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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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