Prowlers - 1 (3 page)

"You gonna let this punk talk to me like that?" the drunk sputtered. He tried to stand up straight, make himself a little more imposing in Big Bill's presence. He failed miserably.

"What do you think I should do about it?" Bill asked, amused.

The drunk liked that. Nodded to himself. "You oughta fire *im, treatin' a customer like that. Dock his pay at least."

Bill shook his head slowly. "I don't think I can do that, my friend."

"Why the hell not?" the drunk said with a sneer.

"For one, Jack's right. Only staff behind the bar, and I can't serve anyone who's obviously so drunk he probably only stumbled in here 'cause the last place stopped serving him. That'd be you. The other reason I can't do that is 'cause Jack here is one of the people who makes the rules and signs the checks. See, he owns fifty percent of this place."

The drunk was dumbfounded, staring at Bill in disbelief, then glancing at Jack, then back at Bill. Jack smiled.

"If I was you, I'd move on out of here without raising a fuss," Bill went on. "See, Jack wasn't kidding about throwing you out. He's a kid, sure enough, and polite as can be, just like his mother taught him, but he'll break you in half if you get in his face. I've seen it happen."

Still smirking, the drunk glanced doubtfully at Jack, who kept smiling. But it was a cold smile, and he was bouncing just a bit on the balls of his feet.

Once, twice, the intoxicated fool opened his mouth to say something. At length, he turned away.

"Chrissakes," he muttered under his breath, "all's I wanted was a beer."

Together, they watched him set off for the door. Rather than walk along the bar—the easiest way out— he weaved in and out among the tables, bumping a chair here and there. Patrons glared at him angrily and two older women watched him aghast as he pushed out the door.

Jack raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "I don't get it," he said. "It's like they see the word pub and think it's somewhere they can drink till they puke. I mean, c'mon, have a look around. This is a nice place."

With a sigh, he looked up at Bill. "Thanks."

Bill nodded, chuckling to himself. 'Anytime, tough guy. Now get that beer out of my way and into the ice before I fall over and break an arm."

"Or the floor," Jack muttered, then squeaked in protest as Bill whapped him lightly on the head. I'll right, all right. Can't take a joke."

Both of them were grinning.

Bill went back to pulling pints, and Jack started stuffing Bud long-necks into the iceboxes under the bar. He was down there on the scarred wooden floor when Courtney found him.

"Are you hiding down there or working?"

The last of the Buds had been stashed away, so Jack stood up and faced his sister across the bar.

"What's up?" he asked her.

Court was twenty-eight, but looked older, despite the spattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. There were lines around her blue eyes and at the corners of her mouth, and she had cut her sandy blond hair to shoulder length a few years back just to save time in the mornings. On their own, Jack knew those things would not necessarily have made Courtney Dwyer look older than her age. But once you added the cane ...

Court rapped on the bar with the lion's head on her black cane, which had once belonged to their maternal grandfather, Conan Sears. "Earth to Jack. You're gonna be late."

His hands were damp from the ice and he wiped them on his pants even as his sister's words sank in. "What? Oh, wait, what time is it?"

With a sigh, Courtney held out her watch so he could see the hands. Twenty past seven.

"Damn!" he snapped. 'Artie'll be here in ten minutes."

"You'd better change, then. You don't want to be less than beautiful for dear old Artie," Courtney teased.

Jack's head spun. He glanced around the bar, then out onto the floor of the restaurant. It was busy. Waiters and waitresses hustled, faces intent, and up at the front at least a dozen people stood waiting for tables and glaring at Wendy, the hostess on duty.

"I..." His voice trailed off. He glanced at Courtney. 'Are you sure you don't need me? It's pretty busy."

A look of mock horror spread across her face. "My God, Jack, I don't know," she said in a fluttery voice, a hint of their late mother's brogue hiding in there. "What do you think, Bill? Can

we spare the lad for the night?"

The burly bartender topped off a pint of Bass from the tap, slid it over to a customer, then moved down the bar toward them, looking patiently bemused. "What are you two going on about?"

"Our boy's got a hot date," Courtney told Bill.

Jack sagged against the bar. Nobody could make him feel twelve years old again the way his sister could.

