The Barkeep

by William Lashner

  “You made that guy a drink.”

  “I said it’s closing time, I did,” announced Rosenberg, pushing away from the bar and heading over to Tom. “Snatch down what you’ve got and then be getting the hell out of here. I’m locking up.”

  “What about him?” said Tom, jerking his thumb at Justin.

  Rosenberg turned to glance back at Justin for a moment. “He’s a cousin, he is.”

  “From the old country?”

  “Sure,” said Rosenberg, “as long as by the old country you be meaning Philadelphia.”

  “Family?” said the gray guy next to Tom. “That’s almost sweet. I love my family, so long as they stay the hell away from me. Let’s have one last drink and celebrate all our families.”

  “Let’s not,” said Rosenberg. “Especially since you was tapped out an hour and a half ago, Johnny boy. Come on, lads, let’s be going on home now. I’m tired as a fifty-cent whore on payday, and me dogs are barking.”

  It took Rosenberg a while to clear the place out; it was like herding cats that were drunk and had to piss one last time. As Rosenberg worked, Justin took a rag from the bar and started wiping down the tables, one after the other, lifting the chairs and setting them upside down on each tabletop after it had been wiped. By the time the last dawdler was being pushed out, all the chairs and stools were up except for Justin’s. Rosenberg twisted the lock and stepped back behind the bar.

  “You need to sweep?” said Justin.

  “They got a woman who opens up in the morning to do that. I just need to get everything in order back here and set the alarm. Another, you say?”

  “Sure,” said Justin.

  Rosenberg filled up Justin’s glass with juice, and then filled up his shot glass with Justin’s tequila. He downed it with a wince. “If you’ll be taking my professional advice, you’d do better with something a bit smoother next time.”

  “What do you like?”

  He leaned forward. “Promise not to tell anyone, but when I first came to this country, I discovered bourbon. And that was it for me.”

  “Why don’t you make me a Bee Gee OJ, then,” said Justin.

  “What the hell’s that?”

  “Bourbon, orange juice, grenadine. But hold the grenadine and hold the bourbon.”

  “What kind of bourbon am I holding, if I may ask? House?”

  “Don’t insult me. I’m a man of fine and distinctive tastes.”

  “The best we’ve got is Booker’s.”

  “One twenty-eight?”

  “That’s the stuff.”

  “It’s a little stiff, isn’t it?”

  “You’re man enough for it, I can tell.”

  “Then let’s make it a double.”

  “I don’t know why, Justin,” said Rosenberg as he poured the juice into Justin’s glass and then filled his own from the narrow bottle he pulled off the top shelf behind him, “but I do indeed like drinking with you, even though I’m the only one doing the drinking.”

  “It’s because I’m the one doing the paying.”

  “Maybe so,” said Rosenberg, lifting up the shot glass and admiring the color of the light shining through. “Here’s to being single, drinking doubles, and seeing triple.” He winked at Justin before taking a sip. “Ahh, that’s mighty good, that is.”

  “Careful,” said Justin. “That’s strong as an ox.”

  “Don’t be worrying about me. An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold on to one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth. Okay, son, so what can I do for you, pour man to pour man?”

  “I’m interested in a guy.”

  “Funny now, you don’t seem the type.”

  “I want to know his story, and I think you just might have it. His name is Eddie Nicosia.”

  “Ah, the Snake. I should have known it was he you were after.”

  “Why’s he called the Snake?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Rosenberg. “Literally, I suppose. But for this, you’re going to need to order yourself another drink.”

  41.

  ANACONDA

  Justin knew he was courting mortal peril. And he wasn’t thinking about Eddie “The Snake” Nicosia, who surely wouldn’t take kindly to Justin’s snooping, or the strangely shaped thug who had slammed Justin’s face into his floor, or the DA, as obsessed with Justin as Ahab with his whale, or Birdie Grackle himself, who, if there was even a little truth to his story, could suddenly turn his talent for killing upon Justin if he discovered that Justin was jerking his chain about the money, which Justin most assuredly was. No, beyond all these physical threats was a bigger threat by far.

  Hope.

  His late night of drinking with Rosenberg had sowed his soul with all kinds of possibilities, and hope was the deadly snake slithering among the resulting stalks. For what was hope but a liar, preoccupied with the droughts of the past and the harvests of the future while it killed off the present with its bland blandishments? Justin should have been sitting on his tatami mats, seeking harmony and acceptance, looking to quiet his mind and lose himself in the riotous beauty of the now. That’s what he should have been doing, but instead he was flirting with hope as it climbed up his leg, wrapped itself around his chest, and hissed sweet nothings into his ear.

  Perhaps Birdie Grackle has been telling the truth all along, and it was he, not your father, who killed your mother. Perhaps he had been hired by Austin Moss’s vengeful wife and the sinister Eddie Nicosia. And perhaps you are not in any way to blame. And perhaps your father will be released from his Hades of jail and be the parent you always hoped he would be. He’ll toss the pigskin with you in the yard, and take you to ball games, and give you sage advice, and finally accept what you’ve become. Oh, how perfect the world would be if you actually found the truth, and the truth set your father free.

