Page 79 of Lone Wolf

“Because guess who called me to deal with your drinking problem—?”

“I don’t have a drinking problem. I have a drinking solution.” Glassy-eyed, Andre waved a hand around. “My problems are way worse than this.”

“And you’re helpless before them,” Evan said. “They’re too powerful to do anything about but roll over and let them have their way with you.”

“We can’t all be heroes like you.” Andre stretched across the bar past Evan, snatched Nando’s pint glass, hoisted it in a toast. “To Evan the Hero.”

Nando was halfway up but Evan showed him his palm. “Sorry, sir. I’ll get your next round.”

With a glare, Nando lowered himself back onto his stool.

Andre’s eyes shone with spite. “Don’t we wish we could measure up to the guy who got saved from the foster home? Mr. Detached, silver spoon in his mouth, more money’n he can count. But I’m just one of the little people, Evan. Working three jobs and tryin’ to show up for my girl.” He downed Nando’s drink. “And you don’t even get it. How much work I—damn it, damn it—how much it all is. To not drink. To not lay down. Even if it don’t look like shit to you. All day every day the walls are closing in. Gas prices ticking up at the pump, cutting into my twelve bucks an hour. Fucking groceries. I bought a bottle of Advil the other day for my back—twenty-six ninety-nine. That’s, what? Three hours of work less taxes. For pills so I can keep driving Lyft for another—what?—six months before they replace my ass with self-driving cars or robots or whateverthefuck. It ain’t just that I’m not in the game anymore, man. I don’t even know what game I’m supposed to be playing.”

He leaned to spit on the floor, a long gooey thread he let dangle from his lips and then fall. Polishing a stainless shaker, Jimmy eyed him warily. At his feet was a corrugated shipping box holding a dozen Kahlúa bottles, the ubiquitous smiling daisy stamped on its side.

But Andre was locked on Evan. “Know what I tell myself a thousand times a day? ‘I got this.’ ‘I got this.’ But I don’t. I don’t got it, man. I don’t got anything. And I don’t want to admit that, you understand? Even to myself.”

For a long time, Evan stared at him, trying to quiet the seething in his chest. Andre stank of despair. It was hard not to detest him for it. Evan could handle grief—it was an emotion, one he wasn’t prone to. But despair, despair was a concession.

“What?” Andre asked. “What? Ain’t you gonna talk?”

“What for? We already know everything you and I think about this.”

“Yeah? Must be nice having everything figured out.” Andre tried to snap his fingers but couldn’t align them. “Jimmy. Gimme another.”

Jimmy hesitated, hand on a jug of Bacardi. Evan caught his eye, shook his head nearly imperceptibly. Jimmy said to Evan, “You deal with that then.”

Andre glared at the bartender. “Don’t you listen to him. I’m your fucking customer. How many years now, Jimmy? How many years?”

“Too many, Andre.”

Andre threw the pint glass at Jimmy’s head.

Jimmy ducked, a quick boxer’s move, the glass sailing by and smashing against the bar, sending a spray of shards into the drinkers beyond. Everyone was on their feet, Nando closest, Jimmy grabbing something from beneath the bar and vaulting over.

Evan fisted Andre’s shirt, shoving him behind him, backpedaling to the emergency door.

Jimmy’s wrist snapped downward and a black chrome ASP telescoped out to baton length.

Nando came in hard, and Evan bladed his hand and jabbed his solar plexus. He coughed out a chunk of air and threw an off-balance swing. With a forearm block, Evan redirected the blow, and Nando’s fist smashed into the edge of the bar. He gulped audibly, the pain of impact taking his breath, and dropped to a knee. Jimmy lunged past him, but before he could wind up with the ASP, Evan flicked his boot and swept his ankle, careful not to break it. The bartender hit the deck hard, shoulders slapping concrete.

Beyond the two downed men, the remaining customers shifted on their feet, eyes shiny and alert. But Evan’s reaction had stopped them in their tracks. And the cramped space worked against them; they could only come at him in single file.

“We’re leaving,” Evan said. “Let us go. Everyone’s gotta wake up and work tomorrow, right?”

He kept squared to them. They didn’t agree but they didn’t advance either. On the floor, Jimmy hacked a few times and rolled up to lean against the bar, a glob of saliva at the side of his lips.

Evan peeled a hundred from his money clip and rested it on the jukebox. “Next round,” he said. “And apologies.”

Reaching behind him for Andre, Evan shoved him again toward the rear door. Andre rag-dolled along, unsteady on his legs.

Another two shuffled steps and a final push slammed Andre against the crash bar and out into the alley. Pivoting, Evan banged him against a dumpster, the metal thundering.

“I’m sick of saving your ass.” Evan’s words came hard through clenched teeth. “You start another fight, you’re on your own.”

“That’s why I’m here, dumbass. To be on my own.”

“You can’t just not answer your fucking phone,” Evan said. “You have a daughter. Your daughter’s mom. You have people counting on you.” He was angrier than made any sense. “Get it together, Andre. People have more to do than clean up after you.”