The Risk Pool

hadn’t so much as glanced in our direction since I’d joined Drew and Marion.
    “Don’t you want to know what I do?” Drew said finally.
    “Sure,” I said.
    He drained his beer, watching me all the while, traces of a smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. Marion looked from Drew to me, then back again, probably wondering how she’d managed to disappear so completely when she’d been in the center of things a few seconds earlier.
    “No you don’t,” Drew Littler said. “You don’t need to ask me what I’m looking for because you don’t plan to put in no good word anyhow. Hell, you’d warn ’em about me.”
    “I think I’m gonna go find the little girl’s room,” Marion said.
    “You do that,” Drew Littler said, without bothering to look at her.
    I pushed my chair out of the way so Marion could slide out of the booth. Then Drew and I both watched her angle through the crowded bar, a few of the men turning to watch her with mild interest and losing most of it when they saw her wide hips straining against the fabric of her jeans.
    “She’s a whore,” Drew said matter-of-factly when the door to the rest room swung shut behind her.
    I didn’t say anything. He was right. Unkind, but right. Marion was a whore. Right too that I wouldn’t be recommending him for any jobs. And he was right about why I hadn’t asked him what he was looking for.
    “We need us another beer,” he said, suddenly friendly again.
    “Listen,” I said. “I gotta go.”
    “One more,” he said, putting a big hand on my shoulder in case I was of a mind to stand up. “Be right back.”
    My father came over when he was at the bar. “How you doing?” he wanted to know.
    “Fine,” I said.
    “Glad to hear it,” he said, returning to the table in time to see his new opponent drop the eight ball.
    Drew Littler set a fresh beer down next to the one that was still three-quarters full. Marion had drained her Seven and Seven, but he’d just bought beers for the two of us. “You know who stole that two hundred from my old lady?”
    “Who?” I said.
    “Me,” he replied. “Who’d you think?”
    I took a swig of beer. “At least you’re honest.”
    He nodded. “At least I’m honest. Your old man thinks I’m no good.”
    There was little point in denying that, so I didn’t. “Don’t let it worry you,” I said. “He was telling me earlier that he was no good himself.”
    He studied me for a minute, as if considering all of the ramifications of this intelligence. But when he finally spoke, I couldn’t be sure he’d even heard. “The only person in the whole world who thinks I’m good for something is my mother. Maybe this’ll teach her.”
    I said I didn’t think so.
    “Me either,” he said. “Women are dumb. Speaking of which.”
    “Hi.” Marion slid back into the booth. “You two decide not to argue?”
    “We sure did,” I told her.
    “Good,” she said, then to me, “You’re a bad boy. I watched the whole end of that game and nobody threw their stick.”
    “Cue,” I said.
    “You know what I hear?” Drew Littler said to Marion, who had noticed our fresh beers and her own empty Seven and Seven. “Old Nedley here’s been slipping it to my little sister.”
    Again, nobody said anything for a second.
    “Well, that does it,” Marion said, sliding back out of the booth again. “Here I thought I was going to have a fun night off for once.” When neither Drew nor I offered an explanation for why her modest expectation hadn’t materialized, she said, “I just don’t see why people have to act so mean.” And then she headed for the door, hips and breasts all astir.
    “Hey,” Drew Littler said, suddenly confidential now that we were alone. “Remember how we’d go up there on the Harley and sit outside the gate?”
    “And you said it would all be yours one day.”
    “I never figured on him dying like that,” he said. “What a hell of a night that was. You remember that night?”
    I said I did.
    “I never knew for sure until then,” he said. “When your own father dies, you know … in here.” He thumped his massive chest. “That’s how I knew for sure.”
    “You went out there today,” I said, remembering the strangesound of Tria’s voice on the phone when she said they had a “situation.”
    “What a night,” he nodded. “What a goddamn night. More than anybody knew.”
    I couldn’t tell, either from looking at him or listening to the sound of his voice,