The police officer who worked the day shift guarding me spent the majority of his time trying to fuck the LPN that was on duty at the same time.
When she wasn't around he never spoke a word to me. Usually he just parked his fat ass in a chair while reading issues of Muscle & Fitness, Flex, Soldier Of Fortune, and Clits and Tits. When he wasn't doing that he was laughing like a retard at some moronic daytime game show.
"This local cop gig is just small time shit for me. Just a resume builder. Soon as I get enough time in I'm going to put my application in for the FBI. With my background, Army, college, and a couple of years here on the force. Shit, I'm a shoo-in for the Feds."
"Really. Isn't that dangerous work? Bank robbers and all that kind of stuff." The young nurse sounded starry eyed with wonder and awe.
"I live for danger. I even tried to join the Green Berets when I was in the Army but they turned me down. The pussy bastards. Said I was too radical for them."
"Sounds like you've had a real exciting life.
First the Army, then being a policeman. I sometimes wish I could do something like that. Things can get pretty dull around here. This about the most excitement we've had here in years."
I could hear the crinkle of leather as he hitched his gun belt up. "That's why I'm here. This guy is one bad dude. They put me on the tough cases. This prick gives you any crap you just let me know. I don't have time for scum like this. I'll kick his ass around the room if he gives you any grief."
"Oh, he hasn't given me any trouble. Hasn't spoken a word and he is handcuffed to the bed."
***
I was down on the floor of the Aragon Bar. That's not a floor you normally want to be laying on. I don't think the goddamn thing had been swept much less mopped in the last decade. Sticky spilled beer, cigarette butts, piss, spunk, those nasty frozen Margaritas that come out of machine, chewing tobacco, and God knows what else were all part of the sights and smells of my current location.
Unpleasant to say the least.
"Don't you move a muscle, motherfucker!"
That was the bartender talking and the asshole who had shot me with a tiny chrome .25 automatic. To add insult to injury, the dirty son of a bitch was a midget. I had been shot by a midget! Quite a life I was living.
"Shit! Jesus Christ! Goddamn! This fucking hurts! You little sawed off bastard!" I was curled up in the fetal position clutching my wound. The shot, almost point blank, had caught me high on the shoulder. Luckily for me the .25 snub-nose automatic is one of those pistols that are designed to be jammed directly into the body before emptying the clip, a close range weapon. Probably why it's called a Saturday night special. Since the bartender had fired over the bar at me, a distance of about three feet, and had been aiming at my heart, he had missed by about five inches.
"Cletus! Cletus! Are you OK? Talk to me!
Oh, shit!" The bartender was now leaning over Cletus la Favor who was lying face down on the floor, his head in a rapidly increasing pool of blood. He was not moving. Sirens could be heard off in the distance.
la Favor hadn't noticed me when I walked into the bar and sat down in a booth across from the bar and close to the stage where a silicone enhanced, g-stringed, peroxide blonde who looked to be about fifty, bumped and grinded all over the stage. She was dangerously skinny with huge tits that sported pierced nipples. Obviously she had to be on some sort of speed or crystal meth for as active as she was, bounding all around on the stage like she was playing Las Vegas. As she pranced around I realized in astonishment that she wasn't as old as she appeared to be since I now vaguely recognized her as a member of my graduating class and who had once been a member of the cheerleading squad.
Besides the stripping ex-cheerleader, la Favor, the midget bartender, and myself, there were only two other patrons in the bar. A drunk Indian who was face down in his booth and a old geezer who appeared to be jerking-off under the table as he gazed lovingly at the stripper who's name I now remembered for some strange reason. Janet Eason. Her stage name was Juggy Jillian.
"What are you drinking?" A mean eyed waitress sporting a platinum colored mohawk had appeared out of nowhere and was now standing alongside my table. She was wearing a white muscle shirt and her arms and shoulders were totally covered with tattoos and she too was sporting a huge pair of enhanced hooters.
"Beer. Whatever you have on tap." She gave me a odd look as she went to get my brew.
