"Looking for someone, big boy?" she whispered.
It was the stripper who had just come down off the stage.
I ignored her and walked down the bar to Amos.
He didn't look up as I climbed onto the empty stool alongside him.
"A bottle of Budweiser," I said to the bartender.
The bottle was in front of me and my dollar gone before I was fully settled on the stool.
I turned to look at Amos, who was watching the stage, and a feeling of shock ran through me.
He was old. Incredibly old and gray.
His hair was thin and his skin hung around his cheeks and jowls the way a skinny old man's flesh hangs.
He lifted his drink to his lips. I could see his hand shaking and the grayish-red blotches on the back of it.
I tried to think.
He couldn't be that old. The most he could be was his middle fifties.
Then I saw his eyes and I knew the answer.
He was beat and there was nothing left for him but yesterdays.
The dreams were gone because he'd failed all the challenges and the dry rot of time had set in.
There was nowhere left for him to go but down. And down and down, until he was dead.
"Hello, Amos," I said quietly.
He put his drink down and turned his head slowly. He looked at me through bloodshot, watery eyes.
"Go away," he whispered in a hoarse, whisky-soaked voice. "That's my girl dancing up there."
I glanced up at the stage.
She was a redhead who'd seen better years.
They were a good combination, the two of them. They'd both fought the good fight – badly – and lost.
I waited until the music crashed to its finale before I spoke again.
"I got a proposition for you, Amos."
He turned toward me.
"I told your messenger I wasn't interested."
For a moment, I was ready to get down off that stool and walk off.
Out into the fresh, cold night and away from the stench of stale beer and sickness and decay.
But I didn't.
It wasn't only the promise I'd made Forrester. It was also that he'd been Monica's father.
The bartender came up and I ordered us both a round. He picked up the five and left.
"I told Monica about the job.
She was very happy about it."
He turned and looked at me again. "Monica always was a damn fool," he said hoarsely, and laughed. "You know, she didn't want to divorce you.
She was crazy mad, but afterward she didn't want to divorce you.
She said she loved you." I didn't answer and he laughed again. "But I straightened her out," he continued. "I told her you were just like me, that neither of us could ever resist the smell of cunt."
"That's over and done with," I said. "A long time ago."
He slammed the glass down on the bar with a trembling hand.
"It's not over!" he shouted. "You think I can forget how you screwed me out of my own company?
You think I can forget how you beat me out of every contract, wouldn't let me get started again?" He laughed craftily. "I’m no fool. You think I didn't know you had men following me all over the country?"
I stared at him.
He was sick. Much sicker than I had thought.
"And now you come with a phony proposition, huh?" He smiled slyly. 'Think I'm not wise to you?
Think I don't know you're tryin' to get me out of the way because you know if they ever get a look at my plans, you're through?" He slid off the stool and came at me with wildly surging fists. "Through, Jonas!" he screamed. "Through! Do you hear me?"
I swung around on the stool and caught at his hands. His wrists were thin and all fragile old bone.
I held his arms and suddenly he slumped against me, his head on my chest.
I looked down at him and saw that his eyes were filled with weak old tears of rage at his helplessness.
"I’m so tired, Jonas," he whispered. "Please don't chase me any more. I'm sorry. I'm so tired I can't run any- "
Then he slipped from my grasp and slid down to the floor.
The redhead, who had come up behind him, screamed and the music stopped, suddenly.