The Last Days Of The Time Out Tavern

Crime Fiction by Daniel Bartlett

The Time Out Tavern wasn’t much to look at, no doubt, but it was Martin’s, so being forced out of the property didn’t sit so well with him. Especially being forced out by a sleazy, corrupt son of a bitch like Jens Oberlin.

Late morning on a balmy Tuesday, the air glistening with humidity, Martin pulled into the parking lot to find his spot and the three others beside it blocked by an oversized dually truck. The kind used in construction and industrial work, but this one so immaculate it had to be all for show. The thing hadn’t seen work or mud, had never hauled a tool or a single plank of lumber. A logo on the side of the truck read: “Oberlin Development.”

A yard sign depicting the recent rallying slogans “Save the Time Out Tavern” and “Save Old Town Center” lay flattened beneath the Oberlin truck where it jutted over the grass at the edge of the parking lot.

The other spots in the small lot were taken by luxury imported cars. Martin saw the men in suits strutting self-importantly along the back edge of the property along the river’s edge. The city dignitaries. They tiptoed through the weeds and muck in their suits and ties, their slick shoes meant for conference rooms and sitting behind desks. Martin spotted the mayor, the city manager, several city council members, and the man himself, Oberlin, who’d strongarmed his way past decades-old lease agreements on this stretch of land and sworn promises of big dollar development. Even from this distance Martin could see the way the city officials kowtowed to Oberlin. Laughing too loudly at his jokes. No doubt at some poor asshole’s expense. Martin himself was one of those poor assholes.

He backed out and parked on the street, then walked around to the parking lot, toward the Tavern’s front door.

The officials stood in a gaggle, scrutinizing the rusted and vine-choked old fence at the far side of the property. A defunct salvage yard lay beyond it. They scowled at the trailer park that bordered the tavern’s other side. The trailer park was not one of those places with pitbulls chained in the dirt, old tires and appliances strewn about, meth dealers inside the trailers. No, this place mostly housed older, retired folks, along with a few short-term occupants working construction jobs down Old River Road. Most of the trailers had plastic lawn furniture and potted plants in the tiny spaces they called yards. One had a swing set and sandbox for kids.

Martin overheard the officials’ chatter in broken clips carried on the river breeze. “All that crap piled … need somewhere for the photo op Friday …well shit.”

Wiping out his business and some twenty-odd people’s homes, and their concern was about a photo op. He hoped they fell in the river and got swept under a barge going past.

Now they sneered at the dumpster at the end of the parking lot, not far from the barricade in front of the old pier. The barricade was no more than a pile of wood pallets, simple but enough to deter people from errantly walking onto the pier.

Martin heard one of the lackeys ask, “Whose junk is all that? His?”

Nope, that junk wasn’t Martin’s. It was the city’s. The city owned all of this property. According to the decades-old lease agreement, Martin was responsible for maintenance of the building and the parking lot all the way to the dumpster. Everything beyond that was the city’s responsibility—the land itself, the riverbank, the pier. Though for years they’d done little to maintain any of it, nothing more than piling that makeshift barricade in front of the pier, which they should have torn down or rebuilt long ago.

Used to be you could walk out to the end of the pier where the view of the marsh across the water could almost appear pleasant. That was if you avoided looking down at the steep drop off below the pier, some thirty to forty feet down depending on tide and water levels, where trash and the glistening film of oil and gas washed up against the huge jagged concrete pieces that made up the erosion barrier.

At night, bringing garbage out to the dumpster, Martin often found himself half-believing he saw someone standing at the end of the pier, even though he knew better. It was just a weathered post, the wood faded to a hue that appeared reddish under the ghostly light of the sodium vapor lamp at the parking lot’s back corner.

Someone in the group finally noticed Martin watching them, and then they all decidedly avoided looking toward him. All except Oberlin, who turned toward Martin. Martin recognized him from online photos and TV news segments. They hadn’t met in person. Did Oberlin just smile? No, not a smile. A taunt.

Before he knew what he was doing, Martin started toward them. And before he made it more than a few steps, an immense guy in a dark suit stepped away from the corner of the building and blocked Martin’s path. Martin didn’t know his name, and titles hadn’t come up the one time they’d met. He simply knew this was Oberlin’s thug. The thug gave Martin a dead-eyed look.

Martin held up his open hands in a show of surrender and turned to head inside the Tavern. Something had to be done, he knew. He just didn’t know what. He only knew he was running out of time.

