The bartender got its power from burning some of the alcohol flowing through its thick arteries. Barteries, they were called. Right now, the bartender was relaxing and polishing the bar. Someone had put a tuxedo shirt and a handlebar moustache on it. It needed oil. Its elbow squeaked. It stank of exhaust.
The place was slow. Four stocky older women sat around the stage, waiting for the angels to come out and dance.
The place was thick with smoke. Cigarettes and cigars had really caught on again after the cure for cancer was given to us.
I looked around at the red naugahyde booths and the peeling paint on the floor. Any other area in town and they’d be going for a ‘look’. Not here. This was just a dive with old-school blu-rays hanging from the ceiling, twisting in the smoke-filled air that the ceiling fans were failing to push around.
It was called Hangman’s Nook.
Hangman himself was sitting in one of the booths away from the stage and staring right at me with his one good eye. The other one, the black one with the red dot in the center, darted over the conceivable places on my person where I could be carrying a concealed weapon. I never got used to it.
“Hey Lucy.” Said Hangman.
I walked up and sat down across from him. The music started thudding through the soup of smoke. The speakers had too much treble and were too broken to provide enough bass. They crackled through the opening strains of a big hit from ten years ago.
The angels took the stage. The women transferred their cigarettes to their mouths and gave some brief applause before going back to staring and tapping ash onto the stage.
“So, how it is, you being here and me pulling through,” I began, “I mean, even if I didn’t stop by, you’d know, right? So I figure it’s like a courtesy, right? I mean, that was all a long time ago. Scores were reset to zero by the arrivals, way? I mean, we go back a long time.”
Hangman stared at me.
“I mean. What it’s like, like I said, I could have just breezed.” I said.
Hangman kept staring. I really didn’t like the situation. The angels on the stage were dancing with empty expressions on their faces and those white eyes and those perfect bodies. Their wings were ragged. The girls stared glassily at their gyrations. One of girls was drooling.
Hangman leaned forward through the layers of smoke.
“Lucy. Have a drink.” He said. And smiled. It was the smile of a basilisk.
I smiled back. I might just get out of this alive.
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