Re: Gotham: Russ & Imogen
Little Girl Lost strung words together like they were coins in a pocket or bills in a fold, like if you didn't have a whole lot, you would run out. But night in daylight sounded OK, and Russ leaned on one elbow, faded check cotton and fist balled up under his chin and looked at the window. He'd been in this place so long sometimes it was night by the time he was done anyway.
"It's one of those things you learn to like," whiskey poured into a glass didn't go quick, it took time. You sat over it, instead of beer that you drank without thinking and he wasn't here to get drunk, shots lined up on the bar like seconds ticked off on a clock. A curtailed shrug, a constrained motion of broad shoulders. He'd bought a chick whiskey recent enough for memory: this girl, pale as cotton was nothing like Jenny.
Russ wasn't a grifter but the whiskey had loosened the strap that held everything down tight. Everyone was fucking mellow after a couple drinks, he was no different.
"Try it." And he reached out for the shot glass, because he was game even if the shiny, shiny piece of God and churches and things that were done with him long before he'd gotten old enough to be done with it, swung right on out there. Russ knocked back sugar and vodka and the sharp-tart of lemon that he licked off his teeth. It tasted like eating sour candy, like being eight and finding a spare two bucks crumpled down the back of the couch. Like sherbert licked off fingers. He grunted. The whiskey was better.