Wait: The Brazen Bulls Beginning Read online

  So he didn’t know the answer to this girl’s question. But the reason he didn’t even try to invent one had nothing to do with that. He ignored the question because of the way she’d asked it. Whispered. Guilty. Ashamed. Her friends didn’t know her best cousin was fighting for his life every goddamn day, because she was embarrassed that he was.

  Instead, Brian decided to do something else. Her boyfriend was still inside, probably still on the floor where Brian had left him. Maybe this girl wasn’t any closer to Steve than she was to the cousin she was so ashamed of. His back ached, his face and hands throbbed, and he was half drunk. But he could get it up for this little piece, give her a taste of what she was so ashamed of.

  If she wasn’t a good girl. But what good girl was at a bar like this at eleven o’clock at night? Or any time?

  He hadn’t gotten laid since right before he shipped home. A sweet little nurse’s goodbye gift.

  He plucked the pink hankie from this girl’s hand and wiped his bloody face with it. Then he tucked it in her cleavage—she gasped but didn’t resist—and pulled her close. “How’d you like a ride?”

  “A … ride?”

  He nodded to his chopper, and she gasped again.

  “That’s yours?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is.”

  She turned another squirrely, guilty look toward the bar, and Brian almost pushed her away.

  “Okay, I’d like a ride,” she said and gave him a smile.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On Saturday morning, Mo opened the store on her own. Robby, her cousin, had a Little League game that both his parents attended, and Maggie had a Girl Scouts outing. So for the first few hours, she had the store to herself.

  The hours she was alone in the store were the best she worked. It wasn’t a particularly exciting job, working a sales counter in a drugstore, but the shop was clean and bright, and she liked the way it smelled—mingled aromas of makeup and perfumes, of the paper from greeting cards, magazines, and comics, and fresh-scented candles. The wee candy section added a dash of sugar and chocolate. Somehow, all those different scents came together into a blend that made Mo feel calmer the moment she entered the shop.

  The store was also situated perfectly in town, on a Main Street corner, where she could see all the comings and goings and watch this wee slice of the world have its sunny April Saturday.

  On this particular sunny April Saturday, with Easter a week away, the shop was especially bright and pretty. They’d hung twists of pastel crepe paper around the store, and taped up pretty decorations of chicks, bunnies, lambs, and dyed eggs. The front display abounded with green plastic grasses and chocolate bunnies.

  Uncle Dave wouldn’t be in until nearly noon, so the pharmacy counter was locked up. Mr. Breck, whose barbershop was right next door, popped in to check on her—Uncle Dave always called and asked him to check in when Mo was alone in the store—and a couple of regulars came in to make small talk.

  Mo was in a good mood. When she was alone again, she turned on the Philco radio behind the counter and turned the dial to KOMA. Uncle Dave hated rock music, but she had at least an hour before he’d come in and pull a face about it.

  While Grace Slick told her to find somebody to love, Mo heaved up one of the boxes she hadn’t unpacked yesterday and shimmied her way over to the paperback racks across the store.

  Mo loved the pulp paperbacks—not necessarily the stories, a lot of them were eminently forgettable, and Uncle Dave wouldn’t tolerate any of the truly lurid genres in his store—but the covers. They were all so outrageous and wild. She liked to make up her own stories from what she saw in those bizarre images.

  She was fondling a book from the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, imagining a story for the unicorn and the young woman in the filmy negligée surrounded by wildly colored flora, when the bell over the front door jingled.

  “Hello! I’m over here,” she called before she turned to see who’d come in.

  Shayton was a small town, without any business or attraction that would draw strangers intentionally to them. The town wasn’t especially near a highway or any main route. Virtually everyone who came into Quinn’s Drug & Sundry at any time of any day was well known to her. Occasionally, someone would lose their way, or a weekend driver who’d been tooling over the back roads would stop in, but that was rare enough to cause talk amongst the storeowners about the stranger in town.

  Thus, when Mo turned and saw the stranger coming toward her, the first thing she felt was fear. She was alone. Mr. Breck was right next door, but for this moment, Mo was alone with this strange man, who looked like he’d just stepped out of a boxing ring.

