Chapter Ten

In which two unpleasant men perturb our heroine.

Looking grim, Brad approached the bar. “Ladies! Mind if I sit?”

Emmie shrugged as Brad sat next to her.

“What can I get you?” said Lorinda, coolly. She wasn’t thrilled to see him and didn’t particularly care if he knew it.

“How about a Reb,” said Brad. As Lorinda fetched the beer, he glanced at Emmie and decided he had no choice but to say what he had to say in front of her. “I’ve been trying to get you,” he said as Lorinda set down his bottle. “You never pick up, you never call back. You’re supposed to be mine now.”

“Yours? Like you own me? Because we —” Lorinda lowered her voice. “Because we fucked once?”

Brad winced. It was strong language, especially from a girl.

Lorinda quickly calmed herself down. “Look, Brad,” she said, deciding she might as well unload now rather than postpone the inevitable. “I’ve been busy. And, honestly, I don’t really think we have anything to talk about.” She picked up a cocktail shaker, took off the lid, and looked inside as if searching for manufacturing flaws.

“But,” Brad started, “we ...”

“We had a little fun,” Lorinda interrupted, putting the lid back on the shaker and setting it down on the back bar. “Maybe someday, you know … but, now’s not the time.”

Brad looked stricken. He tried to say something, gave up, slid off the stool, took out his wallet, found a fifty-dollar bill, and slapped it down on the counter. “Keep the change,” he said as he strode away.

“What change?” said Lorinda under her breath.

“That went well,” Emmie laughed.

“That’s a free Johnny Reb if you want it,” said Lorinda, dryly. “He didn’t touch it.”

After Emmie left, Lorinda poured Brad’s beer down the drain and went back to tidying the place up for the evening rush. She was facing the back bar, polishing a glass and brooding about her dilemma, when her thoughts were interrupted by a heavy knock on the bar. She glanced at the mirror and saw a tall, paunchy, middle-aged man in a government-issue white shirt and black suit jacket, holding at arm’s length a badge in its wallet. It stopped her cold.

“Bureau of Investigations, Agent Morrow,” he snarled. “Why did you turn off your cameras?”

Lorinda had heard about this sort of thing. Thinking quickly, she turned around and said, “What cameras?”

“Don’t get cute with me, honey. How do I get back there?”

“Customers aren’t allowed behind the bar,” said Lorinda.

“I’m not a customer. I’m the government.”

“Okay. Just come around this way.”

Despite his height and his paunch, Agent Morrow was surprisingly agile. He slipped easily through the cutout under the bar, produced a small government-issue com-pad from an inner pocket of his jacket, tapped the screen, stared at it for a couple of seconds, and went straight to where it said the cameras were supposed to be plugged in. He bent over, saw that his information was wrong, then popped right back up. “Goddammit,” he spat. “Technician faggots can’t be bothered to do their job.” Bending low, he crept along the back bar until he found what he was looking for. “Well, lookee here,” he grinned momentarily, thrusting the bourbon bottle she’d tipped over toward Lorinda before setting it on another shelf, then waving the cord at her before plugging it back in. “You don’t store bottles next to where cameras are plugged in. Don’t they teach you people anything?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I thought I heard something fall over earlier but I didn’t know where the sound came from. I didn’t even know there were cameras here.”

“There aren’t any cameras here,” he said as he plugged the cameras back in. He then made his way to the cutout, ducked gracefully under the bar, and turned to glare at Lorinda. “It better not happen again.”

“Okay, it won’t,” she said as he hurried away. It occurred to her that putting the bourbon bottle over the wires may have been the smartest thing she did all week.

When she left PumpJack’s later that evening, she was preoccupied with memories of that rusty-red bullseye on the pregnancy test, and her conversation with Emmie, and that weird little encounter with Brad, and that really weird little encounter with the government guy, and, looming over it all, her promotion, her career.

She didn’t notice the shiny black Zhiguli pickup truck that followed her at a discreet distance all the way home from the bar, peeling off after she parked in front of her house.

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NEXT: Chapter Eleven. In which our heroine seems to have found a solution to her problem.

PREVIOUSLY in THE SPLIT!

Chapter One. In which we meet our heroine and her dainty little gun.

Chapter Two. In which Lorinda demonstrates her bartending virtuosity.

Chapter Three. In which our heroine receives a promotion and prepares to celebrate.

Chapter Four. In which our heroine proves herself an immoral citizen of the CCSA.

Chapter Five. In which our heroine goes to church.

Chapter Six. In which Lorinda contemplates her future, ignores Pastor Doug, and gets something unexpected from Emmie.

Chapter Seven. In which Lorinda learns something that threatens her big dream.

Chapter Eight. In which our heroine freaks out.

Chapter Nine. In which our heroine says the forbidden word as an unwelcome visitor arrives.

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