Death's Last Run (10 page)

CLARE

Clare slammed back a fruity shot and met Jana's eye behind the bar. “You sure we're allowed to do shooters on the job?”

“Chill, Goody Two-Shoes. We're allowed.” Jana stuck a sword with three small olives into a murky martini. “Makes the customers way less annoying.”

Clare loaded her tray with the martini and two pints of beer. Her body screamed from the abuse she'd put it through on the ski hill — every movement she made shot a different muscle with pain.

“You sure you're fine with that tray? Most people don't use two hands.”

“I'm afraid I'll break something.”

“Okay, but if you keep holding the tray from its sides, Wade's going to know you lied on your résumé.”

“Shit, you're right.” Clare flattened her palm like the waitress who'd trained her had shown her. “Wait — how did you know I lied on my résumé?”

Jana grinned. “I know what experience looks like. It's not that.”

Clare slid the tray onto her palm even though she was sure it would fall over and launch drinks in every direction. “Hey, do we have a karaoke song book? My customers want to look through it.”

Jana reached down the bar for a thick green binder. She peered at Clare's table. “The women are going to choose Madonna or Cyndi Lauper, and the men . . . Metallica.”

“Why Metallica?” The group was in their thirties and dressed like they'd just come from Wall Street. Or whatever the
BC
equivalent of Wall Street was.

“Mainstream, but makes them feel bad-ass. You and I should do a song later.” Jana poured a rum and Coke — or rum and cola, because the bar used a generic brand. She popped a straw inside and started sipping.

“Are we allowed to sing? What if our customers want a drink while we're onstage?” Clare felt like a square for asking, but it was important to keep this job.

“You need another waitress to cover your section and I need to ask Wade to work the bar, which is always fine with him — he loves being close to his liquor. You should take those drinks now. Your customers are looking over.”

Clare balanced the tray and songbook successfully — all the way to the table with no spills, to her surprise. As she left her customers, she saw Chopper coming in the front door.

“Hey, Lucy.” He flashed her a toothy grin. “I want to sit in your section.”

“My section is one table, and it's full.”

“So I'll sit at the bar. You have to come there for your drinks, right?”

Jana nodded hello at Chopper and started pouring a pint of something dark. “A shot, too?” she asked him.

“If Lucy's having one with me.”

“Sure.” Clare could come to like this job. “What are we drinking?”

“I like SoCo, but feel free to shoot what you like. On me.”

“Southern Comfort works. And I owe you a beer,” Clare said. “For all this pain you put me in.”

“Pain. That's fitting because you were being a pain on the mountain today. Do you always insult people who are trying to help you learn?”

“Do you always laugh at people who aren't superstars on their first run down the hill?”

Chopper smiled slowly. “Okay, buy me a beer, I'll buy you shots all night.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?”

“'Course I am. A girl like you would never hook up with me sober.”

“Oh,” Clare said. “So you like sloppy drunks.”

“There's always the next morning.”

Jana rolled her eyes as Chopper and Clare handed back their empty shot glasses. “Already, MacPherson? Give her, like, a day to look around at her options.” She turned to Clare. “You'll find much better guys here than Chopper. You want to rebound from your Toronto ex with someone fabulous.”

“Like who?” Clare glanced around the bar. It was half-full, which she thought was pretty good for a Monday night.

“Like me,” Chopper said.

“Lucy's not into brainiac freaks.”

“Brainiac?” Clare glanced at Chopper and saw the same laid-back snow bum she'd met at her lesson. Maybe brainiac was snowboarder slang for its opposite. “What are you smart in?”

“Thanks a lot.” Chopper smirked.

“He's smart in everything. Especially chemistry.” Jana pulled a songbook from the pile and started flipping through it on the bar. “We used to sing the Divinyls' ‘I Touch Myself.' Me and Sacha. We'd do shooters and look through the list, and we'd always end up picking that. Remember, Chopper?”

Chopper raised his eyebrows, like of course he remembered, he just didn't find it especially cute. “Are those Sacha's bracelets?” He gestured to Jana's wrist where several bands of beads and string and silver charms tangled over top of one another.

“Yeah. They help me remember her.” Jana cast her pretty eyes down to the bar for a moment. “Anyway, people thought we were funny. Neither one of us could sing but they liked our dirty gestures. You want to sing it with me, Lucy?”

“No.” Clare was starting to wish there was a lock on her bedroom door — or someone else sleeping in the apartment with her and Jana. She thought again of the box of Sacha photos in Jana's closet, wondered if she should study it more closely. “Is that normal, that my customers are waving at me?”

