Canary

by Nathan Aldyne

  “I’m fine. Practice invigorated me.” He went to lift the panel again, and again Clarisse resisted.

  “Felix is tired,” she said. “Why don’t you take his place on the door for a while? Let him take a break.”

  “Why don’t you sit on the door?” he countered.

  Clarisse said nothing. Valentine eyed her with greater suspicion. “You’ve been getting good tips, right? You want some more, don’t you?”

  “All right. I admit it. I’m possessed by stark avarice this evening—and I like it. I love picking up wet quarters off the bar and sticking them in my tip glass.”

  “Okay,” Valentine relented, “for tonight, then. But at two-twenty you’re going to have to help toss out the dead drunk and the semicomatose.”

  Clarisse accepted the terms of the bargain. She mixed Valentine a vodka and tonic and then watched as he wound his way through the crowd to relieve Felix at the door. Clarisse was barraged by a flurry of orders and kept busy sliding them across the damp bar. Frequently she collided with Sean as they made change at the middle register. Finally there was a pause in the orders. She poured herself a very weak bourbon and water and was about to take a sip when a deep voice called out from somewhere to her right.

  “Scotch on the rocks, please.” The “please” was sarcastic, and the voice as a whole seemed forced into a lower register.

  Clarisse looked down the bar in that direction but saw no one signaling to her. Everyone along the bar had a drink in hand and was either cruising or talking to a neighbor. She shrugged and took a swallow of her bourbon. The voice came again, louder, lower, and more sarcastic.

  “Is this a work stoppage, or are you in a coma?”

  Clarisse put her drink down on the cash-register shelf and moved along the bar. At the very end she stopped and peered over the counter flap. He was sandwiched between two tall men with his arms resting on the bar, and so short Clarisse at first thought he might be on his knees. He wasn’t. He wore a black leather motorcycle jacket over a white T-shirt with a black eagle stenciled on it. A strip of rawhide was tied around his neck into a single knot against his Adam’s apple. He wore a black cowboy hat so large that it increased his height by a good twenty-five percent. The hair showing beneath the hat was a shade of brown darker than the mustache whipping across his thin upper lip. His eyes were masked by silver-lensed aviator glasses.

  “What’ll it be?” Clarisse asked politely.

  “A man could dehydrate in here,” he said accusingly. “This would be a great place to hold AA meetings.”

  “Do you want something to drink?” asked Clarisse. “The Dwarf Toss Competition is not for another half hour.”

  “A double scotch on the rocks. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use a house brand, and try to ease up on the ice, okay?”

  Clarisse grabbed a handful of ice, tossed one cube into a glass, and flung the rest back into the cooler. She took a bottle of Cutty Sark from the top shelf and poured the drink. When she’d turned around again, the man was gone. Putting the glass down, Clarisse leaned forward and peered over the bar. The man was hunkered down, retrieving a bill from the inside of his black engineer’s boot. The already thick sole and heel of his boots were elevated with at least an inch of additional rubber. The man stood up and wordlessly thrust a crisp ten-dollar bill at her.

  When Clarisse brought back his change, he pocketed it all and then asked over the rim of glass, “Where’s the regular guy who works here? I can’t believe the management is allowing a woman to work behind the bar.”

  “The ‘regular guy,’” Clarisse answered evenly, “is sitting on the door tonight. If you’d looked up when you walked in, you’d have gotten a perfect view of his kneecaps.”

  The man’s mouth curled up in a smirk.

  “What’s your name?” Clarisse asked.

  “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “It’s Mike. Wondering what?”

  Clarisse leaned forward, arms folded on the bar. “Wondering if anybody ever tried to eat peanuts off the top of your head.”

  Grimacing, Mike pushed his dark glasses up on the bridge of his nose with a stab of his index finger. Able to see his entire face, Clarisse realized he was the same short man she’d seen in the bar that afternoon. He hadn’t looked at her in any friendly way then, either.

