101 Mystery Stories

98 The Explosives Expert John Lutz

Billy Edgemore, the afternoon bartender, stood behind the long bar of the Last Stop Lounge and squinted through the dimness at the sunlight beyond the front window. He was a wiry man, taller than he appeared at first, and he looked like he should be a bartender, with his bald head, cheerfully seamed face and his brilliant red vest that was the bartender’s uniform at the Last Stop. Behind him long rows of glistening bottles picked up the light on the mirrored backbar, the glinting clear gins and vodkas, the beautiful amber bourbons and lighter Scotches, the various hues of the assorted wines, brandies and liqueurs. The Last Stop’s bar was well stocked.

Beyond the ferns that blocked the view out (and in) the front window, Billy saw a figure cross the small patch of light and turn to enter the stained-glass front door, the first customer he was to serve that day.

It was Sam Daniels. Sam was an employee of the Hulton Plant up the street, as were most of the customers of the Last Stop.

“Afternoon, Sam,” Billy said, turning on his professional smile. “Kind of early today, aren’t you?”

“Off work,” Sam said, mounting a bar stool as if it were a horse. “Beer.”

Billy drew a beer and set the wet schooner in front of Sam on the mahogany bar. “Didn’t expect a customer for another two hours, when the plant lets out,” Billy said.

“Guess not,” Sam said, sipping his beer. He was a short man with a swarthy face, a head of curly hair, and a stomach paunch too big for a man in his early thirties — a man who liked his drinking.

“Figured you didn’t go to work when I saw you weren’t wearing your badge,” Billy said. The Hulton Plant manufactured some secret government thing, a component for the hydrogen bomb, and each employee had to wear his small plastic badge with his name, number and photograph on it in order to enter or leave the plant.

“Regular Sherlock,” Sam said, and jiggled the beer in his glass.

“You notice lots of things when you’re a bartender,” Billy said, wiping down the bar with a clean white towel. You notice things, Billy said to himself, and you get to know people, and when you get to know them, really get to know them, you’ve got to dislike them. “I guess I tended bar in the wrong places.”

“What’s that?” Sam Daniels asked.

“Just thinking out loud,” Billy said, and hung the towel on its chrome rack. When Billy looked at his past he seemed to be peering down a long tunnel of empty bottles, drunks and hollow laughter; of curt orders, see-through stares and dreary conversations. He’d never liked his job, but it was all he’d known for the past thirty years.

“Wife’s supposed to meet me here pretty soon,” Sam said. “She’s getting off work early.” He winked at Billy. “Toothache.”

Billy smiled his automatic smile and nodded. He never had liked Sam, who had a tendency to get loud and violent when he got drunk.

Within a few minutes Rita Daniels entered. She was a tall, pretty woman, somewhat younger than her husband. She had a good figure, dark eyes, and expensively bleached blonde hair that looked a bit stringy now from the heat outside.

“Coke and bourbon,” she ordered, without looking at Billy. He served her the highball where she sat next to her husband at the bar.

No one spoke for a while as Rita sipped her drink. The faint sound of traffic, muffled through the thick door of the Last Stop, filled the silence. When a muted horn sounded, Rita said, “It’s dead in here. Put a quarter in the jukebox.”

Sam did as his wife said, and soft jazz immediately displaced the traffic sounds.

“You know I don’t like jazz, Sam.” Rita downed her drink quicker than she should have, then got down off the stool to go to the powder room.

“Saw Doug Baker last night,” Billy said, picking up the empty glass. Doug Baker was a restaurant owner who lived on the other side of town, and it was no secret that he came to the Last Stop only to see Rita Daniels, though Rita was almost always with her husband.

“How ’bout that,” Sam said. “Two more of the same.”

Rita returned to her stool, and Billy put two highballs before her and her husband.

“I was drinking beer,” Sam said in a loud voice.

“So you were,” Billy answered, smiling his My Mistake smile. He shrugged and motioned toward the highballs. “On the house. Unless you’d rather have beer.”

“No,” Sam said, “think nothing of it.”

That was how Billy thought Sam would answer. His cheapness was one of the things Billy disliked most about the man. It was one of the things he knew Rita disliked most in Sam Daniels too.