  This man’s face was swollen, bruised, and scabbed from a very fresh beating, but Mo didn’t think for a second that he’d been the victim. The look on his face was pure perpetrator, and he headed right to her.

  He wasn’t especially big, perhaps a few inches taller than her own five-feet-seven, but he seemed a fair bit more threatening than her burly uncle. He wore dark jeans, a denim jacket, and scuffed brown cowboy boots, and a plaid cotton shirt tucked in over a white t-shirt—basically the uniform of men from this part of the country. But his dark hair was shaggy and on the long side, and he had a scruffy beard, and that wasn’t how men kept their various hairs here. That alone would have brought Uncle Dave down from the pharmacy counter to cross his arms and glower.

  Mo cast a look out the front windows, to the people strolling along the sidewalks, getting their errands done on this lovely day. Under the sound of the radio, playing The Byrds now, she could barely make out the sounds of cars as they rolled by. If she needed help, would anyone hear her scream?

  There was a Louisville Slugger behind the sales counter. There was also a shotgun behind the pharmacy counter, which she knew how to shoot, but that was behind a locked door just now.

  “Hey,” the man said as he approached. His voice was low and hoarse. He raised a hand to scratch at his neck, and Mo saw that his knuckles were scraped raw, and his throat was bruised. Yeah, he’d given as good as he’d got, and vice versa.

  Mo put the book she was holding in the rack. “Hi,” she said, making sure she sounded steady and normal. “May I help you?”

  He cocked his head and smiled. “That Ireland I hear?”

  The prospect of having yet another person try an ‘aye, lassie,’ accent, or make a ‘joke’ about breakfast leprechauns, pushed the worry from Mo’s heart and replaced it with Northern Irish metal. “Is there somethin’ you need?”

  His smile faded halfway, and he straightened out his head. “Rubbers.”

  She hadn’t had any notion what he might have come in for, and that possibility had certainly not occurred to her. At first it didn’t quite compute. “I’m sorry?”

  “Rubbers. Skins. Condoms. Prophylactics. Do you have ‘em?”

  “Er, aye—yes. Yes. Back row, near the pharmacy.” Uncle Dave liked to keep an eye on who was buying the Devil’s raincoats.

  With a nod, he moved past her, toward the back. Mo took the chance to hurry to the sales counter, where there was the bat if she needed it, as well as a telephone. She turned off the radio and made herself busy rearranging the shop cleaning supplies under the counter, and peered up at the security mirror bolted to a corner of the ceiling.

  He found what he was looking for and headed to the counter. On his way, he stopped at the rack of paperbacks and picked up the one she’d last put away. He flipped through it and put it back.

  As he passed the gum and candy bars, he paused, studied his options, and selected something. Finally, he made his way to the counter and to Mo.

  He set a pack of Beech-Nut spearmint gum and a twelve-pack of Ramses condoms next to the register. “Pack of Camel Regulars, too, please.”

  Gum, condoms, and smokes. Before she could think to stop herself, Mo laughed and said, “Hot date?”

  He frowned—and then winced; the expression must have hurt his bruises.

  She’d had time to think
about it, but the laugh had felt good, and she’d come to understand this man wasn’t a threat. Maybe he wasn’t harmless out in the world, but right now, he was just a guy who’d run into her shop to buy a few essentials.

  With her index finger, she tapped the counter near the gum. “Before.” She tapped near the condoms. “During.” She turned and plucked a pack of Camels from the rack behind her and set it with the rest of his items. “And after.”

  The man who’d worried her so much five minutes earlier laughed with open good humor and met her eyes. His were blue, like hers, but shadowed even now under a brow that seemed best shaped to anger.

  Still, despite that brow, and the bruises and cuts, and the scruffy beard and shaggy hair, Mo found herself a wee bit attracted. He wasn’t pretty, like Paul Newman, but maybe craggy-handsome, like a dark-haired Steve McQueen. If he shaved, and she squinted a little.

