Jake's 8

by Howard McEwen

  "Bloom?" yelled Mr. Turner.

  I looked to Mr. Bloom sitting down at the table. The man was pure Coltrane. The essence of cool. He gave only a hint of a smile.

  "He was the man in the room when the spoon was stolen," said Mr. Carmichael. "He was the only one who had the opportunity to take it."

  "But we checked each other," said Mr. Turner. "We checked the dining room and the kitchen. He didn’t steal it."

  "The spoon wasn’t stolen," said Mr. Carmichael.

  "Of course it was stolen. It’s not here. Matt, tell him." Mr. Bloom only sighed in answer.

  "There is an alternative to the spoon having been stolen, Mr. Turner. You just won’t allow yourself to see it."

  "What?"

  "It has been destroyed."

  "Destroyed?"

  "What other explanation could there be?"

  "Why would anyone destroy Washington’s spoon? It was priceless. Anyway, it couldn’t have been destroyed so quickly. What could someone do? Eat it?"

  "If no one else had the opportunity then Mr. Bloom took the spoon," said Mr. Carmichael. "If the spoon hasn’t been found and it was impossible to steal then it has been destroyed. Allow yourself to see that. My best guess is that Mr. Bloom intentionally left his gloves in the dining room. Once the two of you were at the elevator, he borrowed your key to retrieve them. It took him only moments to smash the glass. Now the problem is: how could he have destroyed it so quickly? You said he called to you after a minute or two."

  "Exactly," said Mr. Turner.

  "So he must have destroyed it slowly," Mr. Carmichael continued.

  This blew Mr. Turner’s top. He didn’t bother to pick his top up.

  "But I was with him." He turned to Mr. Bloom. "Matt, aren’t you going to defend yourself?"

  "You’re doing a swell job of it, Greg," he finally said.

  "Again, it’s just a guess," said Mr. Carmichael. "I’d venture that he smashed the glass, took the spoon then put it in the oven. He then started the self-clean cycle. That would have sent the temperature of the oven to about one thousand degrees. Remember how the kitchen was hot several hours after the meal was done? As you two were looking for the spoon, it was slowly being turned to ash. You didn’t think to look in the oven because you wouldn’t see what you didn’t want to see. You assumed that the spoon had been stolen. That assumption blinded you. You didn’t allow yourself to see that."

  "He started to look into the oven, Mr. Carmichael, but I distracted him," said Mr. Bloom, finally.

  "What?" asked Mr. Turner.

  "Why?" asked Mr. Carmichael. "Why destroy it?"

  "I’m a revolutionary, Mr. Carmichael. This country, this society, this culture is sick. I hate it. I’m a revolutionary, but I’m no bomb thrower. If you want to destroy a culture, you don’t bomb it. You undermine it. Me and others like me have set this society on the knife’s edge. We just need to give it a few more pushes and it will topple and shatter. I fought in the business world. I destroyed companies and jobs and called it free market creative destruction and was praised. Others went after history. We denigrated people like Washington and made you embarrassed by them. Dead, white males. Others fought in the art world. They made the ugly more praiseworthy than the beautiful. Your culture now has literature without plots, poems without rhyme and music without melody. In the schools, we’re squeezing out reading, writing and arithmetic.

  "And in the cities we undermine institutions. The neighborhood school? A thing of the past. Your churches? Attendance is plummeting. In politics? We’ve destroyed faith in democracy itself. How many men and women don’t vote because ‘they’re all crooks’? And the family? Well, look around. To many, ‘Dad’ is a theoretical concept.

  "Institutions like The Brotherhood of the Spoon held this city together. But the brotherhood itself is held together by the thinnest of threads. When they hear that the spoon was stolen, better yet, that one of its brothers did something like what I’ve done, it will collapse. The eleven others will just surrender and walk away and the wee bit of support the Brotherhood offered this city will crumble. It’s not a large blow, I admit, but it could be the final blow. It could be the tipping point. Something as small as a missing spoon can push this society over the edge. For want of a nail...."

  Mr. Turner smacked Mr. Bloom full in the face. I’m glad he did. It kept me from hurting my own hand.

