Short Story: Afraid To Speak

Short Story: Afraid To Speak

The young lady sat three stools down the bar from me drinking Absolut, is just about the sweetest thing ever to set foot in O'Donnell's. I see her order another drink and ask the barman, Sean, a favour. I'm not sure what she said to him exactly, ‘cause they always got the music up too loud in here, and she's right down the other end of the bar, but I know she asked him for more than just a refill ‘cause I see the way Sean smiles back at her, all smarmy like, sure doll, anything you say doll and he goes and switches CD’s and that angst Irishman, Damien Rice and the woman who used to sing with him – sleep with him, love him – I guess, start singing.

I got the CD ages back. I don’t know the names of most of the tracks: I just listen to 'em a lot. It came in a cardboard sleeve made from recycled paper. I remember that much.

Anyway, the drink Sean just served the lady is her fourth. I know that ‘cause she came in here just after I did and she’s been matching me round for round, which reminds me, I need to take a leak. When I get back from the john I look over and see the lady drinking vodka sat cross-legged, deep in the zone, minding nothing but her own business, she puts down the book she’s reading to light a cigarette. After the cigarette is burning nicely she looks over at me. I make sure she knows I’m looking back at her, and not behind her, at the calendar on the wall, at a picture of Miss July; a cute looking redhead with a freckly chest and bubble-gum pink nipples. And I keep on looking at the lady drinking Absolut and smoking cigarettes, thinking to myself, it’s the first time she’s looked at anyone in here apart from Sean.

After what feels like 'bout a month of us staring at each other, she stops looking at me, before I stop looking at her, and she goes back to reading what I imagine is either some real dumb air-head chick-lit or an uber dark crime story by one of those real cool crime writers like, Lehane or Pelecanos, a thought, which is, I realise, kind of perverse. As it turns out, I'm wrong on both counts, 'cause when she shuffles round a bit on her stool, I get a better look at the face on the front cover of the paperback she's barely took her eyes off since she came in here. It's one of those staring-down-the-camera lens shots, moodily lit in a greenish-blue wash of colour. A sexy, vampy looking chick, with straw blonde hair hanging down over her eyes, heavily made-up with dark lips, eyes that could be mauve, could be purple – well what do you know, I must've read that book at least twenty times – I just got to cash in on this God-given spot whilst I got the chance, strike up some small talk.

Hey lady, whadda you reckon to the book, it’s kind of cool, isn't it – sounds about right, and I'm guessing she'll comes back at me with something along the lines of, yeah, it really creeps me out, but can I hell put the thing down, so then I‘d go back at her with, wonder why a cool guy like that didn’t write more novels? Which beats the hell out of don't I know you from some place else? Even though I think, she does seem sort of familiar.

In actual fact, I don‘t say a thing, which is not all like me, and that kind of gives me a funny feeling and starts me thinking 'bout exactly why I haven't pounced on her already?

It feels a bit lame to think this, but the truth is I can't stop myself thinking; could it be intuition? Is that why I'm stalling here, 'cause there's something off about the lady I can't quite put my finger on?

Once in a while, when I’m over at Big Jimmy K’s playing in one of his two-thousand dollar sit-down high-roller no-limit cash games, I have the same problem I got here. I can’t get a read on a player when I just know something smells off about their latest move and probably the one before that, too, and my guts start churning, and that queasy feeling I got niggles away at me all night until finally it takes a proper hold of my insides. It's 'bout then, praise be to the Poker Gods, my brain takes over and a voice in my head, all calm and friendly says, he ain’t bluffin’ all the time, Mike. No, he can't be, but I can't quite figure out what he's up to, so I wonder if maybe next time he raises under the gun I ought to... You ask me, Mike, you should stop wondering 'bout him altogether. You ask me, he's either very lucky or very smart. Which, you reckon? I don't know, Mike, that's why I'm saying stay the hell outta his way 'cause guys like that you can't read, are real dangerous. I got the message. Good. Let some other sucker get burned, not you. Gotcha.

