Before I wake

Chapter 2

                             

               ~Before I Wake~

                 

      It was good for buisness to accept drinks from customers. It created a feeling of camaradarie. it kept them buying. Kept her drinking. Kept them from leaving to spend money in one of the other seedy bars in town.

                Sometimes Arden davis would simply open beers and let them pile up in front of her, or dump them when the costumer wasn't lookng. Other times, like tonight, she would do her best to keep up. Five so far, with two waiting. She would have a headache tomorrow.

               The man doing the buying was someone new, someone she hadn't seen before..

           That's how it was. The bar drew alot of locols, but it also drew single men, usually salesmen, on the road and lonely, stopping for drinks and a bed, maybe even sex if they got lucky.

              the man buying her drinks was attractive. She didn't know his name.

         His hair was gray, cut close to his head. He had blue eyes. Amazing eyes. Intense blue eyes that made her uneasy and a little bit excited at the same time.

When he'd first appeared, she thought he was about forty, dressed in a black suit that was out of place in the dark bar. But then, when he was near enough to slide onto a bar stoll, she realized he was younger. One of those guys who'd gone prematurely gray.

The tiny desert town of Artesia was located in Southern New Mexico, halfway between Roswell and Carlsbad on Highway 285. On the east side of town was the Aztec Oil Refinery rising out of the desert floor, all black grime and dull metal, towering over everything, producing heavy, petroleum- laden fumes that permeated the town unless the wind was out of the west.

You got used to the smell and the dullness fumes left in your head.

There was no reason for anyone to stop Artesia unless forced by an overheated engine or exhaustion. Back in the seventies the town had experienced a brief flutter of unwanted glory and attention when David Bowie came to film The man who Fell to Earth. The production company had been looking for a alien nation. They found it in Artesia.

Months ago Arden Davis was cruising for a new life when she took what she thought would be a shortcut to EL Paso and ended up in Artesia.

Rent was cheap. The air had been out of the west that day, and the local one-stop Holiday Motel was advertising for a bartender. It seemed like destiny.                                            

    " What time do you get off?" the grey haired man asked.

There were five other people in the bar: two guys playing pool, three people sitting in the booth, keeping the jukbox busy with belly- rubbing country tunes.

" I stop serving at one o' clock," Arden said. " And kick everybody out half past."

He nodded and ordered another drink for both of them.

The portable phone rang. Arden caught it on the second ring, lifting the reciever to her ear. It smelled like cigarette smoke and somebody else's breath.

" Arden?" the voice on the other end said. " It's me. Harley."

Harley Larson. Like her, he'd been recruited for Project TAKE. Through a killer's Eyes. They'd been FBI special agents not many years out of academy, and it had been an honor to be invited to participate. It had been exciting as hell.