Oasis of Night Read Free

wasn’t exactly kosher either.
    I didn’t hear the tap on the front door until it reached a certain volume. I was nursing a headache, the result of too little sleep. Around two I’d awakened with a scream dying in my throat and the last vestiges of a nightmare clinging to my back like some hellish succubus. I’d come downstairs to the Cafe and sat for a while in the dark, sipping a cup of coffee and shivering. The row of bottles behind the bar winked at me in the moonlight, and maybe I considered it—hell yeah, I considered it. I’d even gone behind there and touched them all, read their names out loud. I selected a glass and held it underneath the spigot before I came to my senses.
    â€œHey! Anybody home?”
    I got the door unlocked and let him in. He was about my height, maybe thirty years old, with a lean, pale face and the kind of big, dark eyes that hinted at all kinds of secrets. He was ridiculously good-looking, the kind of guy that’d set the hearts of office girls aflutter for miles around, and there were dimples in his cheeks.
    â€œNice to meet you, Mr. Stoyles. I’m Chris—Chris DuBois. From New Orleans, although you probably can’t tell. I been gone awhile.” His hands were big, warm, and very clean, and when he shook my hand, his grip was just right—not so weak as to be effeminate, but he didn’t try to strong-arm me either. I can’t stand a guy who shakes hands like he’s trying to break my wrist. Mr. DuBois tossed his jacket over a chair and looked around the place, and already it seemed like he belonged. He wore his clothes like he’d been born in them, but it wasn’t cocky self-assurance. He was simply… comfortable. “How many taps you got?”
    â€œUh, four for right now. I’m planning on expanding later on.”
    â€œGood.” He went behind the bar and examined the rows of liquor bottles, counted the glasses. “You need more highball glasses, especially if you got girls coming in here. Women like them kinds of drinks with cherries and stuff.” He opened the refrigerator and looked over the contents, murmuring to himself. “Not bad, not bad. You serve food?”
    â€œUh, sandwiches, french fries, that sort of thing. The kitchen’s in back.”
    â€œUh-huh.” He opened and closed cupboard doors, rang open the till drawer, and tried the hot and cold running water. “Ice?”
    â€œEvery day. There’s a truck. Let me show you the delivery entrance.” I took him through the back and showed him the door that let onto a narrow alley the locals called a lane way. Built on the slope of the hill, it descended through several steps and platforms, but the whole city was like that, a series of terraces and inclines rising up in a northwesterly direction from the waterfront.
    â€œKinda like Frisco, huh?” He smiled at me; his teeth were very white, his bottom lip soft and sensuous and full. I wondered what kind of a kisser he was, and just as quickly accepted I’d maybe never find out. “You ever been to Frisco?”
    â€œYeah, I been to Frisco.” I hoped he’d leave it at that. I wasn’t interested in some guy who’d make my personal business his own. “A while back.” I couldn’t get a read on him. On the one hand, he seemed interested in working at the Cafe, but on the other, he didn’t seem to care one way or the other if he got the job or not. “I can’t afford to pay you very much, Mr. DuBois.”
    â€œChris.” He grinned. “I ain’t standing on no ceremony, and whatever you’re offering is fine by me.” He glanced around once more and reached for my hand. “Sold, Mr. Stoyles.”
    â€œJack.” I maybe held on to his hand a moment longer than was strictly necessary. “Just Jack.”
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    C HRIS AND I worked together like the proverbial well-oiled machine, and as much as I