Hard Up(2)

Please, St. Anthony. Tell me what to do now, she pled to her patron saint, looking skyward.

Silence. There was no help coming, no one to turn to.

“Vi.”

She turned, looking at Callum. He’d managed to get to his feet, although she could see that he was bleeding pretty badly.

“Come here,” he said, gesturing. “We have to move.”

She took a step toward him, then he held up a hand. “Wait. Pick up the gun. Never leave a weapon behind.”

Vi felt numb. She turned back toward the weapon. Three heavy steps, then she leaned down and grabbed it. She slid the safety on, tucked it in the back of her waistband.

Callum moved toward her, slow but purposeful.

“We need somewhere to hide,” he said. “They’ll be coming for both of us.”

Vi only nodded. She dropped her gaze, still unable to look him in the eye.

“Vi, snap out of it,” Callum said, his voice gone to gravel. “This is serious. You don’t know what you’ve done.”

But she did. Oh, she did know…

Wrapping her arm around Callum's waist, she started to guide him back toward the bar.





2





Two Hours Earlier





Viola Walker took a heavy plastic rack of pint glasses out of the dishwasher, blowing an annoyed breath at a strand of blonde hair that fell across her forehead. Hands full, she shuffled out of the dish room and behind the bar, depositing the rack atop an empty keg.

She took a moment to take her waist-length hair down and restore it to the usual neat bun. There were a few patrons playing pool or hanging out at tables, but none sitting at the bar.

Fine by Vi. She had things to do.

She grabbed a clean towel and started polishing the glasses, putting them away in the low boy cooler beneath the bar. Glasses on one side, domestic bottles on the other.

Neat and clean and organized, the way she liked it.

Well… at least the coolers were organized. Snake’s bar was a bunch of peeling laminate wood on one wall, surrounded by an ocean of pool tables. Everything but the bar and the tables was painted pitch black.

There were no windows, and no decor to speak of unless you counted a big mirror behind the bar, or a hundred-odd dusty bottles of flavored vodka.

The mirror wasn’t even there to class the place up, it just gave the bartenders a way to monitor the whole place while their backs were turned from the room.

Don’t get me started on the whipped cream vodkas, either… she sighed to herself. This is a bar where guys come to be alone. Who thought flavored vodkas were a good idea?

Then again, since this bar was undoubtedly connected to the Russians, it was probably some kind of handshake deal. Fell off the back of the truck, that kind of thing.

Snake’s wasn’t the nicest joint she’d kept bar at, but it worked. Especially if she kept herself covered up, under wraps. Not too preppy, otherwise she looked thirteen instead of twenty-three.

But not too messy or casual, either. She’d tried it, and it drew the worst kind of men, buzzing around her like flies to roadkill.

Not pretty.

Speaking of… she thought as she looked up.

One of her regulars was standing at the bar, staring at her with slightly unfocused eyes. Carl had a potbelly, a perpetual blanket of body odor, and a nose so crooked it could been the mayor of Chicago. Sadly, none of that ever stopped him from trying to flirt.

“You shoulda let me carry them glasses for you,” Carl said.

Vi glanced at him, but avoided making direct eye contact with his bloodshot gaze.

“Nah,” she said. “Then what would I do for a job?”

Carl guffawed, though her comment hadn’t been a joke. Or not a funny one, anyway.

“You know, Vi…” he said.

“You need another beer?” she asked, nodding at the empty pint glass he clutched in his grubby hands.

“I… well, yeah…” he said, shaking his head. “I was tryna say—”

Carl glanced up at the mirror behind her, trailing off. Vi didn’t have to ask why; three younger guys walked in, all business.

The three settled themselves at one end of the bar, farthest from the door.

Nothing new here, Vi thought, repressing an eye roll.

“Same as always, right?” she said, plucking the too-warm glass from Carl’s grasp.

“Ayup,” he said, dropping his head.

Clearly Carl didn’t want to draw the attention of the three younger guys.

Vi got Carl’s reasoning, beyond a doubt. She poured him a fresh beer from the bar’s only tap and sent him shambling back to the dark corner table he preferred.

“Gentlemen,” she said, moving over to them.

Three guys in their late twenties, all with buzzed hair. Two dark-haired, one lighter. For the first month they patronized Snake’s, she’d just called them The Soldiers in her head.