The Barkeep

by William Lashner

  Justin slipped a sliced orange over the glass, popped in a straw, and slid it in front of Cody. “How’d you discover all this?”

  “In these matters,” said Cody, lifting his drink and eyeing it appraisingly, “it helps to develop a source. And I found myself quite the interesting source at the Parker.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “Four hours so far.” He took a long draw of his drink through the straw. “That’s nice.”

  “Four hours?”

  “Well, three and a half.”

  “That means two.”

  “And a half.”

  “Fine. Want it now?”

  “I can front you for it. I seemed to have stumbled onto an interesting opportunity.”

  “Another piece of bogus information?”

  “Something surer. Give me a few days and I’ll get my life and finances back to square.”

  “That would be novel,” said Justin, grabbing his rag and wiping the bar to appear busy as Marson stared at him. “Now as much as I savor your company, I think it’s time for you to find a less classy joint to drink in.”

  “I’m going to need hazard pay.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just don’t, under any circumstances, insult the bartender. She’s great-looking, but she’ll squeeze your head like a lemon if you give her any sass.”

  “I might like that.”

  Justin looked up, saw a gang of lawyers in suits making their way through the door. One of them waved, and Justin gave a brief nod as he kept wiping. “Befriend the old guy,” said Justin out of the corner of his mouth. “Buy him some drinks, see what he has to say about himself, listen to his stories. He’s full of stories.”

  “How’s his breath?”

  “Not good.”

  “Definitely hazard pay.”

  “Find out where he’s been and where he’s going.” Justin took a wad of tips from his shirt pocket and peeled off a few layers. Just as he laid the bills on the bar, he eyed two men coming through the door behind the lawyers.

  “What’s that for?” said Cody.

  “The drinks you’re going to end up buying him. Now get on out of here, and you better be running when you do it.”

  “What’s the rush?” said Cody as he pocketed the money.

  “Those two guys that were looking for you?” said Justin. “They just walked in.”

  27.

  BLOODY MESS

  Cody didn’t turn around and gawk. He didn’t try to jump over the bar. Instead he stayed stock-still on his stool as his expression twisted from fear to terror before leaping the great void into sweet acceptance, as if he were relieved, finally, that the running and hiding was over. He lifted his drink with a shaking hand and took a long gulp as the two beefeaters—one tall and muscled with a golden tooth, the other short and wide—took spots at the bar on either side of him.

  “Solly’s been looking for you,” said the tall one.

  “And here I am,” said Cody, waving his glass in the air.

  “What can I get you gentlemen?” said Justin.

  “What’s he drinking?” said short-and-wide in a thick, nasally voice, a longshoreman in dry dock.

  “A Hurricane.”

  “Looks tasty. I don’t like tasty. Give me a rye. Neat.”

  As Justin poured out a shot of rye, he said to the tall one, “And you?”

  “A Bloody Mess.”

  “I don’t know that cocktail,” said Justin.

  “Well, this is what you do,” said short-and-wide. “Lose a thousand dollars, go double or nothing on the Lakers giving twelve, lose that too, and then disappear. That’s how you end up with a Bloody Mess.”

  “And I’ll have one more of these,” said Cody.

  Short-and-wide slugged down his rye, slammed the glass into the bar with a belch, and said, “No time for that. Give me another quick bolt, and then we’re taking a ride.”

  “No, thank you,” said Cody.

  “Oh, we’re going, Cody boy,” said the tall one. “Easy or hard is your only choice.”

  “Unless he wants to stay,” said Justin.

  “Shut up and pour,” said short-and-wide.

  “That is normally my motto,” said Justin, reaching down and pulling up not the bottle of rye but a baseball bat, which he slapped on the mahogany with a home-run crack that shocked the bar quiet. “But not tonight.”

  “Who the hell are you,” said the tall one, “Chase fucking Utley?”

  “I’m the barkeep,” said Justin, “and you’re both outta here.”

