Free Liquid Fear by Scott Nicholson Page B

ceiling. Harry Grimes would be expecting a sales report this afternoon.
    He was supposed to be in Kentucky tomorrow, visiting a few tire dealerships to present a new style of rubberized signage, complete with tread marks. Now the wheels were bare, the road reaching a dead end, no exits.
    Actually, that wasn’t true.
    One detour remained.
    Steve, like many weekend hosts, stocked an array of cocktail staples. Though alcoholism stemmed from a genetic predisposition in many cases, Steve managed fine as an occasional imbiber. The very existence of a liquor cabinet was proof enough that his brother had dodged the affliction. Roland had never owned more than one bottle at a time, and he never slept until that bottle was empty.
    Sweat arose in his armpits, his palms, and along the line of his scalp. He was convinced that the murderous blackout had not been caused by drinking, but now that the insidious whisper filled his head, it would not stop its siren song until he crashed on the rocks. Two years of sobriety, and what had he gained?
    And it wasn’t like this was his fault. After all, he didn’t kill the woman. David Underwood did, and Roland wasn’t David, was he?
    She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    And because of her, Roland’s world had been tipped off its axis.
    Clearly, she was the one to blame.
    He sat up. One of the ground rules of recovery was to maintain daily contact with your sponsor. Especially when the monkey climbed on your back and dug in its dirty claws.
    No cell phone signal. Roland couldn’t call.
    He sighed, relieved, though his gut clenched in craving.
    No Harry. So Harry shared in the failure as much as the dead woman did.
    Fuck it.
    Fists tight, Roland stood. He was almost to the closet when Wendy’s voice came to him.
    “What did you ever do to deserve this?” he’d once asked when they were exploring the damage of people who loved alcoholics.
    “What did you do to deserve it?” she asked.
    And he’d had no answer, then or now.
    She’d been as supportive as any spouse should be. She even attended Al-Anon, the support group for family members of alcoholics. She’d sat with him in open meetings, listened as he made his required amends and worked through the steps; she memorized the little homilies, including the one that reminded drunks to remember the futility of control, resentment, and selfishness.
    But where was Wendy now?
    Out of his life, living across town from him, both of them financially damaged by the separation and legal battle.
    Of course, when you got right down to it, God had set up the bowling pins for this particular split. Why cast about for blame when there was One who had all the power?
    In the Blame Game, you didn’t need to point the finger at yourself. The real target was in the sky, everywhere, pervading the fabric of reality.
    Or, alternately, God was nowhere.
    The grin was a grim rictus on his face. Justification, that savior of drunks the world over. He licked his lips. His hand was actually trembling in a way it hadn’t since he’d beaten delirium tremens during a thirty-day stay in a treatment facility.
    If God didn’t want him to drink, God would cause him to trip over the living room rug and break a leg. And God wouldn’t have stuck Steve’s liquor in the cabin, just waiting for him like manna.
    God’s fault. God’s desire. God’s will.
    He was heading for the liquor cabinet when someone knocked on the door.
    He glanced at the ceiling, wondering if God was up there laughing, the hoary old bastard.
    He thought about hiding, or maybe going for the back door and running into the woods, but that would be stupid.
    No, the best thing was to answer it and act like he belonged there.
    Roland opened the door, smiling but with a little hint of annoyance at being disturbed. A man stood there, beefy, dressed in a flannel shirt and overalls. He wore a new straw hat on his head that looked uncomfortably stiff. One side of his mouth was slack, as if he’d