And always, or near as dammit always, I pay attention to that voice.

Like I am now.

Keep your distance, Mike. Why, what's wrong with her for heaven's sake, she's gorgeous? There isn't always an answer, buddy, you know, sometimes you just gotta go with your gut... go with your gut instincts, sure, I understand – but, well, something stopped me from making a move on her, made me sit down and go back to drinking.

***

Sean pours me another shot of vodka. When I ask him for a side order of tonic water he gives me one of his for Christ sakes, Mike, whaddya want drink that crap for looks? The truth is, I hate tonic, but there's no better remedy for the heartburn that's been plaguing me all week.

After I finish the tonic I have a real good look at my cute little lady friend down the far end of the bar. It dawns on me she could be IRS, 'cause I remember talking to Full-Flush Frank before the game last Wednesday, and he told me he'd heard from a friend of a friend, there might be something going down with the tax people.

Sneaky government bastards got wind of my rep at the tables, is what it is; the dollars I make that never see the inside of a bank vault, gone and sent in an undercover agent to can my ass.

So I look over again at the lady drinking Absolut and try to imagine her sat behind a desk, wearing a business suit, working on her computer, filling out forms, answering the phone, but no, if I'm being honest with myself, I don't see an undercover IRS agent sat there, which starts me wondering if what I did to the lady, just then, staring back at her and not smiling, wasn’t altogether cool?

Kind of funny me thinking that way 'cause although I'm an honest sort of a guy (when I'm not playing poker), Michael Sheridan is not exactly famed for being the sensitive type. At least, not where babes like the lady sat down the far end of the bar are concerned.

All the same, I think; I really should have smiled at her instead of just staring back at her. Smiled and made it real quick. Feigned embarrassment at being caught looking, nodded at her maybe, like, nice place, isn't it, lady, everything's just cool here at O'Donnell's.

So yes I was a jackass, but not a total jackass I figure 'cause at least I didn't go and do that stupid thing people do when they’re looking at you on the sly, and then they look away from you the moment you catch 'em, as if they think you’re really dumb and you didn’t know they were looking at you. So now I think to myself, I didn’t look away from her, and I didn’t smile at her, and yeah, I guess it wasn’t real cool what I did just then, staring her down like she's some new face at the poker table who I got to get topside of right from the get-go; she's just some pretty lady, who came in off the street for a quiet drink and to read her book with no one hassling her, which kind of makes me think, as I didn’t look away from the lady or speak to her, or even just smile at her, she might be feeling a little edgy right now? The notion a stranger looked at her and did not look away when he got caught looking is enough to really unsettle some women. Some actually get totally freaked out by that kind of situation; but looking over at her again, I think, not this cute piece of work. And anyway, I reckon it could have been a whole lot worse, ‘cause, sure, I didn’t look away from her, and I didn’t smile, and I didn’t speak to the lady, neither, but thank Christ I didn’t try to say something to her with my eyes, ‘cause I really don’t think you can do that like people seem to think you can.

I reckon the only reason people think that way is ‘cause of writers. Writers make their characters think that kind of stuff in books; really dumb phrases they come up with, such as, his eyes bore into me. Yeah, sure, it sounds pretty good, I guess, his eyes bore into me and I felt my heat rising… blah-de-blah, but, no, I don’t think that’s true.

I figure this eye thing began one day when somebody wrote it in a book, and maybe this happened like, a zillion years ago, and everyone thought it sounded real cool and so it caught on and now everyone in books thinks stuff like, her eyes knifed through me faster than a switchblade through candyfloss, or some such dumb shit, and really, it’s not true, but then I often think, who am I to disagree with 'em?

No. It’s not in the eyes. What you say with your face happens in the muscles of the face, some of which are around the eyes.

I read once in a magazine there is something like forty-five of these tiny muscles in the cheeks, surrounding the eyes, and all around the mouth, and just as I am thinking that Damien Rice’s ex-partner one-time lover cum one-time best friend, sings ‘your mouth...your mouth…’ which kind of freaks me out a bit, but then looking around the bar I wonder how many of the losers in here actually heard those words, and if they did, were they knocked sideways like me? Did they feel what I felt just then, thought what I thought, or something different, or nothing at all, for fucks sake?