That bitch should looks familiar, I had thought. Holy shit! Was that? It was Angel! I thought she was dead for fucking sure after la Favor had killed Mike and dragged her ass off in his car. All this time I had been too worried about saving my own ass much less worry about what the hell happened to her. Did she recognize me? I don't think so. Shit, it's been almost ten years and I've put on almost fifty pounds and sport a full beard with hair hanging halfway down my back. She must be part of la Favor's crew now or he's got her turning tricks for the bar crowd here. Or maybe not! I now remembered that Angel had danced here at the Aragon from time to time back then. Maybe she had been the one that snitched us off. That's why la Favor came back up the stairs that night. When they took her downstairs to the car she must have told la Favor that I was there but I must have been hiding up in the attic. That's why they were going to burn the place down. la Favor could never have gotten his fat ass up into that crawl space.
I reached inside my jacket and felt the miniature baseball bat tucked inside the inner pocket. It was a memento from my childhood. They only thing I had found when I rooted through the burned down remains of my childhood home. la Favor hadn’t waited for the two week deadline that he gave me. It had been only eight days since he had called me when I got back home. When I pulled my rental car up into the driveway all that was left standing was the garage. I had walked around aimlessly poking at the rubble. I found the Minnesota Twins bat stuck under a fallen and charred ceiling beam. It was only slightly burned and discolored but intact. It was from a game day giveaway from the only time my father had taken me and my shit older brother, Ronnie, to a pro baseball game. The Twins versus the Yankees. The Twins had yet to come close to winning a World Series and had gotten the crap beaten out of them that day. But it still had been a great day. My brother and I had been allowed to binge on the hot dogs and watered down Cokes while the old man got belligerently drunk on draft Hamm's beer. To my delight my brother had gotten hideously sick on the dogs and barfed right there in the stands.
"Your daddy ran off three days before that criminal cocksucker burned his place down!" I looked up to find my father's ancient neighbor, Roy Huffman, standing in the driveway. He had looked a hundred years old when I was a kid and still looked about the same. Not a day younger or a day older.
"You the one that Cletus la Favor ran out of town aren't you? The one that cracked that fucker in the head with a baseball bat."
"That's me all right."
"Well, your daddy figured out once Pighouse Pete got himself killed up at the prison that old Cletus was going to start coming around to finish old scores so he took off. Packed up some shit in his old pickup and was gone. Must have been about five in the morning. Bought the time I came out to get the Star Tribune. If that shit for brains paperboy found the right yard to fling it in that is."
"Any idea where he went?"
"Don't have a clue. Can't say that I'd tell you anyway if I knew. I'd prefer not to have Cletus la Favor come over here and burn my goddamn house down. That big son of a bitch always was fond of fire for some reason. That and running cats over with lawnmowers He was an evil shit even as a child."
I dug the small bat down into a pile of what appeared used to be my old rock album collection. The only cover I could make out was Lynyrd Skynyrd's Second Helpings. "I guess you're right on that call." I started towards my car.
"You planning on planting that bat upside Cletus's head again?" The old fart laughed with a wheeze brought on by a lifetime of Lucky Strikes.
I stopped at looked at the bat I still held in my hand for a second and then looked back at our old neighbor. "You know, that's one hell of a fucking idea. Where do you think I could find that fat tub of shit?"
Roy spit in the grass and looked around like someone may be listening. "The Aragon Bar.
Without a doubt. That nasty pricks whole life has revolved around that crap-pile. Strippers and booze and drugs. Wouldn't surprise me if he has a bed in his office there." He turned and headed towards his house and then quickly turned around. "But you didn't hear that from me."
I decided right then and there to check out the "The best defense is a good offense" theory that you always here sportscasters babbling about.
Angel had my beer on a tray but sidled over to where la Favor stood at the bar, hunched over as he weeded through a stack of Easy Rider and Hustler magazines. She gave a quick glance towards my direction and then began to whisper in his ear. I pushed away from my table and was already five feet behind them when they both started to turn towards me. Cletus had his hand in his jacket pocket and was pulling out a pistol.
Looked like a military issued .45. As he turned he started to raise his arm up. I wound up my swing from my hip.
"Eat this, bitch!" The bat caught Cletus just at the point where the jaw meets the ear. You could have heard the crack out the bar and across the street. Spit and blood shot from la favor's mouth.
The bat shattered upon impact and the top half flew across the bar and smashed into the mirror that was behind all the dusty booze bottles, sending the broken shards of glass flying. Cletus's legs seemed to lock in place and he fell face down on the floor, stopping on the way down to smack his face on the old time brass foot rail. I turned to Angel but she was already busting ass out the back door.
I didn't hear the shot from the midget's pistol.