Dale had produced a nice little crop of marijuana some time back. Law enforcement took issue, and Dale did some time.
“Heh.” Dale smiled at that. Albeit a little cautiously.
“Ramon,” Eli continued evenly. “How are things?”
Ramon Barros had gone to high school with Eli, and he knew Jonah. He said nothing. Ever since the thing with Eli had gone down, Ramon wouldn’t say a damn word to Eli if he could avoid it. He did nod, though. He didn’t have enough nerve to freeze him out completely.
A brief taut silence was interrupted by The Black Crows bursting out of the speakers. One of which was buzzing and was due to blow soon, Eli reckoned. Speakers didn’t have a long tenure here at the Plugged Nickel.
“We haven’t met.” Eli turned to Leather Vest.
The guy stared at him. “Ezekiel.”
Oh, brother. If his real name was actually Ezekiel, Eli would eat one of the pickled eggs that had sat on the bar since it opened in 1975.
“Your mama give you that biblical name in the hopes that you’d behave yourself?”
“Ha.” Ezekiel’s eyes were so dark it was hard to know where the pupil ended and the iris began.
The no-blinking thing was boring. For about a thousand reasons, Eli couldn’t be intimidated.
“You all know you can’t be betting in here, right?” Eli said it almost gently.
Not one of them was fooled by that tone.
They’d seen what Eli had done to Jonah Greenleaf, right here in the Plugged Nickel.
They all knew what Eli could do in general.
No one replied.
“Not playing for money. Are we, boys?” Ezekiel, or whatever the hell his name was, was all sly bonhomie.
The other three guys looked every which way except at Ezekiel, Eli, or Glory. Who, Eli was certain, was watching all of this raptly.
Eli hovered over them a moment longer, like a threatening weather system that could break any second.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your game. Now that I’m sure you’re not betting. The Misty Cat Cavern might be interested in buying your extra tomatoes, Dale. The profits might be a little modest compared to your last crop, but what the hey.”
“Heh. Thanks for the tip, Deputy,” Dale said with more than a little relief. He seized his cards again.
Finally Eli moved over to the bar.
He leaned with his back against it, rested his elbows on it.
He didn’t look her in the eye. Not yet.
He finally spoke.
“Your TV broke, Glory? You were watching that poker game like it’sGame of Thrones.”
For a moment—that moment so like the one after you trip over something and you don’t know whether you’ll be able to break your fall—he thought she might keep freezing him out. God knows he’d never known her to do anything by halves.
“Watching men act like idiots is about the only thing there is to do on a Tuesday night in Hellcat Canyon,” she finally said.
“I hear knitting is another constructive way to pass the time.”
Anybody strolling by would have thought this was a perfectly innocuous conversation.