around the campfire. Everybody was giving me dirty looks. Peer pressure: when you’re a teenager they’re always telling you not to give in to it, but then they use it against you whenever it suits their purposes. But I didn’t give in because of the peer pressure, I gave in because I was hungry and tired. So hungry and tired that this time when I told the story, I left it all in, even Teddy’s titties.
“Your stepmother had implants?” asked Dusty.
“My stepmother,” I told her, “had a dick.”
CHAPTER FIVE
1
In the old days, FBI special agents were required to be on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even when they were off duty, because, of course, special agents are never off duty. Until the advent of sky pagers, they were expected to leave one or more telephone numbers at which they could be reached, and/or call in their whereabouts at frequent intervals. You could always tell a G-man by the dimes jingling in his pocket, the in-joke ran, back when a phone call cost ten cents and there was a booth on every street corner.
Technically, then, Pender was already in violation of Bureau regulations when he left the motel Wednesday night without his newfangled sky pager. He only dug himself in deeper by not callingin Thursday morning, not to mention failing to report to work. But any residual guilt he might have experienced was more than trumped by the relief that came with realizing that he didn’t have to watch any more goddamn snuff videos.
Thursday afternoon Amy dropped him off at his motel so he could check out. Just seeing the Bu-car parked outside the motel room was a material reminder of all the stuff he’d been putting off thinking about. Little stuff like turning in his resignation and telling his wife that he wouldn’t be coming home. But he wasn’t ready to deal with any of that just yet. Maybe Monday, he told himself, and quickly went back to
not
thinking about the stuff he wasn’t thinking about.
A second night of free drinks, slow dancing, and vigorous sex, followed by a second day lazing around the farmhouse, left Pender feeling like a gigolo. So when one of the Nugget’s two bouncers called in sick late Friday afternoon, he gladly offered to fill in. By then he’d met most of the full-timers—Steve, the head bartender; Barry, the head bouncer; Nestor, the cook; the waitresses, Karen and Mindy. And if their reception was a tad grudging at first, he understood they were only being protective of Amy.
Just in case he hadn’t understood, Barry took him aside to let him know that he was one lucky son of a bitch and to warn him that if he mistreated Amy in any way, he’d find himself in a world of hurt.
“Now that that’s behind us—Amy says you have some experience as a bouncer?” Barry was around Pender’s size, but looked taller in his cowboy boots and high-crowned Stetson hat.
“It was a long time ago, but yeah.” Like most of his colleagues in the Cortland County Sheriff’s Department in the late sixties, he’d done his share of moonlighting in bars and at shows.
“’Cause no offense, hoss, but you look a little out of shape to me.”
“Maybe, but I reckon I can still eighty-six a drunk with the best of ’em—hoss.”
The first few hours, there wasn’t much work for the bouncers. Pender helped Barry break up a fight, took the car keys from a falling-down drunk, and called a cab for him. By the end of the band’s second set, when he did have to run a bottle-throwing customer, the come-along hold he’d learned as a young deputy sheriff in Cortland came in handier than anything he’d been taught in the FBI Academy. What you want to do, Sheriff Hartung used to tell his men, is leverage the subject’s wrist up past his shoulder blade, so he’s too busy treading air to put up a fight.
When things heated up during the third set, Pender earned even Barry’s respect by smoothly disarming a drunken patron. “You’ll make a bouncer yet, hoss,” he told
“Your stepmother had implants?” asked Dusty.
“My stepmother,” I told her, “had a dick.”
CHAPTER FIVE
1
In the old days, FBI special agents were required to be on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, even when they were off duty, because, of course, special agents are never off duty. Until the advent of sky pagers, they were expected to leave one or more telephone numbers at which they could be reached, and/or call in their whereabouts at frequent intervals. You could always tell a G-man by the dimes jingling in his pocket, the in-joke ran, back when a phone call cost ten cents and there was a booth on every street corner.
Technically, then, Pender was already in violation of Bureau regulations when he left the motel Wednesday night without his newfangled sky pager. He only dug himself in deeper by not callingin Thursday morning, not to mention failing to report to work. But any residual guilt he might have experienced was more than trumped by the relief that came with realizing that he didn’t have to watch any more goddamn snuff videos.
Thursday afternoon Amy dropped him off at his motel so he could check out. Just seeing the Bu-car parked outside the motel room was a material reminder of all the stuff he’d been putting off thinking about. Little stuff like turning in his resignation and telling his wife that he wouldn’t be coming home. But he wasn’t ready to deal with any of that just yet. Maybe Monday, he told himself, and quickly went back to
not
thinking about the stuff he wasn’t thinking about.
A second night of free drinks, slow dancing, and vigorous sex, followed by a second day lazing around the farmhouse, left Pender feeling like a gigolo. So when one of the Nugget’s two bouncers called in sick late Friday afternoon, he gladly offered to fill in. By then he’d met most of the full-timers—Steve, the head bartender; Barry, the head bouncer; Nestor, the cook; the waitresses, Karen and Mindy. And if their reception was a tad grudging at first, he understood they were only being protective of Amy.
Just in case he hadn’t understood, Barry took him aside to let him know that he was one lucky son of a bitch and to warn him that if he mistreated Amy in any way, he’d find himself in a world of hurt.
“Now that that’s behind us—Amy says you have some experience as a bouncer?” Barry was around Pender’s size, but looked taller in his cowboy boots and high-crowned Stetson hat.
“It was a long time ago, but yeah.” Like most of his colleagues in the Cortland County Sheriff’s Department in the late sixties, he’d done his share of moonlighting in bars and at shows.
“’Cause no offense, hoss, but you look a little out of shape to me.”
“Maybe, but I reckon I can still eighty-six a drunk with the best of ’em—hoss.”
The first few hours, there wasn’t much work for the bouncers. Pender helped Barry break up a fight, took the car keys from a falling-down drunk, and called a cab for him. By the end of the band’s second set, when he did have to run a bottle-throwing customer, the come-along hold he’d learned as a young deputy sheriff in Cortland came in handier than anything he’d been taught in the FBI Academy. What you want to do, Sheriff Hartung used to tell his men, is leverage the subject’s wrist up past his shoulder blade, so he’s too busy treading air to put up a fight.
When things heated up during the third set, Pender earned even Barry’s respect by smoothly disarming a drunken patron. “You’ll make a bouncer yet, hoss,” he told
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