Read Online Sleep with the Fishes by Brian M. Wiprud - Free Book Online Page B

do me a favor? Can you get Little Bob to stop callin’ me Doc? It really bugs me the way he keeps callin’ me Doc. Say, ya look in a glum mood there tonight, Big Bob.”
    “It’s nothing, Lloyd, probably just thinkin’ too much. I’ll talk with Cropsey about callin’ ya Doc. He’s got a kinda inconsiderate side, that’s all.” Bob stepped out of and over his chair, headed for the jukebox. “If you guys’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go look at the tunes.”
    “Thanks, Lloyd.” Russ sloshed some Yuengling into his savior’s glass.
    Lloyd tilted his head in Big Bob’s direction. “Girl trouble again?”
    “Girl trouble always. It’s not that I don’t care, but it’s always the same thing.” Russ rolled his eyes.
    “Uh-huh. Like a guy I know. All he ever wants to talk about is the trouble with his confounded International Harvester pickup.” Lloyd grinned, stroking his Vandyke.
    “Hey, I don’t always…”
    “You’re right. Last time it was the Dodge. I still say that if you clean your battery posts the Dodge would start right up.”
    “Doubtful, Lloyd. Battery posts aside, it hasn’t been run in five months.”
    “So what’s with the International?”
    “Distributor.”
    Lloyd’s gal Kris stepped up, a sharp, petite woman with short-short dusty brown hair. Big Bob always tried not to look at her.
    “Ya fellahs motor-headin’? Ugh. Look, I’m gonna beat Penelope in Duck Hunt. Spare some quarters, handsome? Russ, honey? Ya eatin’ all right? Ya look tired.”
    “I’m up at four-thirty about five days a week. When am I not tired, Kris?” Russ smiled.
    Kris just shook her worried face at Russ and took the two crumpled greenbacks Lloyd was surrendering.
    “A man your age.” With that, Kris trotted over to the Duck Hunt machine where the chocolate brunette Penelope snapped Bazooka and swayed to the Doobies, which had just come on the jukebox. The strains of “Jesus Is Just Alright with Me” swirled a bit of soul in the bar. Penelope had just gotten off work. The management at The Pond only needed a waitress for the lunch crowd. There was no dinner crowd.
    “Kris has a mind to fix the sad state of your love life, Russ.” Lloyd clicked a plastic-tipped cheroot in his teeth.
    Russ put one hand over his heart, the other in the air while admiring Penelope’s behind. She was shooting video ducks, a light pistol on one hip and a hand in the back pocket on the other. “Still trying to fix me up? I’m a duly deputized bachelor, Lloyd. Can’t she accept that?”
    “In a word? Nope. And I think she’s still working on you an’ Penelope.” Lloyd flicked a lighter in the vicinity of his cheroot while also admiring Penelope’s behind, her pelvis twitching with each pistol blast. “And of course I’m still trying to work on what I gotta do to get that musky.”
    “I told you, a tune-up on my…”
    “A tune-up isn’t what ya need, Russ, I keep tellin’ ya that. Ya need to stop messin’ with your fuel mixture.”
    “But I read somewhere that if you put a little less oil in the gas and adjust the mixture screw…”
    “Look, Russ, let me get rid of some of that ear hair.”
    “Ear hair?” Russ grabbed at his ears.
    “Yeah, it’s comin’ in. Ya got one big black curly one right…”
    “Ho, Smonig,” Sid interrupted. He jerked up a chair from the next table and sat. “Mind if I sit down?”
    “Oh, er, hullo!” Russ lowered his hands from his ears. “Uh, Lloyd, I’d like you to meet my new neighbor, Sid Bifulco.”
    Sid considered Lloyd’s outstretched hand a moment, shook it with obvious disinterest, and focused back on Russ. “Yeah, nice t’meet you. Can I buy you guys a Canadian?”
    “Careful, Sid,” Lloyd piped up. “Offers like that are always accepted around here.”
    Sid barely glanced in Lloyd’s direction as he pointed a ten-dollar bill at him. “Then I guess you won’t mind bein’ a good boy an’ gettin’ us the round.” Sid smiled at Russ.
    Lloyd shrugged