*****

He’d tried a few times over the years to outright buy the land the Tavern was on. Of course he had. It wasn’t like he was that stupid and shortsighted. It was an old lease deal his father had made decades back and Martin had taken over when he inherited the place. The city officials had refused time and again to entertain his buyout offers, laughing it off and assuring him the city had no interest in doing anything with that land, that he could count on it, that they just preferred to keep it the way it was, city-owned and leased to him for his business, along with the trailer park near it and the long-ago shut down salvage yard that was overflowing with weeds and dotted with rusted unidentifiable machine parts.

For decades the Time Out Tavern had hung on as a local staple, featuring live local bands, cheap beer, and a decent burger and fries. Situated along a stretch of Old River Road that refinery workers traveled between home and work, it was a comfortable place to stop after a shift, have a drink, meet with pals.

But with expansion booming among the refineries and the port, this part of Old River Road had become prime property. It was a main artery from the industrial zone to the heart of town, Riverfront Park, downtown, then the modern retail shopping district. Apparently plans for the new RiverBend development called for high-end garden homes and an open-air multilevel mall with boutiques and restaurants.

Martin had gotten a notification letter in the mail several months earlier. Lawyer-speak that amounted to his being ousted. The land had been sold for development. There’d be no way Martin could find another place for even close to the cost of this one.

It seemed all too fast, too sudden. But Martin didn’t have the clout or the money to put up any kind of legal fight. The deal was handled through lawyers and forms. Lawyers he couldn’t afford, though Oberlin’s company had an onslaught of lawyers and the city hid behind layers of lawyers.

A churning bureaucracy of bullshit.

Speaking of which, he’d gone to see the mayor, a rotund white-haired man dressed for a day of golf at the country club.

“It’s out of my hands, Marty.” He held his hands up in a gesture meant to placate and demonstrate openness and helplessness. What it truly demonstrated was the exact opposite. “It’s just business. I got to do what’s best for the city. It’s nothing personal. You know that.”

One thing he knew, if your name was Martin and people arbitrarily called you Marty though they didn’t know you at all, there was a good chance they were an asshole.

“All these years I’ve tried to buy that property,” Martin said.

“I know. I know. It kills me. I wish we could’ve made a deal. I love the local history and tradition your tavern represents. But the deal Oberlin made, if we didn’t accept it, Marty, we’d be shirking our duty to the people of the city. To the future of the city.”

Martin wasn’t one to cling blindly to tradition for the sake of tradition.

But he thought before you tore something down, you maybe ought to understand what it was you were destroying and what it was you were getting in return.

“You don’t want to go raising a stink about this,” the mayor said. There was a pleading fear in his tone now. “Truly, Marty. You don’t.”

Yeah, Martin knew the rumors. Bad things tended to happen to people who got in Oberlin’s way. Legal problems. Professional problems. Personal.

Rumor also held that those who gave him too much trouble had a way of disappearing.

*****

Inside, The Time Out Tavern was simple, comfortable. A single open room dotted with tables. A stage at the front of the place. The bar lined with stools along one wall. A couple of single-occupant restrooms at the back. Swinging doors to the kitchen just past the end of the bar. Strings of lights on wood-panel walls cluttered with signed pictures of the bands and performers who’d played the stage over the years.

Martin stood behind the bar when Keith Cassidy, one of the regulars, sidled in and took his place on his regular stool. Cassidy was a sixty-something year old retiree who wore bright Hawaiian shirts over his broad belly and shoulders, a flimsy-brimmed bucket hat, and white socks in flipflops. He seemed perpetually hungover though not quite drunk. Cassidy lived in the trailer park next door, though he might as well have paid rent for his stool at the tavern.

He nodded at Martin, who grabbed a bottle of Coors and cracked it open and set it before Cassidy.

Cassidy took a long swallow of beer, clunked the bottle down on the bar. “I see that son of a bitch Oberlin’s strutting around out there.”

“Yep,” Martin said.

“That shitball’s as crooked as they come. Got the politicians all bought off. You know how many people he’s put out of business? Or out of a home?”

Martin didn’t know exactly, but he had an idea. He did know that an answer wasn’t required. Cassidy would carry the monologue for a while.

“He don’t pay what’s due his subcontractors. Drags it out until you press legal action, then that drags on, and then he might eventually offer a settlement far less than what’s due. For a big company, maybe that’s how business is done. But the little guys, the mom-and-pop operations just scraping by, no. I lost my business to that shit. Now I’m losing my home, and this place too.”

Cassidy had run a small contracting business for years, Martin knew.

