by Thomas Scott
“I see,” Virgil said, even though he didn’t. “How much money was in the drawer?”
“I don’t keep an exact accounting.”
“If you had to guess,” the impatience in Virgil’s voice now obvious.
“Well if I had to guess, there might be, I don’t know, seventy or eighty bucks in there or something like that.”
Virgil leaned across the table. “So a woman, a hospice nurse, comes into your coffee shop nearly every day of the week, sits at the same table, orders the same thing, then one day leaves and gets shot to death right in front of your eyes and the only thing you could think to do was guard the seventy or eighty bucks in the cash drawer?”
“Hey, man, come on. That’s a little harsh. I didn’t shoot her.”
“No, but you sure didn’t do much to help her after she was shot.”
“Look, guys, I’m sorry about Rhonda. I really am. She seemed nice. She did good work. She was a consistent tipper. But that’s all I know. Maybe I didn’t do the right thing. Maybe I panicked, or froze or whatthehellever. But I didn’t do anything wrong. There were about ten other people in here who were already dialing 911 and I know about as much emergency first aid as a cocker spaniel. Besides, even from behind the counter you could tell she was dead before she hit the pavement. You could just see it. So, what, I’m supposed to lose my job over something I couldn’t do anything about?” He stood up and started to walk away, then turned back. “You guys ever ask yourselves why no one ever wants to talk to the cops?”
12
Virgil’s house sat on one of the last remaining gravel roads in the county, just off of highway 37 south of 465, the loop that circles Indianapolis. He owned ten acres of land, the back third wooded with a pond between the edge of the woods and the house. The suburban sprawl was creeping closer year by year, but the long drive at the front and the woods at the back assured his privacy.
He tossed his mail on the table next to the door, checked the answering machine—no messages—and turned the shower on to steam the bathroom. Thirty minutes later he was back in the truck and headed downtown to the bar.
The bar Virgil and his dad owned was popular and drew a consistent crowd. He turned into the back, parked his truck at the far end of the lot and walked in through the back kitchen area. The aroma of burgers and chicken halves sizzling over an open broiler reminded him that he’d not yet had anything to eat throughout the entire day, other than a few shrimp.
Robert, their Jamaican cook, saw him walk in. He flipped a burger on a bun then brushed the surface with homemade jerk sauce, tossed on a slice of red onion and handed it to Virgil, a skeptical look on his face. “Dat shrimp, mon, it be comin’ by later tomorrow.”
“Was supposed to be today,” Virgil said.
“Yeah, mon. But the truck already left. So tomorrow. Hope it good. Day say day raise it in a swimmin’ pool or someting like dat. But it your money, no?” Virgil took the plate, clapped him on the back and walked into the darkened atmosphere of the bar.
The patron area of the bar was long and narrow with high-back mahogany booths along one wall and the bar itself along the opposite wall with an aisle-way between the two sides. A large mirror ran the entire length behind the bar and gave the illusion of extra space. Small stained-glass light fixtures hung low over the booths. The effect was an intimate atmosphere that often conflicted with the mood of the customers. A blue neon sign above the bar mirror advertised Warm Beer & Lousy Food. A small elevated stage at the back between the kitchen entrance and the restrooms provided just enough room for the Reggae house band that played from midweek through the weekend. The lunch hour during the week was usually busy with downtown suits, and the weekend nights had been standing room only since opening day over three years ago.
Virgil knew the city of Indianapolis offered hundreds of small bars where you could eat and drink your fill, but to his knowledge their little bar was the only one that offered the true taste and atmosphere of a small island nation that had held a place in his heart for most of his adult life.
