Page 147 of Cul-de-sac

Chapter Forty-eight

Sean sits on a long leather benchat the rear of the narrow, dimly lit bar, his back against the cheap wood paneling of the wall behind him, a tiny round table in front of him, nursing a glass of vodka and trying to decide if it’s time to go home. He’s been here for the better part of an hour, holding this same drink, and the bartender has been throwing suspicious glances his way for the last twenty minutes. Any second, the guy is going to walk over to ask if he wants another drink. And then what? Twenty dollars is all the cash he has left, and he can’t very well charge it to his card. Not with Olivia going over their every expense with a fine-tooth comb. But he knows he can’t keep sitting here if he doesn’t keep buying drinks. He knows the rules. You sit; you drink.This isn’t a park bench, fella,he can almost hear the bartender sneer.

Except even park benches are off-limits to him now. Nowhere is safe. Not the beaches, not the parks, not the malls. There’s simply no telling who could show up where, who he might run into. He thought he was safe at the MacArthur State Park, and who should show up but one of his goddamn neighbors! A neighbor, for shit’s sake!

So, dimly lit, verging-on-seedy bars are about the only places left to him. His safe houses, he thinks, and almost laughs.

He checks his watch. Closing in on five o’clock. Another ten minutes and he should be good to go. Olivia has a meeting this afternoon in Fort Lauderdale, and with any luck, she’ll be late getting home. She’s picking up dinner again, which is great. Now that he’s supposedly working again, he’s no longer expected to prepare meals. One of the perks of the job!

But what will happen when his expected paycheck fails to materialize at the end of the week? What excuse will he give to Olivia then? He’s fresh out of options. He’s running out of time.

Maybe he should disappear, he thinks, swallowing what’s left of the vodka in his glass. Get in his car and just drive away. Where? And with what? The clothes on his back? Twenty dollars in his pocket? No, not even that, not once he pays his tab.

So running away isn’t the answer. And at almost fifty years of age, it’s a little late to turn to a life of crime. Not that he’d have any idea which way to turn. Some criminal he’d be! What’s he going to do? Hold up a 7-Eleven? A gas station? A grocery store? With what? His finger?

So, it appears he’s screwed, whichever way you look at it.

“Hey, there,” a voice—soft, husky, inviting—says from somewhere beside him.

He looks up to see a woman with long dark hair and a crooked smile staring down at him. She’s wearing a white T-shirt that’s at least two sizes too small and a tight black skirt that’s a good six inches too short. He marvels that he didn’t hear her approach.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she says.

He almost laughs. “Make that a twenty and you have yourself a deal.”

“Those thoughts must be pretty deep.”

“They aren’t.”

She smiles and wiggles in beside him. “Tough day?”

“Aren’t they all?”

She shrugs. “Some days are diamonds…”

He recognizes the start of the old John Denver song. “Some days are stones,” he says, completing the lyric.

“I take it this one’s a stone,” she says. “Maybe I can make it better. My name’s Brandi.”

Of course it is,he thinks, estimating her age as late thirties, maybe early forties. Attractive in a slightly sullied kind of way, sexy the way a cheap perfume can sometimes be. You don’t always want champagne, he acknowledges, as Brandi signals for the bartender. Sometimes you just want a beer.

“Gin and tonic,” she says.

The bartender’s glance shifts from Brandi to Sean.

What the hell,Sean thinks, tapping his empty glass. “Guess I’ll have another one of these.”

“You haven’t told meyourname,” Brandi says as the bartender departs.

“Sean.”

“Sean,” she repeats. “That’s such a nice name.”

“Is it?”

“What—you don’t even like your name? Youreallyhad a shitty day.”

He laughs.

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