by John Rector
“Thank you.”
Colletto ignored me and pointed at the paper. “That’s the address for a girly bar called the ‘Body Shop’.” He shook his head and smiled. “Classless name, but typical.”
“I’ll stop by and talk to him.”
“He works nights. I’ll let him know to expect you.”
I almost told him not to bother, but stopped myself at the last minute. That would raise suspicion. Instead I stood and said, “Is he a bouncer?”
Colletto did a so-so move with his head. “He doesn’t work the door, but he’s there to make sure nothing gets out of hand.”
I held up the paper. “I appreciate this.”
He nodded and re-lit his pipe. “I hope everything works out for your friend.”
“It will,” I said. “One way or another.”
I turned to go, and he stopped me. “By the way, good luck with your job interview.”
~
The kitchen manager set my resume on the bar and leaned over it with his hands on either side of the thin beige paper. “You’ve been working at this Diner for the past several years.”
“That’s correct.”
He looked up at me. “And you’re a graduate of the Culinary Institute?”
I nodded.
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said, pushing my resume away. “Institute graduates don’t work in roadside diners.”
“That’s obviously not true.” I pointed to my resume and said, “If you look under my job history—”
The manager made a dismissive sound then turned and disappeared back into the kitchen before I could finish.
At least I couldn’t say I didn’t try.
~
I went home and changed into some comfortable clothes. Ava wasn’t there, and I remembered she was spending the afternoon at her mother’s house. That was good. I wasn’t ready to tell her about the interview.
The address Colletto gave me was in the warehouse district. I’d seen the place, but I’d never been inside. I’m not a strip club guy, especially not strip clubs that look like gas stations.
On my way out, I wrote Ava a note. I didn’t tell her anything other than I’d be back late. I wouldn’t know where to start with anything else.
~
The air in the Body Shop had a thick, sour smell that only comes to a place after years without sunlight. I stood inside the door, waiting for the bouncer to finish his conversation with the man in front of me. When he did, he looked me over and reached for his hand stamp on the table by his stool. “Six bucks.”
I took out my wallet and handed him a ten. “I’m looking for someone who works here. A guy named Max. You know if he’s here tonight?”
The bouncer looked up, and all at once I got the feeling I’d said something wrong.
I waited.
The bouncer handed me my change and said, “He’s inside.”
I went in.
The main room was big and scattered with tables. In between the tables were two single girl platforms. Along the far wall, a line of booths stood open to the room, each one facing the main stage. The music was loud and the dancers swayed in the swell of smoke like naked corpses hanging from the rafters.
None of these girls looked younger than thirty, not even close. This was a parade of caesarian scars and stretch marks, bruises so deep even the red and purple stage lights couldn’t hide them. I watched for a while, more out of a morbid curiosity than anything, then went to the bar and ordered a beer.
The bartender was blonde, younger than most of the dancers, but still long past getting carded for cigarettes. She took a glass from the back shelf, and I stopped her.
“In a bottle.”
“Our glasses are clean.”
“I don’t think I’ll take the chance.”
If she was offended, it didn’t show. She took a bottle from the cooler, opened it, and set it on the bar in front of me. “Four-fifty.”
I paid her. “Have you seen Max tonight?”
She pointed over my shoulder. I turned and saw a guy sitting alone in a booth in the corner with his back to the wall. I took a drink and headed over.
When I got close he looked up and squinted. “I know you?”
“No,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you. Got a minute?”
He nodded.
I sat down across from him. “Colletto said you might be interested in earning some extra cash. Was he right?”
“Depends on the job.”
“Protection. I need someone to watch over a friend. She’s going through a divorce, and the husband isn’t taking it too good. I need you to convince him to behave himself.”
“Who’s the woman?”
“I was hoping you could meet her. Tomorrow night?”
He laughed. “I need to know more about what I’ll be asked to do.”
“Why does that matter?”
Max leaned across the table resting his elbows on the tabletop. “Because if you want me to break his arm, that’s gonna cost you less than if you want something more serious.”
I sat back and took a cigarette from my jacket. I offered him one and he took it. “I don’t want you to do anything but make sure nothing happens to her.”
He reached for a pack of matches on the table, lit one and held to the end of the cigarette. “Tomorrow night?”
I wrote an address on a napkin and handed it to him. “Nine o’clock if you’re interested.”
He took the napkin. “I’ll decide tomorrow.”
~
When I got home Ava opened the door and ran outside. I got out of the car and she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me, pushing me back.
When she let me go I asked, “What’s that for?”
“You got it,” she said, then kissed me again.
There was a mistake, I was sure of it. I shook my head. “The Settler’s job? No, I didn’t.”
She smiled. “There’s a message on the machine. They want you to start Monday. They even gave you the dinner shift.”
Ava was moving up and down on her toes. I tried to get my head around what she was telling me. When I went inside I hit the play button on the machine and listened for myself.
