Eventually he entered the Happy Hacienda, a bar and grill which advertised “Food and Fun.” I went in and looked around. There were only a few mid-afternoon patrons. I sauntered to the bar and sat on a stool. A couple of minutes later, Damon appeared behind the bar, dressed as a bartender. Good cover, I thought.
“What’ll it be?” he asked professionally.
Not being an experienced drinker, I was at a loss until I saw a sign. “I’ll have a Roaring Rapids Lite.” Damon put a bottle and glass in front of me. I paid him, including a tip, although I hated to subsidize philandering.
I looked around: two female customers sat at a table. A couple of waitresses wore cowgirl costumes. Was Damon secretly meeting one of these women, perhaps in the cellar? Love amid the beer kegs?
Two stools away a dedicated drinker was finishing his beer. Surreptitiously I switched our glasses. He never noticed.
A man, perhaps the manager, came out onto the small stage at one end of the room, grabbed the microphone, and announced: “And here she is, our own Patsy McIntyre!”
An attractive young woman in an ersatz western outfit, complete with a ten-gallon hat and boots, approached the mike. Suspended around her neck was a big, shiny guitar. She strummed the strings once and asked enthusiastically: “How y’all?”
“Good.” “Fine.” people answered unenthusiastically. “Drunk,” muttered my barmate.
She sang a couple of country-and-western songs, not badly, although she’ll never be a headliner in Nashville. Was she Damon’s inamorata?
i headed for a table to order food as an excuse to stay longer. As I passed the stage, I asked Patsy if she knew “Your Cheatin’ Heart”.
“Sure do.”
I gave her a tip and she sang the C-&-W classic. I watched Damon closely. No reaction. My psychological stratagem hadn’t worked.
On top of the sips of Roaring Rapids, the Hacienda’s specialty, the Big Bull Burger, had my stomach bucking like a horse in a bronco-riding contest, but it had settled down by the time I retrieved my car and parked near the bar and grill.
At five p.m. Damon left alone and walked to a hardware store a few blocks away, perhaps the one he had managed. The few customers were all men.
An hour later, he locked the store and walked home.
A shocking thought struck me: Was he having two affairs, one at the Hacienda and one at the hardware? Surely not. After all, he was seventy years old. Or was I just jealous? I must ask Penelope about the condition of his heart.
The next day I repeated my surveillance, except for the beer and burger, and I carried a package of antacid tablets.
Damon remembered me. “Roaring Rapids Lite, right?”
“Ginger ale, on the rocks.”
On the way to a table, I again requested a song from Patsy: “Do you know ‘Rudy, Don’t Take Your Love to Town’?”
“Yeah, but it’s ‘Ruby’. But hey, I like your version better. It’s more appropriate for a woman.”
