Whistle Pass by KevaD

followed the food odors.
    “Sure you do. You can tell her, or I’ll tell her. Your choice.” He deliberately rolled up the sleeves of his flannel shirt.
    The greeter nervously tapped a finger on the page. Eyes darted right. “Let me check.” The man walked through the opening.
    “You do that.” Charlie chuckled. Greeters in places like this doubled as security dogs on a leash. Without a visible master to turn this one loose, the dog had no bite. Charlie waited two seconds and then followed.
    The bar was separated from the dining room by stacked beams forming a half wall. Rows of liquor bottles festooned the wall behind the counter and bartender. The stools and tables were filled with suited men and women in expensive-looking dresses. A few of the women even appeared close to their escorts’ ages.
    Charlie sucked in his cheeks. Not a one of these people would ever give somebody like Charlie the time of day, but they’d ask him for directions if they were lost. And, of course, he’d send them the wrong way.
    The dining room was large and open. Round tables with seating for two to six. Linen tablecloths. Flowers in glass vases. Antlered deer heads littered dark paneled walls. A few diners looked up, flashed a distorted feature or two of disgust at Charlie, then went back to entertaining their table companions.
    At a corner table for six sat the woman he’d seen in the lot. The greeter stopped there. She looked around the white-shirted man to Charlie.
    A shiver traveled Charlie’s spine. The woman’s gaze scanned him like an X-ray machine.
    Her left hand slid off the hand of the man seated next to her, who, in his late fifties to early sixties, clearly was not Roger Black. She lowered the stemmed glass of champagne she held in the other.
    The greeter whirled. “Sir! You cannot be in here.”
    “It’s alright, Ted.” She stood, smoothing her dress as she rose from her chair. “I’ll escort the gentleman out.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Ted wavered, narrowed his eyes and puffed out his chest, then he slinked past Charlie as instructed.
    She came around the table and slipped her arm through Charlie’s. A warm smile creased her lips as if greeting an old friend. “I’ll just be a moment,” she said to the three men and two remaining women. “Charlie knows my husband quite well.”
    Iceberg blue eyes shifted from cordial hostess to serpentine. Charlie gulped the realization he was a mouse in a snake cage. Gabe thought Police Chief Perkins was nobody to mess with. Perkins didn’t hold a candle to this bitch. Unless the Roger of old had undergone a personality transplant, this broad had to have her puppeteer hand up Roger’s ass.
    “Don’t you, Charlie?” She pulled him along beside her and whispered. “What do you think you’re proving here? Are you trying to embarrass Roger? I won’t let you hurt him.”
    Dora Black had crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes. She had a nice-enough-looking body under the dress, but the mid-forties Dora had about ten years on Roger.
    “You marry Roger, or adopt him?”
    Her mouth slithered into a wide smile as they walked. “A sense of humor.” Her other hand brushed the hair on his forearm. Bile rose in his throat. “I like men with a sense of humor. You ever had a woman, Charlie?”
    He tried to fight it back but failed—heat scorched his ears.
    “No?” She pressed her cheek on his shoulder. “So I’d be your first?”
    His free hand found the one on his arm and squeezed. Her head snapped off him. “That hurts.” A crocodile smile crept back to her face. “You like pain, Charlie?”
    They stopped at the door to the club.
    The smile dropped like an anvil. “I can make sure you get all the pain you want.”
    It was Charlie’s turn to smile. “Best send somebody better than the police chief. He didn’t fare too well first time we met.”
    Dora released Charlie and took a step back. “Howard?” She snickered. “Chief Perkins is a dedicated civil servant.”