Laws of Nature -2 by Christopher Golden (i can read books txt) 📕

- the pub packed shoulder to shoulder with tourists and young couples - the regulars either became disgusted and cut out early or never bothered to show up at all.

Bill Cantwell didn't mind. Not only did he like the chaos, the energy brought to the place by the young people, but he looked forward to such nights as a break from the most familiar faces at his bar. Not that he disliked them. In fact, most of the time he enjoyed their company. It was only that they were like most aging men who frequented pubs and bars - they shared their blues lavishly with others, but never took any of the advice they had asked for. It could be tiring.

The chatter in the restaurant was a dull roar, blotting out all but the conversation from the closest person. The waitstaff was harried, sliding sideways past one another to get to and from the kitchen and bar. The bar area itself was jammed with people waiting for tables, some of whom were unlikely to eat before ten-thirty or eleven, and who didn't seem to care at all.

Bill loved it.

A lithe girl with dark hair and vaguely exotic features had waited patiently for the crush at the bar to give enough for her to move forward. A couple of tanned, muscular guys hovered behind her, likely her dinner companions, Bill thought.

"Could I just get a hard lemonade, please?" she asked, all sweetness and light.

Bill smiled amiably and leaned on the bar, crowding some of the customers a bit. "I'm going to need some I.D."

"No problem," the petite brunette replied.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small billfold and a Rhode Island driver's license. Bill glanced at it, turned it over a few times, then handed it back to her.

"Nice job," he observed.

The girl frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean there are places people wouldn't spot that as a fake I.D., but this isn't one of them," Bill explained reasonably. He shot a hard look at the two guys behind her, and they wouldn't meet his eyes.

"It's no fake," the girl snorted. "I'm really twenty-one."

"License says you're twenty-two. Also, it doesn't say anything about you wearing corrective lenses. You've got contacts on. Try another place."

"I didn't have the contacts then," she scrambled, acting truly upset and casting quick glances over her shoulder at the guys.

Bill leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper just loud enough for her to hear. "Go, now, or I'll have to take that thing and destroy it, which is what I'm supposed to do. I didn't. But I will."

The girl gaped at him for a minute, then glowered as she turned and moved away from the bar.

"Damn, she was cute," muttered a customer in an expensive suit. "I'd have just given her the drink."

"She's a child," Bill remonstrated him.

"But a cute one," the suit replied.

Bill bristled, aching to slap the guy down, to hurt him, or at least to throw him out on his ass. The girl could not have been more than seventeen. It was monstrous for an adult to think about her in those terms. But they had had some odd incidents at Bridget's in the past few months, and the last thing Courtney needed was for her bartender to start slapping patrons around for having bad taste.

Bill poured three beers off the tap and slid them onto the bar. As he collected the money, he took orders for mixed drinks from a pair of fortyish women who had apparently escaped their husbands and children for the night. Old friends, by the intimate way they sat together. Bill could tell a lot about people just by the way they related to one another. And by scent. Scent told him a lot.

When Matt Brocklebank appeared at his side with an order for one of the tables he was waiting on, Bill sensed his distress immediately.

"What's up?" he asked the kid, brow furrowed with concern.

"Dunphy wanted me to tell you there was some guy out back asking about you," Matt said. He shrugged to punctuate his lack of further information.

"Out back meaning in the kitchen, or in the alley?"

Matt blinked. "Well, in the alley, right? I mean, nobody's gonna get in the kitchen doesn't belong there without Dunphy noticing him."

Bill nodded, heart quickening with anxiety. He had caught a familiar scent out the window early that morning - an animal scent - but had convinced himself it was not what he had thought it was. Now, though . . .

Nights as busy as this one, he always had a second bartender on. Bill strode over to Steve Meaney, who was drawing a fresh Bass from the tap, and threw his counter rag onto the bar.

"Cover for me a minute, will you?"

"Got it," Steve replied.

Bill went out of the bar and across the restaurant. He pushed through the doors into the kitchen and found himself in the center of a scene of such anarchy that it made the dining room and bar look downright orderly. In the midst of the cooks on the other side of the pickup counter, he spotted Tim Dunphy. One of the other cooks noticed Bill and tapped Dunphy on the shoulder. Tim glanced up, then pointed off to the side. Bill met him at the far side of the kitchen, near the door that led into the alley.

"What's this about a guy?" Bill asked.

Tim scratched at the back of his neck, then shook his head. "It was weird, Bill. I'm out there havin' a cigarette, takin' a break, y'know? This stocky little guy with a shaved head comes up, reels off this line how he's an old bud of yours, and wonderin' if you're livin' here now, like shackin' up with Courtney."

A chill ran through Bill. Tim shrugged, twisted his face up into a dismissive expression that had been mastered by Irish toughs from South Boston a hundred years earlier.

"Damn, y'know, that's not any of my business, and it