Three years ago during one of his visits to Jamaica, while driving through the Hanover Parish, Virgil experienced one of those rare moments that can change your life for the better if you weren’t too preoccupied to notice and let it happen. One of the tires of the rental car he was driving picked up a nail and he pulled over in front of a ramshackle, multi-colored hut fashioned from scrap metal and drift wood at the edge of a town called Lucea which sat at the half way point between the resort towns of Montego Bay and Negril. A handsome, well-dressed bald man approached and asked if he could help, his voice carrying across the gravel lot with the musical lilt of his native land. “What you do, you?” he said. “Dat tire no good now, mon. Come inside. Have a drink and someting to eat. We fix you right up.” He held out his balled hand and Virgil bumped fists with him and when they did, the Jamaican man said, “Respect, mon, respect.”
Virgil said, “respect,” and then before he knew it, three and a half hours had sailed by, he was full from too much Jerk chicken, a little drunk from too many Red Stripes, but his tire was fixed and he had made two new friends.
But the story didn’t end there. The owner of the establishment, the man who came out to greet Virgil was named Delroy Rouche. He served the drinks and befriended his customers while his partner, Robert Whyte, handled the cooking, and apparently, tire changing. During their conversation Virgil learned they both longed to live in the United States. He listened politely to their stories, gave them his business card and got back in his rental. Three weeks later after cutting through the red tape, Delroy helped Virgil and his father set up the bar and Robert took over the kitchen. They both flew back to Jamaica twice a year for a week at a time to their homeland, and every time they did Virgil found himself a little panicked at the thought of ever losing them.
He took a stool at the mid-point of the bar and sat down with his burger and watched his father at the far end laughing with an attractive, middle-aged female customer. A row of clean beer mugs lined the drip trough on the tended side of the bar and when Delroy saw Virgil he turned one over, set it under the tap and pulled him a Red Stripe draft. Virgil’s father, Mason, walked down to greet him as well.
“Hey Pops. How’s it going?”
“Going fine, Son. Just fine.” He glanced back down the bar at the woman who was watching him in the mirror. “How’s the governor’s main man?”
Virgil sipped his beer and watched as Mason pulled two shot glasses from under the bar and filled each with an ounce of over-proof rum. “I’m squeakin’ by,” Virgil said, his eyes drifting to the woman in the mirror. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Carol, from County Dispatch. She’s going to help wait tables around here, mostly on the weekends. She answered the ad. Starts tomorrow.”
Virgil felt a kernel of anger pop inside his chest. He fought to contain it, but there was a bite in his tone. “Known her long?” He regretted the words as soon as he said them, but Mason didn’t take the bait. Instead, he thought for a moment as he wiped the bar. “You’re a grown man, Son.”
“Point being?”
“Point being,” Mason said, “I was a grown man before you were ever born. I live my life, my way. Might not be your way, and that’s all right. But it’s mine.”
Virgil looked at himself in the mirror and when he did, he saw his father’s face in his own. Found himself wondering about who he saw staring back. He’d always been comfortable with himself, but at forty-one years old it was getting harder and harder not to notice the strands of gray at the temples or the lines in his face around his green eyes growing more prevalent with the passage of time. A faint scar ran the length of his jaw on the left side of his face, a result of a boyhood injury. It wasn’t nearly as noticeable as he sometimes thought it was, but it flashed with white whenever he smiled. He’d been told on more than one occasion that his smile was a little scary. He looked at his father. “I just miss her, that’s all.”
“You think I don’t?” M
ason replied, a little bite of his own. “Not a day goes by, hell, not a minute goes by, I don’t think of her.” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I can remember walking in the park with her. We’d see an old couple, not old like me, hell, I’m only sixty-eight, but I mean old, eighties, nineties even, holding hands. Your mom, she’d smile and say ‘see that, Mason? That’ll be us some day.’ Well, that day isn’t ever going to come for me, Virgil. Not ever. That part of my life is over now. I don’t know what you’d have me do, but I know what your mother would want. She’d have me honor the time we did have together by getting up and getting on with my life. So that’s what I’m doing.”
He picked up the shot glasses and held one out for his son. They had toasted Virgil’s mother once a year for the last eleven years. “She’s gone Virgil, but she’s not forgotten. Not for a minute. I love her and I always will. But I’m done toasting the past. So here’s to you and me, and whatever waits down the line.” Mason drained his shot glass and set it down hard on the bar and walked away, leaving Virgil there alone, staring at himself in the mirror.
