Primary Justice

23

THE RED PARROT WAS not quite a cowboy bar, but Tulsa was not quite a cowboy town. Tulsa did have equivalents—transient oil rig hands, truckers, bikers, construction workers, miscellaneous unemployed, your basic criminal element—and all of them apparently frequented the Red Parrot.

Ben and Christina stepped into the smoke-filled bar. Ben kept telling himself to be bold, but he knew he wasn’t convincing anybody, including himself.

They had both dressed down for the occasion, in blue jeans, cotton western shirts, and boots. Ben even had a western belt with BEN branded on the back. Something his grandmother had given him that he’d never worn until now. Ben thought Christina looked outrageous in her pink suede cowgirl jacket, but then, he reflected, no more so than she did in her daily work clothes.

Ben observed that the Red Parrot was roughly divided into four quadrants. Quadrant one: the bar, where dirty men and dirtier women stood shoulder to shoulder quaffing longnecks and complaining about the day’s events. Quadrant two: the tables and booths, the intermediate step between picking a woman up at the bar and taking her home for a quick but purposeful encounter. Quadrant three: the two pool tables, each with a trail of quarters on the side and men lined up waiting to play. Finally, quadrant four: the games area, where menacing-looking men tossed menacing-looking steel darts in the general direction of an oversized dart board. In the center of the bar was a multicolored Wurlitzer jukebox wailing some Hank Williamsesque tune about sixteen-wheelers and cowboys and the day “my mama got out of prison.”

“This joint ain’t big enough for the two of us, pilgrim,” Christina said.

Ben looked at her blankly.

“Get it? Pilgrim? Sleazy western saloon, thugs, bad side of town. It just seemed to follow—”

“I understood, Christina.”

“Oh. Pardonnez moi.” She looked hurt.

His lips turned up slightly. “Smile when ya say that, pardner.”

She did.

Ben scoped out the clientele. The crowd looked seriously tough. Lots of muscle, tattoos, and stubble. Several men were wearing jeans jackets with matching emblems on the back. They were all members of something and Ben suspected it wasn’t the Moose Lodge. At the table closest to the bar, two men were taking turns stacking upended shot glasses. The tower already rose above the level of their shoulders.

Meanwhile, over in the darts area, the game had taken a nasty turn—the dart board was replaced by human beings. It was a local variant on mumblety-peg; players alternated between standing against the wall and throwing the darts. Apparently, the object was to throw the dart as close as possible to the sucker on the wall without touching him. Two throws, then the players switch places. Closest throw wins. Thrower’s option as to what part of the body to aim toward. Flinching was an automatic forfeit, although striking the target body with the dart merely resulted in a reduction in points.

“Well, I’m thirsty,” Ben said. He and Christina wedged themselves into a small opening at the bar. “I believe I’ll have an amaretto sour.”

“Get a beer,” Christina said curtly.

“What?”

“You heard me. Beer.”

Ben looked confused. The bartender, a burly mustachioed fellow in a red-checkered shirt, walked up to them.

“What kind have you got?” Ben asked him.

“Just say beer,” Christina whispered.

“Beer,” Ben obeyed. “Two.”

The bartender nodded and moved toward the taps.

“An amaretto sour,” Christina muttered. “These guys would use you for a dust mop.”

The bartender brought two mugs of beer and set them in front of Ben and Christina. Ben tossed a five onto the bar.

A thin, wiry man with a red steel wool beard and a cap saw the five go down. “Were you in the service?” he asked. His voice was like gravel.

“I beg your pardon?”

The man’s teeth were tightly clenched, even as he spoke. “Don’t beg my pardon, man. Don’t ever beg my pardon. I hate beggars, man. Fuckin’ hate ’em.”

He pounded his fist against the bar so hard that Ben’s beer wobbled and bounced. “I asked if you were in the goddamn service!” He was shouting. The smell of beer and booze and tooth rot was thick on his breath.

“Uhhh, no,” Ben said quietly, not looking him in the eye. “Were you?”

“Damn right I was. Damn right.” He pounded the bar again. “I don’t suppose you fought in the war?”

“N-no—”

“Hell, no. Too goddamn good to be in the war!”

Ben had the distinct feeling he wasn’t handling this very well. “I spent a year in the Peace Corps,” he said softly.

“You think that’s an excuse?” The man spat as he yelled. He emphasized the last word by knocking over his beer with his fist.

“Let’s go,” Christina whispered in Ben’s ear. She tugged at his sleeve. “Pronto.”

Ben took a step back from the bar.

“You know what I ought to do with you? Do you?” The man followed Ben. They were practically nose to nose. Ben took another step back. The wiry man followed.

A few others at the bar turned around to watch the fun. The man who had been standing to the right of Redbeard jabbed a friend and pointed.

“Leave him alone,” the bartender said as he popped the lid off another longneck. “He’s too young. He doesn’t know. Here, have a beer on me.”

God bless the bartender, Ben thought. But the bartender’s offer didn’t seem to make any difference. The man kept coming. Ben kept backing up.

There was a sudden, loud smashing sound. Ben whirled. He had backed into the nearest table and knocked over the tower of upended shotglasses. The supreme effort of the combined lifetimes of the two bikers lay dashed and broken into a million pieces on the floor.

“Sonovabitch!” the larger of the two men exclaimed. He was wearing a jeans jacket with a skull-and-crossbones appliqué on the back and had silver chains looped around his waist. He threw his chair back and stood up, pounding one fist against his hand. A dark-haired woman from the back of the room came forward and laid her hands on his shoulder. Ben couldn’t see either of them clearly in the dark haze of the bar.

