Yesterday's News

they’re kind of boutique operations so far.”
    “Back in the service, I got a taste for the stronger beers. German, mostly.”
    “That where you were stationed?”
    “Right. Air Defense Artillery. Near transferred to Field Artillery once I found out not many of us were going to Nam .”
    “You didn’t miss much.”
    Jones said, “Figured you were there.”
    “That why you stood up against Schonstein and Cronan?”
    “Nah. Them two shits, the one’s a jerk and the other a bully boy. I just liked the way you didn’t let them push you. You don’t stand against them every time, there’s ten more like them next week, like they multiplied or something.”
    “Still, you piss them off, they could let you down when you need them.”
    “Not really, least not in this business. It’s not the detectives ever do you any good. The uniforms, they’re the ones you gotta keep happy, ‘cause they’re the ones put it on the line if twelve bikers all of a sudden decide to homestead in one of your units.”
    I picked up a wing. “You know Schonsy? The father, I mean.”
    “Yeah. He was a uniform, and a good cop. Tried not to crack any heads less he had to, but the best I ever seen once he got started. More chicken?”
    “Please.”
    Jones carved the second leg off and said, “White meat or dark?”
    “Whichever you like less.”
    “Married?”
    “Me?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Not for a while,” I said. “Why?”
    “You seem to have awful good manners for a husband. Usually the wife wears it out of you.”
    “You ever married, Emil?”
    “Once. Bad idea.” He set the platter back on the table. “Didn’t really want a wife. Really wanted somebody just to be thinking about me when I wasn’t around. No kinda reason for getting hitched.”
    “I’ve heard worse.”
    “Maybe. But my case, it soured me. You know, you give a hundred orders a day to troopers denser than the ammo they’re loading, it’s kind of hard to break that when you go home to the missus. She wants to get her two words in, and they ain’t always ‘Yes, dear.’ ”
    “Kids?”
    “Nah. Just as well. Had a puppy once when I was little, really got a kick out of watching him grow up. Then once he hit a year or so, I kind of lost interest. Always figured the same would happen with a kid. Plus, the Big Green Machine ain’t no place to raise kids right, even if you love the hell out of them.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well...” Jones put his fork down and took a swig of ale. “The military’s a good life for somebody like me. No skills, no college or nothing, enlisted right out of high school. You grow up beginning at age eighteen, but you already had another life. Things get tough, you can look back on it. Kind of, I don’t know, draw strength from it or something. You get raised on an army base, though, you lose that.... I don’t know what you’d call it.”
    “Perspective?”
    “Yeah. Perspective’s a good word for it. You lose that, or I guess you don’t have it to start with, your whole world’s been the army, you don’t ever appreciate there’s another one out there, maybe’s got some good ideas going for it you oughta know about.”
    “How’d you end up here?”
    “Wife’s family was from Nasharbor, and we spent some holidays here. They’re mostly dead now, but I kind of liked this part of the country. They aren’t quite as crazy around here as other places I’ve been.”
    “Why the motel business?”
    “Saw the Crestview was for sale the last time I was back here burying one of the wife’s relatives. She’d bugged out on me by then, but the funeral was a good excuse for an emergency leave. Day before I had to head back, I come out and talked to the owner. He’d been navy, and he was dying, fixing to go into a VA hospital his last couple of months. He gave me the feeling this sort of job would be interesting.”
    “Was he right, Emil?”
    “Depends on whether you find bankruptcy interesting.”
    “That bad?”
    “No, but it depends. Everybody thinks these little places are gold mines, you know? They count the units, let’s say it’s twenty like I got here, and they do the figures in their heads and come out to twenty rooms times twenty or so bucks which is four hundred a day times seven days is near three thousand a week. That’s a hundred fifty thousand a year, and they figure to pay the place off in two, maybe three years, then roll in the gravy.”
    “But what’s your occupancy