***

Next time I look over at lady Absolut drinker I see her pick up a drinks napkin off a stack at the end of the bar and use it to dab the skin under her eye. Not a tear I reckon, more like she’s thinking her eyeliner ran ‘cause it is awful sticky in here since Sean gave up on the air-con.

From what I’ve seen of her so far, I don’t imagine gorgeous girl who can handle strong liquor, crying, or even getting a tear in her eye over some contrived nostalgic moment in a book, or a film say, or a sad bit she just read a moment ago in that paperback, ‘cause there are some sad bits as well as scary bits in that damn book. I don’t see her like that and I think I've worked out why; that vest she’s wearing that don’t meet up with the waistband of her jeans; it hasn’t been ironed. You can tell that even from here, even in this crappy light. The vest is 100% cotton and it’s been spun fast; maybe 1600 spin speed and then hung out on a line to dry. Peg marks are tough to iron out but I can just tell she hasn’t even tried to get those telltale indentations out. She’s not an ironer. Take those jeans she has on, for example, they’re spray-fit or whatever they call ‘em these days and those sorts of jeans don’t need heat or steam to make them look good; another sign of a non-ironer, I think, wearing spray-fits.

Truth is, those jeans she's got on don’t even need to be straightened out to look right, but they only look truly right on a woman with slender thighs, wearing heels, like the lady over there reading and smoking, drinking vodka, listening to the Irishman and his heavenly ex, sing.

I know what I think, I think, people who don’t iron their vests, don’t care too much 'bout what other folk think of them, and they’re the kind of people I figure, who are always moving forward and never looking back, and that’s why I know it wasn’t a tear in her eye ‘cause even if she is feeling a bit sad for that dude, Joe Egan, in that book she's reading, Marc Behm’s Afraid to Death, ‘cause of how shitty his life is turning out as a result of that evil sexy bitch with the purply-mauvy coloured eyes who won’t leave him be, I don’t see her getting really sad or weepy about it.

***

I order another one of those real neat Swedish vodka's that me and my friend down the bar, like to drink, and light my first cigarette since I came in here over an hour ago. The lady three stools down from me, who is absolutely NOT an IRS Agent, is on her third smoke. When I look up at Sean, and nod real careful in her direction, he gives me one of his screwy smiles, like, sure man, you’re just her sort, you lucky bastard and of course, I don’t give him the time of day, only half a smile and a five-dollar bill.

She’s finished her cigarette, now, my cute little lady friend reading that crazy paperback book. I see her drop the butt into a wine glass with some ice left in it at the end of the bar, just under the NO SMOKING sign some joker's drawn smilies on and a big double-U after the NO.

Whilst she was busy reading, sexy lady who takes her Absolut without ice, held the cigarette between the index and middle finger of her right hand, with the thumb pressed up against the inside of the page, the king size Marlboro’ pointing up at the ceiling, the way lots of women hold their cigarettes.

***

I see Sean's got his fat elbows on the bar top again and the lady's asking him another favour. Sean winks and smiles and then goes out back and gets a fan. He fixes it on a shelf behind the bar and sets it in motion. I'm real glad he's gone and got that fan 'cause it's getting awful hot in here.

Shampoo, deodorant, and perfume combined, produce a heavy scent. I look over at Sean and see he's got sweat circles under his armpits. Never been a stickler when it comes to personal hygiene, has Sean, so I guess the sweet flowery smells, which are blowing along the bar, are down to my lady friend over there.

It’s more than a guess now I come to think of it, it’s a calculation, albeit a fairly simple one. I'd stake a good nights winnings from the cash game I play Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Big Jimmy K’s place over on Piedmont, that sweet smelling girl down there, busy reading her book, minding her own business, took a long, long shower and washed her hair before she walked all the way over here, from wherever, which is probably not far, and her hair finished drying along the way, which makes me think she don't live far from here ‘cause she’s already drank way too much to be driving home and this isn’t the kind of place you get a cab half way across town to visit, so she must have walked here, from say, three blocks away at most, 'cause she can't have walked far in those heels.