  "Thank you for at least giving me your reasons," said Mr. Carmichael, once Mr. Bloom had recovered himself. "I’ll leave it to Mr. Turner to decide how to handle it. It is well past time for Mr. Gibb and me to call it a night."

  I followed Mr. Carmichael out of the room. It all felt a bit anticlimactic as we rode down the noisy elevator to the ground floor.

  "May I ask a question, Mr. Carmichael?”

  "Yes, Mr. Gibb."

  "What did this have to do with servicing clients?"

  "Our business is all about trust, Mr. Gibb. Mr. Turner will tell others how we helped. That will engender trust in those who hear it—those who are my clients, and those who may one day become my clients. Also, it was a bit of fence mending. They asked me to join ten years ago and I turned them down.”

  "Why?"

  "They kept calling it ‘Washington’s spoon.’ But it never was. It was the soldier’s spoon. They didn’t understand the point of their own Brotherhood. They’d lost their way well before tonight."

  We walked out of the elevator, past the man with the Christian name of Frank onto Fourth Street. Mr. Carmichael told me good night and settled into his car. I shrugged my shoulders and walked north. Japp’s was only eight blocks away. I looked at my new Rolex. It was one in the a.m. Japp’s would be open for another hour. I moseyed over to Main Street and pointed my thirst north.

  "What do you give a guy who needs a night cap?" I asked Molly when I got there.

  Out came the Boston shaker. In went ice. In went the demon rum, then a blast of moo juice, then she sweetened it with some simple syrup. A dash of vanilla followed. Then the music of the shaker. She poured it into an Irish coffee mug and topped it with a health dose of cinnamon. I took a sip and got happy.

  "You happen to see that girl I was chatting up earlier?"

  "I think so. Cute nose. Big chest."

  "That’s the one."

  "She left with a pair of broad shoulders."

  I took another sip.

  "So what are you doing after closing?" I asked her.

  "Not going home with you."

  I nursed my drink, slapped a tenner on the bar and ambled on home.

  Lovers in a Dangerous Time — Part I

  We were lovers in a dangerous time.

  There was disease in the water, rebels in the hills and a madman in the Presidential Palace. I drank gin and stale tonic. She drank whiskey spiked with Fernet-Branca.

  We barricaded ourselves in a fourth floor hotel room behind pillows and under blankets. We passed the time by making love and not speaking.

  This morning the mortars from the hills landed closer and the gunfire in the street grew more frequent. At dawn, she’d smoked her last cigarette. Now, she was growing nervous.

  “Is this the end?” she asked.

  “Our end?”

  “The end?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I just realized how young I am.”

  “Yes. We’re both young.”

  “You’re not nearly as young as me.”

  “True.”

  “Am I too young?”

  “In another time, you would be too young.”

  “This place ages people.”

  “Yes, this place ages people.”

  “Is this the end?”

  I went to the window. A Toyota pick up bounced down the street. The back was piled with men holding Kalashnikovs, AKs and ARs. They stopped in front of the bodega where I bought my afternoon tamale and cerveza. One of the men climbed from the bed of the pick-up, threw something. He jumped back into the truck which sped away. A few moments later
the bodega exploded. There was no need for that. Luis, the owner, and his wife, Pilar, and their three children left last week with the Marines.

  “Is this the end?” she repeated.

  “Yes, this is the end. Get dressed. We’re going.”

  Cocktail Accompaniment for Love on the Rocks — The Sidecar

  Love on the Rocks is primarily set on Hilton Head Island where my family spends a week every summer. I wrote it in the depths of winter, drinking the warming, brandy-based cocktail The Sidecar while yearning for a Carolina summer ocean breeze.

  Here’s how to make your Sidecar.

  First, fill your glass with ice to chill it. Next, put a small amount of sugar on a plate. Set both of these aside.

  Fill your Boston shaker halfway with ice, put in 1 ½ ounces of a decent, nice brandy. I don’t see a need for the good stuff in this. Top the brandy with 1 ounce of triple sec. Triple sec is an orange liqueur. You can get it pretty cheap or splurge for some Cointreau or even Grand Marnier. The recipe here is for the stuff that goes by the motto ‘the brand bartenders trust.’ If you go with the fancy French stuff, your budget is bigger than mine.