“How’d it go with the hydrogen bombs today?” Rita asked her husband. “Didn’t go in at all, huh?”

Billy could see she was aggravated and was trying to nag him.

“No,” Sam said, “and I don’t make hydrogen bombs.”

“Ha!” Rita laughed. “You oughta think about it. That’s about all you can make.” She turned away before Sam could answer. “Hey, Billy, you know anything about hydrogen bombs?”

“Naw,” Billy said. “Your husband knows more about that than me.”

“Yeah,” Rita said, “the union rates him an expert. Some expert! Splices a few wires together.”

“Five dollars an hour,” Sam said, “and double time for overtime.”

Rita whirled a braceleted arm above her head. “Wheee...”

Like many married couples, Sam and Rita never failed to bicker when they came into the Last Stop. Billy laughed. “The Friendly Daniels.” Sam didn’t laugh.

“Don’t bug me today,” Sam said to Rita. “I’m in a bad mood.”

“Cheer up, Sam,” Billy said. “It’s a sign she loves you, or loves somebody, anyway.”

Sam ignored Billy and finished his drink. “Where’d you go last night?” he asked his wife.

“You know I was at my sister’s. I even stopped in here for about a half hour on the way. Billy can verify it.”

“Right.” Billy said.

“I thought you said Doug Baker was in here last night,” Sam said to him, his eyes narrow.

“He was,” Billy said. “He, uh, came in late.” He turned to make more drinks, placing the glasses lip to lip and pouring bourbon into each in one deft stream without spilling a drop. He made them a little stronger this time, shooting in the soda expertly, jabbing swizzle sticks between the ice cubes and placing the glasses on the bar.

“You wouldn’t be covering up or anything, would you, Billy?” Sam’s voice had acquired a mean edge.

“Now wait a minute!” Rita said. “If you think I came in here last night to see Doug Baker, you’re crazy!”

“Well,” Sam stirred his drink viciously and took a sip, “Billy mentioned Baker was in here...”

“I said he came in late,” Billy quickly.

“And he acted like he was covering up or something,” Sam said, looking accusingly at Billy.

“Covering up?” Rita turned to Billy, her penciled eyebrows knitted in a frown. “Have you ever seen me with another man?”

“Naw,” Billy said blandly, “of course not. You folks shouldn’t fight.”

Still indignant, Rita swiveled on her stool to face her husband. “Have I ever been unfaithful?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Good point,” Billy said with a forced laugh.

“It’s not funny!” Rita snapped.

“Keep it light, folks,” Billy said seriously. “You know we don’t like trouble in here.”

“Sorry,” Rita said, but her voice was hurt. She swiveled back to face the bar and gulped angrily on her drink. Billy could see that the liquor was getting to her, was getting to them both.

There was silence for a while, then Rita said morosely “I oughta go out on you, Mr. Five-dollar-hydrogen-bomb-expert! You think I do anyway, and at least Doug Baker’s got money.”

Sam grabbed her wrist, making the bracelets jingle. She tried to jerk away but he held her arm so tightly that his knuckles were white. “You ever see Baker behind my back and I’ll kill you both!” He almost spit the words out.

“Hey, now,” Billy said gently, “don’t talk like that, folks!” He placed his hand on Sam Daniels’ arm and felt the muscles relax as Sam released his wife. She bent over silently on her stool and held the wrist as if it were broken. “Have one on the house,” Billy said, taking up their almost empty glasses. “One to make up by.”

“Make mine straight,” Sam said. He was breathing hard and his face was red.

“Damn you!” Rita moaned. She half fell off the stool and walked quickly but staggeringly to the powder room again.

Billy began to mix the drinks deftly, speedily, as if there were a dozen people at the bar and they all demanded service. In the faint red glow from the beer-ad electric clock, he looked like an ancient alchemist before his rows of multicolored bottles. “You shouldn’t be so hard on her,” he said absently as he mixed. “Can’t believe all the rumors you hear about a woman as pretty as Rita, and a harmless kiss in fun never hurt nobody.”

“Rumors?” Sam leaned over the bar. “Kiss? What kiss? Did she kiss Baker last night?”

“Take it easy,” Billy said. “I told you Baker came in late.” The phone rang, as it always did during the fifteen minutes before the Hulton Plant let out, with wives leaving messages and asking for errant husbands. When Billy returned, Rita was back at the bar.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said. There were tear streaks in her makeup.

