“Don’t private eye cowboys like you ever take a day off?”
“Never. I can’t afford it.”
“Rumor has it that you’re loaded and reek of money. Why do you work anyway?”
“That’s why it’s a rumor.”
He placed a glass of diet cola in front of me and asked, “Lemon this time?”
“Skip the lemon.” What I really wanted was a shot of Jack, craving its sweet and stinging taste. There was always that strong and burning flavor at the back of my throat that I favored, wanting alcohol. Never had it dissipated. Not in the last three years since I had given up alcohol, knowing of my irrepressible addiction to the stuff, just as my mother had.