Bar Girl by David Thompson Read Free Book Online

he said, looking at the date of birth on her card.
    ‘Don’t be stupid, Mike,’ she said, taking the card back and putting it into her purse again. ‘It’s a fake.’
    He just looked. Oh my god, he thought, what the hell am I getting into?
    ‘Don’t worry, Mike. It’s a very good fake.’ She smiled. A genuine smile.
    ‘Goodnight,’ she said again, and left the bar. He heard her locking the doors with the key he’d given her.
    Mike just sat there. He didn’t reach for the whiskey. He didn’t light a cigarette. He just sat there. What the hell had just happened, he asked himself. He didn’t know what the girls were going to say. He didn’t know what the regulars would say. Bloody hell, he didn’t know what to say himself. He just sat there looking around at the old bar.
    If she was as good as her word, and he didn’t think for a moment that she wouldn’t be, this place was going to see a few changes, that was for sure. He could hear the bass from the nightclub a few doors up. They were doing good business. They could afford to pay the cops. He wondered to himself. Maybe, just maybe, in a few months, he’d be able to afford to pay them as well. He smiled to himself. The land of smiles, eh? At least when Siswan had smiled he hadn’t seen the guile. Maybe she was telling the truth?
    Ah, well, better get the old body up the stairs. Another day tomorrow. A hell of a day by the sound of it. He climbed off the barstool. He’d seen it all. Heard it all. A smile in the land of guiles.
    ‘Well, bugger me,’ he laughed to himself. He just realised that she’d actually said ‘goodnight’ to him. He walked to the stairs leading to his squalid room. The untouched glass of whiskey sat on the bar.
    *****
    Tam eventually turned up at ten the following night. The farang from the night before had had more strength than she had guessed, and it had been almost six in the morning by the time she got to sleep.
    Must have been on Viagra, she thought. She hated whoever had invented the drug. Kept them going all night. Still, she’d made quite a bit from him and, if he wasn’t too tired, he said he would be back for more tonight. In a way she hoped the old fool wouldn’t come again. She was too tired to go through another night like that. Still, the money was good. She could always pick up some lubricating jelly from the local store.
    The other girls sat outside in their normal places. Well, three of them were. Looked like Jom was going to be late. If she turned up at all.
    ‘Where’s Jom?’ she asked.
    ‘She’s got a farang. From the club last night,’ one of them told her.
    Oh, well. Good for her. They all had more of a chance at picking up farangs at the club than they did in this dump. The bar was old, needed a facelift. Never got any new customers. If it wasn’t for her, the place would have been closed down months ago.
    She didn’t care anymore. She wouldn’t be staying too much longer. Another bar had just opened in the next street. A friend of hers was going to get one of the other girls into some kind of trouble and then get Tam in to take her place. Probably tell the farang owner that the girl had been stealing. It was easy. All the girls made places for their friends. That reminded her to get her cut from Pan. The little bitch was holding out on her.
    Couldn’t do anything like that in the locally owned bars though. The owners knew every trick in the book and weren’t soft when it came to dealing with the girls. She had a friend who had been cut so badly she’d never be able to work again. Not with farangs anyway. The locals would still pay. A pittance mind, but it was better than nothing.
    Tam looked around the bar. Mike was sat in his usual place. A few of the regulars were there. Who was that? A new girl. Sat on the stool next to Mike. Who the bloody hell was she? No new girl could just walk in without going through her. She turned back to the three bored girls sat in their chairs.
    ‘Who’s