The Reapers: A Thriller-CP-7 by John Connolly Page A

once he had thrown their asses out, their first mistake was coming into his bar to begin with. Nate did not like college kids, which was not to say that he was not proud of the local boys who had made good by going on to further education. He knew their parents, and their grandparents. They were not “college kids.” They were his kids, and they would always be welcome in his bar, although he still wouldn’t serve them shooters, not even if a shooter was going to cure them of cancer. A man had to have standards.
    The bar did not have a private room, but there were four tables at the back that were cut off from the rest of the premises by a wall of wood inset with three frosted-glass panes, and it was there that the party to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of Willie Brew was taking place. In truth, the party had spread out a little as the evening drew on. There was a noisy core of six or seven seated around Arno, then a second table of four or five that was quieter, mellowed by Jameson and the general good nature of those gathered there. A third was occupied by assorted wives and girlfriends, of which Willie had initially not entirely approved. Willie had been under the impression that this was to be a men-only night, but he supposed that, under the circumstances, he could afford to be tolerant, as long as nonmales kept themselves to themselves, within reason. Actually, he supposed that, deep down, he was a little flattered that they had come along. Willie was gruff, and he was by no means a looker. Since his wife left him, the only females with whom he had enjoyed actual physical contact were metal and had headlights where their boobs should have been, and he had almost forgotten how good it felt to be hugged by a woman, and smothered in perfume and kisses. He had blushed down to his ankles as a series of what might generally be termed “women of a certain age” had, either singly or in pairs, reminded him of the charms of the fairer sex by pressing said charms firmly against Willie’s body. One of the reasons he had headed for the men’s room was to remove the lipstick traces from his cheeks and mouth so that he no longer looked, as Arno had put it, like an overweight Cupid advertising a poor man’s Valentine’s Day.
    Now, as he stood at the men’s room door, he took in the assorted faces as though seeing them afresh. The first thing that struck him was that he knew a lot of people with criminal pasts. There was Groucho, the hot-wire expert, who might have made a good mechanic if he could have been trusted not to boost and then sell the cars on which he was supposed to be working. Beside him was Tommy Q, who was the most indiscreet man Willie had ever met, an individual apparently born without a filter between his mouth and his brain. Tommy Q, a purveyor of illegally copied movies, music, and computer software, was such a pirate that he should have sported an eye patch and carried a parrot on his shoulder. Willie had once, in a fit of madness, bought a bootleg copy of a movie from Tommy, the soundtrack to which had consisted almost entirely of the sounds of someone munching popcorn, and a couple having sex nearby, or as close to it as they could get in a crowded movie theater. In fact, thought Willie, it had been pretty similar to the actual experience of seeing a movie in New York on a Friday night, which was precisely why Willie didn’t go to the movies in the first place. Tommy Q’s inexpertly wrapped birthday tribute to Willie sat on top of the pile of gifts in one corner. It looked, thought Willie, suspiciously like a collection of pirated DVDs.
    Then there were those who should have been there but, for vastly different reasons, were not. Coffin Ed was doing two-to-five in Snake River over in Oregon for desecrating a corpse. Willie wasn’t sure what the precise wording of the charge had been and, to be honest, he didn’t want to know. Willie wasn’t the kind of man to judge another’s sexual proclivities,