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THIRTY-EIGHT
Zalen
THE BARTENDER AT THEpool hall—a different one from this morning— had been eyeing me warily for the last fifteen minutes. Possibly, it was because I was twitchier than a meth addict, my foot jiggling nervously against the bar stool as I tapped my fingers on the counter.
Mouse was late.
I had a terrible suspicion that he wouldn’t be coming at all.
Whether that was because he’d run off to buy drugs or booze with my three hundred dollars and passed out in an alley somewhere, or because he’d asked the wrong questions of the wrong people, remained an open question.
“Get you another drink?” the bartender asked curtly, shooting a significant glance at my half-finished Mountain Dew.
“No thanks, I’m good,” I told him.
He continued to stare at me, deliberately wiping a glass with a stained dishcloth. “You the one that gave Mouse cash this morning?”
My jaw tensed. Apparently, that little interaction had been interesting enough to warrant gossip when the shift changed.
“Why do you ask?” I said.
The man snorted, putting down the still-greasy glass and picking up a different one for the same treatment. “So, that’s ayes, then. You know you won’t see him again for days, right? Longer if he thinks you’re hanging out here waiting to beat ’im up.”
My heart tripped as the prospect of losing my only conceivable lead began to sink in.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath, frustration seething in my chest without an outlet.
The bartender shrugged. “Coulda told you that before you threw away your money.”
The sense of having wandered into a dead end paralyzed me. What the hell was I going to donow?
“I’ll stick around until close, if it’s all the same to you,” I said.
“It’s your time to waste,” the man said carelessly. He opened another bottle of Mountain Dew and poured it into the greasy glass, sliding it pointedly next to my current drink. “I’ll just add this to your tab, then.”
I stared at the pair of drinks stupidly, my brain choosing that exact moment to remind me that I’d had, like, two hours of sleep today, total. Hard on the heels of that realization, it started tossing up flashbacks of Julie and Jake, lying on slabs in the morgue after I hadn’t been there to save them. Blood drained from my face, vertigo tugging at my balance as I clutched the edge of the bar.
Seriously, what the fuck was I supposed todo?
My phone pinged. The dark part of my subconscious helpfully suggested that it might be Emiel, texting to say that something terrible had happened to Mia despite his best efforts. My hand shook as I dragged it from my pocket and unlocked the screen.
Tony, the notification said. I blinked in confusion a few times and tapped it, the full message popping up in a text window.
Talked to a few of my homies back in the hood tonight,it read.They say SSG is holding some civvies in a warehouse over on the east side. Be careful Z—don’t do nothing stupid OK?
Below the message was a street address.