“At least they're not snapping their fingers. You better go see what they want.”

Clare found her group ready with its first round of karaoke requests. She returned to the bar and asked Jana what to do with the song selections. Chopper wasn't there but his beer and his coat were, so he couldn't have gone far.

Jana took the papers. “Ha! Cyndi Lauper — what did I say?”

“You said Cyndi Lauper. What did the guys pick?”

“George Michael. ‘One More Try.' God, what a downer. Don't put that sheet in.”

“I have to,” Clare said. “They'll wonder why their name isn't called.”

“Fine; put it in. Depress the whole bar. But if you do, I'm putting your name on ‘I Touch Myself.'”

“Jana!”

Jana held the tiny pencil above the tiny paper. “Lucy.”

Clare didn't see how she could win. But four angry customers didn't sound as bad as dancing publicly on a dead girl's grave, so she said, “Fine. I'll tell them the
DJ
can't find the George Michael track. I hope no one else requests it.”

“No one will.” Jana set down her pencil and continued to flip through the songbook. “And no one cares if you sing Sacha's song. It's not like she owned the patent. But I'll find us something else.”

Onstage, a man in a plaid shirt was singing “Friends in Low Places.” When Clare turned and looked at his face she saw it was Chopper.

“He's good,” Clare said to Jana.

“Chopper? He's annoying.”

“He's a really good snowboard instructor.” Clare felt something stirring in her, watching Chopper croon the Garth Brooks lyrics with a sexy combination of silly and serious.

Jana snorted. “So you won't sing Sacha's song, but you'll sleep in her bed and work in her job and drool over the guy she used to sleep with.”

“You said she was sleeping with Wade.”

“She was in love with Wade. But Wade's married.”

“So Sacha and Wade weren't having sex?” Fatigue and Southern Comfort fought for the job of clouding Clare's brain.

“Of course they were having sex. But Sacha was afraid of falling too hard for a married man. She slept with Chopper the odd time — and a couple other guys, too — like she was trying to convince herself she could take or leave Wade. Haven't you ever done that?”

Clare looked at Chopper up onstage. The song was almost over, which was a shame — she could listen to him sing all night. She figured him to be in his late thirties — he'd just missed the memo about getting a real job sometime at the end of the last decade. Or maybe he had it figured out better than anyone. Maybe chilling in paradise, getting exercise and fresh air and women when you wanted them was exactly what the world's real geniuses aimed to achieve.

And the way he sang — Clare could climb on top of his tall, muscled body with energy to spare. But as she let her thoughts turn graphic, picturing just what she'd like to do with Chopper, Clare suddenly missed Noah. She wanted to be in New York, eating takeout in his tiny Chelsea apartment, figuring out a way to make their relationship work.

“Yeah,” she said to Jana. “Yeah, I have done that.”

WADE

Wade watched Lucy work the floor. He was pretty sure her résumé was fudged. He'd overheard her asking Jana how much rum went in a rum and Coke, which anyone who'd worked anywhere licensed in Canada would know was one ounce unless it was a double. But she looked a lot like Sacha — which Wade found both comforting and unbearable. He'd keep her around until one emotion won over the other.

“Are you listening?” Richie waved a hand back and forth in front of Wade's face. “I want to know when we can get this deal signed. I have a promoter interested in doing gigs here. He says he'll start with Avalanche Nights — and he
never
works with oldie bands — to show us what he can do. If it goes well, he'll take Saturday nights regular.”

Wade's eyes panned the room. Ten p.m. on a Monday and the place was buzzing. Not packed like a weekend, but most tables were occupied and the bar was half-full with regulars. It killed him that Avalanche was making no money. Prices were high enough, business was good enough, labor was cheap enough. It was the rent that was too damn high.

“Saturdays are already slammed,” Wade said. “Maybe the promoter would like Thursdays.”

“Fine, he'll take Thursdays. But he won't lift a finger until I'm officially your partner.”

Wade frowned. “Soon, I promise.”

“What's the delay, dude? Norris told me that without a cash infusion, this bar will be toast in two weeks.” Richie picked up his Heineken and took a long sip, but when he set the bottle back down, Wade saw the level hadn't fallen much.

“Why would Stu say that?” Wade voiced his thoughts aloud.

“He wants to help you. Said he'd give you the money himself but he's tapped.”

