Night Game by Kirk Russell

Bobby’s face.
    Marquez took a sip of rum and said, “That’s Troy Broussard’s daughter, Sophie, sitting with Bill.” He turned, got the bartender’s attention, and asked, “Is Sophie working tonight?”
    “She’s over by the bandstand with her boyfriend.”
    “Oh, yeah, I see her now, thanks.”
    Marquez lifted the rum again, and the bartender lingered, did he want another? Marquez did, but rum wouldn’t work for him tonight. He’d thought coming into town and cooling down wouldhelp, but the buy had been too disturbing. He glanced over, caught an arrogant expression on Bobby’s companion’s face.
    Shauf turned her back to them and spoke softly. “They’re focused on Petroni’s table, aren’t they?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Why is that?”
    Maybe it was the novelty of a Broussard going out with a game warden, or maybe these two at the bar didn’t have anything else to occupy themselves with, Bobby like a schoolboy giving his girl cousin shit. Petroni’s head shifted just slightly, perhaps sensing the conversation out of his view at the bar, then he finished his drink and stood heavily. He gave Sophie a grim smile before heading for the bathroom.
    “Arguing with her,” Shauf said. “Doesn’t anybody in this town get along?”
    Petroni moved awkwardly around a young couple, the new jeans he wore too tight for his middle-aged gut, the wide leather belt more fitting in a western bar than here.
    As soon as Petroni disappeared into the bathroom, Bobby Broussard started weaving his way to Sophie, his thin frame sliding between tables, a geeky, sleazy smile offered to women he brushed into, his thigh and crotch rubbing against them as he squeezed his way through.
    Watching him, Marquez remembered a much younger Bobby working as a spotter on bear hunts, keeping an eye out for the law, a thin kid with bad skin and always running his tongue over his upper lip in a way that made you glad you didn’t know what he was thinking. When Bobby reached Sophie he tapped her on the shoulder and used his beer bottle to point at the bar where his friend stood smiling. Sophie turned, looked at the man at the bar, then raised her hand, and flipped him off as though there were no one else in the room. Shauf chuckled.
    But then something more got said, and Sophie came out of her seat and stuck the same finger in Bobby’s face. Even the singer looked over as Bobby grinned, backing up like this was all good fun, and Sophie’s gaze returned to the other man, who toasted her with his beer and crooked a finger motioning her to come to him. A couple of women yelled at his gesture as if it offended them personally. Marquez heard the word “asshole.”
    “I’m ready to go,” Shauf said. “Who needs this? You don’t, I don’t. Let Petroni have his midlife crisis. I’m fried, you must be too.”
    “Let’s hang for a couple.”
    Petroni came back from the bathroom, and by then Sophie had turned her chair so her back was to the bar. Petroni sat down and looked around at the nearby tables, but what he needed to see was Bobby Broussard’s companion crossing the room behind him. Within a few strides the man was there, and he jerked Petroni’s right shoulder from behind. Petroni just managed to get on his feet as his chair went over, his drink skittering.
    “Watch my drink for me,” Marquez said, and started across just as Petroni and the man came to blows. He saw Petroni take hard jabs to the gut and one to the chin. Petroni went down on one knee, then fell to the floor. The man reached down, wadded Petroni’s shirt, started to lift him, was swearing at him, calling him a cocksucker when Marquez got there and forced him to lower Petroni back to the floor.
    “This is the part where the lowlifes haul ass,” Marquez said. “That’s you.”
    “Let go of my wrist, fucker, before I kick the shit out of you.”
    A moment later he threw his weight sideways, trying to knock Marquez off balance. A table upended but Marquez kept his feet,