  This was now the sad state of his life. No matter how un-attached to the false illusions of the world he thought he had become, he was still a sucker for hope. It was like a leprosy of the soul, and all he could do was try to hide its corrosive effects on his emotions.

  “I didn’t think you’d be back,” said Justin’s father. They were again in the visiting room of the prison, sitting across from each other at a table, surrounded by other grim visitations and the shabby vending machines. And once again they had chosen to forgo the allowed embrace at the beginning of the session.

  “I’m surprised I’m here myself,” said Justin. “But I need to know something.”

  “You’re looking for some sort of definitive answer from me, yes? Your generation and its psychobabble about closure. I’ve always believed it’s better to close your mouth and just get on with it.”

  “Tell me about my mother. About your relationship with her.”

  “What is there to tell? I loved her.”

  “But not only her.”

  “I am not a narrow man.”

  “Did she know all along about the others?”

  “Do you want the truth or just some salve for your psychic wounds?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Of course not. You’re like everyone else in this soft, polluted world. You’d rather sit comfortably by the fire with your delusions than face the hard reality of things.”

  “Frank said there was an arrangement.”

  “Every marriage is an arrangement.”

  “Not every marriage is open.”

  “Let’s say ours was expanded.”

  “Which means that you cheated like a jackal and she let you. Is that the story?”

  “It’s amazing how children always think they understand the emotional lives of their parents, when there is little they understand less. The truth is, Justin, when it came to stepping outside the marriage, your mother stepped first.”

  “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “Doesn’t it ring true, though? Was she ever one to wilt into the background? She stepped out first, but I knew enough not to blame her. Something had changed in our relations
hip. It happened slowly and then all at once. You could blame time, blame me, I don’t care. But after a decade or two, we were simply going through the motions. Inertia keeps more marriages whole than love ever did. And it kept ours together, too. There were things I could have done, I suppose. Bring flowers, escape with her to Aruba, pretend to care more than I did. But I had pressures in the business, and there was a social calendar, and things just went on as they went on. And all along I thought she was content, even as I became more dissatisfied. And then I got a call from a woman. She wouldn’t identify herself, but she told me that my wife was sleeping with her husband and that I should put a stop to it or she would. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not—it seemed far-fetched—but I decided to ask your mother. Whatever she was, your mother wasn’t a liar. She told me she had been dissatisfied for a long time and that, yes, she had done something about it.”

  “With whom?”

  “That she wouldn’t say. Your mother always had more discretion than did I. And I reacted as you would expect, with anger and jealousy. And not just jealousy because she was screwing someone behind my back. Jealousy that she had someone else and I didn’t. I had always assumed if one of us was pirate enough to be cheating it would be me. To tell you the truth, I admired what she had done.”

  “So what did you do about it?”

  “I had an affair myself, something tawdry and harsh. I thought it would even things, but it didn’t. It actually made me feel worse. The next was not as tawdry. And slowly we settled into the new rhythm and our marriage, such as it had become, expanded. We wouldn’t share our experiences, but it was understood that if the opportunity arose, we were free to take advantage of it.”

  “That sounds skeevy enough to make me want to puke. Why didn’t you just split?”

  “We almost did. A number of times. But there were you and Frank. The money would have to be divided, with all the headaches. And we sort of liked it the way it was, the freedom and security all at once. Paradoxically, through all of it, I felt closer to your mother than I had in years.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe we suddenly saw the whole as more fragile. When we were together now, it was because we wanted to be together. And when we had sex now, it was—”

  “I get the picture.”

  “Do you?”

  “As much as I ever want to. Frank showed me the letters he found.”

  “Yes, he told me.”

  “Do you know who ‘A’ was?”

  “No. As I said, she didn’t give much information, your mother. But I could tell it was serious. I felt her pulling away. And by then I had found something a little more serious myself.”

  “Annie Overmeyer.”

  “Yes. Annie.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “She was intoxicating. Maybe it was her youth, maybe her midwestern matter-of-factness.”

  “Did you want to marry her?”

  “I thought about it.”

  “But if you were so happy with Mom then, why?”

  “Because I wasn’t happy with myself. What do men feel when they spy a woman that attracts them? Not just someone to screw, although yes, that of course. But also someone who offers a different kind of life. Bohemian maybe, or literary, or earnest and political, or sybaritic. You see her, maybe across the table, or the room, or the street, and you wonder. What would you be with her? How would she perfect you? And it is that, more than the swell of a young breast, that clenches the gut. I knew what I was with your mother, and I wasn’t sure I liked that person very much. Maybe I hoped I’d be someone different with Annie.”

  “What exactly did you want to become?”

  “Younger, optimistic, full of energy and plans. A man with a future. What I was before.”

  “So it was pure narcissism.”

  “I won’t deny it. Isn’t everything?”

  “Did you ever tell Mom about her?”