Wade wondered if this could be true, that Stu Norris was broke. He had expensive taste for a cop, and his wife hadn't worked in years. But Norris was careful. He'd been Avalanche Nights' bookkeeper because he was the only one of the three who even cared about balancing their income with expenses.

Wade said to Richie, “I'm waiting to break this to Georgia. She's . . . well, she was hesitant enough when I went into the bar business. She won't love it if I take on a partner and start running Avalanche like a downtown nightclub.”

Richie grinned, exposing his designer grill — one gold tooth on the upper right side of his mouth with a small diamond on either side. Wade liked the look. He could never pull it off personally, but it suited Richie.

Richie said, “We don't have to do club nights. I'm not looking to take over or change the place. Except the waitresses' uniforms — but you gotta admit that any change is a plus in that department.”

Wade laughed. “Georgia chose those.”

“I bet she did. But seriously, man, you're the businessman — I want to learn from you.”

“Learn what?”

“How to run a legit operation.” Richie spread his hands and smiled as he glanced around the bar. “You think I want to stay down with the criminals forever? No, thank you. I want to fly in the big leagues.”

Wade smirked. “This bar is hardly big leagues.”

“One step at a time, man. That's what Billingsley says.”

“You read Bob Billingsley?” Wade wondered if he was racist to feel surprised. “The motivational speaker?”

“Dude's a genius,” Richie said. “Anyway, I don't need controlling interest — just a deal where I can't get screwed.”

The door chime jingled and Georgia walked in. Her long beige coat made her look like a movie star among the Patagonia- and toque-wearing bums in the crowd.

Wade made eye contact and smiled. Georgia took a stool at the bar.

“Okay, let's do this,” Wade said to Richie. “We're agreed on terms. I'll draw up a contract. Give me a couple of days so I can get the legalities right. Let's meet again Wednesday night and make this official.”

“Sweet.” Richie shook Wade's hand, and Wade walked off to join his wife.

He pulled up the stool next to Georgia's. “Long day today?”

Georgia pushed back a long strand of hair, still immaculate after her workday. “This commute is murder.”

Wade frowned. “Maybe we should move back to the city. I can be the one to commute.”

“We agreed to give Avalanche five years. We're nearly there, right?” She gave him a weary grin.

Wade took Georgia's hand. “I've been offered an amazing deal.”

Georgia's hand remained limp in Wade's. “Is that why you were talking with Richie Lebar just now?”

“I know he's not your first choice. And I understand why. But the kid's reading Bob Billingsley. He's trying to make something of himself.”

“Billingsley? Are you serious?” Georgia pushed her mouth into something between a smirk and a sneer. “I mean, don't get me wrong — he has impressive
marketing
skills. But he's a quack — he's peddling one plus one equals two and selling it as the great new equation. If Richie buys that shit, it makes me
less
impressed by his intelligence.”

Wade tried to remember if Georgia had been such a snob when they'd met. If she had, she'd hidden it well.

“That's kind of what you want in a partner, though,” Wade said. “Someone who will work hard, but who won't be able to outsmart you.”

Georgia rolled her eyes. “You remind me of a teenager trying to borrow his parents' car. You'll keep coming up with a new argument until I say yes. Except I won't say yes.”

“Without Richie, I have to close. It will take even longer for your parents to get their money back.”

“Please. My parents have written that money off.”

“I haven't. I'm planning to pay them back if I have to write jingles for twenty years to do it.”

Georgia's eyes darted to Wade's. “Don't write jingles again. You hated advertising.”

“I know, but it pays well. We're only twenty-five grand short of making this payment. Richie's offering fifty thousand for twenty-five percent.”

“Twenty-five grand, hmm?” Georgia took a deep breath in. “Seems like such a low number until you can't raise it.”

“I
can
raise it. You just won't agree to the terms.”

Georgia squeezed Wade's hand tight. “Don't worry if this fails, Wade. I'll support us until you find a job you can feel good about.”

“Like what?” Wade knew he sounded morose. He couldn't help it.

“You could teach guitar in high school and play gigs where you can get them. Good things happen when you're at least trying to pursue what you love.”

“Can you at least consider Richie? He wants to bring live music into Avalanche. Blues bands, jazz bands. And Avalanche Nights. It's the perfect setting for that.”

“Oh, Wade . . . My instincts are screaming no bloody way. But I want to see you thrive again — be the long-haired dude I married.” She fingered the hair behind his neck — which was becoming more like a mullet each day. “Not that I liked the long hair. But you were happy then. We'll figure this out.”

Man, Wade wished he were in love with her.