I observe. I watch and listen. I never make wild guesses. I make informed decisions; if I didn’t, I’d be dead or broke, or both.

***

Next thing I know, lady with heavenly body and top-drawer bathing habits, who smokes the same brand of cigarettes as I do, has the same taste in music and writers, too, and who almost certainly doesn't work for the government, slides the paperback book she's been reading onto a dry patch of bar Sean just wiped down, picks up her bag and goes off to the john.

As she goes past I sort of half turn away from her, 'cause I really don't want to freak her out if it turns out I was wrong 'bout her, and she really is gonna to go to pieces over some stranger giving her the eye. All the same, I manage a quick-glance as she slides by, and I see her long fingers go through her hair, and I see her nails, which are enamelled with something a lot darker than red, and very neatly done, too. The hair still looks a bit flyaway though, as if she's got some serious static in there, which makes me wonder if she's had something done to it recently and it hasn't quite settled down yet, either that or she just towelled a bit when she got out the shower, instead of blow-drying it and then let it dry off on the way over here, and that's why it looks kind of messy.

Whatever. She's still gorgeous. And now that cute chick with the sexy looking hands is out the way, I walk down the bar and go pick up her book. Sean looks over to see what I'm doing but he don't care that much 'bout what I'm doing and goes back to what he was doing, chopping lemons.

I'm staring down at the back-cover blurb, which says: Joe Egan is a decent man. He spends his life boarding aeroplanes and buses, winning and losing at poker, abandoning women he is in love with. In fact, he lives like a madman – or a man in fear of his life. Of course there is that blonde woman who has been following him around for years...

I'm tempted to read the first page, too, 'cause it's such a killer start, where Joe is playing poker over at Maxie Hearn's penthouse with a couple of other guys he doesn't really know, who make TV commercials, and Maxie says to Joe something like Bad news Joe and Joe says, What? And then Maxie, who turns out to be a real good friend to Joe says, Aces and Eights Joe, they call it the Dead Man's hand. And of course, Joe's outta there faster than...faster than... anyway, I figure the lady will be back any time now and I don't want to get caught reading her book so I just take a quick peak at the book-marked page to see where she's at.

Page 66.

'Tell me about the Angel of Death, Peggy Sue'.

'I was in the kitchen doing the dishes. Uncle Shithead was watching TV...'

I place the book down real careful, making sure it's in the exact same spot the lady left it in and wish now I hadn't just read those lines 'cause it's started me thinking 'bout poor Peggy Sue, who is totally fucked up, and in the loony bin for good on account of seeing front cover vampy girl wandering around carrying a scythe.

***

A few minutes go by in which time I've sank another two tonics and eaten a dozen or so ant-acid tablets I picked up from the drugstore on the way over here. Anyway, then I see my cute little lady friend with the catwalk figure, on her way back from the john. She hops back on the same stool and straight away asks Sean for another drink.

I didn’t see her exit the john or walk past the pool tables and those bums back there who always hang about in the murk and shadows 'cause after I read that bit with Peggy Sue and Joe and got to thinking 'bout what happened afterwards in the nut house garden, I felt a bit sick, and despite the chalky tabs I just swallowed, the heartburn got worse, too. So anyway, I went back to my stool, started watching the poker tourney on Sean's flat screen to try and take my mind of the sex act, fucked up Peggy Sue tried unsuccessfully to perform on poor old Joe and how she ended up apologising to him, when it wasn't her fault for Christ's sake, that Joe couldn't get it up, apologised, 'cause she said, she'd been in that dungeon so long she'd forgotten how to turn a guy on.

The Irishman and his ex are singing 'bout cold, cold water, which is fine by me, 'cause it's awful hot in here and I once read something on the internet about the power of suggestion and how you can use it to tap into your autonomic system and kind of reset it, so to speak.