"Oh, really?" Bill said, puffing up his chest and crossing his arms. 'And do we get to meet this girl, or are you hiding her from us? Not good enough for her, are we? Or is she not good enough for us?"

"Kill me," Jack mumbled, and let his forehead slam down on the bar. He bumped it against the wood several times.

"Her name's Kate," Courtney said. "She's one of Artie and Molly's friends. Has her eye on our Jack, this Kate does."

"Can I go now?" Jack pleaded, forehead still on the bar. He could feel the grain against his skin and a damp spot where someone had set a glass not too long ago.

"I don't know if we can do without you," Courtney replied.

Jack laughed, stood up, and walked out from behind the bar. "I get it, Court. But if the place falls down on you, don't blame me."

"Be a gentleman tonight, Jack," Bill called after him.

With a shake of his head and a grin he could not hide, Jack held up his left hand and shot Bill the finger, blocking the gesture from the view of the patrons with his right. "You played professional football, buddy. I've heard about those locker rooms. Don't tell me about being a gentleman."

"Hey!" Courtney snapped, chiding him for real this time. "Watch that."

Jack's only reply was an expression of perfect who-me? innocence.

Bridget's Irish Rose Pub was two blocks from Quincy Market in downtownBoston . Most of the buildings around it were residential, though more businesses had sprung up in storefronts in recent years. Once upon a time the tourists and locals who swarmed Quincy Market had seemed to exist in a kind of box,

and the neighborhoods on either side had been invisible beyond the walls of that box.

Over time, however, that had changed. The streets around Bridget's were cleaner, the buildings brighter, and more often than not, couples discovered the place by strolling hand in hand along the sidewalk. In reality, only a small percentage of the Quincy Market crowd wandered down that way, but it was enough to turn a once struggling neighborhood pub into a thriving business.

The transition had taken time. Others might have thought of Courtney Dwyer and her little brother as persistent, but the truth was, they'd had no choice. Bridget's was all they had in life and they'd had to make what they could of it, despite the odds and the mortgages and the times bankruptcy had loomed.

As Jack changed clothes in his bedroom on the top floor of the building he and his sister owned, he looked at the framed picture of his mother on the bureau and silently thanked her. It was a ritual for him, something he did whenever the photo caught his eye.

Nine years she had been dead, but he still lived by Bridget Dwyer's example every day. One look around his room was testament to that. The bed was made, clothes put away, and there was very little clutter except for the stacks of western novels ready to spill out of the overstuffed bookshelf. His mother had taught him that if he could keep his house in order, he could keep his life in order. That was her way of looking at the world.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it con forted him.

Jack's greatest regret was that she had not lived t see what her little pub had become.

"Wish me luck, Ma," he said, bis voice low.

With a light touch to his pockets to confirm thi presence of his wallet and keys, Jack left the room. On the stairs he looked at his watch—7:45. He was running late, but not so late that Kate would be offended. He barely knew the girl, but he didn't want her to get the wrong impression. They had met three or four times, when he had been out with Artie Carroll and Artie's girlfriend, Molly Hatcher. Kate was cute but quiet. Apparently not so quiet that it kept her from telling Molly she'd like to see more of Jack, though.

Not a bad thing, he thought.

It was worth a shot, anyway. Through high school, Jack had never dated much because of his responsibilities to the pub and to big sister. But he'd been our almost a year now, and since school was no longer part of the equation, he figured it was time to get himself some kind of social life.

Jack was nervous. He hated it, but there was nothing he could do about it. As he opened the door that led down into the restaurant, he surveyed himself one last time. A shower and a fresh shave; his short, bristly hair barely needed a brush. He wore decent-looking black boots that Courtney

had bought him for Christmas, a pair of Levi's, and a white T-shirt under an olive-green V-neck sweater. No jacket. He wondered if it would get

cold, but shrugged off the thought. Better to be cold than to carry a coat around if it was too warm.

One deep breath, then he stepped out on to the landing at the top of the steps, locked the door behind him, and went down into the maelstrom of the restaurant. Bud Trainor was taking dinner orders at a table for six. Missy Keane and Kiera Dunphy were going in opposite directions burdened with trays of appetizers, twisting to slide back to back like ballet dancers or synchronized swimmers. Food service as an Olympic event.