  “It’s all right,” said Cody, “I’ll just—”

  “You two have till three to get your asses out of my bar,” said Justin.

  “You don’t know who you’re messing with,” said the tall one.

  “Three,” said Justin as he lifted the bat off the—

  And at that very moment, as if it were a magic trick, short-and-wide was jerked away from the bar and began to rise like a helium balloon into the air, his shot glass falling to the floor with a shatter. The pack of suits parted as short-and-wide floated toward the entrance. It took a moment to realize that someone big and burly and as tattooed as a sailor was hoisting him, seemingly without effort, out of the place.

  Larry.

  The tall goon started reaching for something in his pocket, but his arm was grabbed and he was spun around until he was face-to-face with Marson.

  “The bartender said you’re flagged,” said Marson, his jaw jutting like a fist. “Take it like a man.”

  “You’re making a mistake, pally,” said the tall one. “We work for Solly Heanus. He ain’t going to like this.”

  “Yeah, well, Solly and I are old golfing buddies. Go back and tell your boss the next time he sends his boys into my bar I’m going to make him putt out every damn hole until he grips the club so tight he’ll be bleeding from his ears. Now get the hell out of here.”

  Larry was coming back into the bar, still dusting the remnants of short-and-wide from his hands, as he passed the tall thug on his way out. Larry growled at him like a junkyard dog and the tall thug backed away.

  As the atmosphere of Zenzibar slid back to its normal state of uproarious merriment, Marson looked at Justin, down at the bat, back at Justin. “Put that thing away,” he said.

  “Will do, boss,” said Justin with a smile.

  “And you,” said Marson to Cody. “I’m charging you for the two ryes and the broken glass.”

  “Of course.”

  “And you might want to leave out the back entrance.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Now, I mean.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Cody, snatching down the last of his drink before hopping off his stool and ducking beneath the wooden plank over the entrance to the bar. He patted Justin on his arm and gave a quick nod before he headed into the kitchen toward the back door that led up to the alley.

  “Did that son of a bitch leave without paying?” said Marson after he cleaned up the broken glass.

  “I’ll cover it,” said Justin.

  “You bet you will,” said Marson, heading back to his spot in the corner. “At customer rates.”

  Justin shook his head before he slid over to fill the lawyers’ orders. He stuck limes in a couple of bottles of Mexican beer, poured a Martini, spent a good minute and a half pulling a Guinness, which was about as quick as you could do it and still do it right. As he circled the pint glass under the tap, drawing a shamrock in the foam, he saw Lee slide in with that slinky way of hers and sit next to Larry.

  “Nice job there,” said Justin after he made his way over to Larry.

  “It appears I missed all the excitement,” said Lee.

  “Justin brandished a baseball bat,” said Larry. “It was hot.”

  “And Larry put the muscle on some muscle,” said Justin, “and did it so smoothly it was a work of art.”

  “I moonlight as a bouncer at Woody’s.”

  “That must be rough,” said Lee.

  “Toug
her than you would think, dearie. Everyone is in great shape and they like it rough.”

  “Just like Justin,” said Lee.

  “Oooh,” said Larry. “So what were you and Cody hatching before the trouble started? It looked like you were whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ears.”

  “I have a thing for failed gamblers,” said Justin, looking all the while at Lee. She was perched high on her stool and leaning over the bar in one of her skimpier shirts, so that her breasts looked to be on the verge of spilling out. Eyeing her breasts was like waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square. The sense of anticipation was all.

  “You know,” said Larry, staring now at Justin, “I’m a pretty hard-core gambler.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m just saying, if that’s your thing.”

  “I don’t know if mah-jongg counts,” said Lee.

  “Want another on the house?” said Justin. “For bravery.”

  “Yes,” said Larry as he checked his watch. “But I can’t. I have a date.”

  “Is Quentin back?” said Lee.

  “Who?”

  “Good for you,” said Lee. “You have to drop the ones that are bad for your soul.”

