Between Black and White (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #2)(50)
Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned to see Burns holding two longneck Coronas. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said, passing the cold beer to Rick and looking out at the harbor.
The trip hadn’t been too bad, Rick had to admit. The Saturn stayed in one piece, and they had only made two pit stops, one just outside of Birmingham and another in Andalusia. In Andalusia, at Burns’s urging, Rick bought a six-pack, and Burns took down five of them before they hit the Mid-Bay Bridge, which took them into Destin. Rick had only had one and didn’t finish it. He knew he needed to keep his wits about him.
They had parked a few doors down from The Boathouse at a place called The Fisherman’s Wharf. After a beer at the outside bar there, they’d left the car in the parking lot and walked the hundred yards down Highway 98 to The Boathouse.
“Where’s Darla?” Rick asked Burns. They were both leaning their elbows on the wooden railing, eyes fixed on the dark water in front of them. In the daylight Rick knew the water would be emerald green. But at 10:30 p.m. it was dark and foreboding.
“Coming,” Peter said. “Just be patient.” He took a sip of his beer. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Rick nodded. Last fall he had taken Dawn on a weekend getaway to Destin. They had stayed at a place on Holiday Isle and had eaten dinner at The Fisherman’s Wharf. Their waitress at the Wharf had recommended they have a beer and listen to the band at The Boathouse and told them they’d be better off leaving their car at the Wharf and walking. So they had, just as Rick and Burns had done tonight. Rick and Dawn had actually stood right where Rick now stood with Burns, holding hands and talking about nothing in particular.
“Hey, man. You OK?” Peter asked.
Rick blinked and turned to his unexpected traveling companion, seeming to see him for the first time. Burns had a three-day growth of brown stubble, with messy dirty-blond hair thinning at the temples and in the back. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and tattered khaki shorts with flip-flops. Rick, who had not had time to change or even pack a suitcase, was wearing gray slacks and a white button-down, no tie, with his sleeves rolled up.
“Yeah, fine. Just thinking about my girlfriend.”
“Gotcha,” Peter said, nodding his head as if he understood. “Well, listen, dude. I really appreciate the ride. That was a lifesaver.”
“When is Darla going to be here?” Rick asked, growing impatient.
Burns started to say something, but his words were drowned out by loud screams inside and outside the restaurant as the band struck the opening riff of “Sweet Home Alabama.”
“Yeah!” Peter said, whooping and slapping Rick on the back, forcing him to turn around and look inside the restaurant. Rick saw several nice-looking college-age women swaying back and forth in front of the stage. As if on cue a waitress came up to the two men holding a tray with two shot glasses, a salt shaker, and two limes.
With no hesitation Burns shook some salt on his wrist, sucked it, and then turned the shot glass up. He took it down in one swig, then shook his head and put the lime in his mouth. “Ah, tequila!” he yelled, putting the other shot glass in Rick’s hand and shaking salt on Rick’s wrist. “Come on, dude, you’re paying for all this. At least do a shot with me.”
Thinking what the hell, Rick licked his wrist, turned up the shot glass, and then sucked the lime.
“That a boy,” Peter said. Then, leaning into him, “Now, let’s forget about that girlfriend of yours, and let’s find us a wife for the night. What do you say?”
“Darla,” Rick managed, coughing the words out, his throat burning with the taste of the tequila.
“She’ll be here,” Peter said, his words a bit slurred. “But until she arrives . . .” He gestured toward a group of girls wearing bikini tops and blue jean cutoffs. If they were twenty-one years old, they had just turned it. “Let’s be social. What do you say?”
Thirty minutes later the men were seated inside the restaurant at the table closest to the band. Burns had ordered two dozen oysters, but he wasn’t eating them, having moved his chair to the neighboring table, where the group of bikini-clad college girls—four sorority sisters from Jacksonville State on a last trip to the beach before classes started—reveled in Peter’s stories from the Sundowners Club. Either that or they were just putting up with him because he kept buying them beers and shots and charging them to Rick’s credit card.
I’m going to have a three-hundred-dollar bill, Rick thought, putting an oyster drenched with cocktail sauce on a cracker and popping it in his mouth. He washed the concoction down with the remains of another Corona, his second, and leaned back in his seat. Taking out his phone, he went to check his e-mail and see if he’d missed any calls, but his phone was now dead.
Damnit. In his haste to leave Pulaski, he’d forgotten to juice up his phone and had left the charger on the dresser at the bed and breakfast. Stealing a glance at Burns, he made his way to the restroom, wondering if Darla Ford was really going to show, or if this was just one big hoax. A con played by a strip club bartender who had spent his whole life playing folks like Rick. Maybe, he thought, but what are my other options?
When he returned to his seat, the band was playing John Anderson’s “Straight Tequila Night,” but Rick wasn’t hearing anything. He looked at the barely touched plate of oysters, and he wasn’t hungry.