  Clarisse leaned back up and started slightly. Standing directly behind Mike was a trio clad head to foot in black leather—two men and a woman between them. The men wore matching outfits—many-zippered motorcycle jackets, buttoned vests over bare chests, leather pants with even more zippers than the jackets, wide silver-studded belts, and black boots. Confederate-style hats were pulled low over their brows, and like Mike, the two men wore silvered aviator glasses. The man to the right of the woman was taking measured puffs on a large black cigar jammed into his mouth. In one hand he held a slack leash attached to a studded dog collar fitting around his dress-alike’s neck.

  The woman between the men had longish honey-blonde hair in soft waves brushed back from her finely featured face. Her eyes were dark and deep set, and she wore no makeup. Her body was lithe and voluptuous, her breasts cupped in black leather with straps encircling her shoulders, crossing her midriff and disappearing into low-slung leather pants. Tight thick bands of leather bound her toned biceps and wrists. One gold stud earring sparkled in her left ear.

  The man holding the leash looked over at the woman and asked, “What’ll it be, B.J.?”

  “Jack Daniels.” She addressed Clarisse in a surprisingly soft voice. “Straight up.”

  “And two Heinekens,” the leash holder added as he fished bills out of a zippered jacket pocket. The three of them came forward a step and hemmed Mike in.

  The man on the leash looked down at Mike and asked curiously, “How tall are you, anyway?”

  In the mirror, Mike had eyed the trio with interest. His look of appreciation faded. “Tall enough to chew your balls off without standing on my toes,” he snapped.

  The woman, B.J., reached over and patted Mike on top of his hat with an indulgent smile. “Now, now,” she said. Giving him no further notice, the trio took their drinks and moved to the back of the bar.

  “Boston’s swarming with rude people,” Mike growled to Clarisse. “Not like in Los Angeles.”

  “Is that where you’re from?”

  He nodded. “People in L.A. are crazy, but they’re polite.”

  “Perhaps if you sheathed that honed tongue of yours—” Clarisse began gently.

  “If I want a lecture,” said Mike, cutting her off, “I’ll call my lover.”

  Clarisse dipped her hand into her tip glass and slapped a dime onto the bar. “Phone booth’s in the back.”

  Mike pushed the coin back. “We broke up,” he said sullenly.

  “I’m not surprised to hear it,” returned Clarisse.

  “It was his fault,” said Mike.

  Clarisse moved away to accommodate a clutch of men at the far end of the bar, and when she came back, she was surprised to find Mike still there. “It really was his fault,” Mike told her, and added accusingly, “He’s the one who started cooking, not me.”

  “He was a lousy cook?”

  “No! He’s a terrific cook. He stopped going out to the bars just so he could save money to buy a pasta maker and this machine that makes sherbet—I hate sherbet—and a microwave, and you wouldn’t believe what other junk like that. He’d fix all this food, and then he’d get mad because I wouldn’t help him eat it. All he thinks about is his stomach. He used to be sexy, but after a while it was like having an affair with the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I want somebody to take care of all of me—not just my stomach. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure,” Sean shot over Clarisse’s shoulder as he made change at the cash register. “We all want somebody to take care of us.”

  “I mean emotionally,” Mike said.

  “That, too,” Sean said with a wink, and hurried away.

  “You kn
ow,” said Mike, angling a thumb toward Sean, “he’s hot. Every time I see him, he looks hotter.”

  “So tell him,” said Clarisse. “I know for a fact he can’t cook.”

  “It wouldn’t do me any good telling him. He already knows it. All I ever get from him is attitude.”

  “Well,” spoke a masculine voice, “maybe one day when Sean finds himself knee-deep in your drool, he’ll speak to you.” Niobe’s husband, Newt, had angled into the bar at Mike’s side.

  Scowling at Newt from under his hat, Mike took his drink and waded out into the crowd.

  Newt greeted Clarisse with a smile. “I’ll have a Becks.”

  Clarisse refused his money as she handed him his beer. “You know him? Mike? He was hanging around telling me stories about his ex. In his sullen, sarcastic way I think he was trying to be friendly.”

