Read Online F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton - Free Book Online Page B

Since the din made conversation impossible, I had plenty of time to survey the place in peace. I turned on the stool until my back was up against the bar, watching the pool players, casting an occasional eye at the patrons on either side of me. I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to present myself. I thought for the time being I’d keep hush about my occupation and the reasons for my presence in Floral Beach. The local papers had carried front-page news about Bailey’s arrest, and I thought I could probably conjure up talk on the subject without appearing too inquisitive.
    Down to my left, near the jukebox, two women began to dance. The bikers’ girlfriends made some rude observations, but no one seemed to pay much attention aside from that. Two stools over, a woman in her fifties looked on with a sloppy smile. I pegged her asShana Timberlake, in part because no other woman in the bar looked old enough to have had a teenage daughter seventeen years before.
    At ten, the bikers cleared out, motorcycles rocketing off down the street with diminishing thunder. The jukebox was between selections, and for a moment a miraculous silence fell across the bar. Someone said, “Whew, Lord!” and everybody laughed. There were maybe ten of us left in the place, and the tension level dropped to some more familial feel. This was Tuesday night, the local hangout, the equivalent of the basement recreation room at a church, except that beer was served. There was no hard liquor in evidence and my guess was that any wine on the premises was going to come from a jug the size of an oil drum, with about that much finesse.
    The man on the stool next to mine on the right appeared to be in his sixties. He was big, with a beer belly that protruded like a twenty-five-pound bag of rice. His face was broad, connected to his neck by a series of double chins. There was even a roll of fat at the back of his neck where graying hair curled over his shirt collar. I’d seen him flick a curious look in my direction. The others in the bar seemed known to one another, judging from the banter, which had largely to do with local politics, old sporting grievances, and how drunk someone named Ace had been the night before. The sheepish Ace, tall, thin, jeans, denim jacket, and baseball cap, took a lot of ribbing about some behavior ofhis with old Betty, whom he’d apparently taken home with him. Ace seemed to revel in the accusations of misconduct, and since Betty wasn’t present to correct the impression, everyone assumed that he’d gotten laid.
    â€œBetty’s his ex-wife,” the man next to me said, in one of those casual asides meant to include me in the merriment. “She kicked him out four times, but she always takes him back. Yo, Daisy. How about some peanuts down here?”
    â€œI thought that was Pearl,” I remarked, to keep the conversation alive.
    â€œI’m Curtis Pearl,” he said. “Pearl to my friends.”
    Daisy scooped what looked like a dog dish full of peanuts from a garbage pail under the bar. The nuts were still in the shell, and the litter on the floor suggested what we were meant to do. Pearl surprised me by chomping down a peanut, shell and all. “We’re talkin’ fiber here,” he said. “It’s good for you. I got a doctor believes in cellulose. Fills you up, he says. Gets the old system powerin’ through.”
    I shrugged and tried it myself. No doubt about it, the shell had a lot of crunch and a sharp infusion of salt mingled nicely with the bland taste of the nut inside. Did this count as grain, or was it the same as eating the panel from a cardboard box?
    The jukebox sparked to life again, this time a mellow vocalist who sounded like a cross between Frank Sinatra and Della Reese. The two women at the end ofthe bar began to dance again. Both were dark-haired, both slim. One taller. Pearl turned to look at them and then back at me. “That bother