47. Georgia On My Mind

By the time I was carrying the drinks back to the booth, Calamity June had saddled up and ridden off into the sunset or at least the red-lit rooms in back of the stage. Four musicians were arranged between the poles, tuning their instruments. Three looked like Willie Nelson’s older brother, the other looked like Dolly Parton must in her private moments. One had a damn fiddle. They weren’t going to play anything that deserved calling it a violin. They started their set. I thought the song was a Patsy Cline number, but they’d have to have been crazy to attempt that, right? I put the drinks down and slid into the booth, sitting catty-cornered opposite. Red pulled the parasol out of her drink and slurped the ooze off it. She put the paper-and-plastic doodad along side her stem-ware that didn’t match my tumbler. I was grateful for the glass, I’d been expecting plastic or paper.

‘So, Gabriel Chandler, how was it done?’

‘Uh-uh, you first. What were you doing there? I thought you were an IT Consultant.’

She let a canine slip over her her lower lip. For sure some of the lipstick was going to stain the inside of the tooth red.

‘It’s ‘It.’

I felt like she’d suddenly started speaking Japanese. She shook her head and her hair looked like it was alive. Her fingertip touched the bottom of my chin and closed my mouth for me.

‘It. Whatever people need doing, I can do it. Even Eye-Tea, like you saw. Your turn now.’

‘But-’

‘No buts, Sugar. Except those with two ‘t’s. Give.’

‘Ah. It’s what you said. They develop all kindsa stuff at Groom Lake. Don’t see why the Feds wouldn’t get ahold of some. ’

I felt bad about lying. But what’s the point in telling the truth when a person won’t believe you? I took a slug from my whisky.

‘My turn. Which people?’

‘Doncha wanna know what ‘it’ was?’ She winked.

‘I’m more interested in who was “whatever people”.’

‘Well, I’ve done 'it', anyway. Your turn.’

I asked her what she meant.

‘You didn’t say where you sprung from.’

‘I was driving the Fed. I came in to see what was going on. He grabbed J-Rod and slugged me. That’s all she wrote.’

I couldn’t tell whether she believed me or not. She drained the mimosa, waved an arm in the general direction of the bar, though it wasn’t a place for table service.

‘Who hired you then?’

‘Well, that’s the interestin’ part, Sugar.’ She thanked the guy from behind the bar who’d brought the drinks. I hoped he wasn’t dribbling down the back of my coat.

‘Yeah. It is for me.’

‘That’s right too,’ she said.

‘I met the guy in the same place you and I met. He wasn’t a regular. Looked like a Wall Street banker. Like that guy that played one once. Same first name as you. Arnie was in the film too. I hated the ending. The white shoe guy knew who I was. Worse at flirting even than you.’

I felt her hand on my leg under the table. I moved the leg until I was sitting like a Sunday School teacher in a church pew.

‘See!’ She said. ‘Anyway I love a challenge, but this white shoe guy was no go either. All he talked about was you. You were ‘it’. I had to be at Groom Lake and I had to get you out.

‘Now what?’ I said.

‘Well he said you’d know.’

The band was playing an old novelty song, lots of fiddle. It was enough to make you hate Georgia.