Read Online Any Other Name: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson - Free Book Online

had put on a blue and gold letterman’s jacket, followed through and swung past, his momentum and a quick push from me sending him sprawling into the snow.
    He recovered and moved faster than I thought he would and swung an elbow at me as he stood, but I palmed it over my headand gave him my best shot in the side, figuring that if that didn’t knock the air out of him, I was dead.
    He collapsed sideways and fell awkwardly, and it was about then that I felt something very hard hit me in the back of my head. I pushed my hat back up straight and turned to look at the skinny woman with the cigarette between her lips who had been in the doorway but now was holding a cast waffle iron. “Ouch.”
    She studied me. “You’re the first one to still be standing after that.”
    I rubbed the knot at the back of my noggin. “I’ve got a hard head.”
    She held the waffle iron at the ready. “Leave Thor alone.”
    “Thor? Really?” I glanced at the big guy, who, having rolled over, was sitting up holding his ribs but showing no sign of wanting to stand, and then looked back at the woman. “He started it.”
    “Yeah, well I’m finishing it.”
    I held a hand out to the man on the ground. “Help you up?”
    He brushed the blond hair away again and frowned. “Can’t—my knee went out.”
    —
    “I never understood why they called us offensive tackles; I mean, we weren’t allowed to tackle anybody.”
    Sitting on a stool in Dirty Shirley’s bar, I tried to explain the nuanced aspects of our shared football position. “It’s from before, when eleven-man squads used to play offense and defense.”
    He massaged his kneecap and manipulated it in hopes of getting the thing to go back into alignment. “Before my time.”
    I sipped the can of iced tea the skinny woman from thetrailer had given me as she polished glasses behind the bar and carefully watched me. “Mine, too.”
    “And where’d you play?”
    “USC.”
    “Leather helmets?”
    I sighed. “Back in the sixties.”
    “Wow. What was your record?”
    “Undefeated, my freshman year.” I took my hat off and rested it on the bar brim up to make sure whatever luck was there stayed there. “Beat Wisconsin 42–37. Then we didn’t win another big one till the year after I graduated.”
    “Oh.”
    Curtis “Thor” Hansen was from North Dakota and looked like he’d fallen off the road-show truck for
Li’l Abner
, aside from the Viking haircut and the acne on his neck. I’d thrown his arm over my shoulder and limped him around the building and back inside where he’d offered to buy me a beer. “What about you?”
    “The Fighting Irish, Notre Dame—even had a tryout with the Seahawks.” He gestured toward his knee. “Then this thing blew out on me.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    He waved a hand in dismissal. “I scored a thirty on the Wonderlic and they were looking at me for the third round—”
    The skinny woman asked. “What the hell is the Wonder-whatever-it-is?”
    The kid smiled broadly. “It’s a short-form cognitive abilities test that the NFL Combine uses as a predraft assessment—limited to twelve minutes, only about two to five percent even complete the test.”
    I gestured toward the offending joint. “Why didn’t you get it fixed?”
    He smiled a sad smile. “No money, and the repair to the damage was iffy at best, so nobody would take the chance.”
    I kept my eyes on him, my expression neutral, the same one I used to give my daughter when her explanations for youthful transgressions were found wanting. His eyes darted away but then returned to mine. “What?”
    I continued to say nothing, just staring at the acne on his neck leading down his back and into the T-shirt.
    The skinny woman called out to him. “Curtis, you sure you don’t want something to drink?”
    “No, Kay—I’m good.” He watched her for a moment and then came clean. “Steroids.” He blew air from his lips in an unattractive noise. “Some speed . . . Nothing