The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(16)

Behind the table was a secondhand bar, worn smooth by thousands of hands. Peter could see the severed end where it had been torn from the wall of some defunct tavern or hotel. A bank of four small security monitors was set on top, and a stainless-steel fridge stood in the corner. At the far end of the room, a U-shaped formation of black leather couches faced an enormous television tuned to ESPN with the sound off.

Two men sat on the couches, feet up, newspapers spread open in their hands, staring at Dinah like they’d never seen a woman before. Dinah fixed them with a regal look that carried all the natural authority of an ER nurse and the mother of willful boys. Now Peter understood why she had changed her clothes.

“Where is Lewis?” she said.

They stared at her for a moment before they saw Peter, who was standing right beside her.

That got them off the couch.

They were big men in worn T-shirts and faded jeans. Their hair was cropped short, their faces lined from sun and wind. Peter watched them come around the couch, flanking him automatically.

They moved like they knew what they were doing and had been doing it together for a while.

The static flared up higher, tension now in his shoulders and arms. This was useful static, making him ready.

The men glanced at Dinah from time to time—they probably couldn’t help themselves; Peter had the same problem—but mostly they watched Peter. He was a big man, too, in worn work clothes and sand-colored combat boots, with the same air of semi-domestication.

Peter figured they had all been to the same finishing school. The one where the dress code called for camouflage, desert brown.

“Lewis ain’t here,” said the first man. He had plump cheeks and fair skin, like he’d been raised on milk and cheese. His red T-shirt advertised Miller High Life, which suited him, because he was built like a beer keg. But he walked lightly, almost on his toes, as if approaching a tango partner. He had a large eagle tattoo wrapping one arm, and a Green Bay Packers tattoo on the other.

The second man had a long, angular face in a deep, gleaming black. “And who might y’all be?” The slow drawl sounded like Texas, or maybe Oklahoma. His T-shirt was blue and read MAXIE’S SOUTHERN COMFORT. His skin seemed a little too tight on his body, every muscle group clearly defined. He wore no shoes or socks, and Peter could see the hard calluses on his feet that came from kicking a heavy bag very hard over a long period of time.

Dinah didn’t seem to notice any of those things. She put her hands on her hips, back straight and strong. A formidable woman.

“Gentlemen,” she said. “I know he’s here. His truck is parked right outside.”

Behind the salvaged bar, the door opened and a man walked through carrying a can of Remington gun oil. His skin was coffee-brown, his head shaved. His ancestors could have been from anywhere and everywhere.

He stopped moving when he saw Dinah.

It was not a voluntary pause.

It was total stillness, abrupt and automatic. As if his sensory system had overloaded.

He wore crisp black jeans, a starched white dress shirt with the cuffs rolled exactly twice, and a carefully blank expression that did nothing to hide the hollow eyes of a man who was just punched hard in the stomach.

Dinah said, “Hello, Lewis.”

Only two quiet words, but in them Peter could guess their entire history.

—

It lasted for only a moment, the space of a breath. Then Lewis closed his eyes and opened them again, somehow a different person. Older, maybe, and harder.

“Hey, Dee,” he said. “Been a long time, girl.” His voice was like heating oil, slippery and dark. The heat and combustion latent within.

Watching Lewis cross the room, Peter thought of a mountain lion he had once seen in the North Cascades. Lewis had the same elemental precision and economy of motion. A predatory indifference. Peter was sure the two men in T-shirts were strong and capable. But compared to Lewis, they were bunny rabbits.

Lewis didn’t acknowledge Peter in any way, as if he weren’t even there. But Peter knew that if he did anything unexpected, Lewis would be ready. Because Lewis was always ready.

Peter was the same way.

Lewis stopped at the table and looked down at the disassembled shotgun. His hands twitched restlessly at the ends of corded arms. He said, “What you doing here, Dee?”

She tapped her toe twice. It was loud on the hard oak floor. “It’s about James,” she said. “You know he’s dead.”

Lewis didn’t look up. “Yeah,” he said. He contemplated the shotgun’s component parts, laid out neatly on the cloth. “I was real sorry to hear.”

Dinah said, “I need to know what he was doing for you.”

A faint smile tilted the side of Lewis’s mouth. “You always was direct.” He picked up the barrel and peered down the bore. “I used to like that about you.”

“Lewis,” she said. “I need to know. Was he working for you?”

Lewis didn’t look at her. “I don’t run the day-to-day,” he said. He put some gun oil on a bore swab and ran it through the barrel. “I went in one night and there was Jimmy, washing glasses.” He sprayed a hand swab and wiped down the action, the stock, and the barrel. The simple movements carried the grace of long practice. His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Man did his job. I let him be.”

Dinah said, “I don’t know what else you’re doing, but I know you. What was James involved with? Was he handling money for you?”