  Newt grunted. “I wouldn’t trust that one to tie his shoelaces without an ulterior motive.” Thanking Clarisse again for the beer, Newt squeezed through the crowd back toward the door. There Valentine was perched on a high stool, taking up the dollar cover and greeting the evening’s patrons. Leaning against the wall next to Valentine in the recessed doorway was Jed Black, cane in one hand and an enormous padded brace on his right foot.

  “Did your dog bite you again?” Newt asked.

  “You got a dog?” Valentine asked. “When?”

  “I’m referring to the Ice Maiden,” Newt explained.

  “He means my roommate,” said Jed. “I fell off some scaffolding this afternoon.” He tapped his cane against his padded foot. “Looks worse than it is.”

  “And if you don’t mind,” added Valentine to Newt, “you’ll be playing shortstop on Saturday.”

  “You bet,” Newt said. “Hey, Jed, if you’re really injured, maybe I can be first-string for the rest of the season.”

  “Not a chance,” said Jed. “This is two weeks tops.”

  “Newt,” said Valentine, “tell me what you know about that leather trio standing in the back. Two men and a woman.”

  “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse minus one,” Newt smirked, without even having to turn around to look.

  “Just tell me what you know,” said Valentine.

  “Not much, really. The one with the cigar is called Ruder. The one on the leash is Cruder. The woman’s B.J.”

  “What are their real names?” Jed asked.

  “Who knows?” Newt said. “Who cares?”

  Valentine watched the three as B.J. carefully looked over the crowd, sized men up, and made comments to her escorts. Hardly a man who came near escaped their scrupulous review.

  “I know I haven’t seen her before,” Valentine said. “But the two men…I can’t tell with those glasses on.”

  “Those two have been around for-ev-er ,” Newt groaned. “They live in New Hampshire and drive down every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. Without fail. They think Boston is the Big City. They bought all that leather gear through a mail-order catalog. Ruder slings chintz. Cruder is a show clipper.”

  “What?” asked Jed.

  “Ruder is a decorator,” Newt explained. “Cruder grooms poodles—” Newt took a breath and then added with high disapproval, “in their kitchen.”

  “And the woman?” Valentine asked.

  “Went to school in Boston. Used to be arrow straight. Then she moved to New Jersey and discovered leather, heavy drugs, and gay men—all in one night. Now she’s into The Outer Limits.”

  “What does she do during the day?” Valentine asked.

  “She hangs out in a tunnel with two hundred humpy men…”

  Both Valentine and Jed looked at him questioningly.

  “She’s an urban archaeologist. On loan from the state of New Jersey. She’s working on the subway extension in Cambridge. It’s B.J.’s job to make sure they don’t destroy anything of archaeological importance.”

  “For somebody who doesn’t know much about them,” said Jed, “you know a lot.”

  Newt shrugged. “I’ve talked to them,” he said vaguely. From the door Valentine watched the trio in the back of the bar. Mike had managed to get beside them. They looked the short man over, B.J. commenting to the men openly about him and obtaining from them nods of approval. She spoke to Mike, and Mike responded eagerly.

  “I guess Mike’s the Fourth Horseman for the evening,” said Newt, who’d been watching as well.

  “Is that Famine?” asked Valentine. “Or War?”

  “Pestilence,” said Jed.

  “No,” Newt said, shaking his head, “the Fourth Horseman was Death.”

  Chapter Four

  “WHA…?” VALENTINE SAID as he lowered his coffee mug. He leaned across the table, squinting his eyes slightly.

  Clarisse sat opposite him, obscured behind the open arts section of the Boston Globe as she sipped her coffee. The rest of the paper lay scattered over the floor around her chair. A plate of Danish and almond squares was set on the table between them.

  It was Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend, and Valentine and Clarisse were sitting in the kitchen of his apartment. There had originally been two apartments on the second floor of the building, but when the other tenants moved out, Valentine converted the two units into a floor-through. Now only he, and Clarisse on the floor above, lived in the building. Valentine’s apartment was casually laid out and decorated. From his bed, peculiarly angled in the large room at the front of the apartment, he had a perfect view into the policemen’s locker room in the District D station. His back windows, in the kitchen, looked out to a portion of the deserted playground, Tremont Street beyond that, and an impressive view of a portion of the Boston skyline.