I just set mine to cool.

The sound is off on Sean's TV, which is also fine by me 'cause it don’t matter none I can't hear what they're saying as most anything those guys say to each other, is misdirection. Anyway, by the time the pundits have done yakking and the cards are in the air, I've near as dammit erased Joe and Peggy Sue from my thoughts – just concentrate on something real hard for all of five minutes more, I think to myself, and I'll forget I ever thought about them in the first place.

I see a caption appear at the top of the TV screen, informing us, the viewer, we're going to sweat this hand with James Akenhead, which is cool, cause it's like the guy at home is playing Akenhead's hand 'cause he can see Akenhead's hole cards but no one else's. Anyway, the hand gets underway when the guy under the gun, some European I never heard of, who reminds me a lot of my younger brother, Joey, folds. Liz Liu next to the Joey look-alike folds, too; one smart cookie, I think. And then I see that ugly, conceited, SOB, Phil Hellmuth, muck his cards. Same goes for JC Tran, and next to Tran, there's Phil Laak, who's really out there weird at times, and for some really out there weird reason known only to him, he decides to limp into the big blind, which I reckon is gonna cost him those chips 'cause the blinds have just gone up, and really, this isn't the time to try and see a cheap flop.

After Laak there's a min-raise from Gus Hanson, and next to the Great Dane is Kid Poker himself, Daniel Negreanu, who squeezes his cards, sits back in his seat and looks all serious about them.

So anyway, we can see Akenhead's got the Cowboys, which is a very nice starting hand, in actual fact, the second best hand in Texas Hold-em after the Pocket Rockets, but Negreanu's got the dealer button, which is often decisive, but won't be of course, on this occasion.

We can see both players, but I'm concentrating on Negreanu and I can just tell he's contemplating a button raise, taking the pot down here and now.

It seems I got that read right 'cause as it turns out, he's reaching for high denomination chips, and yes, he makes the three bet. Looks like he's re-popped it to around six or seven times the big blind and straight away I'm thinking there’s something not right about Kid Poker's re-raise and the guy to his left, in the small blind, Akenhead, the only guy at the table apart from Negreanu not wearing shades, seems to have sniffed it out too, and in a heartbeat, pushed all his chips over the line. I can't say I blame him 'cause with Kings in the hole, he don't want to see an Ace on the flop, and there's already plenty of chips in the middle, and if he thinks Kid Poker is making a move with a rag Ace, like Ace Five, say, then it makes even more sense to push now and get it over and done with.

Anyway, the big blind quickly gets out the way, as does the limper and the min-raiser and then the camera focuses on the all-in guy, the Brit. He's one of those fearless bastards you see all the time these days, who float the flop, when all they got is air, or check the best hand down to the river and then bet it seemingly for value, intent on inducing a bluff, only to re-raise all-in when the fool they're toying with is foolish enough to re-raise them.

Negreanu is no fool and Akenhead knows that, but the Brit is short-stacked, so there's no way he's gonna risk getting outdrawn on the flop, not when he's holding the Cowboys. And anyway, I think, Akenhead must know Negreanu is one tricky customer post-flop.

Camera is back on Negreanu now. He looks back at his cards to see if they're as pretty as he thought they were a minute ago when he tried to push everyone else of their hands. Personally, I don't think he's got an Ace of any sort. I'm putting him on Broadway cards, King Jack or King Queen suited, or maybe all he's got is a complete airball. Either way, Kid Poker hasn't called yet, which means he's either trying to save face here, or has a real decision to make, which makes me wonder what he's putting the Brit on? If he thinks Akenhead's got a middlin' pocket pair like the Walking Sticks or the Snowmen, he might, just might make the call and go to the races as they say with his fifty-fifty shot.

Either double up or get crippled.

Whatever Negreanu's holding, he's still thinking about it, rolling his head from side to side, moving his lips as though he's actually doing the math here, trying to weigh up if he should go with this hand or muck it. The thing is, he's already committed around a quarter of his stack so he might just go ahead anyway and make the call.

