The girl hesitantly reached across the table and turned the map, an action that created a new swell of guffaws from Hagen’s corner of the room, and now the Dark Man’s eyes moved over it, reading it, gradually losing the light of exasperation but none of the intensity in his face.
Suddenly, the Dark Man looked up—a swift, feral pounce of the eyes—and Fat Joey swung to see what he was seeing, his hand flying to the butt of his gun. It was just Charlie, who had moved to fetch out more beer and bourbon for the low dogs, and the old biker stared right back at the Dark Man without flinching as he put the bottles down. The Dark Man watched without blinking as the low dogs set to drinking, and then turned a little to examine to the bottles his girl had brought.
“Get my pack,” he said, and the girl got up at once and went swiftly from the bar, out to the car still parked smack in the middle of the lot. The Dark Man picked up one of the beers while he waited, turning it in one hand (gleam of something at the fingertips; what’s the matter with his fucking hands?) and looking over the label without seeming to read it. He reached up, tugged at the cap, then twisted it, and finally opened it. He leaned in, as if sniffing at the contents, oblivious to the catcalls and helpful advice from the low dogs.
The girl came back to the bar and threaded her way through the tables with a small, black case in her hands, its thick strap dangling over one arm. The Dark Man took it, slid one thick thumb across it, and the top lifted up and moved back, as slick a trick as you see in the Bond movies. He had some kind of laptop computer set up in there, smaller and sleeker than anything Joey had ever seen anywhere. The Dark Man pushed a few buttons to make the screen light up in columns before pulling out a black gadget that looked a little like a very thick ballpoint pen. It uncapped like one, too, but instead of a pen, it had something like a scalpel at the tip, long and jagged and razor-sharp. The Dark Man stuck this end into the neck of the beer bottle and Joey took another long look at Ratchet and the Cow-Boy.
Ratchet caught his eyes and shook his head slightly, turning so he could mutter at Joey, his lips scarcely moving. “Fucker’s bad news, man. We need not to be here.”
“Think he’s crazy?” Joey muttered back, uneasily voicing his own fear.
Ratchet shook his head, just a little, staring darkly at the wall. “I think he’s the Devil. We got to go, Joe.”
“No one’s going anywhere,” Top Dawg said flatly, not bothering to lower his voice, and that pretty much settled that.
Fat Joey turned back to watch the Dark Man, and had a hell of an unpleasant start when he saw the Dark Man staring right back at him. He had plugged that pen-like gadget into the side of the laptop where it stuck straight up like a feather, and he didn’t look away from Dawg’s table until it beeped at him. Then he smiled, just a little and just with one side of his mouth, and turned his gaze on the monitor.
The Dark Man read what was there, grunted, and then folded the whole thing up again. He put the pack to one side, took both beers and put them at the far end of the table, untouched. “It’s too fucking hot,” he remarked, returning his attention to the map. “Get under the table.”
The girl’s shoulders stiffened slightly and she looked at the Pack brothers with a thin, hollow-eyed shame, but she slid out and onto her knees and crawled under the table without argument.
The low dogs went nuts, roaring with laughter and hooting. Juicer hollered for Rosie Harper to get under his table and the bar whore slapped her hand into her elbow and flipped the bird at him. “Jesus Christ, honey,” one of the other whores called. “Take him to the can at least. A girl’s gotta have pride!”
The girl’s eyes were shut tight as she went between the Dark Man’s thighs. She opened up the man’s leather pants and wrapped her hands around the massive club of the man’s dick and put it in her open mouth.
The low dogs fell silent—no man was about to comment on another man’s dick unless it was a small one—but now the bar whores raised the roof. Even Sue-Eye and Cammy were cheering and smacking their lips.
The Dark Man ignored them. He read his map.
The girl couldn’t ignore them, but she tried, squeezing her eyes shut and sucking away as best she could without whacking her head on the bottom of the table. And she ate him like a champ, both hands and her mouth pumping away, slug-trails of slick drool shiny in the dim light. If the bitches would shut up, there’d be sex sounds, wet and rhythmic. It was porn star stuff, happening right here in Charlie’s, and Joey had never felt less like fucking in his life. He watched the girl’s head bobbing up and down on the Dark Man’s cock and felt his own trying to crawl up into his body.
Fat Joey decided to leave. Fuck this, he was gone. He got up and made it two steps before Top Dawg said, “Sit down, Joey.”
“Man, I gotta go.”
Dawg swung on him fast, eyes blazing. “I said, sit down, you fat fucking tub of guts,” he snarled. “Drink a fucking beer!”
Joey hesitated. The sound of Dawg’s voice had silenced the bitches and now he could hear the girl mouth-fucking the man, and could feel an itching place between his shoulder blades. He was convinced if he turned around, he’d see the Dark Man watching him, making sure he didn’t leave. And Top Dawg was here, pissed off and ready to skin, blackly furious at the intruder in their midst, this stranger who sat in his bar and fucked his bitch out in the open and wouldn’t cross his eyes for the Dawg.
Top Dawg’s eyes narrowed as the hesitation dragged on. “Sit down or I shoot you, shitsack,” he said flatly.
And that was it. Dawg never said it unless he meant it.
Fat Joey eased himself down into a chair at the Dawg’s table and the Dawg sat down beside him and turned his hate-filled glare on the Dark Man.
The man read his map and got his knob polished and ignored them.
Ratchet and the Cow-Boy made a little more room at the table, moving their chairs out a little so that no one had even part of their back turned to the Dark Man’s booth. The four of them together probably looked like judges in the Olympic Mouth-Fucking Games.
After a while, Cammy came over and put her hand on Dawg’s crotch and he spun like a top and socked her in the eye. Cammy jumped up screaming and cursing and Dawg gave her one to the guts to shut her up. Cammy went back to her chair, tight-lipped and fuming, and Dawg went back to trying to stare down the Dark Man.
The stranger lifted his head slightly, showed the tips of his teeth, and made a low, snarling sound, like nothing a human could make. Like something you hear in the fucking zoo.
The girl on his dick gave a sputtering sound, choking on about a gallon of ropy cum, and then backed out from beneath the table as the Dark Man idly hitched at himself. She was swiping at her face with her arms, bathed in enough cum to have gone all night with a whole crew. Fat Joey felt his balls crawling again.
“Hey!”
Joey started and stared around at Dawg, who was glaring at the Dark Man with open challenge. “Don’t, man!”
“Shut up. Hey! How ‘bout spreading that tasty snatch out?”
The Dark Man’s head snapped around and about a dozen road brothers shoved their chairs back hard enough to raise a short, high chorus of squeaking wood in harmony. He ignored them, looking only at the Dawg, intent and incredulous. “What?!”