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Pulp Friction 2013
The beginning of a reading saga
unlike any other!
CHANCES ARE
An ARE Best Seller
Excerpt:
"I have to go.
Gerry leaves now. Sorry to leave you hanging." I had to get behind the
bar. We do a steady business with the cops and the neighborhood people, and
even though it was ten o'clock, I had four more hours until closing.
"Call me."
His voice was husky and I fancied I heard just the slightest clink of that
metal stud clicking against his teeth.
He wasn't the first
visitor to my office, not the first face I'd stared at, trying to forget the
one that was burned into my retinas, but he was different. I might have to get
his name. Shit. I don't think I even gave him my name.
"I'm Chance, this
is my place. You want me; this is where you can find me." I won't call.
Been there, done that. Got the emotionally stunted psyche to prove it. I shoved
him out the door ahead of me and let it close on our little interlude with a
sensation akin to gratitude.
The problem with that,
of course, was that it wasn't my name. My name was actually Aaron Dumont.
I picked up the name
Chance as a kid when my grandma kept telling me "Chances are you'll come
to no good, just like your pa." She had said it so often, it just kind of
stuck. I've been Chance ever since. When she passed away and left me the
remains of her estate, I sold everything but a few special items then invested
it all in a nest egg for a rainy day.
I figured that's what
she'd intended it for anyway. She'd said as soon as I joined the police force
back in the eighties. "Chances are you'll come to no good there. It's a
dangerous job and you're an accident waiting to happen."
She was right too. That
nest egg came in handy after the not-so-accidental shooting that ended my
career. After my injuries healed and the physical therapy was done, I loafed
around doing nothing for a bit, sinking into depression and dying slowly inside
of sheer boredom. Then I found the bar, and Chances Are was born. I don't know
if the name was a tribute to the woman who loved and understood me or a fuck
you to the one who ruled my childhood with an iron fist. Since they're the same
ruthless, gently bred Southern lady, I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on
the motivation behind the name.
Every night found me
here, polishing glasses, pouring drinks, and soaking up the world. I got to
talk shop with local law enforcement without being responsible for the
paperwork. The neighborhood itself was eclectic and I got plenty of customers
in on any given night who were prone to chat and flirt and sometimes, like the
rookie, even a little more.
He was still there,
watching me when he thought I wasn't looking, taking the ribbing his buddies
were dishing out with a flush and a faint smile. I was impressed. Rory Gaines
had backbone. I liked that. It kind of made me want to test his limits, crush
his spirit, just to see if he'd let me, but I knew that was the bitterness of
lost love, and I'd never actually do it. I don't think.
As I polished the shot
glasses, I was giving serious thought to actually going back to my office and
digging that business card he'd given me out of the trash can. When the front
door burst open and smashed into the wall with a sound so akin to gunfire that
several of the off duty cops in the room dropped to one knee and reached for
weapons they weren't supposed to be carrying in my establishment, I forgot
about everything else.
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