“Why are you doing this?” I said, throwing Skyla’s question back at her. “Why didn’t you tell anyone that story before?”
“I’m tired of being a chicken shit.” Skyla’s mouth curled into a funny smile, and she raised an eyebrow. “And now I’ve got someone to watch my back.”
“What if something happens to us?”
Skyla giggled. She sounded unhinged. “You want to go back? Go home? Be safe and happy?”
I blinked. “Well… the thought had crossed my mind.”
“We’re already here, Mundy. We can go through the looking glass together, or you can go home, ignorant and blissful.”
“It’s tempting, but I guess I didn’t come all this way to chicken out now. What’s the plan?”
Skyla’s expression hardened as if she had made up her mind to do something unpleasant. Determination showed in the tight set of her mouth. “The plan is, I’m going inside this bar and I’m going to stay until we learn something useful. You coming with me?” She tugged on the door handle, and the steel squealed as the door swung open. The interior light popped on, harsh and bright.
“Skyla, wait.” I lunged and grabbed her elbow. “Give me a minute to work up my nerve. This is all new territory for me.”
Skyla pulled her arm free and slapped me on the shoulder. “No, girlfriend, it’s now or never.” She scurried out and slammed the door closed behind her. I kissed my fingertips and smacked the truck’s headliner, my way of making a quickie prayer to St. Jude. I had looked him up before I left home in case I needed a little help from the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes.
Chapter Nine
Every man in the grubby little bar stopped and stared when Skyla and I walked in, probably because we were the only women gracing the premises. More people occupied the room than the number of cars outside suggested. Maybe Alaskans liked to carpool.
Skyla scanned the interior, and then her shoulders drooped, but from relief or disappointment, I couldn’t tell. “Adam’s not here.”
“Too bad?” I said.
Skyla scowled at me. “It’s early yet. Let’s get a beer and talk up the regulars.”
I glanced at a couple of big-bellied, bearded men in the corner who had licked their lips the moment they laid eyes on us. “They don’t look like they’re in a talking mood.”
Skyla ignored me and flagged the bartender’s attention. He slid two brown bottles toward us, and Skyla paid him. I took a beer and settled onto a bar stool, hoping to make it through the evening unmolested. Turns out I wouldn’t be that lucky.
“Ladies, you wander in here by accident? This place don’t serve no fancy frou-frou drinks.” A man in a beat-up cowboy hat leaned on the bar next to us. His lip pooched out over a plug of tobacco. He caught me studying him and spat a stream of brown juice on the floor at my feet. I exercised every ounce of control I possessed to keep from stepping back and gagging.
“We’re good with beer.” I raised my bottle as evidence and tried to smile at him. The bland look he gave me said I needed to try harder, or maybe he would have preferred if I spat at him in return.
“Why don’t you two come an’ keep me and my buddies company.” He tilted his head toward a table where two men sat scratching and drinking beer. They all wore flannel shirts, boots, jeans, and trucker hats. Rednecks, it appeared, were not strictly relegated to the south. One man smiled at me and revealed a set of tobacco-stained teeth… at least the ones that hadn’t fallen out yet.
“Are y’all regulars in this place?” I asked. If we couldn’t find Adam Skoll, then maybe we could find someone who knew where he was.
“Sure,” he said, pointing across the room to his table. “That seat’s got a permanent imprint in the shape of my ass.”
I waggled my bottle and said, “You buy us another drink?”
“Sure, darlin’, and if you’re extra nice I might let you sit in my lap.”
I giggled to cover my revulsion. Skyla gritted her teeth but kept her objections to herself.
No one insisted on enforcing the sitting-in-laps provision, for which I was grateful. Skyla nursed her beer and grunted monosyllabic answers whenever anyone asked a question. I, however, flirted like a first-rate hooker. Or maybe a third-rate hooker. I lacked the experience and frame of reference to know for sure. But these men had low expectations—I had breasts and a vagina, and for them, that was enough.
“Yeah, we heard of that Skoll fella,” said Cowboy Hat when I mentioned the name. “Thought he was tough shit. Ain’t seen him around in a while. Heard he lit out of town after some trouble with the cops. Why you lookin’ for him?”
“He owes me money,” I said.
Cowboy Hat chuckled. “They usually do.” He rubbed the coarse whiskers sprouting on his upper lip and narrowed his eyes. “I might know somebody he used to run around with. I could get you in touch with him.”
I sprawled in my chair, trying my best to look bored and not too interested. “Oh yeah?”
“But I don’t give nothin’ useful away for free.”
I sat up and leaned toward him, seductive and giving him smoky bedroom eyes, or so I hoped. I lowered my voice and thickened my southern twang. “I don’t expect you to, honey, but I don’t pay for nothin’ if I don’t know how good it is.”
Cowboy Hat smiled like a pervert at a strip show. “Oh, it’s good. It’s real good.”
His buddies snickered as though they shared in some secret joke. Believe me, there was nothing secret about Cowboy Hat’s insinuations. When I met Mani in Heaven one day, he was so going to owe me for this.
I sighed and smacked my bottle on the table. “Meet me in the parking lot in a few, and I’ll see what kind of goods you have to offer.”
Cowboy Hat chuckled, rocked back in his chair, and tilted his beer over his mouth. I leaned toward Skyla and batted my eyelashes. “I gotta pee. Come with me.”
“Chicks,” mumbled a trucker-hat stooge. “Why they always gotta go to the bathroom together?”
Skyla followed me into the stinking, single-toilet ladies’ room. “You sure you can go through with this?” she said. “The crime scene photographer had all his teeth, at least. This guy is gross.”
I grunted in agreement. “He’s also totally full of crap, but I’ll give him a chance.” I handed Skyla my keys. “You go out the back and get the 4-Runner started. I’m going through the bar and catch his attention. Give me a few minutes with him and then pull up next to his truck. Be ready to run.”
“What are you going to do?”
