Nobody's Fool

task. “You aren’t in a very good mood, Wirf. I can tell.”
    Birdie came over, gave Sully the beer she knew he’d order. “He wouldn’t even bet on
The People’s Court,
” she said sadly.
    â€œI think I’ll have one more, Birdie,” Wirf said, “now that the subject of all my contemplation has arrived.”
    When Birdie bent over to fish a bottle of beer from the cooler, Sully made a theatrical point of standing up on the rungs of his bar stool and craning forward to look down her shirt. “What kind of bra is that?”
    â€œA two-seater,” she informed him. Then she set the beer in front of Wirf and made a face at the lawyer. “On the subject of stupidity.”
    â€œI’m not stupid,” Wirf said. “Merely self-destructive.”
    â€œWhere’s Jeff?” Sully wondered out loud, noticing it was well past Birdie’s usual time to go home.
    â€œTiny let him go,” she said.
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œYou shouldn’t steal when business is slow,” Birdie said significantly before heading back down the bar to take care of Jocko, who had just come in, leaving Sully and Wirf alone in their corner.
    â€œThat was one of the original Ten Commandments, you’ll recall,” Wirf said. “Thou Shalt Not Steal When Business Is Slow. It came right after Thou Shalt Stay in School. Which was preceded by Thou Shalt Not Get Caught Working When Thou Art Collecting Disability from the State.”
    â€œLook,” Sully said. “I have no idea what bug crawled up your ass tonight, but I happen to be in a good mood for once. I don’t know how long it’ll be before the next one rolls around, so I’m not going to let you ruin this one, if that’s all right with you.”
    Wirf suddenly looked sober and determined. “I bet I can ruin it for you.”
    â€œI bet you can’t,” Sully said, sliding off his stool and taking his beer with him. Since he arrived at the other end of the bar at the same moment as Jocko’s drink, and since Jocko’s last vial of mystery pills had been a great improvement over the ones that had put him to sleep and given Carl Roebuck’s Doberman a stroke, Sully paid for it.
    â€œDon’t tell me one-two-three ran today,” Jocko said, peering over the tops of his thick glasses, “because I know it didn’t.”
    â€œI just wanted to say thanks,” Sully said, his voice low. “Those little blue jobs are the best yet.”
    Jocko nodded. “I thought you might like them. They’re new. I wouldn’t necessarily mix them with alcohol.”
    â€œI wouldn’t either,” Sully agreed, taking a swig of beer. “I take mine in the morning with my prune juice.”
    â€œI’ve got something for that, too,” Jocko said.
    Birdie was there again, this time with a note for Sully, written in Wirf’s hand on a bar napkin. It said: “And then there’s: Thou Shalt Not Be Videotaped Loading Concrete Blocks Onto a Truck When Thou Art Suing for Total Disability.” Wirf was grinning at him. Sully could see that much all the way from the opposite end of the bar.
    â€œI doubt it’s the pills, actually,” Jocko explained. “They say arthritisis better when you exercise. Which is not to say I recommend your working on that knee.”
    â€œI’m not hurting quite as much, for some reason,” Sully said, wadding up Wirf’s note into a ball and tossing it. The guy in the dark sedan, no doubt, Sully thought. The one he’d thought might be an investigator hired to document Carl Roebuck’s myriad infidelities.
    Wirf was scribbling on another napkin.
    â€œIs our legal friend composing briefs?” Jocko wondered.
    â€œI’d be surprised if he was even wearing briefs,” Sully said.
    Birdie brought the new note. “For Verily I Say unto Thee. If Thou Art Caught Working Whilst on Disability, Thou Art Truly and Forever Fucked in the Eyes of the State.”
    Sully wadded this one up too and strolled back down the bar. “Videotaped?”
    â€œVerily.”
    â€œHmmm,” Sully said, running his fingers through his hair. “So that’s who that guy was. I figured he was somebody’s husband planning to assassinate Carl Roebuck. I thought he had binoculars.”
    â€œA video camera.”
    â€œNo shit.”
    â€œVerily.”
    â€œSo what can they