  “Preach it, sister,” said Larry before hopping off the stool and hitching up his pants. “Just as long as you don’t have to live it.”

  Lee watched him leave and then turned her attention back to Justin. “What happened to your cheek?”

  “I fell while running.”

  “Sweetie.” She reached and gently placed the back of her hand on the bruise. “You need to be more careful.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Justin. “Will you be having your usual?”

  “I usually do.”

  As Justin prepared the Martini glass, filling it with ice and a few splashes of water, chilling it in anticipation of the Cosmo, Lee said, “Sorry about the way our last night ended.”

  “Don’t be.” Justin reamed two lime halves into his shaker. “I’ve forgotten it already.”

  “Not all of it, I hope.”

  “No, not all of it.”

  “I wore the shoes.”

  She swiveled on her stool to show off her legs, flexing her ankles. Justin leaned over the bar and got a look. The lines of her legs, the bite of her calves, the sharp edges of her shoes, the flash of red from her soles, all of it caught him like a punch in the stomach. The attraction was so strong it could only be genetic. Justin figured that somewhere, billions of years ago, one of his male ancestors, crawling on finlike limbs along the ground of a tropical rain forest, had stumbled upon an alluring plant with a long slender trunk and spiky black-and-red roots. The creature took a taste and found a great source of nourishment, allowing it to survive a devastating drought. And ever since then, the men of his family—

  “What about tonight?” she said.

  “Tonight?” said Justin.

  “Yes. And I promise no scenes.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  And he was, thinking about it, as he turned around and reached for the Cointreau. The excitement of the night had already raised the temperature of his blood, and thinking about the shoes, and the sex, and the smell of her, and the way her breasts were about to spill from her shirt as she leaned over the bar, he had pretty much decided yes, when he turned around again and saw, walking in the door, Annie Overmeyer, clutching a clutch and dressed to kill.

  28.

  ABSOLUT STRESS

  Annie Overmeyer recognized the terrain. She had never been in Zenzibar before, actually. It was not her usual type of joint—it wasn’t a hotel lounge replete with out-of-towners looking to buy you a Scotch, or one of the restaurant bars where ambitious bankers liked to shower you in Champagne Cocktails and clue you in on their upcoming top-secret deals as they slipped their soft, manicured hands up your skirt—but the landscape was familiar enough. She had wanted to become intimate with the geography of love, or the geography of success, or even the geography of marriage, however sticky and unfulfilling that might be, but all she had ended up mastering was the geography of saloons.

  A pack of young suits stood at one end of the bar with hangdog leers and insouciantly loosened ties. Two craned their necks and gawked when she stepped inside. They’d be good for an hour or so of free drinks and pallid entertainment, for sure, but then she’d have to listen to stories about their legal cases or their golf games, and her lips would end up hurting from all the fake smiling.

  And there were some bejeaned college kids in T-shirts and caps at one of the tables. They’d be all sputtery and beery and good rowdy fun, but the girls at the table would sullenly stare out at her like she was from a different planet and they’d all make her feel old.

  A small group of women about her age, dressed in shiny halters and tight pants, or blousy shirts and sensible shoes, were together at the far end of the bar. Girls’ night out. The fat one and the pretty one, the earnest one and the slutty one, all trying to look like on a girls’ night out was exactly where they wanted to be. It’s so nice to get together like this, just us. We should do this more often. It had never worked for Annie, the whole Sex and the City out-with-the-girls thing. It usually started with high expectations, but there was always a moment when she found herself huddled in the corner with a man while the girls looked on, lips pursed. And she knew what those looks meant. Can’t you spend one night without flirting shamelessly with some piece of beef? Aren’t we worth a night with just us? And the answer was always obvious, wasn’t it? Because there she would be, in the corner of a booth, letting some random guy lick the wax from her ear. But that was the way it was when you were the slutty one.