“’Hello, Mr. Davies,’” the voice said. “’This is Walter Holland at the Settler’s club. I wanted to call and inform you that we would like to hire you as evening sous chef. Can you be here Monday afternoon, say, three o’clock? Please call me if this doesn’t work.’”
He’d left his phone number, and after I’d listened to the message three times, I picked up the phone and called him. I looked at my watch. It was late, but I took a chance he’d still be there.
I was right.
“It turns out we have a sudden vacancy in our kitchen,” he said. “So we would like you to step in. You do feel confident with the position of sous chef, don’t you Mr. Davies?”
I told him I did. Of course I did.
“Any man who went to the Institute would, I assume.” The tone in his voice hadn’t changed since the interview.
“You don’t believe me about my history?”
“Time will tell.”
“That seems like a big risk to take. You don’t seem like the type of man who would hire someone off the street just because they claim to be a graduate of the Culinary Institute.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I’m not. Fortunately for you, one of our more regular clients at the Club put in a good word for you and suggested we hire you.”
I closed my eyes.
“We respect the opinions of our members here, Mr. Davies. Therefore, you have a job.”
I couldn’t speak.
After a moment of silence, Walter said, “Monday does work for you, correct?”
I found my voice. “Colletto?”
“He’s been a member longer than I’ve been employed here, and I’ve been through three presidents. You’re obviously on his good side, and that’s good enough for me.”
Good side?
&n
bsp; “We’ll see you Monday?”
“Sure,” I said. “Monday.”
Walter hung up. I kept the phone to my ear and thought about Colletto. Maybe he did it because of my father. Maybe I made a good impression. Maybe he just liked to throw his power around and thought I was a good charity case. Whatever the reason, I was happy for it, but at the same time I couldn’t see straight. He might be my friend now, but chances are he wouldn’t be by this time tomorrow night.
The phone switched to a dial tone, and I hung it back in the cradle. I turned around and saw Ava. She stood in the doorway to the kitchen. She was smiling. It was the first time I’d seen her smile like that in almost three years.
It broke my heart to have to tell her.
~
“You’re going to forget about it, and you’re going to take this job.”
“I can’t do that. Marcus needs me to—”
“Don’t start with what Marcus needs, Jack. Fuck him. I need you to do this. Your son needs you to do this. Marcus doesn’t need you to do anything. He has his own son. Let him take care of Marcus.”
“His son is a degenerate who doesn’t care if he lives or dies.”
“So it’s your responsibility?” There were tears in her eyes waiting to fall. “You’re putting him ahead of your own family.”
“He’s family, too.”
She laughed. “That old man is not family.”
“He is to me.”
Ava stared at me for a moment, then shook her head and said, “How’d you get so fucked up?”
I didn’t answer, and she turned and walked out to the living room. I stayed in the kitchen and listened to her cry.
The back door of our apartment opens onto a fire escape overlooking the alley. I took a beer from the refrigerator and climbed out and sat on the cold metal stairs. The air outside was cold and it felt good against my skin. Down below I heard the homeless shuffling between the dumpsters. I thought about the distance between them and me, and as far as I could tell, there wasn’t much of one.
The way I saw it, I had two choices. Take this job and let Marcus go or help Marcus and lose the job. If I took the job it would move my family out of this shit-hole apartment and get us on our way. It was what Ava wanted, and it would be best for Jacob.
Then there was Marcus.
Why did I feel such a loyalty to him? Was it because he was there when I needed a friend? Did I feel some twisted father-son bond with him that kept me from thinking straight? Whatever it was, it was making it hard to do the smart thing, and I knew it.
I was still thinking about Marcus when the back door opened and Ava came out onto the fire escape.
“Jacob is asleep,” she said. “He’s growing so fast.”
I agreed.
“We need to start thinking about his future, and sometimes I don’t think you do.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“I think it’s more than fair. What’s not fair is you putting Marcus and that diner before your son.”
I’d heard all this before, but when I went to speak she held up a hand, stopping me.
“Jack, we need this job.” Her voice was cold. “I don’t care how you got it, but it’s a blessing and we need it.”
“I know, but I can’t abandon Marcus.”
Ava looked down at her hands, and shook her head. “If you don’t take this job, I’m leaving, and I’m taking Jacob with me.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a choice. If you put Marcus ahead of your family, then there is no point in staying with you because you aren’t the man I want raising my son.”
“Jacob is my son, too.”
Ava nodded. “If you really understand what that means then there’s no problem.”
~
I’d known Sergeant Greg Nash since I was a kid. When I was six he arrested my father for breaking my mother’s jaw. When I was twelve, he arrested him again for throwing her through a sliding glass door. She wound up needing forty-seven stitches that night to close a gash in her leg, and the next day I was taken from the house and put into foster care. I stayed there until I was thirteen and stole a car. After that my foster parents didn’t want me, and I was put in a juvenile home.
