Nobody's Fool

Jocko’s pill to kick in and considering a second pill just to make sure (one strategy) and a shot of Jack Daniel’s to jump start the first pill (another strategy) and relying on faith (a third) that he had positioned himself correctly at the end of the bar to encounter a distraction or two. The sight of his ex-wife gone over the edge, her heartfelt expression of contempt for himself, seeing her packed into an ambulance and taken to the hospital to be sedated, had penetrated Sully’s durable, time-tested defenses, and the blood that was now pounding in his knee hammered so incessantly that the pain was threatening to reach some new crescendo of rhythmic musical agony, the whole orchestra strumming and thrumming and blowing and whacking away at their instruments, awaitingonly the crash of cymbals that would, Sully felt sure, allow him to pass out. He could feel the son of a bitch of a cymbal player getting to his feet in the back row, cymbal in each hand, grinning, ready to unload. It was his father, naturally, that one-note musician, percussive and vengeful, who had a cymbal in each hand and was grinning at him, get ready you bastard, ’cause here it comes. Big Jim raised them high above his head for maximum torque. You call this music? That’s what Sully would like to ask him. “Do I call
what
music?” Wirf said, sliding onto the bar stool next to him.
    â€œI wasn’t talking to you,” Sully told him.
    Wirf studied him a moment. “You look like you’re about to cash in.”
    â€œI just took a pill,” Sully told him. “As soon as it kicks in, I’ll be fine.”
    Wirf slid off his stool. “I gotta pee. Order me a club soda with a squeeze of lime,” he said.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œAnd when it arrives, pay for it.” “Okay.”
    â€œAnd an egg. I haven’t eaten today. I see the loyal opposition’s here,” Wirf observed, indicating the large table in the corner, a party of eight that included Satch Henry and Ollie Quinn.
    Sully had barely noticed.
    â€œI haven’t been invited to join them,” Sully said.
    â€œMe, either,” Wirf conceded. “I bet they’re afraid we’d snub them.”
    Sully nodded. “One of us might.”
    â€œLook who else is back,” Wirf said, indicating Jeff, who was tending bar again.
    Sully nodded. “He’s already bought my first beer.”
    â€œI’ll hurry back,” Wirf said.
    On the way to the men’s room Wirf passed Carl Roebuck, who was on the way in. On Carl’s arm was a young woman who looked to be in her late twenties. Beautywise, she wasn’t in Toby Roebuck’s league, but she wasn’t Texas league either. She wore her hair long, and when Carl Roebuck offered to hang her coat on the rack near the door with the others, she said no, she was cold. Something about the way she hugged the coat to her chest suggested to Sully that she might have nothing on underneath. Or maybe it was just that she was with Carl Roebuck.
    â€œHere’s somebody you’ll want to steer clear of,” Carl told her when they joined Sully at the end of the bar. “Didi, meet Sully. Sully, the lovely Deirdre.”
    The girl looked Sully over with what seemed to him genuine interest. “I’ve heard all about you,” she said, which seemed to surprise Carl Roebuck until he thought about it. “Oh, right,” he said.
    Jocko’s pill was kicking in, Sully concluded. The conversation seemed just beyond his grasp.
    Still examining Sully, the girl nuzzled into Carl’s shoulder, whispering something sweet into his ear.
    â€œRight by where we came in,” Carl directed her.
    â€œCome with?”
    Carl snorted and returned her nuzzling. He was drunk, Sully realized. “You want me to come with you to the girl’s room?”
    â€œWomen’s room, you pig,” she said without a trace of seriousness. “You might enjoy yourself.”
    â€œI need to talk to this man,” Carl told her. “He’s my confessor.”
    â€œOkay,” she said, little-girl voice, then to Sully, “He’s got a lot to
confess.
”
    They watched her head in the direction of the rest rooms. When she disappeared into the one labeled “Setters,” Carl Roebuck swung on his bar stool to face Sully. “You know that I have some experience in these matters,” he confided, bleary-eyed.
    â€œWhat