The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“How you doin’, Mike?” Vick Atlas said, shaking hands. “Everything is okay here.”

“Little discussion, huh?” the policeman said.

“You know how it is,” Atlas said. He took a money clip from his pocket. “I’m going to buy these guys a round so we can get out of here. At least if they’ll let me. How about some Champale, you guys?”

“Screw the round,” Saber said.

“See what I mean?” Atlas said.

Saber started to get up.

“Whoa,” the policeman said. “I need y’all to keep me company. It’s a lonely job.”

“We just want to go home, Officer,” I said.

“You will. All things come to those who wait. Trust me,” the officer said.

He winked at me and patted Vick on the shoulder and walked away. Then Vick and Grady and his friends went out the front door in a group. The senior Atlas and Carbo never looked in our direction. I put a dime into the jukebox and went back to the table. The police officer smiled at me from his station by the men’s room.

“My stomach’s sick,” Saber said.

“I think we can go now.”

“We can go now? Listen to yourself. I feel like somebody held me down and put his spit in my ear.”

“It could be worse.”

“How?” Saber said. He waved at the policeman. “Hey, Officer, is the coast clear?”

The policeman gestured at the front door as though telling us the world was ours.

“Thanks! Keep up the good work!” Saber said. “The eyes of Texas are upon you!” He punched the air with his fist. The policeman looked at us sleepily.

Grady had outwitted us. He had managed to make us the personal enemy of Vick Atlas while pretending to be Atlas’s friend and protector. Saber had walked right into it, but as always, I couldn’t be mad at him.

We went outside into the humidity of the night and the smell of road tar and the heat stored in the asphalt. Somehow the club seemed shabby, the bamboo blinds crooked, the neon lighting shorted out. I could see my car where I had parked it under a light pole, its windows down, its doors unlocked. Back then we believed in our own mythology about the safety of the places we lived, and we didn’t worry about car break-ins. Fortunately I had put my Gibson in the trunk.

THE INTERIOR WAS crosshatched with urine. The driver’s seat was puddled with it, the dashboard and steering wheel dripping. We had no way to wipe it off or wash it out in the parking lot. We sat down in a world of beer piss and drove to a filling station and hosed out the interior. Then we stripped off our shirts and trousers behind the station and washed ourselves in the lavatory and got back in the car wearing only our boxers while bystanders gaped and cars on the road blew their horns. I saw Saber pick up a half piece of brick behind the station and drop it onto the car floor.

“What are you doing with that?” I asked.

“I’m tired of being shoved around,” he said.

“Get rid of it.”

“The best defense is a good offense.”

“That’s the kind of thing people say when they develop jock rash of the brain,” I said.

“There’s a lot of wisdom in a locker room.”

“Saber!”

“Lighten up and get us out of here, will you? I feel sick. We’ve got their piss all over us.”

I started the engine and pulled out of the station into the street, almost hitting an oncoming car. Saber hunched forward, his ribs stenciled against his sides. He turned on the radio, then turned it off.

“Don’t let these guys get to you,” I said. “You did great in there. You tried to take the heat off me.”