Page 1 of Sinner's Secret

Chapter One

Some might forgivingly call Joe’s Bar a dive. Others called it home from the hour after they left work to midnight most nights of the week.

It was one of yellow cab driver Bazyli Breznik’s favorite places to be.

The interior of the pub had a dark and smoky haze hanging in the air. A good thing. Who wants to look another drunk in the face and see anything beyond a stupid grin and the glare off a pair of blood-shot eyes?

The smoke didn’t come from cigarettes. Joe liked to serve his famous hell-hot chicken wings grilled over a mesquite wood fire. That smell was in everything, including the beer.

It reminded Baz of happier days spent in the mountains of his childhood, curing deer meat in a smoke shack built by his great-grandfather, surrounded by a thick forest of trees and the many faces of his large family. His parents, sisters, brother, cousins laughing, talking, working...living.

Most of them had been dead a long time. The ones that weren’t dead...well, there was a reason why some nights Baz hated Joe’s guts for conjuring up the memories.

It wasn’t Joe’s fault though, the man was only human, with all the imperfections that went along with that. If the man had been perfect, Baz wouldn’t have come back to the bar a second time. Perfection was over-rated, and inevitably turned out to be a lie. Like the entirety of Baz’s life.

Baz sighed. Depressed again.

No wonder he liked to hang out with drunks.

He parked his yellow cab in front of the bar and turned off the engine, ignoring the slight tremor of his hands on the steering wheel.

Damn shakes. He was going to need a sip of his favorite brand soon.

Maybe more than a sip.

Alcohol was a harsh mistress. Hard to care about anything when you’re three sheets to the wind and farting Jack Daniels out your nose. Too bad he couldn’t live smashed all the time. He had tried it for a few years, but all he’d gotten out of that had been a bad reputation and his name permanently on his mother’s shit list.

He got out of the car and walked in the front door of the bar.

Joe spotted him right off. Baz wasn’t sure how he did it, but Joe always knew when someone walked into, or out of, his bar. Some folks said Joe had a touch of the sight or some other mumbo-jumbo, woo-woo ability.

Baz figured he just knew his bar better than his house.

The proud pub owner waved cheerfully. “Baz!” he shouted, causing some of the patrons, the ones that weren’t too drunk, to turn and squint. A full half dozen greeted him with sloppy grins.

“Where ya been, man?”

“Yeah, we missed you the last couple of nights.”

“Had to take care of some business with my cousin,” Baz said loud enough so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. He used to wonder why it seemed he had so many friends at Joe’s until one evening Joe himself explained it to him. They liked him because he was, in his own messed up way, reliable. Like the family dog or a piece of well-built furniture. Reliable because he drove them home five nights out of seven.

The irony of a homeless cab driver being reliable wasn’t lost on Baz. Especially since homeless was the nicest thing one could say about him.

“Family?” Joe ambled over. “Why didn’t you bring him around?”

Baz shrugged and discovered his lips remembered how to smile. Sort of. “He’s an asshole.”

“I’ve got one of those,” Mike, a scotch drinker, said. “I’d like to find a blunt object and bash him on the head.”

Next to him, Bill snorted. “I’ve got three of those and they’re all as useless as tits on a bull.” He glanced at Baz. “Where’s this cousin of yours? We could go for a drive and kill him for you.”

Baz didn’t doubt Bill, who’d shipped out of the army on disability thanks to a permanent leg injury, would make good on his offer.

“Yeah, I’ve got a tire iron in my trunk,” Mike added as he downed another swallow of scotch.

“I don’t know.” Baz pretended to consider the idea. “My birthday isn’t for a couple of months.”

“No problem.” Bill waved his objection away with a hand that seemed only partially attached to his arm. “We can wait.”

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