by Danny Hogan
Above the building’s façade was an immense billboard that depicted just about the fruitiest looking fella I had ever seen; with a weird, bleached haircut and make-up around his eyes. He had three skin and bone dolly girls in each arm. He was winking, holding up two thumbs and grinning and one of his teeth had a sparkle superimposed upon it. The Cavanaugh’s Bar & Grill logo, in pudding pink, framed the whole thing. I took this character to be Cavanaugh.
Above this, and a bit of a way back there was a tower attached to the building that must have been around nine storeys high, also in yellow.
‘Jezebel, put some of this on,’ said Alice, reaching into the bag she had been clutching onto the whole time and producing a couple of fistfuls of make-up. ‘They’re awful funny about appearances here, I heard.’
She reached into the bag again and produced a mirror. I shrugged and sat next to her to share it. I applied a good bit of black around my eyes and a hint of red on my lips, as it don’t do to use too much. Alice however, went to work with layers of pancake; she plucked her eyebrows, added black to those, then to her eyes and coloured her lips with about three different shades. Finally she powdered her face and added a little blush. She looked so disgustingly beautiful when she had finished: it made me sick.
‘You look real pretty,’ she said, smiling at me.
‘Yeah,’ I muttered, ‘right.’
We rolled up to the attached livery that was peopled by folk who seemed awful put upon, and dumped the wagon and ponies.
Tyrone got an eyeful of his girl as she stepped down and was like: ‘Wow, you look…’
‘Yeah, yeah let’s go already,’ I said.
We walked on up that dirty red carpet and to enter we had to pay two bits each to some moustachioed fella with a top hat and red coattails; and then we were in.
35
We entered a big lobby, where a real sour faced beauty stood guard at the front desk eying us as we approached like we were drunken vagrants intent on rape and pillage.
‘We’re here to see Mr. Stoneman,’ said Alice.
‘You got an appointment?’ the girl grimaced, as if we had demanded she eat us out.
‘No but…’
‘Appointments are three thousand.’
Tyrone and Alice were stunned and I roared: ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Ssh Jezebel. We really haven’t got that kind of money, miss.’
‘Well then you’ll just have to wait around until he makes his grande entrance publique at nine and hope for the best. You may take his fancy, but your friend won’t.’
‘OK, can we get something to eat while we wait?’
‘Yeah,’ said the piece lazily, ‘you can. But, I think this one could stand to miss a meal or two,’ she said, pointing to me with her pen.
‘Oh yeah, how about …’
‘Jezebel, be cool,’ said Alice; and I felt Tyrone’s strong hand on my shoulder, which got on my nerves somewhat.
‘You’re lucky business is not brisk this afternoon and a table has just opened up,’ the bitch informed us. ‘Betty will be your waitress today so, if you’d like to follow her and be seated.’
A platinum blonde number turned up. She had a face on her like she wanted to start some shit. She wore a short yellow dress, tight fitting, with military style features on it and a little yellow garrison hat. This turned out to be the uniform for the waitresses here. A pink embroidered patch on her left tit said: “Betty” in fancy script.
‘With me please,’ she snapped, like we had interrupted her from something far more important.
As we started to follow her a huge brute in a suit came up to us and said: ‘Excuse me sir, miss, I’m going to have to ask you to leave your weapons with me.’
Tyrone un-strapped his belt and handed his gun over without protest. I just stood looking at him.
‘Miss, I can’t let you in until you surrender your sidearm to me. It’s house rules.’
I could see I wasn’t gonna win this one and I was getting hungry so there weren’t much else I could do. And, after all, it wasn’t Comeuppance.
‘Fine,’ I huffed, taking my gun belt off and handing him the trappings.
Betty dumped us in a plush booth and threw the menus at us.
‘Drrriiinks?’ she asked, rolling her baby blue eyes.
‘I’ll have a beer with whiskey on the side,’ I said.
‘Me too, but hold the whiskey,’ said Tyrone.
‘Can I have a mojito, please?’ Alice asked.
Betty didn’t answer; instead she scribbled in a pad and then wondered off real slow and real lazy.