No Courtney.

Jack glanced around, turned to look back toward the kitchen. The swinging doors were beneath the stairs he had just descended, and he spotted his sister just in front of them, talking to Tim Dunphy, Kiera's brother, who was the best cook they had. He looked agitated and rubbed the stubble on his shaved head as he spoke. The tattoos up and down his skinny arm seemed to dance with the motion.

Courtney shook her head, leaned on her cane a bit more than usual, and flexed her bad leg unconsciously.

With a tiny curse under his breath, Jack hurried toward them. "What's wrong now?" he asked.

"Friggin' Marty," Tim grunted. "Cut his hand 'cause he was drinkin' before work again." He turned back to Courtney. "You gotta fire the guy. Seriously, c'mon. Bad enough some of these guys get in pissing matches 'cause one's from Dorchester and one's from Southie, but I can't use guys I can't depend on."

Courtney's expression was grim. She had never

understood how people could hate each other jus because they lived in a different neighborhood in the same city. Yet Tim had somehow managed to keep the peace in his kitchen. The least she could do was handle a problem like this. I’ll take care of it."

"Where's Marty now?" jack asked.

"Went to the friggin' hospital," Tim said, rolling his eyes. "Now I'm short one guy."

Jack looked at Courtney. "I could—"

"I'll take care of it, I said!" his sister snapped.

Her eyes were harsh, but Jack knew she was not really angry with him, only frustrated. The

words she had not spoken were just as clear as the ones she had: I've been doing this since I was nineteen and you were still in grade school, Jackie. I'm not an invalid.

He took a breath, still concerned, but saw that she would brook no argument.

'Artie's at the bar. He's been waiting for you twenty minutes," she said quickly. "You should go before he breaks into song or convinces Bill to give him a beer just to shut him up."

Jack laughed, then Courtney and Tim joined him, and the tension had passed. They would work something out. They always had. He turned and moved swiftly through the restaurant, dodging customers, servers, and busboys, becoming part of the ballet himself. Artie was sitting at the far end of the bar, near the enormous frosted windows that faced the street. He was eating popcorn from a bowl and jabbering at Bill Cantwell, who was staring at Artie in a combination of

amazement and dismay. More than likely, Artie was waxing poetic on one of his many favorite subjects, from gun control to the legalization of prostitution to conspiracies in theU.S. government.

Artie was something else. It wasn't really that those issues meant a lot to him, he just liked to have things to talk about, to get a debate going. That had always been his nature, but even more so since the previous fall, when he had begun his freshman year atEmersonCollege , studying broadcasting. As Jack approached, he heard Artie's rambling and knew the topic was gun control. He smiled. Artie had been born and raised in downtownBoston , just like Jack.BostonCatholicHigh School boys. But to look at him less than a year after graduation, one would think he'd been raised in southernCalifornia . His blond hair was long now, and shaggy enough that he perpetually needed a haircut. He didn't dress like a surfer. It was April inNew England , after all. But the ripped, hoodedBostonCollege sweatshirt he wore with jeans and battered high-tops fit his new persona perfectly.

Artie had always been eccentric, though, so despite the fact that his new look had surprised other friends and even Artie's parents, Jack barely noticed. Artie was just Artie. And his girlfriend, Molly, didn't seem bothered by his quirks either.

"Hey," Jack said.

Without glancing around, Artie threw a kernel of popcorn over his shoulder and it hit Jack in the face. Then he turned quickly, feigning remorse.

"Oh, sorry, bro. Didn't see you standing there." Artie grinned.

"Sorry I'm so late. Things just got—"

"Nuts, I know. It happens, man. Just to you more often than others. It's your life, you gotta live it. We oughta get moving, though." When Artie spoke, his sentences all seemed to run together, as if his mouth had gotten ahead of his brain.

Jack looked around. "Where are the girls? Are we meeting them somewhere or—"

"Nah, they're double-parked across the street. Didn't think you'd be so backed up. Not that there's any parking around here anyway, right?"