Friday night and every stool at the bar had a butt on it. Lennox gave her umbrella a shake, sending another stab of pain from her cracked rib. She let the front door of the Shanty close behind her as four waitresses loaded with fish platters maneuvered around the tables. The patrons, some in suits, others in jeans and polar fleece, munched on oyster crackers while they waited for their food. The whole place smelled of clam chowder and wet wool.
Cops hung out at the Shanty, leastways those who worked Portland’s east side. But the Shanty wasn’t just a cop bar, it served working class people from the Hollywood district plus folks up the hill in the old-money houses that lined the Alameda. Red, blue and green Christmas lights outlined the back bar and a swag of gold garland hung over the order window.
Why was she still hanging out at a cop bar? They say an ex-cop is like an ex-Catholic, there is no ex. All that training becomes a part of you, it’s in your blood. It’s the eyes you see the world with. Even though she no longer worked for the Bureau, inside, Lennox was still a cop. And she wasn’t about to quit Friday night poker, the one sweet spot in her week.
As Lennox limped past the line of backs sitting at the bar she recognized that sonuvabitch, Fish, on the stool by the waitress stand. It’d only taken her a phone call to find out he was the one responsible for Officer Maki’s attitude. If Fish had his way, every new cop on the Bureau would learn about her. He swiveled on his stool and grinned at her.
“How’s it going, Cooper?” he said.
“Go fuck yourself,” she said.
He got to his feet and fell in step with her like they were friends.
“Get away from me,” she said.
He stopped midway down the bar, clapped his hand on a patrolman’s back. The cop turned, saw Lennox and gave Fish the high-five. Sieminski, another cop who hated her guts.
Sieminski nudged the cop next to him. The guy glanced back and said something. Sieminski laughed, the kind of nasty laugh a guy makes when he’s heard a dirty joke. The same laugh she’d been hearing since the Bureau fired her.
She left Fish to bond with Sieminski, wishing both of them all kinds of bad luck—silently, she didn’t want her butt kicked. Dodging the waitresses, she made her way to the back room.
Originally the back room was for billiards, but the space proved too cramped. The pine paneling still showed pock-marks from pool sticks wielded back in the sixties. Lennox never heard when it was that they installed the poker table, but by the looks of the green felt, it had to have been decades ago.
Her best friend, Ham, swept up a game of solitaire when he spotted her and stood, his arms stretched for a hug.
“Watch the cracked rib,” she said. “Where is everybody?”
“You’re the first,” he said. “Did the check from Fidelity come?”
Old Ham kept better track of her accounts receivable than she did. She shook her head.
His arms folded around her and he patted her gently on the back. She pressed her face against his U.C. Berkeley warm-up jacket. The top of her head reached under his chin. He wore his brown hair short, his beard clipped close to his chin. His beard was going gray which bugged Lennox more than it did him. It was weird to see a friend going gray when she’d known him since they were teenagers back in the Berkeley days when he used to date her roommate. Sophomore year he taught Lennox five-card stud. It’s hard not to love what you’re good at, and she was an ace at telling whether a guy was bluffing or holding by the way he jiggled his leg or tugged at his lower lip. From then on, Fridays were poker night.
