Guilty Pleasures   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

There was a man crouched on a bar stool, nursing a tall drink. His face was already slack, his movements very slow and precise, as if he were afraid he'd spill something. Drunk at one-thirty in the afternoon; not a good sign for him. But it wasn't my business. You can't save everybody. In fact, there are days when I think you can't save anyone. Each person has to save himself first, then you can move in and help. I have found this philosophy does not work during a gun battle, or a knife fight either. Outside of that it works just fine.

Luther was polishing glasses with a very clean white towel. He looked up when I slipped up on the bar stool. He nodded, a cigarette dangling from his thick lips. Luther is large, nay, fat. There is no other word for it, but it is hard fat, rock-solid, almost a kind of muscle. His hands are huge-knuckled and as big as my face. Of course, my face is small. He is a very dark black man, nearly purplish black, like mahogany. The creamy chocolate of his eyes is yellow-edged from too much cigarette smoke. I don't think I have ever seen Luther without a cig clasped between his lips. He is overweight, chain-smokes, and the grey in his hair marks him as over fifty, yet he's never sick. Good genetics, I guess.

“What'll it be, Anita?” His voice matched his body, deep and gravelly.

“The usual.”

He poured me a short glass of orange juice. Vitamins. We pretended it was a screwdriver, so my penchant for sobriety wouldn't give the bar a bad name. Who wants to get drunk when there are teetotalers in the crowd? And why in the world would I keep coming to a bar if I didn't drink?

I sipped my fake screwdriver and said, “I need some info.”

“Figured that. Whatcha need?”

“I need information on a man named Phillip, dances at Guilty Pleasures.”

One thick eyebrow raised. “Vamp?”

I shook my head. “Vampire junkie.”

He took a big drag on his cig, making the end glow like a live coal. He blew a huge puff of smoke politely away from me. “Whatcha want to know about him?”

“Is he trustworthy?”

He stared at me for a heartbeat, then he grinned. “Trustworthy? Hell, Anita, he's a junkie. Don't matter what he's strung out on, drugs, liquor, sex, vampires, no diff. No junkie is trustworthy, you know that.”

I nodded. I did know that, but what could I do? “I have to trust him, Luther. He's all I got.”

“Damn, girl, you are moving in the wrong circles.”

I smiled. Luther was the only person I let call me girl.