"No, I'm a salesman," he lied. A war whoop came from behind him. O'Toole turned to see. A burrheaded kid dove into the ballcrawl. O'Toole slurped the last of his Brunswick Bar-B-Q Pizza, glanced back and took the napkin from her outstretched hand. The video arcade made fireworks in her ink empty eyes. She slid sideways inside the candy-striped dress; clicking out three stacks of quarters from the coin-belt, O'Toole's waitress crossed his palm with cold coin. She was owling up at him. Almost cutesy, but not quite. "What sorter?" "Whazzat?" "What sorter salesman are you?" "Fertilizer. Fertilizer sales," he shouted above the pingpingping of a lazer attack from a Stealth Invaders nearby. She didn't seem to care if he was lying or not, she seemed dull and dazed by the lights. O'Toole had been pumping her for quarters half the morning and could tell she was a bad judge of character. He wasn't apt to start telling her the truth now. Snapping a suspender, he slid past her, brushing close as his breath dropped into her ear. "When d'ya blow this peckerstand?" "Bout a hour. One p.m., sir." Bells rang and the scoreboard went flippy as O'Toole chugged a load of silver into the Viper pinball. He felt ticklish without his package. But O'Toole's package wasn't welcome in here. It was the Saturday lunch crowd, mommys and daddys--and baby kamikazes by the shitload, bolting hither and yon, through the beer-laden tables of Bubba Dog's Pizza Jamboree. Everybody took a good retro-disco pounding from Madonna, Queen Of The Damned, hating, loving, loathing you; preaching papa don't preach or else. This did not bother O'Toole as he shot his ball-bearing up the chute. He kind of liked the rustle of kids, of commanding mothers who tried not to blow smoke in their toddler's faces or drink as much as their rough-joking men. No, it relaxed him strangely, iced his nerve and let him cool out from too much road. Besides, the Weevil liked women with kids, liked them in a sick way in fact. O'Toole might even stumble on the wily coonass someplace like this. Baptized or no. It made sense. "Ever meet a sharpie name Tom Wivaldi?" O'Toole was the one asking questions, after all, wasn't he? Him and Geraldo? "Uh-uh. I doubt so much as I have." She spoke casually, unaware of the consequences. "He's gotta gold eye-tooth and chronic halitosis. Bad breath." No, O'Toole didn't take personal questions. He was the snoop, baby, and don't you forget it. Just like the Doggy Dogg. He was top hound on the trail, the heavy-hitter with a badge of steel. "Ring any bells?" His hard gaze never left his ring-a-dinging pinball, but he saw her head shake idly in the Viper's reflecting glass before she orbited away. He wasn't sure if her no meant no or if she even heard the question. For the next hour, she would venture forth to dispense change to the suckers, always circling back to hover at his elbow. She was looking better to him. A pasty, purse-lipped wisp of a girl, crowding twenty-one with a puzzle for a personality. Not really pretty, but pretty didn't matter much to O'Toole. She didn't seem flirty or clinging or raging with hormones as he racked up points, in fact, she acted like booster shots might be in order. She seemed, instead, to crave his interrogation. He sensed a vacancy she needed to fill, like this muff was a wanting vessel who kept emptying herself over and over as she clicked out quarters from her moneychanger. Ka-chingaching! O'Toole kept piling up more free plays. Here she came again. He would ask one last thing above this jolly ruckus. Madonna's ass got kicked off the loudspeakers by Tom Fucking Jones, who only wanted your extra time and your kiss. Letting his plunger fly, another team of yard apes whooped as they splashed plastic in the ball-crawl and O'Toole smiled. He didn't feel so lonely anymore.
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