Bobbie didn’t respond.
“Whadda you do for fun?” he asked. “When you’re on liberty?”
“I like water sports,” she said. “Surfing, scuba, jet-ski, any kinda water sports.”
“I haven’t surfed lately,” Fin said, failing to say that the last time he’d surfed, you could still get your windows washed at a gas station.
“How come?”
He loved that. How come? It never occurred to her that at his age the icy ocean could even shrivel earlobes. “I got tired of it. And I hated the surfers at Windansea.”
“I just surf in Coronado,” she said.
“Yeah, well, in Coronado it’s civilized. Up there in La Jolla you get a different breed of surf rat. Besides, I saw a great white shark out there and it really changed my mind about the sport.”
“Wow! A great white?”
“I like animals and all, but I can’t make a case for sharks. Only good thing about them is they draw no distinction between a harbor seal, an old truck tire, or a Windansea surf rat.”
“I saw a few blue sharks,” Bobbie said, “but never big daddy. You sure it was a great white?”
“It was big and aggressive and had two rows of big scary teeth,” Fin said. “It was either a great white shark or Arnold Schwarzenegger.’’
Bobbie showed him a high-wattage smile he rarely saw on people his own age, and Fin felt a little shiver in his tummy.
“How long you been a police officer, sir?”
“Twenty-odd years,” he said. “And I mean odd.”
“You don’t look that old,” she said. And he could see she meant it!
“Can we get on a first-name basis? My name’s Fin.”
“Bobbie,” she said. “Bobbie Ann. Sometimes they call me Bad Dog.”
“I get it. Your initials. Bad.”
“And Doggett. Bad Dog.”
“I like it,” he said. “On a young girl like you it’s great. Bad Dog.”
“I’m not that young,” she said. “I’m almost twenty-eight.”
Not that young. God! He was suddenly aware of his herringbone sport coat. Why didn’t he wear his blue blazer? And his tie, a rep tie. Jesus, only guys older than gunpowder wore rep ties these days, and his was narrow. He was aware of his feet. He looked down in horror at… wingtips!