Free Vengeance by Eric Prochaska Page B

stabbed.’ What, with all the adrenaline and the booze? Shit. I only started to feel something when he mentioned it.”
    He finished his drink. I took a long drink from mine and took it about halfway down.
    “You never believed your old man was such a bad mother fucker, did you?”
    “No, I always knew you could fight.”
    “Yeah, but you thought I was exaggerating. Making up stories to sound like a bad-ass. Shit! The things I’ve never told you! You’d piss your pants.”
    “I bet.”
    “No. You don’t fucking bet. Don’t patronize me, you fuck. You can’t even imagine. Don’t you fucking say to me, ‘I bet’.”
    He picked up his glass, remembered it was empty, swirled the thin puddle of scotch in the bottom as he considered another, and sat it down loudly on the bar.
    “Back in the day, if I was feeling mean, I’d stand right over there and I’d tell every mother fucker in here that I’d take the whole place on. I didn’t care if it was one by one or if the whole joint got up and came at me like a herd. I’d hit whoever was first and he’d be on the ground. And I’d just keep mowin’ ‘em down. Afterwards, I’d buy a round for anyone man enough to take a swing at me. Ah, shit. Those were the days. Can’t pull that shit anymore. Place got a new manager a few years ago. Serious as a heart attack and big as a bulldozer. He runs this place like it’s a neutral country. Lots of deals go down in here, but no fighting. As long as everyone knows not to try anything, the place keeps its reputation. You so much as make a fist, Rook steps out from his office and asks if there’s going to be trouble.”
    “Rook?” I asked.
    “The manager. He sits in his office down that hall doing his business and watches the bar with night vision cameras. If he opens his door, the light comes down the hall and word goes round the bar in three seconds flat. Even a roomful of criminals straightens up when they’re being inspected by Rook. But now and then a regular has a few too many and forgets the rules or someone wanders in here for the first time and thinks they can do as they please. There’s this time, a few months back. Lenny, you were here for that one, right?”
    The bartender was too far away to know what was being said, but his ears perked when his name was called and he came and leaned over the bar toward my dad.
    “What’s that, Liam?”
    “Lenny, this is my boy.”
    Lenny turned to me and nodded. “Good to meetcha.” He turned back to my dad with a puzzled look.
    “My younger son. Ethan,” he said, clearing up the confusion. No doubt Lenny knew about Aiden’s death. He nodded a few times to show he understood. “I was telling my boy about when Rook put that dent in the wall.”
    Lenny nodded again, grasping why he had been called over.
    “You see that dent?” he asked, picking up the story. I hadn’t registered the dent as we entered, but I nodded to keep the story moving. I would be sure to take a closer look when I left. “Well, we got this loudmouth and his friends in here. Other bars, you smile and try to ignore that kind of guy. Here, a few old boys got tired of his voice and told him to shut up. Some places, that leads to some shouting back and forth. Maybe someone gets up and puffs out his chest and the guys at the other table blow it off and the whole thing fizzles out.”
    “Fucking college students and municipal softball leagues,” my dad sticks in.
    “Right. Punks like that. They act like a bad-ass until they have to lay some money down and they make like the whole thing was a joke. But these old boys weren’t joking. They’ll take a twat like that out back, beat him until they hear something snap, heave him into the bed of someone’s pickup and come back in here and keep drinking.
    “So Rook hears it all from his office and comes out to stop things before they get out of hand. These old boys, they fold their hands on their table and stare straight down when Rook comes around