They offload lots of bulky, short-term housing they no longer need and get 15 minutes of good press, but how much longer will these things last before they start falling apart??

The only way to get more comfortable is to post more often.

This was my favorite. Because she totally belongs down there with him, but she played the system exactly like a demon would.

God not caring about intent sounds exactly right for this day and age.

This was not a usual night for The Alibi. Or at least, that's what Sheila would like to say.

She chewed her gum while she cleaned the glass, looking to anyone like her head was completely empty. The gum kept her from clenching her jaw. Tonight she'd needed three sticks, almost used up her entire pack.

"HEY! I'm talking to you, tramp!" A glass sailed two inches past her nose and into the wall with a crunch. Shards of mixed glass rained down over her array of whiskeys from a six-inch spiderweb in the mirror that spanned the entire length of the bar's back wall.

She chewed her gum as she widened and then narrowed her eye at the damage. Chew. Chew.

Chew.

Turning back to her unwelcome guest, Sheila shook her head twice, letting the flyaways from her silver-streaked bun bounce around her furious face. Dark eyes glared at the unkempt trash with one fist on the bar, his hand still out and open from the throw, ready to slap whoever came close.

"That mirror cost me $8,000. Who should I be making that invoice out to?" She spoke evenly around her gum, her normally syrup-sweet voice deeper and louder to cut over what few hushed conversations were still taking place in the far corners of the establishment. All normal discussions had halted as soon as the man had slammed open the door, screaming his wife's name.

"Who cares about your ugly mirror? Where is Tammy?!" Sheila had spent the better part of her life determining exactly how drunk and out of control someone was. This tall excuse for a dickwart had breath that could stun a horse, but there was only the barest hint of alcohol in it. His control level, however, seemed virtually nonexistent, and Sheila was grateful for the distance her trusty mahogany bar put between her and the walking powder keg.

"For the fifth time, I am barkeeper, not a travel agent or a secretary." Sheila put a hand out to her side, palm up, and laid it on her edge of the hardwood, "I don't know where she is, only that she was here earlier."

The creaking of chairs now echoed in the bar's near-silence. The groaning of 200 and 300-pound men sitting ready, just waiting for the word, waiting for the opportunity to crack bones and split knuckles.

Uncaring of the countless ex-cons littering the establishment, the instigator slammed both fists on the mahogany again. "Well, when was that?! Where did she go from here? Where. Is. SHE?"

"Sir, I do not have any more information on the matter than when you asked ten seconds ago. And as she is clearly not in our company, I'm afraid I need to ask you to leave this establishment, or I will call the authorities."

Todd scoffed and started to interrupt, but Sheila spoke over him, loud enough for the entire bar to hear. "Once they are involved, I am obligated as a mandatory reporter to tell them exactly what I've seen of you and Tammy. And they will run warrants on everyone present, which-"

The SCREECH of four dozen mismatched chairs made Todd jump and finally take a look around as the irregulars of The Alibi stood and turned their flood of intimidating glowers on the beer-stained wifebeater. He took an involuntary step back, unaware of the brooding bouncer looming over the 6'3" man. Backing into that muscle wall, Todd's blood ran cold, turning his tanning bed orange face a sallow hue.

"-which will land your ass in jail until Monday morning alongside a not insignificant number of my patrons, whose displeasure will only be superseded by the displeasure of their employers. One of which you should be very familiar with." Sheila pulled out her cell phone, slowly unlocking it as she let the collective malice of the bar soak him down to the bone.

Checking her bars, she then held the screen up with the speed dial highlighted: M. Malone. A scared gasp broke the dead silence, and Sheila then set the device down on the bar in front of her. Brushing some errant hairs behind her unpierced ears, she leveled a squared, emotionless gaze upon this would-be invader, "Now, I will say again. Yes, Tammy was here, I'm genuinely sorry you missed her, but she moved on, and you should, too. Please, keep looking for her, but you will not file a missing persons report when she was seen within the last 72 hours alive and well. And should a report be filed, The Alibi will sign written statements confirming this. Do we understand each other?"

She raised a challenging brunette eyebrow, and pulled her gum out of her cheek to rely upon again. Chew.

Chew.

Chew.

"...yes." Todd growled, yanking his shoulder out of the bouncer's grip while turning to leave. All eyes remained on him until he was out the door, and then on the door until both bouncers exited, closing the door firmly behind them.

Then the men turned their stares to Sheila, who held them with the practiced poise of a politician. Chew. Chew. Rolling her eyes, she blew a bubble for variety's sake.

"Yeah, yeah, next round's on me. Actually, it's on that dickthistle, cause I am 120% billing him for the mirror!" She popped her bubble as a round of low chuckles preceded the return to conversation and carousing that this bar's guardian demons were known for. While fresh beers and scotches for most of the bar would come as they finished their current glasses, Sheila pulled up two Old Fashioned glasses. Popping ice spheres in each — one looking like a Death Star, the other a teddy bear's head — she poured two heavy glasses of West Cork and carried them out from behind her hardwood domain.

Crossing the room, she gingerly hands the two retired seals their Irish whiskey before trotting past them into the storeroom. Busying herself with replacing the empty keg for her Guinness, Sheila softens her smile at the sound of soft blubbering sobs in the back corner.

Only once she's finished does Sheila allow herself to look at the mess of a woman huddled on a beat-up couch piled high with cushions. The young ginger of the hour hugs one of the largest (and plushest) cushions to her chest while her face is half-buried in a nearly soaked-through accent pillow.

"Oh, don't do that, Tammy, you've already cried yourself out twice today; you're gonna get dehydrated again." Sheila comes over and brushes the girls' pulled and pinched hair back in a soothing motion. "I told you. He isn't gonna find you, and he isn't coming back. Oh, I wish you could've seen it, Tam, he was so scared of Gil and the boys he almost pissed himself!"

Tammy laughed, hoarse and muddled with phlegm, and grabbed Sheila's hand, both starved for and afraid of physical contact. "I... I was so scared when you said you were gonna call the cops, Sheila. I gasped so loud I almost thought ya'll heard me!"

"Don't worry, the boys covered that up reeeeal well." Sheila smiled, then gently extricated herself and headed for the door. "Now, you know the rules. No phone, no leaving the room, no nothing for at least a week except using the bathroom when we're not open, and the windows are all covered. That means get some sleep and don't worry. The boys have got our backs, alright?"

Nodding, the exhausted runaway tossed her wet pillow onto the floor and slid down, returning her stand-in plush to its first purpose as a pillow. Sheila clicked off the USB minilamp on a cask-turned-nightstand and moved back across to the door, wiping her face and once again thankful she'd had the sense to remove her makeup when the rainbow-bruised redhead had crashed through the front doors hours ago.

Massaging her scarred shoulder through her soft silk top, the secondhand bar owner thanked the heavens for her bar's reputation amongst the women of her city. While men might fear The Alibi, she'd further built this hole-in-the-wall into a haven, and she would defend it as fearlessly as she defended the freedom of any man who maintained the bar's original "secret"

I mean.... Pneumonia wouldn't kill that fast, but it's a neater ending than the dad going nuts for weeks before the outbreak made the news.