  Squeeze ½ ounce of lemon juice into the shaker. If you pour your lemon juice from some sort of bottle you bought and don’t fresh squeeze it, I hope you spend a little time in hell for that sacrilege.

  Now put your shaker down.

  Toss the ice out of your glass, run a bit of orange juice on the rim, invert the glass and dip it into the sugar. Let it dry a bit.

  Now pick up your shaker. Give it a shake. Now shake it some more.

  Pour the concoction out of your shaker through a strainer into your well-chilled, sugar rimmed glass.

  Find a seat, take a sip, and read Love on the Rocks.

  – Howard McEwen

  Love on the Rocks

  It’s one in the a.m., I’m tired and completely sober. I have little idea where I’m at. I’m bumping along some back road in South Carolina with an almost complete stranger in his large pick ‘em up truck, and he’s getting all weepy. He’s got a daughter he loves, see, and she’s supposed to marry her childhood sweetheart on Saturday, but it’s all gone to hell. She’s called it off and somehow it’s become my problem.

  But at least it’s warm.

  This all started about seven hours ago. I was back in Cincinnati, quick-stepping it down Twelfth Street leaning into an Arctic blast. My goal was Molly, who stands behind the bar at Japp’s. Tonight was to be a celebration of sorts. A reward for myself. Why? I’ve grown pudgy.

  Except for one interesting night when we dealt with that business of the spoon, my time at ‘The Offices of Prescott Carmichael' have been exceedingly dull. However, Mr. Carmichael’s compensation—three times what I had made in any year before!—drove me to not give a whip what my bar tab rang up to. By insouciantly downing Molly’s cocktails, I’d added way too much to my waistline. The three suits I’d bought when I started with Mr. Carmichael were now supporting a too-large gut built on ethyl alcohol. So I decided to impose some discipline on myself and avoid Molly and her fabulous cocktails for a short while.

  That was two weeks ago and now my belt buckle wasn’t groaning so much. I decided it was time I got reacquainted with the cool, smooth feel of a cocktail glass.

  I jumped a frozen puddle as I crossed Jackson. I thought a Manhattan might be just the thing for a night like this. Rye, sweet vermouth and three dashes of Angostura. Served up, I thought. Who needs ice tonight?

  But by the time I trudged over a snow pile on Walnut, I thought that a Sidecar would better fit the bill. I was almost as cold as that long-ago, sidecar-riding Army officer it was first made for. And I loved how Molly sugared the rim of the glass on those.

  Then I crossed Clay and could see the crowd through Japp’s window. I could almost feel the warmth from the light splashing onto the sidewalk, changed my mind to a Blood and Sand. Equal parts Scotch, Italian vermouth, OJ and Cheery Heering. That was it. I’m not ashamed to say I was a bit aroused.

  Then my phone gave a round of rings. I’d normally have let it go right to voicemail, but it was Mr. Carmichael. I’ve worked for Prescott Carmichael for six months and it was only the second time after four in the p.m. that he’d rung, so I didn’t mind, but I knew this would be a case of cocktailius interuptus. My arousal retracted.

  "I apologize for calling you after hours," he told me, "but we have a client service issue."

  Mr. Carmichael is the principle of an investment advisory firm and I’m the only associate. He tells me that our business is all about trust. He tells me that we build trust by handling his client’s ‘service issues’ no matter how far off the beaten path they might be for investment advisors.

  "Anything you need," I said.

  "I need you to pack a bag and board a plane for Hilton Head Island. You’ll be gone up to a week. The Fink and Nottle wedding has been called off. Messrs. Fink and Nottle both called me and requested our help. Mrs. Johnson has your tickets. She’s at the office waiting for you now. The next flight leaves in three hours.

  This wedding has been in the works for a year," Mr. Carmichael went on. "Their parents have invested a lot into it. Not only the wedding itself but in the succession plans for the business… and emotionally."

  I could see the folks in Japp’s warming themselves over their drinks. I spotted Molly lifting a shaker above her head ready to give it a good what-for, then laugh at something a customer said. I turned around in the cold and headed back to the office, keeping the phone to my ear.

