Free Ragged Man by Ken Douglas Page A

it the same.” If she was going to drink doubles, then he was, too.
    The waitress left and Sherry buried her face in the menu.
    “ What’s up?” he asked her.
    “ Nothing.” Her perfect teeth barely squeaked through a loose smile. He noticed a drop of sweat making its way from her hairline down her forehead. She was wound up tighter than Mick Jagger’s pants.
    “ You sure?” he asked her.
    “ You know, we’ve never been on a real date.”
    “ I don’t think your husband would appreciate it.”
    “ You’re probably right, but I don’t think I care anymore.”
    Evan was stunned, he felt like he’d been hit with a hammer. In all the years that he’d been having lunch with her, she hadn’t once suggested that she was interested in anything more. Greg and Sherry were the perfect couple. He was a great guy, confident and sure of himself, allowing Sherry to have her own friends. The man hadn’t once hinted that he objected to his twice a month lunches with his wife or their frequent phone calls. If Sherry was his wife, he’d watch over her like the environmental wackos watched over the California gray spotted owl.
    “ We took in a mint copy of London Roundhouse last week, the original Trade Mark of Quality version,” she said.
    “ Really?” she had his full attention. He had one of the best collections of Rolling Stones records in the world, but he was missing that one.
    “ That’s the second TMQ Stones record, isn’t it?” she twinkled.
    “ No, the third, European Tour was the second.”
    “ And Rick really didn’t save any copies of his stuff?”
    “ No.”
    “ Doesn’t he know that some of the original TMQ records are worth hundreds of dollars?”
    “ He doesn’t care.”
    “ He should, he could have made a fortune by just hanging onto three or four copies of every record he made.”
    “ He has enough money.”
    “ It must be nice.”
    “ He has problems, like everybody else,” Evan said, pushing his chair away from the table. “Excuse me, I have to go to the restroom.” She smiled at him as he rose. God, he loved her, he thought, as he made his way through the restaurant toward the men’s room at the back.
    He pushed open the swinging door, glad the restroom was empty. He took the first stall, flipped down the toilet seat and sat without taking down his pants. Anticipating the rush, he took a small paper bindle out of his shirt pocket, carefully opened it and set it on his knee. Then he eased a crisp hundred out of his hip pocket and rolled it into a tight pencil thin tube. Already loose, he lifted the bindle of white powder and, with the rolled hundred to his nose, he inhaled twice, once in each nostril. Feeling better than he had in years, he closed the bindle and put it, with the hundred, into his shirt pocket.
    If he was going to be drinking doubles, he’d need the coke. The white powder kept him sober, but it was a delicate balancing act, walking a thin line between the stimulant and the depressant.
    On his way out of the bathroom, he stopped by the wash basins to check his hair. He quickly ran a comb through it, making sure there were no tangles. Then he bent forward, into the mirror, to inspect a pimple forming at the bridge of his nose.
    “ Those are the worst kind,” a voice from behind said.
    “ You don’t know if you should pop them or leave them alone.” Evan checked out the voice’s owner in the mirror.
    “ I pop them,” the man said.
    “ I tend to leave them,” Evan said.
    “ You’re Evan Hatch, aren’t you?”
    “ Do I know you?”
    “ We met at Beatlefest, last year.” Beatlefest was the yearly gathering of New York’s Beatle fans. They swarm into the Hilton Convention Center to buy, swap, and sell Beatle collectibles. Like the Star Trek conventions, which Evan also attended, they got bigger every year.
    “ I met a lot of people there, it’s hard to remember them all.”
    “ Storm, Sam Storm.” The big man held out his hand and Evan shook it.
    “