“They say he’s a womanizer, too,” Cassidy went on. “Divorced something like five times because he can’t keep it in his pants.”

Martin knew that too. He’d learned a lot about Oberlin and the local business hierarchy recently.

The door opened and Martin glanced to see who came inside. It wasn’t any of the dignitaries traipsing around in the weeds in their nice suits. It was a couple of shift workers from one of the refineries, in their blue Nomex uniforms. The beginning of the lunch crowd, if crowd could be applied here. They were down to maybe a dozen people a day at lunch, a couple dozen coming and going throughout the evenings. It would dwindle until they closed for good next week. People already finding alternatives. Martin had already let go most of the staff, keeping on only a handful of long-time employees to work the kitchen and help behind the bar until the last moment.

“You know what happens next, right?” Cassidy said, continuing his sermon. “All the properties on the other side of Riverside Park get bought for development. That means the little shops in Old Town Center are gone. Whether they want to be or not. You think those places can afford Oberlin’s jacked up rent?”

Old Town Center, a strip of early twentieth century brick buildings along Main Avenue, housed small businesses like The Wren Boutique, Main Avenue Coffee, Belle Antiques, and Olde Towne Ice Cream. They were local, family-run businesses in what the city officials liked to call the “historic district.”

“People think they want this,” Cassidy was saying. “They talk about jobs. But it’s temporary jobs. Construction. Most of which that son of a bitch will import from out of town. Then the businesses that move in will be flashy franchises. The money goes to investors and boards in New York City, people who won’t ever see this town. You know?”

Martin realized Cassidy was waiting for a response now. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He replaced Cassidy’s empty bottle with a newly opened one.

“Meanwhile, decent local people lose their asses. That’s what Oberlin develops. Suck the life out of the place, reap his gains and profits, then he’s on to the next development. Like a plague.” Cassidy took a long pull of the fresh beer, then he wiped the back of one hand across his lips. “You went to college, right?”

“Yeah,” Martin said. “Some.” He’d been in college but dropped out when his father died, leaving him the Tavern. That was nearly two decades ago, meaning Martin was too old to start over and too young to retire.

“They teach you anything you can use to do something about this?”

“Nope. They did not.”

The door opened and three guys in jeans and t-shirts slouched in carrying instrument cases. A woman followed them, scuffing behind in boots, jeans, and a black tank-top. All four were in their mid-to-late-thirties, with a kind of seen-it-all grittiness.

Cassidy raised his beer toward them. The woman pointed and winked at both Cassidy and Martin. This was Erica, the band’s lead singer, and it was clear that she ran the show as the band went over to the stage and started setting up for rehearsal. The Tavern was their home venue when in town. They’d gotten their start here and developed a solid local following before branching out to larger cities within driving distance. It was a nice symbiotic relationship. The band had a home stage, and the Tavern had a house band that drew packed crowds.

Another casualty of Oberlin’s development.

“Shame you two never got your shit together,” Cassidy said. “The way y’all carry on with each other.”

Martin and Erica had certainly carried on a flirtation for years, but they’d never taken it anywhere. Several times, at closing after a long night’s performance, Erica had propped herself against the bar and eyed him thoughtfully as he slid a drink to her. “You’re a nice guy, Martin,” she’d say. “A sweetheart. But I’m a mess. Anyway I’m always on the road with the band, and you’re always here with the Tavern. It’d be ugly. Shame, ain’t it?”

He got it. She lived wild, untethered. She had a spark that drew people’s attention. And he was soft, mild-mannered Martin, who never went far beyond the Tavern. He lived in the house his parents had left him, the one he’d lived in all his life. He’d inherited the Tavern, so he hadn’t even had to put forth the initiative to build his business. Truly, he didn’t even get involved in the occasional fight that broke out between drunks. Other customers, friends of those brawling, broke things up.

“Don’t guess any of us’ll be seeing much of her once this place closes,” Cassidy said, then looked at Martin as if gauging whether or not this fact had registered with him.

Erica swaggered over to them, her hair a touch untamed as it swayed just below her shoulders. “Howdy, darlings,” she said in an exaggerated drawl, draping an arm across Cassidy’s back. She leaned against the bar. “Damn, Martin, I’m going to miss this place. I can’t believe this is it. I don’t guess you’ve got some brilliant plan to save it?”

