of a television screen. "I can't have the cops," he said desperately. No one looked at him.
"Why?" I said. "The cops are a good deal compared to me. If it weren't for the sweetheart of the rodeo here, you'd be the Fourth of July dinner special. Asshole on the half shell."
"You don't understand," he said. "You," he added vehemently. I was the only one making eye contact; all the others were melting away toward their tables, figuring out what they'd say tomorrow when they told the story. The music kicked in again, still Led Zeppelin, and he raised his voice. "You've got to get me out of here. If you don't, I'm finished." I looked over my shoulder, but there was no doubt about it. He was talking to me.
"Why in the world," I said, "would I help you?"
"Five hundred dollars," he said. "I'll pay you five hundred dollars to get me home."
Five hundred dollars sounded pretty good. It even made one or two of the chickens glance back. The plaid shirt had hung up the phone. In some corner of my subconscious my bankbook gave out a starved squeal. "Cash?" I said.
"Cash."
"Seven fifty," I said.
"Fine, fine, whatever. Just get me home."
"Why can't you get out of here yourself?"
"We got rid of the limo," he said, rubbing at his throat. "The asshole driver wanted to watch the fireworks."
"What about her?" I gestured toward the Korean girl.
His eyes rolled. "Who cares?"
I lifted my foot again. The muscles in my leg twitched rebelliously. "What about her?"
"Send her home in a cab," he said sullenly.
"Toby," the girl said in an anguished squeal. "You got to be kidding."
"Just get her away from me," said the hero on the floor.
"That's the nicest thing you could do for her," I said, "but it costs."
"In my pocket."
"You can't," the Korean girl said. "I'm not old enough to drink, Toby. Cripes, you know about the ABC and the Spice Rack. I'll lose my job."
"Tough shit," he said.
Something dropped into place behind the beautiful face, a cold front that turned her dark eyes into holes I wouldn't have wanted to fall into. "Listen," she said in a tone of voice that could have sliced ripe tomatoes, "you can't shovel it at anyone forever. Sooner or later, you have to be nice."
"Hey," he said, glaring at her, "do you know how to spell 'fuck you'?"
I shoved my hand into the right front pocket of the hero's leather pants and came up with a wad of bills, mostly of the impressive denominations you see in ads for the California lottery. "Where do you live?" I asked her.
"Hollywood." She looked at Mr. Beautiful as though he were something that someone gravely ill had spit onto the floor. "You're going to be sorry, Toby," she said.
I gave her a fifty. "He's pretty sorry already," I said. "This is for the cab." I handed her a hundred. "And this is for your dry cleaning."
She looked from me down to him, the dregs of his drink dripping from her flowing hair. She still looked good. "Yeah? Who's going to clean me? Sooner or later he's going to come back and make smooches, and I'm going to brain him with a flower pot, and when I do he'll kill me. You don't know him."
"Honey, if he gives you any kind of trouble, even constructive criticism, I'll scramble him into an omelet and have him for breakfast." I leaned down to pick him up.
"Simeon," Roxanne said from behind the bar, "you're not going to help him?"
"It's better for everybody," I said, pulling Loverboy to his feet. "Otherwise, she's going to have to go to the police station, too."
"No way in the world," the Korean girl said. "Not as long as I can still run."
"But he's such scum," Roxanne said plaintively. "And he's got it coming."
I heard a siren in the distance. Loverboy tugged at me, looking trapped and terrified. I shrugged it off.
"When the cops get here, tell them he's already left. Tell them his horse showed up. I promise you, if he screws around with her again, I'll make sure he eats the whole deck, okay?" I turned to the Korean girl and fished a crumpled card from my pocket.