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As she sashay’s prettily away, I ask, “Don’t you also get noticed if you don’t pat her ass?”
He glowers at me. “Pretty ass though, isn’t it?” He watches me. “Kinda small though.”
I know where he’s headed with that. I just leave it.
He makes idle chat about sports and weather and who knows what else until I realize that he’s just trying to make us look normal in the bar, and hold back the more important talk until the waitress has left our drinks.
“Deputy,” I start.
“Hell, no.” His voice is low. “Oliver. Please.”
“Okay, Oliver. Two things. First, in a bar, a roadhouse like this, only men talk about sports and politics and the weather and all that shit.”
“Keep your voice down.” He is a good-looking man. Especially when he’s angry.
“That’s the other thing, Oliver,” still keeping up a normal tone. “When people in bars lower their voices, it makes everyone tune in and listen. It usually means they’re doing a drug deal or they’re about to rob the place. Whatever it is, they got everyone’s attention.”
“Okay. In your expert opinion, what do men and women talk about in a roadhouse bar?”
The girl puts the beers in bottles in front of us. I tell him. “They talk about wanting to fuck. That’s why they came. And they don’t want anyone to know.”
The girl’s eyes sparkle as she leaves.
He asks me, “Do they whisper?”
“Always.”
He picks up his beer and says, “Well?” as he clinks his bottle against mine, “do you want to fuck?”
“That’s not why I came, Oliver. You invited me.”
He grins and shakes his head. “I talked to a friend inn the US Marshall’s service. He thinks that after your momma got away from Buckwheat Ridge, someone with very much her patterns and characteristics was seen boarding a plane for Portland.”
“Couldn’t you have told me on the phone? Or even sent me a clue somehow?”
“You have no idea how hot you are, do you?”
“Deputy Buckle…”
“Oliver. Please.”
“Okay. Oliver. I’m flattered, but now is not the…”
“I didn’t mean ‘you’re hot’ in that way. Although you really are, believe me. I would eat you up, right here and now.” The moment burns. I’m drenched and trying not to squirm. “But I meant on the wires. You’re a multi-agency hot button, Eve. You’re top topic, flavor of the month.”
“That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
“It’s not.”
“Was I even safe to fly down here?”
“You may not be well advised to fly back.”
“Thanks for that, Oliver. So you brought me all the way here, just so you could tell me my Momma is an hour from where I was, but now I’m stranded and I shouldn’t go back there.”
“Well…”
“Thanks, Oliver.”
