Whatever they looked like, they could play. Over the din of the pounding crowd Neal heard music as sharp and clear as the creek that rippled down by his cabin, each note distinct but blended into one stream. And just about as effortless. Neal watched the guitarists’ fingers sliding over the strings, pressing down strong and precise chords, or flying over the frets to pluck individual notes. He watched Blackie’s hands flash patterns with the sticks on the drumheads, her hips bobbing as she stepped on the bass pedal. He watched Cat Lady nestle the… fiddle… into her cheek as if it were a baby, but stroke the strings as fast and hard as if she were trying to start a fire. He watched it all the harder as he felt Peggy watching him and Karen trying not to.
He was doing all right until Steve, the dirty turncoat, stretched out his hand to his wife to fight their way out onto the dance floor.
Which is a lot worse than you leaving me in the back of a bouncing pickup with that calf, Neal thought.
Then he realized he hadn’t really talked with a woman for years, except for Peggy and Shelly Mills, which didn’t count.
“Where are you from?” Karen shouted.
Well, I’ve been living in a Buddhist monastery for the past three years, and on a Yorkshire moor the year before that… “New York,” he shouted back.
“City or state?”
“City!”
So far so good.
“Where are you from?” he asked, realizing that his voice sounded as high and narrow as one of Cat Lady’s strings. She thinks I’m an idiot.
“Here,” she said, “I’m from here.”
“Austin?” Great. Now she knows I’m an idiot.
“I think that’s where we are.”
Duhhh.
“What do you do for a living?”
I was sort of an unlicensed private investigator, a troubleshooter for a secret organization. But right now I think I’m unemployed.
“Nothing much lately. What do you do?”
“I’m a teacher.”
Oh?
That’s when the music stopped, the band took a break, and Peggy and Karen went off to the ladies’ room together, a ritual that is constant throughout the world.
“You’re glued to that chair like you’re paying rent on it,” Steve was saying.
“It’s a nice chair. I like it.”
“You’re scared shitless.”
Steve grinned at him. He almost looked like Joe Graham, who also had a habit of grinning at Neal when he was being nasty.
“Of what?” Neal asked.
Steve roared. Actually sat back in his chair and guffawed. “Of Karen! Nothing to be ashamed of-Karen has scared a lot of good men.”
“Good for Karen.”
“Ask her to dance, moron.”
“I can’t dance,” Neal said.
“War wound?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Nothing to it. You just get up and move,” said Steve.
“That’s what I don’t know how to do.”
“Get up, or move?”
“Both.”
Steve leaned over the table to give Neal one of those soulful cowboy looks. “It’s not like you’re Fred Astaire and she’s Ginger Rogers or anything. You’re not dancing for the artistry of the damn dance. You’re dancing to, you know… move around together. Get close.”
Yeah, right-get close. Getting close isn’t exactly my best thing, Steve. The last woman I got close to did a triple gainer off a big cliff.
Neal worked at finishing his beer. If he could do that fast enough, he’d have an excuse to escape to the bar to buy the next round.
“You ready for another one?” Neal asked as he got up.
“Coward.”
“Well, will you let a coward buy you a drink?”
“I’m not particular. You better hurry, though, I see the women coming back.”
Neal worked his way to the bar, got a pitcher of beer, and bumped right into Cal Strekker.
“Doing a little honky-tonkin’, New York?” Cal sneered.
“Leave your knife at home, Cal?”
“Nope.”
Great. “Where do you have it hidden?” Neal asked. “Up your ass?”
“In my boot.”
“Well, be careful dancing.”
“You want to dance with me, New York? Maybe finish what we started?”
“Gee, I’d love to, Cal, but my beer is getting warm.”
“You’re a chickenshit bastard.”
You’re half right, Cal. Okay, maybe all right.
“Jesus, Cal, I told you I’m busy tonight!” Neal shouted. “I’ll dance with you another time, all right?”
Cal turned a color that would have drawn a charge from a bull as a whole bunch of people turned around and looked. “I’ll be seeing you, New York,” he hissed.
“In your worst dreams, shithead.”
Neal set the pitcher on the table and sat down. Steve, Peggy, and Karen were staring at him.
“Cal Strekker giving you trouble?” Steve asked.
“How much trouble could he give?” Neal answered as he started to fill their empty glasses.
“A lot,” Peggy answered. “He did time in prison for killing a guy in a bar fight in Reno.”
It wasn’t Reno, Neal thought, it was Spokane. But the bottom line is the same.
“Newcomer trash,” Karen said. Then she quickly added, “No offense meant.”
“None taken,” Neal said. “I’m here for the long haul.”
Karen gave him a long look and said, “Then you’d better learn to dance.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of his chair just as the band struck up a snappy little number about eighteen wheels rolling down two-lane blacktops.
Karen held Neal by two outstretched hands and did a little hopping step that he did his best to imitate. He could feel his hands getting sweaty in her amazingly cool, soft palms, and he felt as awkward as he knew he looked. Especially in contrast to the beauteous Karen Hawley, with her long legs and wide mouth and big blue eyes.
“Relax!” she shouted to him. Her smile turned his knees to Jell-O, so it looked like he was more relaxed, anyway. He started to let go a little, actually moved his feet more than two inches at a time, and let her swing his arms around in time with Blackie’s drum strokes. He was doing all right when that treacherous cretin New Red switched to a slow song.
Neal and Karen looked at each other for an awkward moment. Jesus, Neal thought, I’m blushing.
He looked at her, laughed a little bit, shrugged, and held his arms out. Scary, tough Karen Hawley settled into his arms as soft and gentle as a cloud, and much, much warmer. She didn’t bother with any of that hand-held-out-like-a-guitar business, just put both hands on the small of his back, and settled her head into his shoulder. He laid his hands just under her shoulder blades, realized that his hands were quivering, then left them there anyway.
What is it, Neal thought, about the smell of a woman’s hair? How it spins around your brain, then rushes straight to your… no, don’t think about it… and the feel of her breasts just grazing your chest… or her thighs just brushing against yours… don’t think about any of that.
The whole thing was an erotic charge, and then she nestled right up against his erotic charge and tightened her hands on his back and let him see the corner of her mouth curl into a little smile and Neal thought he was going to die on the spot. Or get arrested for indecent exposure once the dance was over and they parted hips, even though he was completely dressed.
He looked over her shoulder and saw Steve and Peggy slow dancing, both of them grinning at him. Karen must have seen them too, because the edge of her lips against his neck widened into a chuckle.
“Peggy’s subtle,” she murmured.
“Like a sledgehammer,” Neal agreed.
“I don’t mind. Do you?”
“Yeah, I’m real pissed off.”
She pressed her hips forward a little. “I don’t think you are,” she said.