Page 20 of Never Flinch

“And Mr. Hogan values your expertise.”

“Don’t know about that, but he appreciates the fact that I always show up straight and sober. Why do you ask?”

She tells him what she wants in short bursts, interrupted by his trips to service various customers. One patron he cuts off. The guy argues briefly, then leaves Happy, looking blue. By the time Holly finishes, she’s on her second Diet Coke and knows she’ll have to use the women’s before she leaves. She refuses to call it the ladies’ just as she refuses to call her underwear panties. Little girls wear panties, but her little-girl days are long gone. Holly is totally down with Kate McKay on what Kate calls “the advertising-driven infantilism of women.”

When she finishes bringing John up to speed, she says, “If this conflicts with your anonymity vow, or whatever you call it—”

“Nah. If a guy confessed to murder in a meeting and I believed him, I’d beat feet to the nearest police station and tattle my ass off. I think any oldtimer would.”

“Are you an oldtimer?”

John laughs. “No way. Opinions differ, but most addicts would say you have to have twenty years in to qualify as an oldtimer. I’m along way from that, but next month it’ll be seven years since I snorted my last line.”

“Congratulations. And working here really doesn’t bother you? Don’t they say if you hang around the barber shop long enough, you’ll eventually get a haircut?”

“They also say you don’t go to a whorehouse to listen to the piano player. Only hereI’mthe piano player. If you see what I mean.”

Holly sort of does.

“And I never cared much for alcohol anyway. I was a firm believer in the idea that things go better with coke. Until they didn’t.”

John goes down the bar to pour a whiskey, then comes back to her. “If I may recap, you want me to keep an eye out for somebody who’s mad this Alan Duffrey got framed for a crime he didn’t commit and then got shanked.”

“Correct.”

“You’re pretty sure this somebody is… what? Killing innocent people to throw shade on the guilty ones?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“That’s fucked up.”

“Yes.”

“This guy has already killed one innocent person?”

“Yes.”

“You’re pretty sure of that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Police holding something back, are they?”

Holly doesn’t reply, which is an answer in itself.

“You think the guy goes to meetings because he calls himself Bill Wilson.”

“Yes. And a guy calling himself Bill Wilson, or Bill W., might really stand out.”

“He might, but you have to remember there are three dozen NA meetings in this city every week. Add in the ’burbs and upstate, throw in AA, and you’re talking close to a hundred. Needle-in-a-haystack deal. Also, Bill Wilson is undoubtedly an alias.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Even if it wasn’t, people in the Program sometimes use nicknames. I know a guy named Willard who calls himself Telescope. Another guy calls himself Smoothie. A woman who identifies as Ariel the Mermaid. You get the idea. What’s your stake in this?”

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