Читать книгу South Texas Tangle - T.K. O'Neill - Страница 4

Corpus Christi was the kind of place Jimmy Ireno could get behind: big beautiful houses on his right, big beautiful houses on his left. Could still see the water in quite a few places. Feel the genteel comfort, the sea-breeze luxury and the laidback attitude, sending your troubles away into the soft night air.

But for Jimmy, reality was rubbing against the serenity. The stolen pickup was almost out of gas and he needed a nice big hotel parking lot to dump it in. Cops would likely be looking for it by now. And given his pressing needs, Jimmy thought it weird how the warm night air brought on the inappropriate impulses, the cravings.

Jimmy knew better, but just the same, he was thinking some cocaine would be nice. Shit would clear his head; help him think. But in the absence of any white powder, a drink at one of the numerous oyster bars in the area would have to suffice. Jimmy had no plan; no apparent options and only seventy dollars cash in his pocket. His wallet contained an overdrawn Discover card and two Master Cards, all three cancelled for lack of payment. He also had a checkbook from the Western River Bank of Commerce in Minneapolis, Minnesota, account closed.

As he navigated the light evening traffic in downtown Corpus, Jimmy’s gaze flicked back and forth between the gas gauge and the surrounding buildings. Be a drag to run out of gas and have a cop show up. Glancing around, nerves getting up, he locked onto a glowing green and red neon sign announcing The Bayside Motel, a two-level job with a sizeable parking lot on the side of the building.

Jimmy swung the truck in the motel parking lot, shut off the ignition and dropped the keys on the floor mat. No good reason to make it hard for the people at the ranch house, their truck had served him well. A nice old truck, a retro classic. No rust at all. Truck this old back in Minnesota would be a rust bucket.

After walking out of the parking lot Jimmy turned toward the darker, older part of the city and blended in with the night. Enjoying the salty air, he was drawn toward the blue-green pulsing neon above the Sand and Sea Oyster Bar. Soft light was coming out of a small porthole on the front door had tinted glass the color of seawater.

You didn’t see many oyster bars back in Minnesota.

Jimmy went inside to a pleasant, half full room, fishnets and sailfish mounts on the corkboard walls and blue padded stools in front of a long and dark, backlit bar. Leaning his elbows on the glistening wood, shivering slightly from nerves and the air conditioning, Jimmy scanned his environment.

Forty-something couple looking very Texas: tall and large boned in Western-style garb, shit-kicker boots and cowboy shirts, on his left. The gentleman two stools to his right seemed like a tourist: thinning white hair, Hawaiian shirt and a sunburn. Bartender looked to be around Jimmy’s age, tall skinny guy with a suspicious gaze and a brush of bleach blond hair on top a square head, the man wearing a yellow T-shirt and wrinkled, white, over-the-knee cargo shorts.

Craving something tall and cool and tropical with a southwestern twist, Jimmy ordered a tequila sunrise, pulled a twenty from his pocket and set it on the bar. When the drink arrived gold and glistening, tall glass sweating and a red ribbon of grenadine drifting slowly through the shimmering orange liquid, it conjured up two familiar images from Jimmy’s past: Cocaine swirls floating down and turning red in a glass of gold Clorox, and his former fiancé, Elizabeth. The two of them used to consume sunrises in excess back in their early days when things were still fun. Used to make them with two shots of tequila and one shot of gin.

Texas bartender wouldn’t know to put gin in the thing, Jimmy thought, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to ease the lingering tension. Was probably a good thing, though, he needed his wits about him, was in one hell of a fix this time. Jimmy picked up the tall glass and sucked the drink down like it was life itself, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead at the bottles and amber-colored glass brick behind the bar, not wanting to give anyone a full frontal. But halfway through his second drink—shit was tasting good—Jimmy was swinging around on the barstool checking out the stuffed fish on the walls. Sailfish, marlin, billfish—he didn’t know the difference. Then it wasn’t long before he was going to the men’s room and stopping along the hallway to scope the old photos of ships and bridges and paunchy men in hats standing next to huge dead fish hanging from large metal hooks.

Yes sir, Jimmy was in another world now.

Tequila World.

Next ride coming right up.