42

Lazarus sat at the saloon, having already finished his beers and now nursing a bottle of absinthe. The liquid like green fire in a bottle.

He watched the people here, some knocking back a few before going home to spouses they didn’t want to be with and children they didn’t like. The bottle was an escape, but it never lasted and left things worse than before. He’d seen more people destroyed by the bottle than anything else.

A young woman sat at a table by herself. She wore a jean skirt and a red tank top with cowboy boots, and her brown hair came to her shoulders. Lazarus called the waitress over and said he would be picking up the girl’s tab. When she was told, the girl looked back and waved, and Lazarus nodded once. She came over.

“I just wanted to say thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome. This seat’s not taken if you wanna sit.”

She sat down without hesitation. Lazarus watched her a moment.

“No way you’re older than nineteen. What you doin’ in a bar like this?”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“And I’m not your daddy.”

She smiled at him. “How’d you know?”

“I’m police.”

The smile went away. “I’m having one beer and a sandwich and leaving. You really gonna bust me for that?”

“I just paid for your meal, so clearly not. I’m more curious why a nineteen-year-old is drinking alone in a place like this.” He took a sip of absinthe. “See those three men in the booth across the bar? The one with prison tats crawling up his neck has been eyeing you since you walked in. If you weren’t sitting here, he would’ve come up to you and offered to buy you a drink. One of them would’ve distracted you, and he would’ve slipped something in it, and they would’ve carried you outta here like nothin’ happened.”

“Um, paranoid much?” she said playfully.

He grinned. “You’re not paranoid enough. I can assume the worst about folks, be mistaken, and nothin’ happens. You assume the best and end up with the worst, that’s a onetime mistake.” He topped off his glass with the green liquid and took a sip, forgoing the dilution with water and sugar that was customary with absinthe. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, soaking into his collar. “How long you been in town?” he said.

“How do you know I’m not from here?”

“Because no local girl would be in here by herself.”

She glanced back to the men. One of them said something quietly to another one when they noticed her looking.

“You don’t need to worry about them anymore,” he said. “How long you been here?”

“A week. I’m staying at the hostel next door.”

Lazarus leaned back and lit a cigarette from the pack he had out on the table. He handed it to her and she took a drag and said, “That’s good.”

“I rarely smoke, so I smoke the finest. Best pleasures make up in height what they don’t have in length.”

She inhaled another drag and blew it out. “You don’t talk like any cops I know.”

“You know a lotta cops?”

“I’ve been in trouble here and there.”

He looked down to the red tip of her cigarette. “Where you headed?”

“Nowhere. Here. I’m an actress, or tryin’ to be. People said Vegas is the new Hollywood, so I thought I’d give it a shot.”

“Wherever you’re from, you should go back.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no such thing as running away. Life don’t work like that.”

“Really? Then how does it work, Dad ?” she said with a smile.

He looked to the three men, their faces hard and cold. “People like you become prey for people like them.”

She glanced back at them again.

“I grew up around people like them,” she said.

“Then you know they got great big holes right in the middle of ’em. No matter what they do, they’ll never fill ’em, but they damn sure are gonna try.”

She sat in silence awhile and then said, “You sound like you know a lot about it. Having a hole in the middle.”

Lazarus took her cigarette, drawing in a slow drag before exhaling the smoke through his nose.

“You got it, too,” he said, handing the cigarette back. “That’s why you can see it in me.” He was staring at the men now, and they were staring back. “People like us, we know hurting other people don’t fill the hole, so we hurt ourselves.”

She remained quiet, smoking and gazing across the bar. She rested one arm under the other, the cigarette poised between two fingers, a posture that resembled a woman who had been smoking for fifty years.

She said, “And what do you do when the people that are supposed to protect you have that hole inside ’em, too?”

Lazarus pulled out the switchblade he kept in an ankle holster.

The girl’s eyes widened, and she froze. She’d had a blade pulled on her before.

Lazarus pressed a silver hitch, and the blade slid out with a whisper, flicking the light off the polished steel. “I bought this in Mexico from a weapons dealer who got it off a dead cartel brujo. It’s like a sorcerer, or a witch. The handle’s made a’ bone, not sure what kind. Maybe human. But it’s light and sharp as a razor.”

Lazarus expertly flipped the knife with the blade now pointed to the floor and the handle in his fist. “Somebody’s hurting you, you bury this in his stomach. It’ll slide in like wet clay. When it’s up to the hilt, you twist hard and pull out. Rips it open so it won’t stop bleedin’. Then you run.”

He retracted the blade and extended the knife toward the girl. She cautiously took it.

“Buy a bus ticket and go home. If you stay in this city, it’ll eat you. The world’ll eat you anyway, but you’re young enough you can keep a spark alive. Even a spark can set forests on fire if you keep it alive long enough.”

Lazarus rose and went to Bass, who had watched the interaction.

“You sure you wanna give her that? That’s a good knife.”

Lazarus took out the last of his cash and put it on the counter.

“What’s that for?”

“Any damage.”

He turned and went over to the booth the three men were sitting in.

“Evenin’, gentlemen,” he said.

One of the men opened his mouth to speak, but Lazarus grabbed a beer bottle off the table and slammed it into his jaw. The bottle didn’t break, but it knocked the man to the floor, his mouth bleeding badly.

He swung the bottle back and caught the second man in the face with a sickening crunch, glass shattering and blood spraying. The man fell to the ground, clutching his face and hollering in pain. The third man in the booth froze, his hands raised in surrender.

“Easy, man!”

“Get your boys and get outta here.”

He took a step back and waited until the men left the bar. He looked back at the girl, and she stared at him with wide, fearful eyes.

Lazarus left without saying anything to her.

He got into his car and turned up the air conditioner as far as it would go. The stale, warm air swirled around him before the AC finally kicked in and began to cool the car. He turned on the stereo, and a song he didn’t recognize blared through the speakers.

“Off to the hills, let’s make our way,

While the world behind us falls away.”

Bass appeared at his window and draped his forearms over the open door.

“You’re tanked, brother. Sleep it off here. We got a room in the back with a good couch.”

“I’m all right.”

“I don’t think you are. You shouldn’t be drivin’.”

“I’m police, Bass. I can do awful things and get away with ’em.”

Bass opened the door all the way. “You’re still sleeping here. Come on.”

With a weary nod, Lazarus gave in, nearly stumbling out of the car.