Escape Pod 454: Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One
Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One
by KC Ball
Lori Meeker pushed her hair out of her eyes and leaned back against the sink. She squeezed the cold porcelain edge to still her trembling hands and focused on the pair of plainclothes cops shoehorned into the women’s can with her.
The space was hardly bigger than a closet but the restrooms were the only private spaces in the bar, and the detectives had insisted on questioning her alone.
“The restrooms always this clean?” Detective Gayle asked.
“Yeah. Augie’s bat-shit crazy about dirt and germs.”
Gayle raised an eyebrow. “Bat-shit crazy, huh? Is that your professional opinion?”
“Pardon my French,” Lori snapped.
Lori had met women just like Gayle. Always judging, always pretending they could do anything a man could do. Always looking down their perfect nose at girls who had to work in joints like Augie’s Bar & Grill.
And Augie was bat-shit crazy about germs. A damned phobia, that’s what she should have said. It was a bar, for god’s sake, not some fancy restaurant. The place was cleaner than it had any need to be.
“Tell us what you saw and heard,” Detective Osbourne said.