PAYOFF
By Steve Brewer
Copyright 2006 by Steve Brewer
SMASHWORDS EDITION
He who hesitates is fucked.
Stop to think, to consider how you're not as young as you used to be, how your reflexes are slower or you don't move so well anymore, and it's already too late.
Eddie knew all that. So when he lost his temper, he didn't waver. He strode across the busy saloon, slipping the .38-caliber Smith & Wesson out of his hip pocket, and jammed its stubby barrel up the loudmouth's left nostril.
Eddie was a good foot shorter than the square-jawed college boy. He'd never been tall, and he seemed to shrink another inch every year he lived past seventy. His pants rode higher these days and the cuffs of his flannel shirts were loose around his wrists. But he still was powerful through the chest and shoulders -- where it counts -- and he drove his free hand into the younger man's breastbone, pinned him against the wall.
"Listen, punk," Eddie said. "I may be seventy-seven years old, but there's not a damned thing wrong with my hearing. You've been mouthing off since you strutted into this place. Calling me 'Q-Tip' because of my white hair. Calling me an 'old fart.' Making noise about how I should give up my table to you and your frat brothers."
The punk's three friends were behind Eddie now. He didn't like that, but there was no help for it. They wouldn't make a move as long as he had a bullet aimed at their buddy's brain.
"I've been coming to this bar for fifty years. The rules never change. First come, first served. Right, Mac?"
Eddie could see Mac out of the corner of his eye. The beefy bartender watched them, no expression on his square face. The only sign he was paying attention was that he'd stopped his perpetual wiping of the bar with his gray rag.
"That's right," Mac said. "Long as you're buying drinks, you've rented the table for the night."
Eddie nodded. "Now if you don't like those rules, you should find another place to drink. But if you're gonna come in here, where us old farts hang out, then you show some respect. Understand?"
The red-faced kid nodded as best he could with a gun up his nose.
Eddie took the revolver away. Blood trickled out the offended nostril. Some on the barrel, too. He wiped the muzzle on the guy's white shirt, making a lopsided red "X" right above his heart.
Then he stepped back. If the punk wanted to make a move, now would be the time. But he kept his hands at his sides, his eyes on the pistol that Eddie held close by his waist. He jerked his head toward the exit, and he and his friends went out into the chilly autumn night, casting fierce glances over their shoulders at Eddie, who watched until they were out of sight.
A couple of the other "old farts" clapped a few times. Eddie didn't acknowledge them. He turned to the bar, where Mac was pouring him a shot of the Irish.
"Taking a chance there, Eddie," Mac said. "They might call the cops."
"What the cops gonna do? Arrest me? I ain't scared of jail. Hell, at my age, prison beats a nursing home. In stir, I know who I can trust."
"Who would that be?"
"Nobody."
Mac nodded. "I'm glad you didn't shoot him, Eddie. We would've had to replace the wallpaper."
Eddie knocked back the whiskey, which made his eyes water. "Sorry to run off customers, Mac. But I couldn't listen to that shit anymore."
"We don't need their business. We ain't proctologists."
The bartender poured him another drink.
"I'll take this one back to my table."
Mac cocked an eyebrow. "Think it still belongs to you?"
Eddie looked over at his table, saw a girl sitting in the chair opposite the one where his brown jacket was draped. She was young enough to be his granddaughter, maybe twenty-three, about the age of the boys he'd run off. She dressed all in black. Had hair too matte-black to be natural, chopped short around her ears, which were studded with too many silver earrings. Too much makeup, too. Good posture, though, sitting straight, staring at Eddie's chair like the RCA Victor dog, waiting for him to return.
He shrugged at Mac and walked over to the table, sat down. "Where'd you come from?"
"Back there." She gestured vaguely toward the rear of the bar.
The place was narrow and deep, squeezed between a bakery and a pawnshop, a typical neighborhood saloon. The neighborhood was changing, though, "gentrifying," and unfamiliar faces kept popping up among the aging regulars. Eddie had been in the back earlier, visiting the men's room beyond the shadowy booths, but he hadn't noticed this girl. And he should've noticed. Despite the black clothes and the butchered hair and the macabre makeup, she was a looker.
Christ, would he never outgrow it? Eddie kept thinking he'd get too old to ogle young women, but the urge never went away. All that firm flesh. Lipstick and flashing eyes and hope.