“A meeting that’s a guaranteed cure for insomnia. I got sentenced to it by the court.”
“Why’d the judge send you there?”
“My boyfriend totaled his car and left me unconscious inside it. My boyfriend is not only a needle-dick but a lying shit. I told the judge if he believed my boyfriend, he was a shitbird, too, but I wasn’t sure whether he qualified as a needle-dick. What’s that music?”
“Debussy, I think. You know, Claude Debussy?”
“Who’s that?”
“He was a great composer.”
She was chewing gum, her eyes rolling, her mouth indolent and somehow vulnerable. The sound of her gum wet and smacking in her cheek made him swallow. She smiled lazily, one eye crinkling at the corner. “Will you buy me a drink?”
“Are you legal age?”
“Why do you think I asked you to buy me one?”
“What are you having?”
“I don’t care. Something with candied cherries in it. Something that’s cold and warm at the same time.”
When the bartender served the steak, Temple ordered another Collins for himself and an old-fashioned for the girl. The bartender lowered his eyes with his hands folded, not unlike an undertaker who doesn’t want to broach a difficult subject.
“She’s my niece,” Temple said. “Nobody would believe she’s twenty-two.”
“Very well, sir,” the bartender said, and went to the end of the bar and took a tumbler from a rack on the back counter.
“That was impressive,” the girl said. “I had an uncle like that. He could get people to do things for him and make them feel like they were doing themselves a favor. You know how he’d do that?”
“Tell me.”
“He already knew what they wanted to do. They only needed permission from someone. It was usually about money. Or maybe sex. But one way or another, they were coming across for him. He used to say, ‘Put a smile on their faces, and they’ll follow you over a cliff.’”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing. He owns a bunch of massage parlors in Los Angeles. Is that a Rolex?”
Temple looked at his watch, then realized how long he had been in the lounge. Where were his men? They had been acting strangely ever since two of them had been dumb enough to get themselves popped by Preacher Jack. “I never noticed. I have about a dozen watches I wear. Do you ride horses?”
“Sometimes. I barrel-raced when I was in Four-H. I was a hot-walker at Ruidoso Downs. Talk about a horny bunch. You ought to be in the bar after the seventh race.”
“Yeah, but that’s not your crowd. I bet you go to college.”
“If that’s what you call working at the McDonald’s inside Wal-mart. How about that for being a two-time loser? Your steak is getting cold.”
“You want one?”
“I’m a vegan. My whole life changed after I gave up meat and milk products. I thought my needle-dick boyfriend was the problem, but I think it was my diet.”
“What problem?”
“My organisms were messed up.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Meat and cheese and barnyard shit like that are toxic to your erogenous development.” The waiter placed a coaster in front of her and set down her old-fashioned. She wrapped her gum in her napkin. “Anyway, thanks for the drink. I can’t take that group next door. You know their problem?”
“No,” he replied.