Gamble.

Even the best players gamble sometimes, but what Joe Public don't understand is, most of the time it's not about gambling or what cards you get dealt, and it's not definitely not about second-guessing, not these days, and certainly not at this level with the amount of money in play; no, what these millionaire poker pro's are playing here, is what they call the Meta-Game, third, fourth guessing your opponent.

Negreanu takes another look at his hand, tries to look all composed. Akenhead is like stone, staring off into space; no way is the little Canadian pro gonna get a read off of him. So he starts rolling his head again, trying to make it look as though he’s got a real big hand he's gonna hate laying down, like Big Slick, or pocket Jacks, or even Queens, instead of the face cards he’s likely holding.

You ask me, Daniel Negreanu is taking way too long about it and someone's gonna get pissed with him real soon and ask the tournament director to put him on the clock. Right then I look over at Ms Bookworm with the slender body and the nice tits, and the beautifully manicured hands, who's still reading, still drinking Absolut, and when I look back at the TV I see Negreanu has thrown his cards into the muck and is doing his level best not to look put out, like ok pal, I had fold equity there, so fair play, pal, you sussed it out, but next time you shove you better be holding 'cause I'm calling you in a flash.

The TV graphic flips Negreanu's hole cards over – Michael Sheridan is right again – King Queen suited.

I gotta give the chirpy little Canadian some credit there; he made a play, got caught, made a good lay down.

'No use Hollywooding that Brit Akenhead' I say out loud, and laugh a little, too, 'accept it, Daniel, he was just praying you got paint cards and were gonna make the button steal'.

Sean laughs at that and I wink at him as if to say, you'll never catch me with my hand caught in the cookie jar!

Anyway, like I said, lady drinker with centre-fold looks is back now, and reading again, so I tune out of the game and into her.

She's got herself another drink.

I get another cigarette, light it, think to myself; did sexy lady over there go to the john for a pee, or to touch up her make-up, or both? Or maybe to get her boss at the IRS on her cell phone, give him a progress report on her mark, Mr. Poker-Pro Tax-Evader man?

So what, I think, she was gone some time, that don't mean nothing. Nothing to get excited about, Mike. When I give her another look, I see she's still reading. Not looking at me any longer. Still looking good though. Looking good, sure, I think, but I'd stake my life on it that before she left her apartment tonight she took a helluva lot longer with her make-up than she did with her hair 'cause from where I'm sitting it still looks all kind of flyaway, which is odd, given her otherwise immaculate appearance.

Whatever. I still got Joe Egan, Peggy Sue and front cover vampy girl messing with my head – so it's real tough right now for me to work these things out, so I think, just concentrate, Mike, real, real hard, on developing a picture of dark-haired girl in your mind, one that will banish Behm's characters for good.

That's what I do, I imagine my lady friend (who is still sipping Absolut) applying eyeliner. And yeah, it makes me feel a whole lot better, to think of her like that – sat in front of a mirror, after she came out the shower, after she gave her hair a quick rub down.

Some women I know do that fancy turban thing with their hair – not this one I think. I don’t know why I think that ‘cause there are no obvious tells on that score, not as such. What it is, I reckon, is I don't want to think about her wearing a towel like a turban on her head, 'cause I don’t want that image of her to stick. Not after I leave here. It's not very appealing. Not in the same county of grossness, of course, as the thought of poor old Peggy Sue doing what she did to poor old Joe in the nut house garden, sure, but still, I'd much rather imagine dark-haired flowery scented girl with the towel wrapped around her breasts, and not her head, and her shoulders bare, with the hair falling forward as she leans into the mirror to get a closer look at what she’s doing with the eyeliner pencil.

***

I’m not going to make a play for cute lady over there. That's a given now I've thought 'bout it some.