  He set a hand on the counter and leaned in. A bit of beaded chain slipped into view along the side of his neck, from under his t-shirt.

  “What’s your name, Brigadoon?”

  Ugh. So much for being attracted. Why did everyone think it was okay to make fun of the way she talked—which was making fun of where she’d come from, who she was?

  Ostentatiously pretending it was an accident, Mo set her hand on his scraped-up one, the heel of her palm across his sore knuckles, and leaned in, adding extra weight until he made a low scoff of discomfort. But he didn’t move, or shift his eyes from hers.

  “It’s certainly not Brigadoon. Brigadoon is not a name. Nor is it a real place. It’s not even Irish. Brigadoon is a musical, and a movie starring Gene Kelly. It’s a fantasy.”

  “A fantasy, huh? Then it’s a perfect name for you.”

  Mo laughed and stood straight. He was just a silly man, like all the others. Her early fear seemed positively ridiculous now, so she released her natural tendency to take the piss.

  “Lord, mister. You needn’t cast another line, when you’ve a fish on the hook already.” She waved at his items. “As would seem.”

  “Nah. Just a man who likes to be prepared,” he answered.

  With a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head, Mo began to ring him up.

  “You didn’t tell me your name.”

  “Now, see, you’re smarter than you look. That’ll be two dollars and forty-three cents.” As he pulled his wallet out—a plain black leather trifold, hooked to a metal chain—she put his purchases in a paper sack.

  He held out a three singles. When Mo reached for the bills, the man grabbed her wrist with his free hand. He didn’t hurt her, but when she tried to pull free, he squeezed and held on. His hand was rough and strong. He worked hard with them.

  She glared at him, still pulling, and he smiled, still holding on.

  “I’m Brian,” he said.

  “Congratulations,” she replied. “I’m sure your mother is pleased.”

  “My mother is dead.”

  Mo stopped pulling. “Oh. I’m sorry.” The words mine, too were on her tongue, but she swallowed them back down, like bitter pills.

  He accepted her sorry with a subtle tip of his head and let her go. “If you’re not from Brigadoon, where are you from?”

  “Right here in Shayton. Where are you from?”

  “Hiram. Born and bred.”

  Hiram was only a few miles away. Another town very much like this one, but closer to the oil fields. Without replying, Mo punched the keys on the register, and the till shot open with a chime. She stuffed his bills in and made his change.

  When she held out his coins, he didn’t take them.

  “Gimme somethin’, pretty lass. Just a name, or a place. Somethin’ real.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? Are you afraid?”

  No, she was not, and that was the perfect way to get her to do something stupid. Always had been. Maureen Quinn was her father’s daughter and never could bear to be thought anything but fearless, even when her knees quaked. Sometimes bravery from sheer spite was the boldest form of all.

  “Belfast. I’m from Belfast.”

  He took his change and his bag. “Thank you. I don’t suppose you’d tell me your name, too?”

  “My friends and family call me Mo. You can call me Maureen.”

  He grinned. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mo. I’ll see you again soon.”

  She waited until he was out the door before she came out from behind the counter and hurried to the front to peer out the window and see where he went.

  He hadn’t gone far—just across the street, where a big motorcycle was parked. What she’d heard called a chopper, with the front wheel pushed far out from the rest of the bike. He kicked the engine to life, and it roared like an angry beast, loud enough to make the store windows shimmy. How had she not heard it come down the street?

  He revved the engine and made it roar a few more times, then pulled onto Main Street and rode away.

  Brian from Hiram. A brawling, motorcycling-riding bad boy who smoked Camels and kept condoms in reserve.

  Uncle Dave would have a heart attack. Aunt Bridie would ship her to a convent.

  ~oOo~

  Again and again throughout the day, she found her hand rubbing the place where Brian’s hand had held her. She could still feel the tough, warm skin of his palm.

  ~oOo~

  On Saturday evenings, after Robby and Maggie had done their sports and their scouts, and Uncle Dave and Mo had worked at the store, and Aunt Bridie had driven the children all over, done the weekly shop and the heavy clean, the Quinn family took it easy. From six-thirty on Saturday evening until six-thirty on Monday morning, they could be at some modicum of rest.

