11.1 If I Had A Hammer (Charlaine Harris & Toni L P Kelner ed Home Improvement) by Harris Charlaine

Author:Harris, Charlaine [Harris, Charlaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-09-18T12:04:17+00:00

THE SERVICE THAT night, such as it was, depressed me. Few customers ordering fewer entrées. I tried a bit of the cuisine. A medical school lab equipped with a microwave and a salt shaker could have come up with a tastier dinner. The specials were an Unattended Death paella—an old lady and her cat, by the look of the kitchen bin—and Quad Cities suicide scramble.

Ravelston, the vampire waiter, spent more time talking to his friends among the clientele than shuttling food and drink. While I admired the gentlemanly charm and the smattering of knowledge and interesting anecdotes he could summon up on almost any subject, each involved him planting his feet at the edge of the table for ten minutes. The original thirdwheel waiter.

Mastiff was serving emergency room food at private clinic prices. Twat.

Most of the clientele sat in the bar, chatting with each other or the barmaid. A pair of werewolves in purple Vikings jerseys hooted at the television.

Traffic died early in the bar. Strange for a place catering to translife, but then, it was a long drive back to any of the cities.

The barmaid was the one bright spot in the whole front of the house.

She was clearly out of the Eastern heritage of translife. Young, beautiful, pale green skin, and wide red lips. She had six arms and a graceful walk, gliding behind the bar from bottle to tap while wiping, placing coasters, and picking up money. I guessed she was a Devi.

“How did you manage to make it to the West?” I asked her.

“Mastiff petitioned the Secret Eyes,” she said.

“That must have taken some doing.”

“He never fails to remind me of that,” she said, a red-green smile traveling across her face as if it were in a hurry to get elsewhere.

“What’s your name?”

“Call me Megha.”

“Devi?”

She gave me that brilliant smile. “I didn’t sew these arms on.”

“How do you like Wisconsin?” I asked.

She gave a matched set of shrugs. “It’s pretty. The air and water are wonderful. No pollution. You can’t imagine how bad India is with the exhaust these days.”

“Like bartending?”

“I’ve always been a listener, and I’m proud to say the bar never gets behind.” She checked the screen on her electronic assistant, opened a fresh jar of olives, and replaced the ice scoop. “Our patron, he’s something of an old letch. Those wigs should come with goat ears. I think he brought me over because he liked the idea of a girl who could rub his prostate, give him a reach-around, and fill out his taxes all at the same time. But I get tired of the bar. He wants a glamour girl here.”

She reached up with two of her arms and adjusted her fleshy breasts in their dressy bustier. “Regardless of what you’ve heard about minor Devi girls, we don’t all go for the stage makeup and jewels. Doing six sets of fingernails three times a week is tiresome. What’s a human life span again?”

“I give Mastiff three more decades, at best.”

“Vishnu’s discus,” she said.

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