‘Tyrone don’t ever put your hands on me like that again, man,’ I started.
‘I’m sorry Jezebel but I don’t think I would have been a good friend to let you gun that girl down. She really weren’t worth it, plus you got enough trouble on your plate as it is I reckon. I just wasn’t sure how serious you were.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I reluctantly agreed. The mention of the word “plate” got me scrutinising the menu. Unlike the girls that worked in Cavanaugh’s, the food was totally my thing: barbecued prairie hog, 16 oz steaks and tower burgers, with sides of fries, creamed corn and coleslaw.
Tyrone went for the steak and Alice chose a goddamned Caesar Salad. I ordered the hog and got one helluva a nasty look from dear Betty when I did so.
It took an age for our drinks to arrive, which gave us ample to time to check out the goings on in the place. We were in one of many booths that encrusted the outside walls of the cavernous main room. It had a domed skylight ceiling and, before us, was a sea of tables on large flat steps that approached a stage area. On the stage right then was a burlesque act: striptease to bluegrass of all things and, I have to admit, she was pretty good. I ain’t a dyke, as you know, but I do like an imaginative act.
In the booths, at the tables, and generally milling about, were dandies in dapper suits and hats. With them were tall trophy females in long gowns and fancy dresses. None of those girls weighed in at more than 115 pounds, I figured, and each had just shy of a foot on me. Not my idea of sexy at all.
We drank, we ate, we drank again. We watched each act come on and do their business. My favourite was Gonzo the Clown.
The most morose clown in creation, he shuffled nonchalantly to the centre of the stage. He sported a good few days of stubble beneath a thick layer of grease paint, and several pounds of flab seeped over the waistline of his oversized trousers. From a distance I couldn’t tell but, I would wager, he fairly reeked of booze.
He glared at the audience for a long moment, sucking on a well-recycled cigarette while he eyed the patrons with a look shouting unvoiced accusations.
Grabbing the microphone finally, he coughed into it a long, moist report. He reached behind himself, shuffled around as if in great pain and, moment’s later, produced three juggling pins; apparently from out of nowhere.
He poised as if to start juggling but, with a deftness that seemed impossible for such an ungainly monster, hurled a pin eight rows into the audience, hitting a dandy square in the face with an almighty thud. The dandy’s girl shrieked as the man himself writhed around on the floor with his hands to his face. Blood seeped through his fingers.
‘You dare stir during my act?’ grumbled the clown, in a low indefinable accent. ‘Anybody else moves and I’ll be bringing out the fucking kitchen knives.’ I stifled my haw-haws.
The clown looked at the two remaining pins that were clutched in his shaking hands as if wondering how they got there, and what they were for. He allowed them to drop to the floor, the clunk echoing around the hall. He stared balefully at the ground, then back at the audience with an eerily surprised look, as though he had discovered us all to be burglars in his home.
Next his bloodshot beady eyes fixed on someone in the front row and the dark mood changed into an unmistakable look of pig lust. His huge sagging lips crept up his ghastly white face to reveal a rictus grin.
‘Do you think I’ll be pulling ou
t a long row of colourful flags from this pocket? Do you, sweetheart? hmmmm?’ the clown addressed someone up there. I could see a young female student type giggling back at him.
‘Do you think that, maybe, from this pocket I’ll be pulling out one of those pretty bunches of fake flowers? Is that what you think?’ The clown brought his grotesque face close to that of the student. He leered and whispered into the microphone: ‘You want to take a look?’
With her hands clasped together; a smile, broad on her angelic face the trusting student bent her head closer to the frayed and filthy trouser pocket that the clown was gleefully holding open for her.
Her mouth opened shakily, first in silence, then tears rapidly began to stream down her face and collect around her quivering lips: then she emitted a high-pitched blood curdling shriek. She collapsed back in her chair, clearly in a fit of terror and revulsion. Her once wholesome, creamy skin was now a distinct off-green. She cradled herself as she rocked back and fourth in her seat. By then the clown was balled up on the stage, howling with wretched laughter.