  So nobody cooked on Saturday night. Instead, they heated up Swanson TV dinners and ate on TV trays in the living room, everybody set up comfortably for My Three Sons, Hogan’s Heroes, Petticoat Junction, and finally Mannix.

  Mo and her cousins preferred Get Smart to My Three Sons, but Aunt Bridie thought Get Smart was dumb, and the children rarely got a say in the programming. Still, Mo enjoyed these relaxed Saturday evenings, where the meal came with entertainment and didn’t make much mess to clean up after. Quinn family meals were always busy affairs, whether they sat at the table with a homemade meal or in front of the RCA with tin trays before them. They were either crosstalking each other or talking at the people on the screen and each other.

  Though she’d never had a TV dinner before she’d lived in Oklahoma, Saturday evenings brought with them a keen but pleasant homesickness as well. Friends had filled her parents’ tiny lounge, all of them talking, arguing, and laughing, eating and drinking. Even when they’d laughed, she’d often had a sense that serious things lurked beneath the surface, and yet the atmosphere had been full of family warmth.

  Uncle Dave and Aunt Bridie didn’t have many close friends. They’d never, to Mo’s knowledge, had another couple or family over for dinner, or a cocktail party like she saw on television. They had acquaintances; both were active in Shayton and throughout the region, in business organizations, with the Church, with the schools their children and Mo attended, with sports and scouts and such, but when they were home, they buttoned up.

  Mo had never had a sleepover, or been to one. Neither had Maggie yet, except for Girl Scout events. Mo had never even asked—she hadn’t made much of a job of making friends in high school. She found most of the common concerns of girls vapid and frivolous, and she hadn’t bothered to pretend otherwise. But Maggie was a social butterfly, and Mo didn’t think she’d asked to have friends over, either. There was a silent, tacit compact among them, that home was a sanctuary, its walls not to be breached by any but blood.

  Her father and her uncle were barely a year apart in age, and they’d looked like twins. Even those who knew them best had trouble being sure which was who in family photos. But they could not have been more different in their hearts or minds.

  Michael Quinn had been loud and boisterous, quick to anger, to laughter, to tears. He was
as free with affection for those he loved as he was with violence on those he hated.

  David Quinn, the elder of them, was quiet and thoughtful, kind and patient. Lawful where his brother had been rebellious. Slow to show any emotion, careful in his actions. But when he loved, he loved with the same ferocity. He kept his love simmering deep in his chest.

  Mo was her father’s daughter. She’d lived most of her childhood in the heat of his wild love, bouncing with her mother in the wake he trailed. She felt his rebellious blood kicking inside her own heart.

  Maybe that was why she’d warmed to the man who’d come into the store that morning. How many times had she woken in the morning and found her da sitting at the kitchen table over a steaming cup of tea, with a twisted towel full of ice on his knuckles and a split in his lip? How many times had she climbed onto his lap on those mornings and been tucked into a burly embrace? Hundreds, likely. She could still conjure the smell of him, even now. Cigarettes and whiskey, the musk of dried sweat, and the metallic tang of blood.

  Brian. Maybe Brian from Hiram was like that. Full of rebellion and bluster, and fierce, explosive charm. Bigger than life. Maybe that was why she’d been thinking of him all day.

  But she’d grown to be a woman here in Oklahoma, with Aunt Bridie’s fretful, looming love, and with Uncle Dave’s strong, steady hand at her back. They’d taught her to be quiet in the world, to be good, to keep herself as small as she could. They’d taught her that home was the only safe place, and to leave no deep mark anywhere else.

  She hadn’t learned those lessons very well. She struggled to keep her mouth shut, or even to bother with the struggle, and she resisted being told what she ‘should’ do, ‘should’ be, ‘should’ want.

  Yet it was her Oklahoma family who had survived. Her parents were dead, they’d left her while she’d still needed them, and Aunt Bridie and Uncle Dave had brought her home, to this quiet, safe, buttoned-up life, and they had not left her.