“Of course, that’s just for making the introduction,” Una says. “If I actually make the sale, there’ll be a whole lot more.”
He goes farther down the bar and serves a sad-looking woman a Tom Collins that Skeleton Jack will probably pay for. When the bartender returns, he’s had enough time to think about the proposition. He takes Una’s glass and the fifty, making it disappear like a magician. He glances around, then leans closer, speaking in a voice so low, she can hardly hear him.
“If it’s the guys I’m thinking about, you probably won’t run into them here,” he says. “I don’t know about Hennessey, but Fretwell spends his time hustling pool at the Iron Monarch Pub, down on Nicollet Avenue—but listen—he’s a scummy guy, and that’s a scummy place. You oughta think twice about this.”
Una can’t help but laugh at that. “You mean there’s a place scummier than this?”
He’s not offended by the observation, and remains dead serious. “Plenty of them,” he says. “There are pits and there are snake pits. Lemme tell ya, that place has venom to spare.”
Una shivers in spite of herself. “I can handle it,” she says. She knows it’s true, but the intensity in this man’s eyes makes her doubt herself the slightest bit. She gets up from her barstool. “If a deal goes down, you’ll be hearing from me,” she tells him.
“I sincerely doubt that,” he says with the resigned grin of a man who’s been around the block—and in this neighborhood, that’s saying something.
“Well,” says Una, “worst-case scenario, you never see me again, and you’re up fifty bucks.”
He accepts her evaluation of their situation, offers her a “You take care, now,” and she leaves to find a pit of vipers called the Iron Monarch.
10 • Fretwell
To say that Morton Fretwell is ugly as sin is a grave insult to sin. He knows this. He’s had a lifetime to come to terms with it—twenty-nine years, to be exact. Fretwell’s development took him through various comparative species. He began life as a bat-faced baby, grew into a coyote-faced boy, and finally matured into a goat-faced man.
But rather than lament his unprepossessing nature, he chose to embrace it—revel in it, even. His ugliness defines him—for what would he have without it? When he and Hennessey bagged that SlotMonger kid and sold him for a small fortune, Fretwell’s share was enough to pick himself out some nice new facial features, if he wanted. He had considered it, but not for long. Instead he spent the money on some of the finer things in life that his face usually denied him. But now that money is gone, and it’s back to the day-to-day of trolling the streets for Unwinds to sell to those who will pay.
As he plays pool alone in a corner of the Iron Monarch he notices the girl. Actually, he noticed her when she first came in, looking like a nice drink of water in the desert. But now he notices her noticing him.
She’s young. Twenty-one, maybe younger. She’s alone in a booth, and already there are vultures around the Monarch with their eyes on her. She has dark hair, tied tightly back. When she came in, he noticed how it fell all the way to her tailbone. Fretwell has a thing for girls with long hair.
She doesn’t just notice him, she makes eye contact with him now. There may be the hint of a smile on her face, but he can’t tell in the dim light of the bar.
There’s an ethnic look about her. Hispanic, or maybe even SlotMonger—hard to tell. Either way, there’s an untainted aura about her that makes it clear she doesn’t belong here. Or at least doesn’t belong here yet. Clearly she’s a good girl who’s “slumming it” and looking for low love. And it doesn’t get lower than Morton Fretwell.
He breaks eye contact first, and handily sinks his next ball—a tough bank shot. The attention from this somewhat pretty girl improves his mojo. Girls who are actually looking for a guy like him are few and far between, so he’s quick to make his move. He grabs a second cue stick, and saunters over to the booth where she sits.
“Name’s Morty,” he says “You play?”
“A little,” she answers, stirring the swizzle stick of a drink that she doesn’t seem to have touched.
He hands her the cue. “C’mon, I’ll rack them up.” She hasn’t told him her name yet. He’s confident that she will. He leads her back to the pool table. He lets her break. She takes the stroke with confidence, and the balls scatter at the far end of the table with a hearty crack. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they play pool. This is a girl who knows what she wants. Fretwell is determined to learn exactly what that is.
“New in town?” he asks.
“Just passing through.”
She smiles at him and he runs his tongue across his teeth, checking for pizza debris, before smiling back. Then he sinks the seven ball, claiming solids, but intentionally misses the next shot to give her a fighting chance.
“Where ya from?”
“Doesn’t matter as much as where I’m going,” she says playfully.
Fretwell willingly takes the bait. “And where might that be?”
She takes a shot and sinks the twelve ball. “Victory,” she answers.
“Nice,” he says with a grin. She misses her follow-up shot, and he puts her in her place by dropping three in a row. “Might have to work for it, though.”
Her long ponytail swishes past him as she slides by to take her next shot. It makes him shiver. She still hasn’t told him her name. Maybe that doesn’t matter.