  A mature man eyed her from the corner. He had gray in his hair, his suit had the right heft, and there was a bright-white collar on his striped shirt, which always seemed to indicate enough self-regard to never wonder why a woman like her would be interested in a man like him. But there was something piggish in his eyes. He’d balk if a deal wasn’t sealed by the third Mai Tai, and with his face it would take more than three Mai Tais to seal that deal.

  Ah, the romance of the bar.

  She read the map quick as a blink, weighed the opportunities, and dismissed them all just as a matter of sport. She wasn’t here to throw another evening down the garbage disposal of her life. There was something very definite she wanted out of this night.

  Swiveling on a stool at the bar was a tall brunette in shiny black fuck-me heels with red soles. Her long legs were crossed and she was leaning forward, on her elbows, shamelessly flirting with the barman. And then she spied the barman, Chase Junior himself, staring at Annie with that cold blank look of his. She smiled, warmly, as if surprised to see an old, old friend, and headed to an open stool next to the girl with the shoes.

  “Hello, Junior,” she said as she hopped onto the seat. “It wasn’t easy finding you.”

  “I didn’t know you were looking.”

  “I’m always looking.” She turned to the woman next to her and was startled at how beautiful she was: a model’s cheekbones, lovely lips, breasts a cough away from spilling out of her top and onto the bar. “Hi, I’m Annie.”

  “Lee,” said the woman, languidly offering her hand. This Lee glanced up at Chase and then back at Annie with a curiosity now wrinkling her features. “Are you a friend of Justin’s?”

  “More like a friend of the family,” said Annie, giving him a quick wink. “But we’re old acquaintances. I met him when he was burning up that law school of his. And now look at him. We’re all so proud.”

  “What will you have?” said Junior, his voice as flat as his stare.

  “How about that donkey thing you made for me at my apartment the other night.” She caught Lee turning her head toward Chase. “What was it called?”

  “A Strawberry Mule.”

  “That’s the ticket.”

  “Pick something else. We’re out of ginger beer tonight.”

  “Too bad, I love
ginger beer, whatever that is. Well, just give me something with vodka. Anything, it doesn’t matter so long as it bites as it goes down.” Annie leaned forward, nodding at the old guy with the white collar, who smiled back. “And bill it to him.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No, but he’ll be picking up my tab by the end of the night, even if he doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Why don’t I just buy the thing for you myself, for old time’s sake,” said Chase as he started building the drink.

  “Oh, Junior, that is so generous of you.” She turned to Lee. “I just bet he buys you drinks all the time.”

  “No, actually,” said Lee, her head tilted in puzzlement as she tried to figure out who the hell Annie was. “I always buy my own.”

  “In those shoes?” said Annie.

  Lee smiled slowly but seemed genuinely pleased that Annie had noticed. “You like them?”

  “Like them? I’m straight as a peacock in a pea patch, but even I want to lick them off your feet.”

  Lee laughed, and Annie caught Chase staring at Lee as she laughed.

  “And it’s not just me,” said Annie. “Junior, given half a chance, you’d lick Lee’s shoes right off her feet, wouldn’t you?” She caught something just then in the look that passed between Lee and the Chase kid and said, “Or maybe you already have.”

  “What do you want, Annie?” said Junior.

  “My drink. Desperately.”

  “Coming right up,” said Chase, as he shook his shaker and then drained a light reddish fluid into a tall glass with ice. He put a slice of orange on the rim, dropped in three cherries speared on a toothpick, gave it all a stir with a straw, and slid it in front of Annie.

  “What?” she said. “No umbrella?”

  “It’s not an umbrella drink. It’s called an Absolut Stress.”

  “Feeling tense, are we?” she said just before she took a sip. It was way peachy, with brightness and just the bite she was looking for. “Nice,” she said. “But it almost tastes like you’re not drinking anything, which sort of misses the point, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Junior before heading off to serve other customers.

  Annie looked at Lee, who was trying for a moment to ignore her. “You come here often?” said Annie.