Sudden Prey

room empty?”
    “Well . . .”
     
     
     
    WHEN SHE OPENED her eyes, she found herself looking into the face of a cowboy-looking guy sitting with three friends in a booth across the room. He was about her age; she glanced away, but a moment later, looked back. They made eye contact a couple of times, and she saw him say something to one of his friends, who glanced at Sandy and then said something back, and they both laughed. Nice laughs, more or less; nothing too dirty. Sandy looked away, and thought about Elmore. Dead somewhere: she should be making funeral arrangements.
    Sandy didn’t cry, as a matter of principle. Now a tear trickled down her cheek, and she turned away from the men to wipe it away.
    “If I absolutely had to do one of those guys, I might think about getting a piece of steel cable, like a piece of that cable off the come-alongs in the welding shop . . .”
    She made eye contact with the cowboy-looking guy again, and he winked, and she blushed and turned back to Martin, who was saying, “. . . two-hundred-grain Federal soft-points. Busted right through its shoulder and took out a piece of the lung . . .”
    Talking about hunting, now.
    More beer came, and LaChaise was getting louder as Martin slipped into a permanent, silent grin.
    “Let’s dance,” LaChaise said suddenly, pushing at her with an elbow. She’d had three beers, the two men maybe six each.
    She flinched away. “Dick, I don’t think . . .”
    LaChaise turned back to Martin and said, “You know, goddamnit, this is what I missed, sitting around in that fuckin’ place. I miss going out to the cowboy joints.”
    LaChaise trailed off and looked up. The cowboy-looking guy, a Pabst in his hand, was leaning against the back of Martin’s seat, looking at LaChaise. “Mind if I take the lady out for a dance?”
    LaChaise looked at him for a minute, then at the beer bottle in front of him.
    “Better not,” he said.
    Sandy smiled at the cowboy and said, “We’re sort of having a talk here . . .”
    “Ain’t that, I just don’t want him dancing with you,” LaChaise said.
    “Hey, no problem,” the cowboy said, straightening up. Sandy realized he was as drunk as LaChaise, his long straw-colored hair falling over his forehead, his eyes vague and blue. “Wasn’t looking for trouble, just looking for a dance.”
    “Look someplace else,” LaChaise grunted.
    “Well, I will,” the cowboy said. “But it’d be a goddamn pleasanter thing if you were one fuckin’ inch polite about it.”
    LaChaise looked up now, and smiled. “I don’t feel like I gotta be polite with trash.”
    Talk in the bar suddenly turned off. Martin moved, just an inch or two, and Sandy froze, realizing that he was clearing his gun hand. The cowboy stepped back, to give LaChaise room to get out of the booth. “Come out here and say that, you ugly old dipshit,” the cowboy said.
    The bartender yelled, “Hey, none of that. None of that in here.”
    LaChaise spoke quietly to Martin, barely turning his head: “Barkeep.”
    “Yeah.”
    Then LaChaise slipped out of the booth, uncoiling, keeping his distance from the cowboy. Sandy said, “Dick, goddamnit . . .” and LaChaise turned and pointed a finger at her and she shut up.
    The cowboy said, “Here you are, old man, what’ve you got?”
    The bartender yelled, “Not in here, goddamnit, I’ll have the cops on you.”
    LaChaise said to the cowboy, “Fuck you, faggot motherfucker, your faggot cowboy boots . . .”
    The cowboy took a poke at him. He coiled his arm, pulled his shoulder back, uncoiled his arm: to LaChaise, the punch seemed to take a hundred years to get going. LaChaise brushed it with the back of his left hand, stepped inside, and with the heel of his right palm, smashed the cowboy under his nose. The cowboy went down and rolled, struggled to his hands and knees.
    Sandy called, “Dick, stop now.”
    The bartender yelled, “That’s all; I’m callin’ the cops . . .”
    Martin was out of the booth and he stepped toward the bartender as LaChaise circled to the right and kicked the cowboy in the ribs, nearly lifting him from the floor. The cowboy collapsed, groaning, and blood poured from his face. The other patrons were on their feet, and an older man yelled, “Hey, that’s enough.”
    Sandy was out of the booth. “Dick . . .” she wailed.
    LaChaise looked at the old man and said, “Fuck you.” The cowboy was crawling on his stomach, a kind of military low-crawl, leaving a