  "So what are we going to do down there?"

  "We’re going to try to figure out if this break is serious or not, and if not, get them back together in time for the wedding."

  I hiked it over to the office on Seventh Street.

  "Here is your ticket," said Mrs. Johnson. "You’ve got just a short time to pack and get to the airport."

  We call Mrs. Johnson our receptionist, but every day I’m learning she’s more than that. She’s five-eleven in her stocking feet and normally wears very sensible shoes in the office, but tonight Mr. Carmichael must have interrupted an evening out on the town. She’s got twenty years on me but still grabs my eye. Tonight she is wearing a dress that was cut by a designer who loves to show off real women. It zoomed tightly around each of her curves. Her heels pushed her well past the six foot mark, and her great mass of auburn hair piled high on her head added another inch or two. A large diamond hung from a thin chain and came to a rest at the peak of her cleavage. She was a structure Louis Sullivan could appreciate.

  "First class," I said looking at the tickets. "Very nice." Mrs. Johnson flashed me a look of amused tolerance. "Will Mr. Carmichael be meeting me here or at the airport?"

  "Mr. Carmichael doesn’t fly."

  "He doesn’t fly?"

  "He doesn’t fly."

  "So I’m going it alone?"

  "No, he is at home packing and will follow in a car."

  "Okay," I said with some doubt. I didn’t want to be flying solo on a mission where I was so far out of my element. I’m all about P/E ratios, yield curves and analyst reports. The love affairs of others? Not my game. Plus, the Finks and the Nottles had a larger-than-average chunk of change with Mr. Carmichael. The fees they paid were sizable. I didn’t want to be the guy closing the valve on that revenue stream.

  "You have any idea what’s going on?"

  "All we know is that three days ago, Daisey Nottle came back from a dinner with her fiancé Gus Fink and announced to her parents the wedding was off. They thought it was cold feet, but her feet are firmly dug in. No wedding. No one knows why. Maybe Gus Fink knows, but he’s not telling his parents. The wedding is supposed to be this coming Saturday.

  I’d met Mr. Walter Fink and Mr. Jack Nottle once during a client meeting. They were best friends since fifth grade who went into business together. They had a large tool-rental company spread out across the Midwest. You want a chainsaw for two hours? You go see them. Backhoe for a month? Scissor
lift? Twenty-foot ladder? They've got you covered. Their children, I was told, were sweet on one another since boys and girls get sweet on one another. They’d dated through high school and college and were now set to be married, or at least they were until Daisey Nottle called it quits.

  And Daisey Nottle calling it quits is what caused me to be bumping along this dark South Carolina road at one in the a.m. on a Saturday—strike that—Sunday morning.

  Walter Nottle was waiting for me at the airport. I’d have been more than happy to nab a rental, but there he was, just past the gate with a hand drawn sign reading ‘Jacob Gibb.’ I caught his eye. We shook each other’s hands and asked our how-do-you-dos and we walked to his pick ‘em up truck, where I tossed my hastily stuffed bag into the bed. He was an egg-shaped man about five foot nine inches tall and four foot three across. He let me know I’d be staying at his house.

  While I didn’t like riding in trucks at one in the a.m. or sleeping in a house with strangers, I wasn’t too busted up over getting away from the Cincinnati chill and sampling some warm climate inspired cocktails—a Dark & Stormy maybe, or a Planter’s Punch, perhaps. But by this time, I just wanted a stiff belt of any brown liquor. I’d gotten to the Cincinnati airport late and didn’t have time for my customary pre-flight drinks. Then the airline, in some horrible post-9/11 edict, didn’t serve the least bit of booze. I guess we let the terrorists win that one. I’d have loved to grab a post-flight drink at the Hilton Head airport, but by the time I landed, everything was closed, and Mr. Nottle was standing there holding that sign moistening about the eyes.

  Oh, well, as Scarlett bleated, tomorrow is another day.

  "This has really upset all of us," said Mr. Nottle. "None of us have any idea what is going on. Neither of the kids is saying a word. We tried and nothing. That’s when we turned to Mr. Carmichael. He’s always been a godsend to us."