I shook my head in wonder; ‘This is beyond weird, it’s so cool.’ I clapped Alice on the shoulder but I don’t reckon she found the humour in the act.
It was getting on to around nine when Alice leant forward and said: ‘I reckon we should head over by that stairway. I got a feeling that Mr. Stoneman will be making his grand entrance from there.’
36
I drained my glass and got up in anticipation. I had to admit, after all the class acts I’d seen that afternoon, I surely wondered what this fruit had in store for us.
We got to the base of the stairs and waited around, getting frosty glares off of the waitresses as we did so, and then a voice rang out across the auditorium.
‘Messieurs, dames, please welcome your wonderful host, his excellence Cavanaugh Stoneman.’
There was polite applause, the lights lowered and the band kicked up some rambunctious music. A spotlight shone on a curtain at the top of the stairs, which opened to reveal that strange character from the billboard outside.
Slowly he began to trudge down the stairs, kind of in time with the music but I’d say, lagging behind a little. He was hunched over and wearing a big, luxuriant, billowing gown of gold lamé studded with huge pink gems. Around each jewel there was a mane of feathers of myriad types and colours. The collar and huge, sagging sleeves were lined with thick fur and feathers that had all been dyed pink. He moved not unlike an exotically clad old lady, stopping every now and then to look at the audience, point at someone and start gyrating.
When, finally, he stopped before us at the bottom of the stairs he sniffed like an uppity bitch scenting shit and then appeared to shrink into himself. He cocked his head to the side and drew his limp wristed hands up to his chest. He looked like a baby bird and I could hear him breathing in, long and slow. Then, without warning he thrust his arms out like wings, tipped his head back and let out a long, baleful moan. His eyes rolled back into his head, which he shook from side-to-side.
‘The phoenix has risen,’ cried the waitresses in unison, from all around. He flicked his bleached fringe aside and looked at me like he was getting a waft of that bad smell again.
‘Oh, no no no. Non!’ he cried, in a really pansy-assed European accent. ‘Too much tit, too much ass.’ He flicked his wrist at me like he was trying to brush me aside without having to touch me. ‘Get it away from me, it’s disgusting. Those udders; like some kind of dreadful milk cow,’ he continued, sounding for all the world like he was about to start crying.
‘You, on the other hand,’ he crowed, as he seized Alice by the shoulders. ‘A perfect addition to my collection; I must have you.’ He lifted up the forearm that ended in a stump and added: ‘Oh lalala. I like it, I like it. Amputation is so sexy, and all the rage a le moment.’
I felt talons dig into my arms and turned to see that two of the waitresses had me and were trying hard to haul me off but, I guess they didn’t have the strength in them.
‘Mr Stoneman wants you to leave milk cow,’ hissed one that just happened to be Betty.
‘She’s too heavy after eating all that food, the pig,’ said the other who, according to her tit, went by the name of Nancy. She fought and sweated trying to budge me, but all in vain.
They were so pathetic it was almost hard to be pissed off with the whole thing, but I managed all right.
‘Get your damned skanky hands off me bitches, before I kill you.’
‘Mr Stoneman,’ said Alice, as he stroked her face like they were long-time lovers. I could see from here that Tyrone was not happy at all.
‘I’m Doug Goldberg’s daughter, Alice. I’m here for our gold.’
At first, Stoneman’s face looked like someone had just run up behind him and rammed a stick up his ass. Then it rapidly changed into a mask of the most outrageous fake hospitality I had ever beheld.
‘Why, yes of course little Alice, I remember you. Have you enjoyed this evening’s entertainment and how is your darling father?’
‘Our gold Mr. Stoneman; and please tell your awful waitresses to unhand my friend, right now.’
Go Alice, I didn’t know she had it in her.
Stoneman looked all affronted and clicked his fingers at the skanks, who un-dug their claws from the skin of my arm there and then.
‘It will take some time for me to go through the accounts: you know, find records and do the sums…’ he said, testily. But then his demeanour changed again and he smiled unctuously. ‘Please stay the night; allow me to comp you some rooms and I’ll have whatever’s owed to you in the morning, yes?’