*****

In the midst of all the lawyers and legal obfuscation—or rather, bullshit—he’d tried going directly to Oberlin. Deal man to man, see if they could work out something. He’d called to make an appointment but was referred to Oberlin’s attorneys. Then he tried to visit Oberlin in person. He drove to Houston, to the downtown offices of Oberlin Development in one of the massive glass and steel and concrete business towers. No appointment because he knew he’d be denied. Of course, he was refused by the security guards just inside the doors. Didn’t even make it to the elevators.

“I just need to see Mr. Oberlin,” he’d pleaded. “He needs to talk to me. In person. Like an actual human being.”

One uniformed guard stood blocking access to the security gates that screened for weapons, arms folded across his chest, and another moved in on Martin, pushing him with one hand, the other hand poised over the Taser on his belt.

“Make an appointment,” the guard said. “Now, you want to walk out or I got to drag you?”

Breathless, feeling his blood rushing, his face burning, Martin turned and left. He drove the two hours home in a daze of rage and embarrassment. And disappointment in himself, his inability to do anything.

He came home the next night after closing down the Tavern, so actually early morning a few hours before sunrise, to find Oberlin’s thug sitting at his kitchen table, a dark shadow in the dark room. The guy didn’t introduce himself, but it was clear enough who and what he was.

“You don’t want to make any more noise about this, Marty. You try pulling some weaselly bullshit, I’ll end you.”

Martin was well past tired of people telling him what he wanted to do. But before he could say so the thug got up, moved close, too close and too fast, and hit Martin in the stomach so hard he lay curled on the floor gasping for breath until morning sunlight broke through the kitchen window.

*****

The band was on stage, working on some new songs. The lunch “crowd” was finishing their burgers at one of the tables. Cassidy had just drained his third beer and was holding up the empty bottle, signaling Martin for another, when the Tavern door opened and in strolled Oberlin. His thug followed behind.

The thug settled into a seat beside the door, where he could watch the whole room, and folded his big arms over his chest. His dead gaze settled on Martin for a moment, then drifted to the band and Erica.

No one else followed them inside. Apparently the rest of the entourage outside didn’t care to show their faces in here.

Oberlin made a show of surveying the room. It was the first time Martin ever saw the man in person. Up close and personal, Oberlin was smaller than Martin expected. From his reputation, Martin expected Oberlin to be a towering figure. But he was short and pudgy and, frankly, ugly. Face tanned from a bottle or salon rather than working in the sun. Hair so thick and black it had to be unnaturally enhanced. He looked a bit like a TV send-me-your-money-evangelist.

Oberlin glanced at the photos lining the wall—the history of bands who’d performed here, the employees, the customers. He slowly walked along, taking one down here and there to study it, then hanging it back without bothering to straighten it.

The band fell quiet. Martin felt Erica’s gaze on him, felt the attention of everyone in the room, in fact.

Oberlin moved around the far side of the bar and back behind it, then started toward the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t be back there,” Martin said before he even knew he was going to.

Oberlin looked at him, half-smiled, then continued into the kitchen. After a moment, Oberlin came back out and sauntered toward Martin. He came out from behind the bar and took a seat on a stool.

“Give me what passes for decent whiskey here,” Oberlin said. “Neat. I assume you do serve whiskey?”

Martin didn’t answer, just turned to grab a glass and a bottle. He poured the whiskey, set it on the bar before Oberlin.

“So this is the Time Out Tavern,” Oberlin said. “Not much, is it.”

Cassidy had turned away, perhaps afraid for Oberlin to see his face. But Martin felt Cassidy’s rapt attention.

“I think if you see it in its prime,” Martin said, then had to stop to clear his throat before going on, “you’ll see it means something. The regular crowd, the band fired up, drinks flowing.”

“This place is far past its prime.” Oberlin sipped his whiskey. He stared at Erica on the stage.

The thug looked on, massaging his knuckles.

Martin said, “Maybe we could work something out. Find a way to keep the lease arrangement. If you’ll let me show you. Let me make my case for you.” He couldn’t have kept the pleading tone from his voice if he’d tried. So he didn’t. He let his desperation show, let the hook sink in.

Oberlin didn’t respond, just kept watching Erica on the stage.

Martin signaled for Erica and the band to go ahead with their rehearsal. A twirl of his fingers, their usual signal for an upbeat song to amp up the energy in the place. She hesitated a moment, then started them off on a song that was fast and loud.

With a raspy, edgy voice that made people shut up and listen, she crackled with energy. Demanded your attention. Made you live in the moment of each song. She swaggered, swayed, leaned over the stage’s edge and watched the audience watching her.

“Wouldn’t mind a piece of that action,” Oberlin said.