  “‘Wha…?’ what?” Clarisse asked blearily, not putting down the paper.

  “An advertisement for an all-female production of Death of a Salesman.” Valentine lightly flicked the newspaper with his forefinger. “This is one evening in the theater I don’t think we ought to miss,” he said, and sat back.

  Clarisse lowered the paper and then flipped it over toward herself. She read the advertisement upside down. “I forgot to tell you,” she said groggily, “I already ordered tickets.” She yawned involuntarily.

  “You look awful,” Valentine commented. He ignored her frown and took a sip of his coffee.

  Clarisse crumpled the newspaper as she closed it and slapped it onto the table. “Valentine, that is the third time this morning that you’ve told me how bad I look”—her eyes flicked to a clock on the shelf over the stove—“and it’s only ten-thirty!”

  “You’re cranky, too,” he added. He broke off a large piece of raspberry Danish and dropped it on his plate. Clarisse claimed the remaining half. She reached over and took the pot of coffee from the automatic maker, poured herself a fresh mug, and refreshed Daniel’s. “I never should have gone to bartenders’ school,” she complained. “I should have taken summer courses at Portia. Then I wouldn’t be sitting here looking as terrible as I feel.”

  “I warned you not to swill while you’re working behind the bar.”

  Clarisse gave him a look of mortal offense. “I had a few cocktails toward the end of the evening. I did not swill. Besides, last night was the second double shift I’ve worked in three days. Why is it you never ask Niobe to fill in for you? She always looks fine the next morning, no matter what she did the night before.”

  “Because I hired you to work double shift when it’s necessary.”

  “Why are you so mean to me this morning?” she demanded.

  Valentine rapped the knuckles of one hand against his baseball cap, knocking it slightly back on his head. “Pregame jitters, I guess. Sorry.” He was wearing his Slate baseball uniform—pin-striped, turn-of-the-century style, with knickers and gray hose. His pitcher’s glove rested on the table next to the coffee maker.

  Clarisse stared blankly out the window at the derelict brick playhouse in the playground. When she finished her Danish, she turned to Valentine.

  “It’s killing me tha
t I can’t go to the game today,” she said. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Val, why couldn’t I open the bar a little later? Just today. It wouldn’t make that much difference, and I’d cheer myself hoarse for you at the game.”

  “Can’t do that,” Valentine said. “Think of yourself as a sports widow and you’ll feel better.”

  Clarisse made no reply, but cocked her head toward the main apartment door between the kitchen and the living room. “Someone’s coming up.” Valentine made a move to rise but didn’t even make it out of his chair before the apartment door was flung wide.

  Niobe Feng, wearing a crimson outfit with crimson patent-leather shoes with gray laces, made a bounding leap into the kitchen. She wildly shook two enormous red-and-gray pom-poms above her head, which was adorned with crimson bows. With savage gusto she chanted:

  RAH! RAH! SIS BOOM BAH!

  KICK ’EM IN THEIR NUTS!

  PUNCH ’EM IN THEIR GUTS!

  SLICE ’EM, DICE ’EM,

  FILLET ’EM AND PUREE ’EM!

  GO-OOOOO, TEAM! GO-OOOOO, TEAM!

  “Well, what do you think?” she demanded, beaming a smile at Valentine and Clarisse. She shook out her pom-poms, and a few stray strips of colored paper drifted down onto the remaining Danish. “That’s the new Slate softball-team cheer,” she explained. She draped the pom-poms over the back of one chair and pulled up another to the table.

  “It certainly gets the message across,” Valentine ventured after a moment.

  Instead of sitting down, Niobe rushed back to the open door. Stepping onto the outer landing for a moment, she returned carrying a folded tabloid-sized newspaper and a small wooden box. The box was gray and red with a brass handle screwed into the top. “Newt and I worked out that cheer last night. We practiced it all night long.” She closed the door and crossed to the table, placing the paper and box down before she sat.

  “Your neighbors must have been delighted,” Clarisse remarked.

  “They’re afraid of me,” Niobe returned, shrugging. She leaned across the table and peered closely at Clarisse. “You look just terrible.”