A few minutes later he got up and put his rum behind the bar then moved down next to Carol. They watched each other in the mirror for a few seconds, and then Virgil turned on his stool and said, “I’m Mason’s son, Virgil. Everyone calls me Jonesy. You must be Carol.” He smiled when he said it though he really didn’t intend to.
As the night went on Virgil worked the bar with his father but neither one of them had much to say to the other about their shared loss. They had a decent crowd and the band brought the house down with their original Reggae tunes. With two hours to go until closing, Mason took off his apron and walked over to Virgil and ruffled the hair on top of his head like he was still a little boy. “See you tomorrow, Son.”
Virgil watched him and Carol as they walked out the door, then took his shot glass of rum from the drip tray where he’d left it earlier in the evening, held it up for a second and then drank it down. “See you tomorrow, Dad.”
Delroy walked over, patted him twice on the chest then put his arm around Virgil’s shoulder and said, “Your father…he loves you, no?” He then went back to work, singing along with the band, his voice carrying across the bar.
Half an hour later Miles, Donatti, and Rosencrantz walked in and took a table in the back. Virgil drew two pitchers of Red Stripe, placed them on a tray with four frosted mugs and joined them at the table. “What have we got so far? Ron?”
Ron took a long pull of beer, let a small belch escape the corner of his mouth, and said “to put it as professionally as possible, we ain’t got dick.”
They all sat with that for a moment. “He’s right,” Donatti said. “We got nothing on the canvass from this morning out at Dugan’s. The houses are all too isolated, and hell, Jonesy, you know that crowd. They’re good people and all, but when you’ve got that kind of jack, unless you’re at one of those fancy social functions, everyone keeps to themselves. And besides, it was early enough that most of the husbands were gone, the wives weren’t up and the help hadn’t arrived. All in all, I’d say that whoever did this had it pretty well planned out.”
“What about the print off of the shell casing?”
“Didn’t get a hit. Who ever it was, they’ve never been printed.”
“So,” Miles said. “I stand by my original statement. We ain’t got shit.”
“You said ‘dick’ the first time,” Rosencrantz said.
Miles looked out over the top of his glasses. “I’m pretty sure I said ‘shit.’”
“No, no,” Donatti said. “He’s right, you said ‘dick.’ I heard it.”
“Yep,” Rosie said. “I think you’ve got dick on the brain. Is there something you’d like to talk about?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Miles.
Put four cops around a pitcher of beer, Virgil thought, and this is what you get. “Maybe we could stick to what’s important here? Rosie, do you have anything at all?”
“Yeah, your sign’s wrong. The food’s good. And the beer is ice-cold too.”
“Tell me again why I hired you.”
“My superior investigative skills.”
Virgil stood from the table. “Work it out, guys. We need leads and I want a plan of action by tomorrow morning before the governor and the press start breathing down our necks.”
As he walked away he heard Rosie tell Miles again that he was positive he’d said ‘dick.’
Twenty minutes later Virgil was ready to pack it in for the night. He told Delroy he hoped to see him tomorrow, but wasn’t sure he’d make it.
‘Dat irie, mon. Everyting come in its own time, no?”
“I guess so, yeah.”
“Your father, he worries about you.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, mon. Of course dat’s right. He wants you here, run the bar wid him. Safer for you here, you know what I mean?”
“He’s never said anything like that to me, Delroy.”
Delroy laughed. “Yeah mon, you two a couple of talkers, you are.”
“I don’t get it,” Virgil said.
“Hey, what do I know? Probably not my bidness anyway, mon.” He nodded over Virgil’s shoulder toward the front entrance of the bar. “Dat probably not my bidness either, but here come your woman.”
Virgil turned and looked around just as Sandy slid onto a stool next to him. She wore a loose blue halter dress that hung almost to the middle of her thighs and a pair of platform sandals.