  “No. Not specifically. I didn’t know how to. When I introduced you to her, I thought you would tell her. But you never did.”

  “No.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt her. I thought she was the dutiful, pining wife and mother.”

  “Yes, well, self-deception is humanity’s most universal trait. I had just about resolved to tell your mother myself, not just about the affair but that it was getting more serious than I intended, when she was murdered.”

  “And you were conveniently free, without the headache of splitting the fortune and paying out alimony.”

  “Do you think I would kill your mother so as not to pay alimony?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. Why didn’t you tell any of this at the trial?”

  “It wouldn’t have helped. And I didn’t want to drag her reputation into the mire with mine.”

  “Noble.”

  “Is that why you came, to berate me more than you already did through your testimony at the trial and then by your absence? Consider me berated. Are we through?”

  “Austin Moss,” said Justin.

  His father stared at him and blinked.

  “He’s the A of the letters,” said Justin. “He was the one having an affair with Mom.”

  “Austin Moss? I know that name. Your mother was going out with him when I started dating her. Austin Moss? I never thought much of him, he seemed weak to me. Never a threat. I don’t think he could be it.”

  “I checked it out with his widow. I showed her the letters and she identified the handwriting. He’s A.”

  “You checked it out?”

  “She must have been the woman who called you.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing. Austin Moss.”

  “But there’s more.”

  “Justin, what have you been doing?”

  “On my last visit, you dared me to test my truths. So I did.”

  “You actually listened to something I said?”

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it? And this is what I found, Dad. This Mrs. Moss, the one who probably called you, is mixed up with some smarmy handyman named Eddie Nicosia, who has insinuated himself deep into her life. She pays him a monthly stipend that he cashes, along with her Social Security widow’s check, at a bar each month. In exchange he runs her errands, warns off anyone who is crowding her, fills her prescriptions and stashes the pills in his own little medicine cabinet, doling them bit by bit to keep her on his string. But the drugs aren’t his only mother’s little helper. His nickname is the Snake, which he gave to himself in honor of his favorite tool. And I have it on good authority that we’re not talking about a little garter snake here, more like an anaconda.”

  Justin’s father sat back and looked at Justin with a puzzlement creasing his features, like he was trying to stare down an optical illusion.

  “It’s time, Mac,” said one of the guards, who suddenly appeared over Mackenzie Chase’s shoulder.

  “Give me a minute, please,” said Justin’s father. “Just a minute more.”

  Justin waited until the guard nodded and backed away. Then he leaned forward and continued in a soft voice.

  “Mrs. Moss isn’t this Eddie Nicosia’s only meal ticket. He has a veritable stable. He uses his pet to insinuate himself with lonely women. They keep hiring him to take care of their houses. And to run their errands. And to make their lives a little less lonely, not to mention the sage financial advice he can give due to his years of experience in bankruptcy court. And after a long day of servicing his clients, he goes to a bar to blow off steam and brag about his conquests. Sometimes when he blows off steam, he does so by picking a fight with some hapless bystander. But this one time, when the hapless bystander turned out not to be so hapless and the thing got out of hand, our friend Eddie started with the threats. ‘Watch your step, punk. I could have you killed quick as a snap. I done it, too. More than once. You want to be next?’”

  Justin’s father listened to all this with rapt attention. Justin could see him work it out, the implic
ations. And suddenly he could see something else press itself onto the surface of his father’s hard face, something bright and painful all at once, like a snake within a field of desiccated stalks.

  “You said Mrs. Moss is a widow,” said Justin’s father. “How did this Austin die?”

  “He was run over by a car,” said Justin. “Or run down, one or the other.”

  “When?”

  “A couple years after Mom died.”

  “How long has this handyman been wrapping himself into this Mrs. Moss’s life? Was he there before your mother was killed?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “You don’t think…”

  “I don’t know what to think,” said Justin. “But she told me how she thought she had a chance to save her marriage after Mom died. I just thought this was something you should know.”

  “My God,” said Justin’s father. “It is what we’ve been looking for. It is better than Timmy. What to do about it, that is the question.”

  “Time, Mac,” said the guard by the door. “Your son has to go.”

  Justin’s father stood, and Justin stood with him. They stared at each for a moment, unsure of what to do with their arms, their hands.

  “I think I should tell the police,” said Justin finally.

  “The police? Don’t be a fool. They’ll just bury it.”

  “There’s a detective I’ve grown to trust a little bit. I’m going to tell him.”

  “And be done with it yourself.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, then. You deserve the peace. But to keep them honest, I’ll tell my lawyer too. If she has it, they’ll know they have to keep digging. Do you have anything concrete to give her? Evidence?”

  “Nothing, except for the letters.”

  “She already has those. Witnesses?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well then, we have no choice but to trust the police just a bit. My God, Justin. I would never have thought. You of all people. Never. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “Maybe that’s because you never thanked me for anything before in my life.”

  “I’m going to have to learn.”

  “It might not be anything,” said Justin. “It might be all wrong.”