“You should see her when there’s a crowd,” Martin said. “Got a show Thursday night. The final one here.”

“Maybe I’ll come see.” Oberlin clunked his glass down. “You got this,” he said, a statement rather than a question. He stood up and started toward the door. “I’ll see what’s going on here Thursday night. You can plead your case while I take in the show. Got to be in town for that photo op Friday morning anyway. But I don’t plan on getting much sleep that night.” He added that with a lingering gaze at Erica.

The door closed behind Oberlin and his thug.

“You know he’ll only show up to make you grovel,” Cassidy said. “So he can humiliate you. And so he can hit on Erica.”

“Yeah,” Martin said, thinking that would do just fine.

*****

When the band packed up to leave from their rehearsal, Martin waved Erica aside.

“Do me a favor?” he asked. He felt sleazy doing it, but he didn’t feel like he had better options.

She gave him a quizzical look, then slapped his shoulder teasingly. “Of course. What you need?”

“If I bring you a beer during your set Thursday night, do a couple more songs then take a break. Go outside, light a cigarette or vape or whatever. Walk around the side of the Tavern toward the back of the parking lot. Don’t stop and talk to anyone. Just go around the building and come inside the back door into the kitchen. It’ll be unlocked.”

“What the hell, Martin? What’s this about?”

“Just testing a theory. Oh, and wear that red leather jacket of yours. The Western style one with the fringe. The way those tassels sway when you move. It’s kind of your iconic look.”

“Coming from anyone but you, that might be creepy. But a little rough around the edges suits you.”

*****

Thursday night, and the Tavern was packed like it used to be regularly. Before the buyout, before Oberlin.

The crowd was nicely lubricated and nostalgic. People remembering the good times while mourning what would soon be lost.

On stage the band rocked it. Led by Erica’s howling vocals and swirling energy, they were giving this last Tavern performance a little something extra. Cassidy held down his usual stool at the bar. He was reserved tonight, taking each beer that Martin handed him with a solemn nod.

Oberlin showed up around nine, his thug in tow. The thug slid into a seat beside the door and sat there like a bouncer, keeping a critical eye on everyone coming and going. Oberlin pushed through the crowd near the bar and found a seat at a two-top table in front of the stage.

Without being asked, or ordered, Martin poured a whiskey and took it to Oberlin. He set it before the man, who hardly acknowledged him except for picking up the drink and quickly draining it. Oberlin’s eyes never left Erica, barely ten feet away, her boots thumping the stage as she twirled, the fringe swirling on the jacket Martin requested she wear. Martin took the empty glass back to the bar, filled another one, and brought it to Oberlin.

He did that a few more times over the next hour, never being asked or even acknowledged. He felt the thug watching his every move.

At ten, Martin pulled a full trash bag from the barrel behind the bar and carried it toward the kitchen. He went out through the tavern’s back door and strolled casually toward the dumpster. The air was humid. The sulfur light glowed, casting its hue over the back of the lot and out over the pier. The lights of an oil tanker moved past on the river, the wake rippling and slapping the bank’s jagged chunks of concrete.

The Tavern thumped with the bass and drums from the band, the murmur of the crowd. Otherwise, all was quiet outside, no one else around. Martin tossed the trash bag, bottles clinking, into the dumpster.

He knew people would be looking for him. So he had to be quick about things out here.

He got to work.

*****

Back inside behind the bar, Martin took a round of beers to the band. Erica crouched at the edge of the stage and handed the bottles back one by one, never missing a note as she sang. She gave Martin a wink.

He went back to the bar, got another whiskey for Oberlin, and carried it over. Oberlin grabbed Martin’s wrist as he clunked the glass down on the table.

“Don’t think you can win me over with cheap drinks,” Oberlin said, nearly yelling to be heard over the band. Then, “That little red hellion ever take a break?”

Martin leaned close. He noticed the enforcer intently watching them from across the room. “Soon. They usually do around this time. She usually goes outside away from everyone and smokes. Likes to be alone for a bit.”

Oberlin released Martin’s wrist, flinging him loose. Then he picked up the drink Martin had just delivered and drained it.

Martin stepped back but didn’t leave Oberlin’s side, and after one more song Erica announced that the band would “take a little break but would return soon to rock y’all’s asses the rest of night.”

The crowd whooped. The band dispersed, to the restroom, to the bar, to a corner table where friends sat. Erica headed straight for the door and out, giving high-fives and slaps on the back, fist-bumps and hugs on her way.

Oberlin’s chair screeched on the wood floor as he lurched to his feet. He took an unsteady step toward the door.