‘Thank you Mr. Stoneman,’ said Alice, taking a breath. ‘Two rooms will suit our needs just fine.’
He clapped his hands like a Spanish dancer and shouted: ‘Maitre de, prepare the Bailey and the Banks room for our guests, immediately.’
‘Bring me my gun too, numbnuts,’ I said to Stoneman: and that took the wind out of his sales, just a bit.
‘Numbn...? No deal, dumpling. There will be no gun play at Stoneman’s, thank you very much.’
‘I’m sure it will be OK, Jezebel,’ said Alice.
‘Jezebel? Christ,’ said Stoneman. ‘I’ve seen better Jezebel’s shopping for clothes at the Five and Dime. I would have tagged you as a Deirdre, myself.’
‘Mr. Stoneman, I am getting really tired of the rudeness we’re experiencing here,’ chanced Alice.
‘She started it,’ screeched Stoneman, pointing a long bony digit with a long painted nail at me. Alice just glared at him. He lowered his hand and looked at the floor. ‘Oh, very well, I do apologise miss,’ he said with a bow. ‘But, tell me something. Who are you sharing a room with? The gentleman, or this – lady?’
‘The gentleman.’
‘Perfect, I will ensure adequate entertainment is sent to your room,’ he said, turning to me with a big false smile and another bow. I was a fool to find myself being pleased by this, as you can imagine.
37
A fat man with a shock of thick, black, curly hair showed us to our rooms by way of a brass coloured elevator controlled by an abused looking porter in a poncey red uniform.
When we arrived at the sixth floor the fat fella led us down a red-carpeted corridor with white doors on each side. Each door had fancy mouldings all around their frames and the corridor was lit real low, giving it a warm dark feel.
The fat man stopped at room 606 and fumbled with a key before unlocking it and pushing it open.
Without looking at me he said: ‘Madame.’
‘I guess this is my room then,’ I said.
‘Madame and sir will be in room 609,’ the fat man continued, as I headed on in.
My god, the room was bigger than any place I had ever lived in; including my safe house in the basement in an old building in Wooldridge Square. There was a huge, soft looking bed with layers of clean sheets and two fat pillows on each side. A little table with a lamp on it adorned both sides of the bed. Along one wall of the
room was a desk and a chair. On top of the desk was a lamp and, by god, I can remember the feel of that lamp in my hands today. There was a double door, which opened into a massive wardrobe. Around the corner from that was a huge bathroom, with a tub a sink and a john.
I tried the faucets and was amazed when clean water splashed out of them. One of them produced hot water that was almost too much to bear when I held my hand under it. I let it run and threw off all my clothes there and then. I added some cold, until it was just right, and then sunk into that glorious water with a sigh.
As I lay there, I found it hard to think about any worries or concern other than the fact, of course, that I did not have a gun just in case. Nevertheless, I fell asleep without even realising it only to find myself being awoken by a light knocking at the door sometime later.
I figured, from the lightness of the tapping, that it must be Alice so I stepped out of the bath and found a robe and a pair of slippers to put on. The thought of putting on my dirty old clothes right then repulsed me.
When I opened the door it was not Alice but my friend Betty, the bitch waitress. She was no longer in her uniform but in clothes similar to those I had been wearing, which was a might unnerving to behold. She wore a little pair of jean shorts, a tight T-shirt, a leather weskit open at the front, and a good pair of knee high boots. Her blonde hair was done up all funky and I only recognised her from the sour look on her face.
‘Can I come in?’ she asked, as if I should have known that’s what she wanted.
‘What the hell for?’
She rolled those baby blues.
‘I’m you entertainment,’ she huffed.
‘Oh yeah,’ I said, opening a fresh pot of chew that I had procured in the lobby when we were waiting for our dinner. I plugged my bottom lip with a fair sized wad and continued: ‘If you’re a singer you best be producing a guitar from some place; I ain’t all that into gospel.’
Again with the baby blues.
‘Can I just come in please?’ she said, like she was accusing me of something.