Read Online Whiskey Sour Noir (The Hard Stuff) by Mickey J. Corrigan - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mickey J. Corrigan
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behind me, and I stood there, letting the bar gloom seep around me. The Kettle’s windows are covered up with sailcloth drapes in funereal black, specially designed for alcoholic privacy and to keep out the mean old Florida sun. I held my breath for a moment and tried not to look at the vision of hunkiness standing behind the bar with a dirty towel over one broad shoulder. But there wasn’t really any choice. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. What was a guy like that doing in a place like this?
It was doubtful he was thinking that such about me. I’m a Kettle of Fish kind of girl. Cheap date clothes, red chipped nails, sawed off hair bleached whiter than Miami coke. Tats down my low-cut backside that show when I sit down. In west Dusky Beach, I fit in perfectly.
Peter broke the ice for me and Cat Avery by saying, “Here come trouble, boys.” He waved me over to the stained captain’s chair next to his own. “Avery, you better bring me a pitcher and a couple shot glasses of WT. And hold onto your wallet. And your pecker.”
What could I do? I laughed and sat down at the bar in the high wooden chair next to Peter’s. When he gave me a peck on the cheek I could smell the musty peanut odor of a day spent in darkness drinking cheap drafts and watching the bad news unfurl in an endless depressing stream. I hadn’t slept with Peter, not even close, so he could tease me all he wanted. I didn’t care, long as Avery kept smiling at me like he was. Kind of nice, not creepy and looking to benefit from my personal history of cheap scandal. Like some want to do.
“How’s tricks, Tami Lee?” Peter sat back against the knobby rungs of the chair. His beery gut pressed against the sticky bar. He petted it like a pregnant women does, rubbing little circles and soothing what’s deep inside. “You talk to Lulu today?”
Lulu’s his ex and my boss at the DIC.
“Yup. What you want to hear, Peter? She was crying all day long, crying so bad she couldn’t get any work done, all because she’s missing your sorry butt?”
He snickered. Lulu was tough as they come. When she tossed Peter to the curb, he’d fractured his tailbone and, according to him, it still hurt to sit on the crapper some ten years later. They were kind of friends, but Lulu blamed Peter’s drinking for every financial problem she and the two boys had suffered over the years. Being a single mother hardened Lulu and made her into one of those real strict teetotalers. She disapproved of my habits, and this held me back from all sorts of career advancements. I had more education than Lulu, but she’d put in way more time at the job. There’d be no winning with her.
“A pitcher of the house beer and two shots of bourbon. Here you go, kids. Now introduce us, will you, Peter?”
Avery’s soft-lull voice rumbled straight through my bones into my sponge-tender marrow, like we were sitting in a boxcar taking a long slow train ride together. I looked up at him and thought—I remember this distinctly, that’s how hard hit I was by this man— he’s going to love me and hurt me, but I don’t know in what order.
“Tami Lee Conkers, meet Mr. Cat Avery, the new day bartender. He’s your new best friend. If you don’t break any mugs or shot glasses, he’ll give you your tenth round on the house.” Peter looked like he might have gotten a free drink or two already. “Avery’s on TV. He’s famous,” Peter added with a wet laugh.
“So is global warming, so shut it, Peter,” I said.
I offered the new guy my hand like the fine southern lady I was not raised to be. If this man was on TV but working here, I figured he was either a criminal or a porn star. Turns out I was just about dead on.
His hand was rough, pale, worn in the pads of his long white fingertips. I imagined those callouses worming their way into the deepest folds of my dampest parts. Just like that, I was in lust with Cat Avery. So lusted up I had to drop his hand like a hot tamale and down
It was doubtful he was thinking that such about me. I’m a Kettle of Fish kind of girl. Cheap date clothes, red chipped nails, sawed off hair bleached whiter than Miami coke. Tats down my low-cut backside that show when I sit down. In west Dusky Beach, I fit in perfectly.
Peter broke the ice for me and Cat Avery by saying, “Here come trouble, boys.” He waved me over to the stained captain’s chair next to his own. “Avery, you better bring me a pitcher and a couple shot glasses of WT. And hold onto your wallet. And your pecker.”
What could I do? I laughed and sat down at the bar in the high wooden chair next to Peter’s. When he gave me a peck on the cheek I could smell the musty peanut odor of a day spent in darkness drinking cheap drafts and watching the bad news unfurl in an endless depressing stream. I hadn’t slept with Peter, not even close, so he could tease me all he wanted. I didn’t care, long as Avery kept smiling at me like he was. Kind of nice, not creepy and looking to benefit from my personal history of cheap scandal. Like some want to do.
“How’s tricks, Tami Lee?” Peter sat back against the knobby rungs of the chair. His beery gut pressed against the sticky bar. He petted it like a pregnant women does, rubbing little circles and soothing what’s deep inside. “You talk to Lulu today?”
Lulu’s his ex and my boss at the DIC.
“Yup. What you want to hear, Peter? She was crying all day long, crying so bad she couldn’t get any work done, all because she’s missing your sorry butt?”
He snickered. Lulu was tough as they come. When she tossed Peter to the curb, he’d fractured his tailbone and, according to him, it still hurt to sit on the crapper some ten years later. They were kind of friends, but Lulu blamed Peter’s drinking for every financial problem she and the two boys had suffered over the years. Being a single mother hardened Lulu and made her into one of those real strict teetotalers. She disapproved of my habits, and this held me back from all sorts of career advancements. I had more education than Lulu, but she’d put in way more time at the job. There’d be no winning with her.
“A pitcher of the house beer and two shots of bourbon. Here you go, kids. Now introduce us, will you, Peter?”
Avery’s soft-lull voice rumbled straight through my bones into my sponge-tender marrow, like we were sitting in a boxcar taking a long slow train ride together. I looked up at him and thought—I remember this distinctly, that’s how hard hit I was by this man— he’s going to love me and hurt me, but I don’t know in what order.
“Tami Lee Conkers, meet Mr. Cat Avery, the new day bartender. He’s your new best friend. If you don’t break any mugs or shot glasses, he’ll give you your tenth round on the house.” Peter looked like he might have gotten a free drink or two already. “Avery’s on TV. He’s famous,” Peter added with a wet laugh.
“So is global warming, so shut it, Peter,” I said.
I offered the new guy my hand like the fine southern lady I was not raised to be. If this man was on TV but working here, I figured he was either a criminal or a porn star. Turns out I was just about dead on.
His hand was rough, pale, worn in the pads of his long white fingertips. I imagined those callouses worming their way into the deepest folds of my dampest parts. Just like that, I was in lust with Cat Avery. So lusted up I had to drop his hand like a hot tamale and down
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