Spider Game (GhostWalkers, #12)(12)
Wyatt tipped his chair back. “I could take off my shoe, dump shells into my shoe and count them. We could calculate the size of my shoe…”
Trap hooked the toe of his boot around Wyatt’s chair and dumped him on the floor without looking up. “You’re an ass,” he muttered. “Mr is the maximum number of peanuts per person sitting at a table.” He added to his notes. Two standard deviations runs from 40 peanuts to 75 peanuts with a mean of 58 peanuts.
Draden frowned. “You’re assuming for your model all random variables have normal distributions.”
Trap nodded as Wyatt, laughing, got off the floor and righted his chair. “He confirmed this by plotting the curves based on all days of observation, collecting data points, and seeing the resulting probability curve that did follow the normal bell curve distribution. He does shit like this while we have to sit around drinking beer and waiting for his woman to show up.”
“Have to drink beer?” Trap snorted derisively. “You practically begged to come along.”
“Only to protect the locals from your mean ass,” Wyatt said.
“What were the numbers you used?” Draden asked curiously.
“I figured, based on my observations, that during the weekday anywhere from fifteen to twenty people come to the bar, but that number triples on the weekends. For the model I’m using, a key distinction is whether a person stays for a short versus a long time. I observed repeatedly that the two cases split fairly evenly, meaning one out of every two people stays just for a drink or two and one out every two stays for several drinks and to chat with their friends.”
Laughter burst from the bar. Melodic. Beautiful. The notes filled the air, and Trap tapped his pen on the tabletop repeatedly. He breathed deep as a small, vaporous cloud snaked into the air surrounding the table. Instantly both Draden and Mordichai clapped a hand on Trap’s shoulder. He took a deep breath.
“What about the bar sitters versus table sitters?” Malichai asked, clearly wanting to distract him.
Wyatt bent over the paper, reading Trap’s equations while Trap continued to stare at the bar. “Bar sitters who stay a short time, 1.5 hours or less, are modeled by the frequency of their peanut eating, while those who stay longer than 1.5 hours are modeled by their peanut-eating capacity.”
Trap forced his gaze away from Cayenne. He looked up at Malichai. “That’s you, a bar sitter, and you machine-gun them. Wyatt’s a table sitter because he likes to have food.”
“Delmar can serve up a damn good burger,” Wyatt defended himself.
“The average length of a short stay for a table sitter, not Wyatt, is about an hour. The bar is open on four weekdays and two weekend days with the average number of people tripling on the weekends. One out of every three people sits at a table whereas two out of every three people sit at the bar,” Trap explained.
“To be closer to the liquor,” Malichai pointed out, nudging his brother.
“There is that,” Wyatt said. “I often am conflicted about where to sit. Mordichai doesn’t sit. He wanders. Did you figure him into your calculations?”
“What’s the ratio of bar sitters to table sitters weekdays to weekends?” Draden asked.
Trap took another deep breath and let it out, clearly trying to get his mind right. He took the notepaper with his calculations written out in his precise, neat hand and began to make seemingly random folds to the sheet of paper right along the various lines of formula.
“It remains the same. On weekends the bar puts out six tables rather than four. By the time I finished it all, I came up with the total number of husks on the floor per week as thirteen thousand, two hundred and ten.” His gaze moved past Wyatt, who had inched his chair around just a little more to try to keep Trap from staring at Cayenne as she leaned against the bar.
Pascal Comeaux swept his hand down her hair, fingers lingering for a moment. Cayenne caught his hand, pulled it from her hair and indicated his wedding ring. Trap clenched his teeth. Around them, the air thickened until it was dense – so dense that a heavy opaque gray slipped around them like a veil. Mordichai coughed. Draden cleared his throat. The air was difficult to breathe into their lungs.
“Trap,” Wyatt cautioned softly. “You’ve got to hold it together. We’re all watchin’ her. Nothin’s goin’ to happen.”
“I was right, damn it,” Trap hissed. “She’s f*ckin’ robbin’ them. First she flirts her cute little ass off with them. What the hell? Does she go home with them?” The moment he said it, the walls of the room creaked. Expanded and contracted. Overhead the roof creaked, the sound like tree branches scraping against tin.
“You know she isn’t goin’ home with them, Trap,” Wyatt said. “Don’ be an ass. And don’ take down my favorite waterin’ hole.”
Cayenne’s soft laughter drifted toward them again, and Trap’s head came up, rage churning deep inside, right beneath that thick blue ice. He’d had enough, and this time, he was going to put a stop to her shit.
“Uh-oh,” Wyatt whispered softly under his breath.
Trap’s eyes narrowed. Stop flirting with them before someone gets hurt.