Martin stepped in front of him. “You see how special this place is, Mr. Oberlin? Maybe now we could talk.”

Oberlin pushed past Martin.

“Please,” Martin said. “Don’t make us shut it down.”

Oberlin paused, glanced over his shoulder at Martin. “Too late for all that,” he said, slurring his words just enough to show he was having to work at it. “Already got a deal in place. Now get out of my way. Before you end up losing more than this shithole bar.”

Oberlin headed for the door and went out, obviously looking around for Erica as he stepped outside. Martin followed him, but just as he caught the door in the midst of closing behind Oberlin, the thug grabbed his arm, stopping him dead.

“You can’t go back there—” Martin called, seeing Oberlin stumble toward the back of the lot. Then the thug yanked him back inside.

“Mr. Oberlin does what he pleases,” the thug said in a low growl. “Best mind your own business. While you still can.”

When Martin returned to his place behind the bar, Cassidy said, “You know that’ll only make him go out there for sure. Telling him not to.”

Yeah, he knew. That’s what he was hoping for. The quickest way to get an arrogant prick to do something was to tell him he couldn’t.

*****

Erica came back by way of the kitchen and made her way next to Cassidy. She leaned against the bar and watched as Martin prepared a rum and Coke for her. He noticed the slight smirk on her lips and the curious fold tugging at the corners of her eyes, but she didn’t say anything, just raised the glass to him when he slid it toward her.

By the time the band retook the stage some fifteen minutes later, Oberlin still hadn’t returned from outside. The thug stood from his post beside the door. He glared at Martin, then thrust the door open and went out.

*****

 Half an hour later, the crowd inside the Tavern had emptied into the parking lot. A couple of patrol officers tried to keep everyone away from the scene at the back of the lot. Just past the dumpster at the pier’s entrance, an EMS crew stood silhouetted in the sodium vapor light and the flashing emergency lights as they peered down the sheer drop to the water’s edge.

Word rippled through the crowd. Jens Oberlin’s body lay broken on the jagged concrete surge barrier, bobbing half-immersed in the water, his head gaping open. He’d apparently walked out onto the unobstructed pier and fallen through the rotting planks.

The piled pallets that barricaded access to the pier were nowhere to be found.

The mayor himself had shown up, disheveled, looking exactly like he’d been roused out of bed and tossed on slacks and a button-up shirt he’d misbuttoned. Oberlin’s thug stood by, looking lost with his shoulders drooped and arms hanging at his sides.

“How the hell did he get out there?” the mayor demanded. “What happened to that pile of crap blocking the pier?”

The thug shook his head. The cops shook their heads, shrugged.

“Maybe some of y’all’s flunkies moved the barrier,” Cassidy called out. “Maybe the surveyors or the construction crew.”

“I warned him not to go out there,” Martin said.

“I can verify that,” Cassidy said. “Shame about that photo op, though, ain’t it?” Cassidy started laughing so hard that tears streamed down his cheeks.

Erica stood beside Martin. “Goddamn, Martin,” she whispered. She looked out at the red-hued post at the end of the pier, then back to Martin. “Wear the red jacket,” she muttered. “That theory you were testing? It worked out, I’m guessing.”

“Looks like,” he said.

“Such a shame, huh?”

“I’m all torn up,” he said.

She leaned closer and bumped her shoulder against him. “Probably won’t change anything about the buyout deal for the Tavern.”

“Nope,” he said. “Probably change things for the shops in Old Town Center, though. They might have a chance now without Oberlin setting his crosshairs on them.”

A gleam of newfound recognition, maybe even intrigue, lit Erica’s eyes. “I like seeing this side of you. I didn’t know you had this in you.”

“Had what in me? I’m just a simple tavern keeper. Soon to be without a tavern to keep. Where’s the band headed next?”

“Austin, El Paso, Albuquerque, Santa Fe.”

“I’ve never been to New Mexico.”

“No shit?” She gave him a crooked grin. “Land of Enchantment, they call it. You might like it.”

“Nothing keeping me here,” he said, thinking it might be good getting out of town for a while.

---

Bio: Daniel Bartlett’s short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Mystery Tribune, Mystery Magazine, Crimeucopia: Totally Psychological, Thrill Ride: the Magazine, Yellow Mama, and Mysterical-e, among other publications. His work was shortlisted among “Other Distinguished Mystery and Suspense” in The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023 and was selected for inclusion in Twisted Voices: Stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (Level Short). He currently teaches writing and literature at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas

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