“Oh, God,” Ben mumbled, trying not to sound too pathetic. “I was just backing up. I—I—”

“He didn’t mean it,” Christina said, stepping between the larger of the two thugs and Ben. “This brain-dead bully over here was forcing him backward.”

“This what?” Redbeard echoed. “Whaddas that mean?” He shoved Christina aside, not gently.

By this time, most of the people in the bar were rubbernecking for a better view of the show. Ben had nowhere left to maneuver. Opposing hands clamped down on both his shoulders. He knew he was finished. What Redbeard didn’t do to him, Skull-and-Crossbones surely would.

“All right, nobody moves,” Ben said, swallowing hard.

Skull-and-Crossbones laughed heartily. “What the hell?”

“Nobody moves,” he repeated, taking a deep breath. “I’m an undercover cop. Kincaid, Tulsa PD, Vice. Badge number 499.”

The two men looked skeptical. “Yeah?” Redbeard said. “So show us your badge.”

“Can’t you see I’m in disguise, idiot?” Ben muttered. “Undercover cops don’t carry badges.”

Skull laughed. “The one that busted me last year did. Nice try, though.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, guys, I got an idea. I think it’s time for a game of darts.”

He dragged Ben into the darts quadrant and shoved him against the wall. Two other thugs wearing matching jeans jackets held Ben in place in the target area.

“I don’t play darts,” Ben protested. “I wouldn’t be a challenge for you.”

“Not true,” Skull said as someone handed him a fistful of darts. “I haven’t played in years.” He aimed a dart at Ben’s face.

“Ben!” someone squealed. It seemed to come from the dark-haired woman hanging on Skull’s shoulder. “It’s Benjy!”

Ben squinted his eyes and peered into the darkness. “Mona?” he whispered.

It was Mona. It wasn’t a face he was likely to forget. The current spouse of the senior partner in his firm was there, at the Red Parrot, with this biker. She was dressed in a dark-blue denim jacket and a black, hip-hugging, leather miniskirt, with some cheap metal jewelry dangling from her ears and wrists.

Skull asked, “You know this weasel?”

“Yes, yes,” Ben said quickly. “I know her. We go way back.”

“You been with my woman?”

Ben stuttered. “Buh … well, no … I mean, not—”

“Hell, what do I care?” A deep and scary laugh erupted from Skull’s lips. “Who hasn’t been? She’s older than this bar!”

Mona’s face seemed to melt. The product of hours of skillfully applied cosmetics disintegrated in an instant.

“I do know him,” she said softly. “You’d better leave him alone. He is an undercover cop.” She winked at Ben.

“Really? Christ. Why didn’t you say so?” He turned halfheartedly toward Ben. “I thought we knew all the narcs around here. No hard feelings, huh? Just having some fun.”

“Right,” Ben said, nodding.

Christina appeared behind his right shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Show him the picture. While we’re buddies.”

“Oh, right.” Ben saw that most of the bar’s attention was fixed in his direction.

“Look,” he said loudly, “I’m going to pass around a photograph and I want to talk to anybody who knows anything about this man. And I mean anyone.” He cast a mean look in the direction of his former adversaries.

“Don’t press your luck,” Christina whispered.

Ben passed the picture to Skull, who accepted it without saying a word. Mona’s identification of Ben as a cop seemed to have seriously altered the degree of respect he was receiving.

“He’s been here,” Skull said after examining the picture a moment. “Not recently, but he’s been here.”

“Do you remember if he was here Monday night, last week?”

“Yeah. That sounds right. He sat in one of the back booths talking to some other guy. I guess it was a guy—I never actually saw a face. Was wearing a long white overcoat with one of those high collars. They both left together. That’s all I know.”

Why is it, Ben wondered, other strangers come here and go unnoticed and unmolested, but I’m here maybe ten minutes and practically a dead man? He circulated the picture throughout the bar. A few people remembered seeing Adams the night he was killed, but no one had anything to add to what Skull (whose actual name turned out to be Marvin) had said. No one had seen the face of the person he talked with.

Ben returned the photo to his wallet and started toward the door. He saw Mona and stopped.

“Thanks,” he said.

She placed her right hand against his cheek. “I’ve missed you, Ben. Ever since the night of the party. It meant a lot to me. I think about you all the time. You haven’t been returning my calls.”

Ben smiled uncomfortably. He couldn’t tell whether Christina was hearing this.

Mona twirled her finger through a lock of his hair. “You don’t have to run off, you know. The night is young.”

Ben took a step back. “Thanks, but I have a court hearing tomorrow morning.”

“Hey,” Marvin said, stepping beside Ben, “I’m sorry about everything, man. I mean, the darts and the rough stuff. I’ve been drinking. I got a little crazy—you know how it is. I didn’t know you were friends of Mona’s. Maybe we could all get together sometime and double date or something.”

Ben swallowed. “Yeah, or something.”

“Yeah, it’d be fun, huh?” Marvin put his arm around Mona, then slapped her on the backside.

Mona gave him a chilly smile. She clearly had not forgotten his earlier remark.

Ben waved, and he and Christina left the bar. The cool night air was bracing. “I feel like I just crawled away from the edge of a crumbling cliff,” he said.

Christina smiled. “You know, that Marvin dude was kind of scary at first, but when you got to know the real man inside, he was all right. Kind of cuddly, actually.” Ben didn’t say a word.