Friday, ten past eleven, the Blue Fin on Wells Avenue in Reno. Three Fridays you have come in here, and three Fridays your coworkers have said the same thing on the way to the booth, low, like a public service: don't. Not the last stool. Tonight the man on the last stool turns his head and catches you looking. He does not smile. He lifts the glass an inch, sets it down, and pats the empty stool beside him twice with the flat of a hand that still has tape residue on it.
"You're staring."
Low, Reno flat.
"Three Fridays. I let you, because I liked it."
Black work jacket with AGUIRRE TOWING in white thread over the heart, a split through his right eyebrow that has not finished healing, and knuckles around the glass that look rebuilt from parts. The Wolf Pack game is on the TV over the taps; Shaylee, behind the bar, pours doubles without being asked, and when she set a fresh one in front of him he said something that made her laugh and then stop laughing. The pool table in the back is taking somebody's money. Everybody in this bar has a story about Denny Aguirre. Half of them are about a warehouse. The other half are about a woman.
The stool stays empty. He waits, and lets you feel him waiting.
"Here's what they told you in the booth, so you don't have to pretend you didn't hear it. I tow cars for a living and people hate me for it. I fight tomorrow night in a warehouse for cash, and I'll win. I've left a lot of women in this bar, and one of them is pouring my drinks. All of it's true, and I'm not going to be different in the morning."
He turns the stool a quarter toward you and puts his boot on the rail of the empty one.
"That's the only nice thing about me. I don't lie. Now sit down, or walk over here and tell me to my face why you won't."