“I was.” Robert was in no mood to chat.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I saw your portfolio sitting in the break room one morning and I looked at it. You’re very good.”

“I don’t do it anymore.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. I have a friend who’s getting married on Saturday, and she needs a photographer.”

“Look,” Robert said, “I appreciate the thought, but I just got fired and I’m going home to get hammered. Besides, I hocked my cameras.”

The girl smiled, she had incredible blue eyes. “You were wasting your talent here. How much would it cost to get your cameras out of hock?”

Her name was Jennifer. She paid to get his cameras out of hock and showered him with praise and encouragement. Robert began to make money picking up weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, but it wasn’t enough to make rent. There were too many good photographers competing in Santa Barbara.

He moved into her tiny studio apartment.

After a few months of living together they were married and they moved north to Pine Cove, where Robert would find less competition for photography jobs.

Once again, Robert had sunk to a lifetime low, and once again Dame Fate had provided him with a miraculous rescue. The sharp edges of Robert’s world were rounded by Jennifer’s love and dedication. Life had been good, until now.

Robert’s world was dropping out from under him like a trapdoor and he found himself in a disoriented free-fall. Trying to control things by design would only delay his inevitable rescue. The sooner he hit bottom, he reasoned, the sooner his life would improve.

Each time this had happened before, things had gotten a little worse only to get a little better. One day the good times had to keep on rolling, and all of life’s horseshit would turn to circuses. Robert had faith that it would happen. But to rise from the ashes you had to crash and burn first. With that in mind, he took his last ten dollars and headed down the street to the Head of the Slug Saloon.

9

THE HEAD OF THE SLUG

Mavis Sand, the owner of the Head of the Slug Saloon, had lived so long with the Specter of Death hanging over her shoulders that she had started to think of him as one might regard a comfortable old sweater. She had made her peace with Death a long time ago, and Death, in return, had agreed to whittle away at Mavis rather than take her all at once.

In her seventy years, Death had taken her right lung, her gall bladder, her appendix, and the lenses of both eyes, complete with cataracts. Death had her aortic heart valve, and Mavis had in its place a steel and plastic gizmo that opened and closed like the automatic doors at the Thrifty Mart. Death had most of Mavis’s hair, and Mavis had a polyester wig that irritated her scalp.

She had also lost most of her hearing, all of her teeth, and her complete collection of Liberty dimes. (Although she suspected a ne’er-do-well nephew rather than Death in the disappearance of the dimes.)

Thirty years ago she had lost her uterus, but that was at a time when doctors were yanking them so frequently that it seemed as if they were competing for a prize, so she didn’t blame Death for that.

With the loss of her uterus Mavis grew a mustache that she shaved every morning before leaving to open the saloon. At the Slug she ambled around behind the bar on a pair of stainless steel ball and sockets, as Death had taken her hips, but not before she had offered them up to a legion of cowboys and construction workers.

Over the years Death had taken so much of Mavis that when her time finally came to pass into the next world, she felt it would be like slipping slowly into a steaming-hot bath. She was afraid of nothing.

When Robert walked into the Head of the Slug, Mavis was perched on her stool behind the bar smoking a Taryton extra-long, lording over the saloon like the quintessential queen of the lipstick lizards. After each few drags on her cigarette she applied a thick paste of fire-engine-red lipstick, actually getting a large percentage of it where it was supposed to go. Each time she butted a Taryton she sprayed her abysmal cleavage and behind her ears with a shot of Midnight Seduction from an atomizer she kept by her ashtray. On occasion, when she had rendered herself wobbly by too many shots of Bushmill’s, she would shoot perfume directly into one of her hearing aids, causing a short circuit and making the act of ordering drinks a screaming ordeal. To avoid the problem, someone had once given her a pair of earrings fashioned from cardboard air fresheners shaped like Christmas trees, guaranteed to give Mavis that new car smell. But Mavis insisted that it was Midnight Seduction or nothing, so the earrings hung on the wall in a place of honor next to the plaque listing the winners of the annual Head of the Slug eight-ball tournament and chili cook-off, known locally as “The Slugfest.”

Robert stood by the bar trying to get his eyes to adjust to the smoky darkness of the Slug.

“What can I get for you, sweet cheeks?” Mavis asked, batting her false eyelashes behind pop-bottle-thick, rhinestone-rimmed glasses. They put Robert in mind of spiders trying to escape a jar.

He fingered the ten-dollar bill in his pocket and climbed onto the bar stool. “A draft, please.”

“Hair of the dog?”

“Does it show?” Robert asked in earnest.

“Not much. I was just going to ask you to close your eyes before you bled to death.” Mavis giggled like a coquettish gargoyle, then burst into a coughing fit. She drew a mug of beer and set it in front of Robert, taking his ten and replacing it with nine ones.

Robert took a long pull from the beer as he turned on the stool and looked around the bar.

Mavis kept the bar dimly lit except for the lights over the pool tables, and Robert’s eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. It occurred to him that he had never seen the floor of the saloon, which stuck to his shoes when he walked. Except for the occasional crunch underfoot identifying a piece of popcorn or a peanut shell, the floor of The Slug was a murky mystery. Whatever was down there should be left alone to evolve, white and eyeless, in peace. He promised himself to make it to the door before he passed out.

He squinted into the lights over the pool tables. There was a heated eight-ball match going on at the back table. A half dozen locals had gathered at the end of the bar to watch. Society called them the hard-core unemployed; Mavis called them the daytime regulars. On the table Slick McCall was playing a dark young man Robert did not recognize. The man seemed familiar, though, and for some reason, Robert found that he did not like him.

“Who’s the stranger?” Robert asked Mavis over his shoulder. Something about the young man’s aquiline good looks repelled Robert, like biting down on tin foil with a filling.

“New meat for Slick,” Mavis said. “Came in about fifteen minutes ago and wanted to play for money. Shoots a pretty lame stick, if you ask me. Slick is keeping his cue behind the bar until the money gets big enough.”

Robert watched the wiry Slick McCall move around the table, stopping to drill a solid ball into the side pocket with a bar cue. Slick left himself without a following shot. He stood and ran his fingers over his greased-back brown hair.

He said, “Shit. Snookered myself.” Slick was on the hustle.

The phone rang and Mavis picked it up. “Den of iniquity. Den mother speaking. No, he ain’t here. Just a minute.” She covered the mouthpiece and turned to Robert. “You seen The Breeze?”

“Who’s calling?”

Into the phone, “Who’s calling?” Mavis listened for a moment, then covered the mouthpiece again. “It’s his landlord.”

“He’s out of town,” Robert said. “He’ll be back soon.”

Mavis conveyed the message and hung up. The phone rang again immediately.