Sergeant Nash came by every couple weeks to see how I was doing. Eventually I didn’t mind. He was a friend.
When I got out, all I wanted to do was cook. I’d spent most of my time in the home working in the kitchen, and there was something I loved about the organization and the creation and the pace of it.
For the first time, I knew what I wanted to out of my life.
By the time I got out and was on my own, my mother was in the ground and my father was in jail for putting her there. It wasn’t hard to see it coming, but apparently no one did but me.
There’d been an insurance policy, nothing big, and I decided to put it toward school. I applied to the Culinary Institute, and I was accepted. Apparently they reserve a couple spaces each year for people with unusual backgrounds, and I fit right in.
After graduation, I kept in touch with Sergeant Nash. I still considered him a friend, and now, as I walked up the steps to his office, I hoped he felt the same. As it turned out, I didn’t have anything to worry about.
“It’s damn nice to see you, Jack,” he said. “When I heard about your father, I wondered how you were taking it.”
“I’m not taking it anyway, I guess.”
He nodded as if I’d actually made sense. “Well, I know he never made things easy on you.”
“You move on,” I said. “Truth is, I don’t think about any of that stuff anymore.”
“That’s good. That’s good.”
Eventually we got around to the diner and the fire. He’d heard about the case, but it wasn’t his.
“Does that mean you can’t work it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I might have an idea who set the fire.”
“Who?”
“A guy named Max Stover. He works at a strip club called the Body Shop.”
Nash leaned back in his chair. “I know Stover,” he said. “What makes you think he’s responsible?”
“All roads point to him. I was going to try and get something out of him tonight to where I can be sure, but things have changed.”
“Damn good thing, too,” Nash said. “The last person you need to fool with is Stover. That guy would tear you up, Jack. What the hell are you thinking?”
Right then, I felt like I was fifteen again. It wasn’t a terrible feeling, but it wasn’t something I wanted to get used to, either. “I’m thinking about helping my friend who owned the place, that’s all.”
“You won’t help him much by playing games with Stover.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I have to let it drop. Ava found out and she’s not happy. Besides, I landed a job cooking at the Settler’s Club.”
“That’s great.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute, then I said, “I came here to see if you could pick up the case.”
He shook his head. “Afraid not. I can keep an eye on it, and I’ll pass along what you told me to the detective assigned, but I can tell you not much will get done on it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not a priority case. That’s just the way it works.”
“Not a priority?” I didn’t know what to say. “I’m giving you a name. All you have to do is follow up.”
“And I’ll pass it on, but all we had was a case of vandalism and arson.”
“There was a bomb.” My voice was loud, and Nash leaned forward.
“I know you’re mad, Jack, but you can’t come in here and yell. Do you understand?”
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “How am I supposed to react? You tell me there’s nothing you can do about this, and it’s not a high priority and my friend lost everything.”
I got up and walked out of his office. Nash said something as I was leaving but I didn’t hear him. I didn’t care, and I didn�
�t stop walking until I was home.
~
Jacob sat on a blanket in the middle of the living room beating a stuffed rabbit up and down on the floor. I watched him from the couch. I’d planned on taking a short nap, but all I could think about was Marcus. I hadn’t spoken to him since the day after the fire. I still had his car, and I told Ava I was bringing it back to him tonight.
She’d asked about my talk with Sergeant Nash, and I told her it went fine. I’d be starting my new job on Monday. When I finished speaking, she’d leaned in close to me and whispered, “Thank you.”
It was a sweet sound that I felt deep inside. I knew if things didn’t work out and I wound up losing her, that whisper would stay with me for the rest of my life.
Some things are like that, whether you want them to be or not.
~
The parking lot across from the Belmont Hotel sat in the shade of several willow trees. The streetlights shone through the trees, creating pools of light and dark.
I waited in the dark with Marcus’s .44.
When I gave Max Stover the address for the hotel, I told him to meet me in the lobby at eleven.
It was five till.
I started to worry. What if he’d parked somewhere else? What if he didn’t come alone. I knew a guy like Max Stover didn’t need a body guard, but it was something I hadn’t considered.
At exactly eleven o’clock, a gray Mercedes pulled into the parking lot and parked in the far corner. Max got out, alone. He looked smaller than when I saw him at the Body Shop. He’d been sitting down that time, but I’d still expected him to be bigger.
As he got closer to where I stood, I felt a rush of confidence. I waited until he walked past me toward the hotel’s backdoor, then I stepped out and pressed the gun into his back. “Don’t make any sudden—”
Max spun around –fast, grabbing my hand that held the gun. I felt his other hand press up under my chin and one leg come in behind both of mine and sweep them out from under me. There was a sick feeling of detachment as I fell backward, then my head struck the pavement and flowers bloomed electric behind my eyes.