It's not as though I'm afraid to speak to her, it's just that I kind of made my mind up 'bout not speaking to her when she went for a pee, when there was enough breathing space between us for me to think straight. I’ve decided I probably will speak to her if she ever comes in here again, which I think she might, or I see her on the street, or in the grocery store, but if I speak to her right now, and she speaks back, if we talk, actually exchange words, like human beings do sometimes when they're not hiding from each other, I might catch something in her accent, an inflection in her voice that puts a scratch on the sheen of what I see in her here today, or what I want to believe I see. And in my book there are some moments you just don’t want spoiling.

This is one of them, and that's why I reckon, I haven't made a move on her, and despite me feeling a bit jumpy and outta sorts right now, I gotta say, I do think there's something pretty special going on between us, on a Meta level of course, which the lady is probably not quite as aware of as me.

Actually, now I come to think of it, the scenario of cute-looking sexy lady having a squeaky voice, or sounding like a man or just plain stupid, like some of those ho's Sean has to turn away from here on account of the law always breathing down his neck, is pretty unlikely. It's unlikely I think, 'cause I'm pretty sure I already know her voice. Not intimately like Damien’s and his ex, how they sound when they harmonise or jar and jangle with each other on purpose; what Joe Egan's Dad, who knew 'bout these things 'cause he composed music, would have called contrapuntal. I know this lady’s voice ‘cause voices fit with hands, and for some time now I’ve been busy studying her hands.

An old girlfriend taught me about hands. She was a writer, still is I imagine, a writer after she gave up on conceptual art ‘cause that didn’t pay the bills and anyway, I never saw any of her artwork so I think it never got beyond a concept as such. So now I know all about hands and what they mean, I look at them whenever I get the chance, ‘cause, Carly, my ex, she told me what to look for; stuff like relative finger length, distribution of flesh, the shape of the palm, shape of nails, skin type, etcetera, etcetera, and what it all added up to, if of course it really does add up to something?

I wonder sometimes if the Feds ever got wind of Carly's talent, what they’d make of it, and maybe they already have, maybe she’s banking some seven-figure salary right now ‘cause of her amazing insight into people's heads based on what she can see in their hands?

So these days, if I want to learn something about someone, covertly, as they say, I look at their hands rather than their face. I do this all the time now and it comes in particularly handy, so to speak, when there's someone new sitting down at the poker table. I’m pretty good at it, too, and reckon I could probably fit any hand to any face if I was put to the test in some random way, and more importantly, fit hands to personality types, like Carly used to do. So when beautiful dark-haired girl over there, who does not iron her vests or wear towel-turbans after she showers, and is a real dab hand at applying eyeliner, lipstick and nail enamel, but seems to have an issue with her hair, folded her drinks napkin, and dabbed at her eye, I paid close attention to her hands and those lovely fingers of hers. And I do the same whenever she picks up her shot glass or hands over a bill to Sean. I study the hands. That's how come I know her voice won't be squeaky.

I observed her hands very closely, too, when she was holding the Marlboro, and now, the more I think about her hands and those long slim fingers of hers, the more I think she’s a dead-ringer for vampy girl with purple eyes staring out at you from the front cover of that damn book, Afraid to Death – staring at you, like she owns you, only my girl over there drinking Absolut, just like I am, has dark hair, not blonde, and is a real person, not just a made up character in a book.

***

When a minute or two later I see dead-ringer vampy girl put the book down and look over at me, I think; it wouldn’t be real cool of me to get up right now and walk out of here, not with Sean looking on, but I have this bad feeling if I don’t scram pretty soon, she’ll come over and speak to me and I’ll spin her a couple of lines and she'll smile and say yeah, yeah, yeah, do you wanna fuck me or not? And the odds are we’ll end up screwing all night at my place and I'm not sure I want her knowing where to find me anytime she wants to 'cause I got a real bad feeling 'bout her. A real bad feeling she's real bad news, but not of the IRS kind.

So I stay put and order another Absolut, start smoking another Marlboro' and wince at the fiery bile rising in my chest.

Sean's just finished serving a couple of underage girls down this end of the bar. When he comes back to pick up a small tip the under-agers left him on the bar, I lean into him.

'Whassup Michael?' he says to me.

