There were only two people in the place, both of them men. One, a middle-aged guy wearing a plaid shirt and a tight-fitting woolen hunter’s hat, was passed out at one of the tables, his head cradled in both arms. The other man was upright and conscious, standing at the near end of the bar, on the customer side of it. He was a few years older than the drunk, short and wiry and pasty-faced; dressed in shirt and chinos and a loose-fitting barman’s apron. He came forward a few paces, hands on his hips, as Kerry and I entered and I shut the door against the force of the storm.
“Something I can do for you folks?”
“Lord, yes,” Kerry said. “We need a drink. Another few minutes and we’d have drowned out there.”
“You visitors in these parts?”
“Yes. We’re staying in Paradise.”
“Bad night to be out driving,” the barman said. “Fact is, I was just about to close up and head home. Not many customers on a night like this.”
“Close up? You’re not going to send us back out in that?”
“Well...”
“We won’t stay long,” I said. “Just until the rain lets up enough so I can see where I’m driving.”
“We could wait in the car,” Kerry said, “but the heater’s not working.” Which was the kind of sneaky lie they teach you in the advertising business; the heater was working fine. “It’s nice and warm in here.”
The barman shrugged and said without much enthusiasm, “Guess it’ll be all right. Supper’ll wait a few more minutes.”
Kerry smiled at him and went over to the fire. He moved to the door and locked it, just in case some other damn fools showed up out of the storm. And I unbuttoned my coat, opened it up like a flasher to the room’s warmth.
At the fire Kerry took off the wet paisley scarf she was wearing and fluffed out her thick auburn hair. The firelight made it shine like burnished copper. “I’ll have a toddy,” she said to the barman.
“Lady?”
“A hot toddy. A strong one.”
“Oh. Sure.”
I said, “Just a beer for me. Miller Lite.”
The wiry guy moved around behind the plank. Outside, the rain was still hammering down with a vengeance; it sounded like a load of pebbles being dumped relentlessly on the tavern’s roof. You could hear the wind skirling around in the eaves and rattling the windows, as if it, too, were seeking sanctuary from the storm.
“What was he celebrating?” Kerry asked the barman.
“What’s that, lady?”
“Your other customer.” She nodded at the drunk sprawled over the table.
“Oh, that’s Clint Jackson. Good customer. He... well, he takes a little too much now and then. Got a drinking problem.”
“I’ll say he does. What are you going to do with him?”
“Do with him?”
“You’re not going to let him sleep there all night, are you?”
“No, no. I’ll get him sobered up. Wouldn’t let him drive home in the shape he’s in now.”
“I should hope not.”
“He can be a little mean when he’s been drinking heavy,” the barman said. That was directed at me because I had wandered over toward the drunk’s table. The rasp of the man’s breathing was audible from nearby, even with the pound of the rain. “Better just let him be.”
“I won’t disturb him, don’t worry.”
I turned over to the bar and sat on one of the green-leatherette stools and watched the barman set up Kerry’s hot toddy and my beer. He asked me as he worked, “Where you folks from?”
“San Francisco.”
“Long time since I been there. Fifteen years.”
“It’s changed. You wouldn’t recognize parts of it.”
“I guess not.”
“You own this tavern, Mr.—?”
“Kern’s my name, Sam Kern. Sure, I own it.”
“Nice place. Had it long?”
“Twenty years.”
“You live nearby, do you?”
“Not far. House back in the woods a ways.”
“Must be peaceful, out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Sure,” he said. “The wife and I like it fine. Plenty of business in the summer, plenty of time to loaf in the winter.”
“You don’t stay open during the winter?”
“Nope. Close down the end of this month.”
Kerry came over from the fireplace, sat down next to me, and took a sip of her hot toddy. And made a face and said, “Ugh. Rum.”
“Something wrong, lady?”
“You made it with rum instead of bourbon. I hate rum.”
“I did? Must’ve picked up the wrong bottle. Sorry, I’ll mix you up another one.”
He did that. When he brought the drink I laid a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He looked at it and shook his head. “Afraid I can’t change that, mister,” he said. “Already closed up my register and put every dime in the safe. You wouldn’t have anything smaller, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“I’ve got some singles,” Kerry said. “How much is it?”
“Three dollars.”
She paid him out of her purse. He rang up the sale and put the singles in the empty cash drawer and shut it again. Pretty soon he moved down to the other end of the bar and began using a bar towel on some glasses.
A couple of minutes passed in silence, except for the noise of the rain on the roof. I glanced over at the drunk. He still had his head buried in his arms; he hadn’t moved since we’d come in.
The steady drum of the rain began to diminish finally, and the wind quit howling and rattling the window panes. The wiry guy looked over at the front window, at the wet night beyond. “Letting up,” he said. “You folks should be all right on the road now.”
I finished the beer in my glass. “Drink up,” I said to Kerry. “We’d better get moving.”
“What if it’s just a momentary lull?”
“I don’t think it is. Come on, Mr. Kern wants to close up and go have his supper.”
“All right.”
She drank the last of her toddy, and when she was on her feet I took her arm and steered her to the door. The wiry guy came out from behind the plank and followed us, so he could lock the door again after we were gone. I let Kerry flip the lock over; as she did I half-turned back toward him.
He said, “Good night, folks, stop in again—” and that was when I hit him.
It was a sucker punch and he was wide open to it; the blow caught him just under the left eye, spun him and knocked him off his feet, and sent him skidding on his backside toward the bar. Kerry let out a startled yell that got lost in the clatter of the guy hitting the bar stools; one of them fell over on top of him. He lay crumpled and unmoving against the brass rail, with the stool’s cushion hiding part of his face.
Kerry said, “For God’s sake, what did you do that for?” in horrified tones. “Have you lost your mind?”
I didn’t answer her. Instead I went to where the guy lay and knelt down and got the gun out from where it was tucked inside his pants, under the apron. It was a .357 Magnum — a hell of a piece of artillery. Behind me, Kerry gasped when she saw it. I put it into the pocket of my coat without looking at her and felt the artery in the guy’s neck to make sure he was still alive: I’d hit him pretty hard, hard enough to numb the first three fingers on my right hand. But he was all right, if you didn’t count the blood leaking out of his nose, the bruise that was already forming on his cheek, and the fact that he was out cold.
Straightening again, flexing my sore hand, I crossed to where the drunk was draped over the table. Only he wasn’t a drunk; when I took the hunter’s hat off I could see the lump on the back of his head, the coagulating blood that matted his hair. I felt his neck the way I had the other guy’s: his pulse was shallow but regular. But he was in worse shape than the wiry guy — the way that head wound looked, he had at least a concussion. He needed a doctor’s attention, and soon.