“Delroy,” Sandy said, her hand over her heart, “that voice of yours melts me every time I hear it.” Then to Virgil: “Buy a girl a drink?”
Virgil leaned over the bar and drew two Red Stripes from the tap, and touched eyes with Sandy in the mirror. He set the mugs down and took a seat beside her. “You don’t look too worse for wear. How’re you holding up?”
Instead of answering, Sandy took three long drinks from her mug and set the half-empty glass back down on the bar. Then she turned her head and saw the rest of the investigative team at the table in back. She looked back at Virgil, picked up his mug and started toward the back.
“Hey, where are you going?”
She stopped and turned back. “Gonna see what’s shaking back there. I love working for you, Jonesy. Have I told you that yet? But I’m either in or I’m out, know what I mean?”
Virgil thought her eyes were made of liquid blue. “Sandy, it’s not that.”
“It’s not what?”
“Well, it’s not…well, hell, I don’t know. I guess I just sort of thought—”
Sandy moved toward him and leaned in close, her mouth right next to his ear. “I know what you thought, Jonesy.” She kissed him on the cheek, then leaned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Then, almost as an after thought, “You look pretty good your own damn self.”
Virgil watched her walk to the back of the bar. So did everyone else in the room.
He moved behind the bar and pulled Delroy aside. “A minute ago you said something.”
“What’s that, mon? Delroy always saying one ting or another, no?”
“When Sandy came in. You said, ‘here comes your woman.’”
Delroy laughed and shook his head. “I also say it probably not my bidness.”
“Yeah, you did. But she’s not my woman. She just works for me.”
“Yeah, mon. Dat’s all right. You keep telling yourself dat.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Delroy put his hand on Virgil’s shoulder. “I’m just a happy-go-lucky Jamaican bartender. What do I know?”
Virgil scratched the back of his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Hah. I tink you do. I grew up wid my family, you know? We live right by the beach. When I was little, after school get out, I’d run and play in the water. Sometimes when I do I see a fish and tink to myself, ‘there go a fish.’ Simple as dat, mon. Plain as day, no?”
“But what did you mean about Sandy?”<
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“Delroy mean what he say. I say ‘here come your woman, then it mean here come your woman.’”
Virgil caught the twinkle in Delroy’s eyes. “But you said my woman.”
“Uh huh. Dat’s true.”
“Is there something I should know, Delroy?”
“Yeah, mon. There sure is. Maybe I draw you a map. You and that one,” he tipped his head toward Sandy, “you were meant to be together. It written all over the both of you, plain as day. Just like the fish, no?” Delroy made a swimming motion in the air with his hand and grinned at him the whole time.
When Virgil turned and looked at the table in the back he saw Sandy looking at him. He thought about going over and joining them, but then someone else walked in the front door and he discovered his evening was far from over.
13
In the dim light of the bar Virgil couldn’t immediately tell who it was, but it didn’t take long before he recognized the familiar stride and the attitude that went with it. The house band was playing an unfamiliar tune and the bass drum thumped through Virgil’s chest until it was no longer a drum beat, but an explosion from over a decade ago when their HUMVEE was stopped in the sand and he was out in the dark with only his .45 and a pair of faulty night vision goggles in territory unknown to a young soldier from the heartland whose orders were to kill on sight, no questions asked. One of his men, Murton Wheeler, had asked to stop the vehicle so he could relieve himself, and when he didn’t come back, Virgil went looking for him. He found him about thirty yards from the HUMVEE, sipping on a flask filled with whiskey while simultaneously urinating on the body of a dead Iraqi Republican Guard. When the armor-piercing round hit their vehicle, the explosion knocked them both to the ground and the smell of phosphorus hung in the air as the three remaining men inside the troop carrier burned to death before they could escape the twisted wreckage. It was the second time in Virgil’s life that he had almost burned to death and those thoughts hung in front of his vision until he heard a voice pulling him back.