It was definitely not a Pink Lady. Nor was it pink champagne. There was grenadine in it, judging from the viscosity apparent to the eye. There might be gin, or even water. He raised his eyes.
"What — is — this?"
The waiter's eyes were like small blue marbles. "They're bourbon and sodas, see?"
"Pink bourbon?"
"Ja ever see any other kind?" the waiter snarled.
"I believe," Simon said gently, "that I have been patient. Compared to the way I've conducted myself, burros are subjects for straitjackets. You have brought four rounds of liquid abortions that no self-respecting canned-heat hound would dip a finger in. While this went on, I have kept my temper. Job himself would stack up beside me like a nervous cat. I have taken all your insults with a smile. But I warn you, if you don't bring the right order on your next trip, you are going to wish your mother had spanked the bad manners out of you before I had to."
"So you wanta make trouble, huh?" The waiter signalled. "Hey, Jake!"
The bartender, who seemed to be Jake, stopped shaking a whiskey sour at the top of the motion, looking something like a circus giant caught in a ballet pose. He was pushing six feet and a half with shoulders perhaps not so wide as a door, but wide enough. He had a face like the butt end of a redwood log, and hands like great brown clamps on the shaker.
His customers turned to regard the tableau across the big room according to the stages of inebriety they'd reached. A middle-aged man with a brief moustache twirled it at Avalon. A lady of uncertain balance lifted one side of a bright mouth at the Saint. A young couple stared, and turned back to their private discussion, which, to judge from their expression, was going to wind up in the nearest bedroom.
Jake then set down the shaker, and walked around the end of the bar. At the same moment a third man, large and aproned, came out of the archway and joined him. They marched together across the dance floor, side by side, and advanced upon the Saint. It was obvious that he was their objective.