Page 2 of Agency

“Doesn’t have to be good or fancy,” I said, smiling slightly and already pulling cash from my purse as I cut him off. “Just vodka, vermouth, and heavy on the olives. Stirred, not shaken, and a touch dirty.”

I slid a twenty across the bar, and he smiled and shrugged as he took the bill. “Sure. Why not?” When he spoke, though, “sure” came out as “shar”, and he turned to begin making my drink.

A loud crack of billiard balls came from the back corner, and I couldn’t help but glance over to the game two men were playing, especially as one of them swore at the fortuitous performance of the other.

“Youse doing a runner on me, huh?”

“A what now?”

“A runner, man. A runner.”

“Still not—”

“Youse sharking me, then? Sure looks that way.” Shar. Not sure.

“No. Just luck, that’s all. Not my fault you set up all my shots.”

The losing man, the pissed off one with the heavy local accent, was big, with a pinched face and a dirty upper lip that some might have described as a mustache. He towered over the other guy, who had a light New England accent maybe from the Boston area and was grim-faced beneath his shock of lightly curled blond hair as he leaned down to line up his next shot.

Not that Blondie was a slouch. Not by any means. Lean, but powerfully built, he wore dark twill pants and a tight T-shirt that showed off his well-formed biceps and broad shoulders.

“Fuck you, man,” the local said as Blondie drew back his cue’s chalked tip.

“Did I approach you about a game?” Blondie asked in a deep voice, pool cue cocked and ready to go. A lefty, I noticed, from the way he held the stick. Before he spoke again, he snapped the cue forward, sending the pale, ivory-colored ball sailing forward to hit one of the rapidly dwindling solids on the table, which rolled in an easy glide towards a corner pocket. Only two more solids, aside from the eight ball, were still on the table.

“No.” Blondie straightened up from his position leaning over the table, glancing towards the local as he did so. “No, I fucking did not. Did I insist we place money on it?” Smoothly, like a panther languidly stretching before a kill or Fred Astaire gliding around the dance floor, he cracked off his next shot, sending the solid into a side pocket.

“Once again, no. No, I did not.”

The local guy was glowering so hard that, if she’d been there, his mother would have probably told him his face would stick that way if he wasn’t careful.

“Not my fault you’ve decided to throw your money away,” the non-local continued, and now leaned down to sink his final ball before reaching the eight. “I even asked you twice if you were sure.”

Crack, crack.

There the solid went. Right into another corner, with just the perfect amount of reverse English on the cue for the ball to roll back into position almost perfectly in front of the eight, and the nearby side pocket.

The local’s white-knuckled hands were twisting on his cue, wringing the tapered stick as if the wood were a voodoo doll of Blondie’s neck. Lips pressed into a thin, angry line, he chewed the inside of his mouth, probably to the point of drawing blood.

“Tell youse what,” the local began, hands still wringing at the cue as if the length of lacquered wood were a sopping wet dish rag. “Double or nothing.”

“Double or nothing?” Blondie asked, then snorted in mild derision.

“Yeah, double or nothing.”

“Telling me you really want to lose even more money to me if I sink this?”

“Telling you I want to get my money back, goddammit.”

A short pause. “Fine, man. Whatever. I sink this one–and, trust me, consider this sunk–we go double or nothing. Don’t have anything else to do, anyways. Might as well pick up some more beer money.”

“Miss?” the bartender asked, drawing my rapt attention away from the nearly finished game. One leg crossed over the other, I turned back just as he set my ice-cold martini on the bar. Sipping the briny, boozy liquid, I nodded my appreciation to the man before looking to the billiards table as I took the chilly glass from my lips.

Blondie was already leaned back down over the green felt with the pool cue drawn, cocked, and ready on the bridge of his other hand. Jaw squared and set, his face was firm and intent on the game, even though I could tell his attention was definitely turned my direction.

Because his eyes? Oh, they weren’t focused on that ivory cue ball, like they should have been.

No, they were focused on something he apparently found far more interesting.