swore. The bartender was thin and wore a white blouse and blue jeans; her dyed black hair was decorated with a red ribbon. Eight scarred wooden booths leaned against the left wall, where the occupants necked or bellyached.

Alex took the stool at the end of the bar. In the back, a country and western band acknowledged tepid applause before launching into "How Much I Lied". The singer forgot the lyrics whenever he tried to strum his six string.

"What's yer pleasure tonight?" the bartender asked.

"Laht beer and uh glass," Alex replied through his nose. He drank and smoked silently, casing the joint. The cash register was old fashioned: no electronic keypad or digital display. After a couple beers, Alex walked to the back of the bar, pretending to use the washroom. The washrooms faced one another in a short hallway, and the emergency exit was at the hallway's end.

"How's about another beer?" Alex asked the bartender. She had been busy with a drunken customer whom she refused to serve further.

The woman pushed a gray strand of her black hair from her forehead. "Sorry. That jerk there's had too much too drink."

"Well, as long as he pays for it," Alex remarked.

"But he can get killed if he goes out drivin' after drinkin' like he has."

"And then he'd sue ya," Alex added sympathetically.

"If a dead man could, he would." The bartender laughed. Her dentures slipped, and her smile was all gums.

The man beside Alex announced loudly, "That drunk's a prick."

"A prick?"

"A prick." The customer thoughtfully stroked his ragged black beard. "Last year, he smashed up a new Ford Ranger on county road 8, up by Petoskey. Ran over three mailboxes and landed upside down in a ditch."

"Lucky to be alive," Alex suggested.

"Agreed. But the prick managed to scramble outta that truck and run away before the sheriff came."

"That prick," the bartender continued, "left his wife in the truck to fend for herself."

"And so she divorced him and got child support. The kid was left behind in the truck too, did I tell you? But half the time now he don't pay his child support. And of course, he's got another brand new Ford Ranger. It's jet black and has a CB, I mean a CD player."

Alex leaned forward and looked lengthwise down the bar to get a better look at the prick. He was skinny, with a bobbing Adam's apple and arms thin as pipe cleaners. He was resting his forehead atop an empty beer glass.

"I think he sells dope since he lost his job. I see he's got some cow with him tonight," the bartender said. She wrinkled her nose and tended to her other customers.