“Finish your drinks and go home happy, folks.” Billy shot a glance at the door and set the glasses on the bar.

Rita drank hers slowly, but Sam tossed his drink down and stared straight ahead. Quietly, Billy put another full glass in front of him.

“I hear you were in here with Baker last night,” Sam said in a low voice: “Somebody even saw you kissing him.”

“You’re crazy!” Rita’s thickened voice was outraged.

Billy moved quickly toward them. “I didn’t say that.”

“I knew you were covering up!” Sam glared pure hate at him. “We’ll see what Baker says, because I’m going to drive over to his place right now and bash his brains out!”

“But I didn’t even see Baker last night!” Rita took a pull on her drink, trying to calm herself. Sam swung sharply around with his forearm, hitting Rita’s chin and the highball glass at the same time. There was a clink as the glass hit her teeth and she fell backward off the stool.

Billy reached under the bar and his hand came up with a glinting chrome automatic that seemed to catch every ray of light in the place. It was a gentleman’s gun, and standing there in his white shirt and red vest Billy looked like a gentleman holding it.

“Now, don’t move folks.” He aimed the gun directly at Sam’s stomach. “You know we don’t go for that kind of trouble in here.” He looked down and saw blood seeping between Rita’s fingers as she held her hand over her mouth. Billy wet a clean towel and tossed it to her, and she held it to her face and scooted backward to sit sobbing in the farthest booth.

Billy leaned close to Sam. “Listen,” he said, his voice a sincere whisper, “I don’t want to bring trouble on Baker, or on you for that matter, so I can’t stand by and let you go over there and kill him and throw your own life away. It wasn’t him she was in here with. He came in later.”

“Wasn’t him?” Sam asked in bewildered fury. “Who was it then?”

“I don’t know,” Billy said, still in a whisper so Rita couldn’t hear. “He had a badge on, so he worked at the plant, but I don’t know who he is and that’s the truth.”

“Oh, no!”

“Take it easy, Sam. She only kissed him in that booth there. And I’m not even sure I saw that. The booth was dark.”

Sam tossed down the drink that was on the bar and moaned. He was staring at the automatic and Billy could see he wanted desperately to move.

A warm silence filled the bar, and then the phone rang shrilly, turning the silence to icicles.

“Now take it easy,” Billy said, backing slowly down the bar toward the phone hung on the wall. “A kiss isn’t anything.” As the phone rang again he could almost see the shrill sound grate through Sam’s tense body. Billy placed the automatic on the bar and took the last five steps to the phone. He let it ring once more before answering it.

“Naw,” Billy said into the receiver, standing with his back to Sam and Rita, “he’s not here.” He stood for a long moment instead of hanging up, as if someone were still on the other end of the line.

The shot was a sudden angry bark.

Billy put the receiver on the hook and turned. Sam was standing slumped with a supporting hand on a bar stool. Rita was crumpled on the floor beneath the table of the booth she’d been sitting in, her eyes open, her blonde hair bright with blood.

His head still bowed, Sam began to shake.

Within minutes the police were there, led by a young plainclothes detective named Parks.

“You say they were arguing and he just up and shot her?” Parks was asking as his men led Sam outside.

“He accused her of running around,” Billy said. “They were arguing, he hit her, and I was going to throw them out when the phone rang. I set the gun down for a moment when I went to answer the phone, and he grabbed it and shot.”

“Uh-hm,” Parks said efficiently, flashing a look toward where Rita’s body had lain before they’d photographed it and taken it away. “Pretty simple, I guess. Daniels confessed as soon as we got here. In fact, we couldn’t shut him up. Pretty broken.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Billy said.

“Save some sympathy for the girl.” Parks looked around. “Seems like a nice place. I don’t know why there’s so much trouble in here.”

Billy shrugged. “In a dive, a class joint or a place like this, people are mostly the same.”

Parks grinned. “You’re probably right,” he said, and started toward the door. Before pushing it open, he paused and turned. “If you see anything like this developing again, give us a call, huh?”

“Sure,” Billy said, polishing a glass and holding it up to the fading afternoon light. “You know we don’t like trouble in here.”