'She ever come in here before?'

'Last night was the first time I ever saw her'.

'Right'.

'Funny thing Mike?' he says.

'What?'

'Lady was reading that same book.'

'Oh yeah Sean,' I say, 'real funny that is, reading the same book two nights running!'

What a jerk, I think; probably never ever read a book in his whole sorry life.

'No Mike,' he says to me, 'what I mean is, she finished reading that book last night and now she's reading it all again.'

'You sure?'

'Sure, and another funny thing is, Mike, she was asking after you, said you were an old friend.'

'And old friend? Why didn't you tell me this before, Sean, like when she went to the john?'

Sean thought about that for what seemed like forever before he finally says to me, 'Look Mike, don't get sore with me, okay? It ain't my fault if the lady's playing games with you.'

'Okay Sean, I'm not sore, now please tell me exactly what she said?'

'You okay Mike?'

'Yeah Sean, it's just bad indigestion I got, heartburn.'

'You don't look so good Mike.'

'Tell me what she said, Sean, exactly, word for word?'

'She asked me, does Michael Sheridan drink in here? And I says, sure, Mike drinks in here, but not tonight doll, 'cause he's over at Big Jimmy K's playing poker, but he'll be in tomorrow. So then she says that's fine by her 'cause she's waited a helluva long time to see you again, so she can sure as hell wait another day. And then she sort of laughed and said, don't tell Mike I was asking after him 'cause when I come in tomorrow I want it to be a surprise and anyway, she says, I'm gonna have a bit of fun with him first 'cause he probably won't recognise me.'

I feel...damn, I don't know what I feel. Or think. I just stare at Sean, at his big dumb son of an Irishman's face, as if I might see something in there that will help me make sense of all this, this... and the heartburn just got worse. A lot worse.

'There's something else,' Sean says to me, 'when your friend over there came in here last night, she was a blonde.'

The lady who reads a lot and is particular about her make-up and likes to change her hair colour, and is much taller than I thought, is on her feet. Must be those killer heels she's wearing, I think, that make her look so tall.

The Marlboro's get stashed in her bag and she looks over at the doorway that leads to the stairs, the stairs which take you up on to the street, before she turns back to the bar and picks up the book, Afraid to Death.

***

The one good spotlight Sean has behind the bar splits it right down the middle. The lady with dark hair wearing a cropped-top vest and spray-on jeans who likes her Absolut and smokes the odd Marlboro, walks along the length of the bar and stops halfway in that light.

I couldn’t make out the colour of her eyes until now. Looks like she's wearing lenses, eyes are kind of purple, I think, or is it mauve?

Anyway, the lady who says she is an old friend of mine takes a couple more steps towards me, extends a hand, and in a real nice voice says, 'Hi Mike, Joe says hello.'

I know now where I know her from – the face I forgot. The face I buried. The last face I saw before I passed out and woke up in hospital with a broken leg, busted pelvis, fractured skull and collapsed lung. The face I saw peering in the driver's window looking at my bro, Joey, dead on the driver's seat.

I look at the hand just waiting for me to shake it and know why I've had that gut feeling dragging on my insides all night – it's the hands, they're perfect – too good to be true. And too good to be true Carly once told me means they probably are.

I take her hand, the perfect hand. It feels colder than cold. But anything cold is good right now 'cause it feels like someone started a fire in my chest.

I look around the bar. I don't see Sean anymore. I don't see the bar and I wonder why I can't hear Damien and his ex singing?

I look all around, through the darkness that surrounds me and towards the doorway that leads to the steps, which take you up and out onto the street, and under the night sky.

The doorway that should lead me up and into the cold night air, isn't there.

Vampy girl, whose face is lit greenish-blue, who is still holding my hand, stares down at me through the hair hanging down over her eyes... like she owns me. I want to ask her something. I want to say to her; do you mean Joe Egan said hello, or my brother Joey Sheridan? But I guess I already know the answer to that and anyway, when I open my mouth nothing comes out, 'cause I am, it seems, too afraid to speak.