Mick shoots down another tumbler of whiskey, his jaw hardening. He nods.
“Well, goddamn it, show her you’re a man,” I tell him. “Go straight to her apartment now and give her what she’s been wanting.”
Gawd, he’s drunk. In the state he’s in I doubt he could get it up. More likely he’ll end up beating her to death. Still, Mick takes a deep breath, then clenches his jaw even tighter. I give him a slap on the back and send him on his way.
Of course, I’m laughing on the inside. I saw the way Cara had looked at him in the past. No interest whatsoever. Still, this is what I do.
I can feel someone staring at me, feel the hotness of it. I turn and see Katy, her eyes now narrow and beady as she looks at me, her mouth scrunched up into some sort of hurt look. All the cuteness and perkiness has been bled out of that tiny little body of hers. “I overheard you talking to Mick,” she says, her voice cautious, controlled. “I don’t think that was good advice at all. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
I finish off the last of the Jameson. How many does that make? Eleven, twelve? I’ve lost count. “Don’t worry, darling,” I tell her. “Everything will work out as it should.”
For a moment I’m lost in thought. I’m thinking about the events that are going to unfold between Mick and his darling Cara, about whether he’ll end up beating her to death or whether she uses that gun I had sent to her. Then my mind drifts to other bar patrons I had counseled at Donlan’s and the violent ends they have recently met. There was George O’Halloran, suspecting his wife of cheating on him, and me telling him about it all being hogwash and convincing him where and when he should surprise her, all in the name of romance. And then there was Seamus, a disillusioned young man needing some meaning to his life. The advice I gave him over two months about how he could make a difference in Belfast, and only a few short weeks later his corpse being returned back to Dublin for a proper burial. And there were others, maybe not making as big a splash, but the damage still done. You see, I’m always working. Even when on vacation, I’m always working. Always collecting...
I’m laughing now, silently, but uncontrollably. I mean it’s all so damn funny. I notice Katy now, her mouth twisted into a look of pure horror, her face utterly drained of blood. I don’t get it. Why that reaction, just from a few uncontrollable belly laughs?
“Looksh, darling—” I realize I’m now slurring my words. Then I stop dead, also realizing what she has noticed. What the whole bar has noticed. ’Cause Donlan’s is now dead as any morgue. For a long ten-count, utter silence. Then you can hear all of their bloody hearts beating like crazy.
What they’re all staring at, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, is that I have slipped up and given myself away. My hoofs are now visible, and my tail, red as any flame and sharper than any dagger, has ripped through my pants. As I said before, alcohol has always been my downfall. With Pontius Pilate it was wine, with the pharaoh it was mead, with the tsars it was vodka. So it has always been. And, as I am sure, so will it always be. As much as I have enjoyed my nights at Donlan’s, I have to face facts that the place was now lost to me.
Since it no longer matters, I give up all pretenses and show them who I really am in all my glory. As my body expands, as my clothes rip from me, some of the bar patrons swoon, and I’m sure some probably expired right then and there. I let loose a laugh, but it’s hollow. I know I’m going to miss the place.
As I leave for the last time, I try to cheer myself up, remembering reading in People magazine about a trendy new bar opening up recently in Los Angeles that will be a magnet for Hollywood’s rich and famous. While I know it will be no Donlan’s, I take solace that in my own way, I’ll make it my home.
I turn, give Donlan’s one last nod, and disappear into the night.
Copyright 2006 Dave Zeltserman
Pit on the Road to Hell
by John Gregory Betancourt
When the telephone rang, I rolled over and squinted blearily in its general direction, my head swimming from too much whiskey the night before. What was this, Grand Central Station? I’d gotten more phone calls in the last week than I had in the entire previous year.
Cursing would-be friends and telemarketers under my breath, I fumbled for the handset. Though booze helped blunt the pain from my ruined legs, the side effects left a lot to be desired. My coordination was off, and I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking.
Somehow, I got the receiver up to my ear.
“Who is this?” I rasped.
“Hello, Pit,” said a too smooth voice.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Gulping hard, I sat up, nearly dropping the phone.
That voice belonged to Cal Tortelli — or Mr. Smith, as he now called himself. He ran an illegal gambling club outside Philadelphia. When an old college friend of mine fell victim to a blackmail scheme, I had manipulated Smith into handling the problem for us. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew the resolution had been neither legal nor pretty for the blackmailers.
Unfortunately, Smith seemed to have taken a particular interest in me. He had researched my life, even going so far as to have my phone bugged. I seemed to intrigue him... probably due to my trick memory. I could recall every name, date, face, and fact that I had ever encountered.
“Hello, Mr. Smith,” I said warily. “What do you want?”
“Don’t you ever leave your apartment?” he asked with a low chuckle.
“I try not to. Walking hurts.”
“Come outside. I need to see you.”
“You’re... here?”
“Yes.” He paused. “And bring your toothbrush, ‘Pit-bull’ Peter Geller. You’re going on a trip.” He hung up.
With an uneasy feeling, I fumbled my phone back into its cradle. I really needed to get an answering machine and start screening calls. Mr. Smith was the last person I wanted to meet again... in my book, he ranked somewhere south of doctors and lawyers.
Bring a toothbrush? Why a toothbrush, but not a change of clothes?
No sense guessing. Throwing off my blanket, I hauled the hideously scarred pieces of flesh that now passed for my legs over the edge of the bed and, with a groan and several grunts, levered myself to a standing position. From the arches of my feet to the joints of my hips, I ached with a dull constant pain. Getting up was the worst part of any day.
I eyed the nearly empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the pillow next to mine. Maybe one quick drink, just to steady my nerves? No, I had better not... Tortelli/Smith was a sharp man, and I’d need my head clear to deal with him.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced around my spartan bedroom: bed, dresser, nightstand, closet with shut doors. No pictures, no calendars, no clock — time doesn’t mean much when you’re waiting to die. Nothing had been moved; nobody had been inside while I slept.
I felt my attention starting to sharpen, all the little details leaping out at me. It had been an asset in college, a useful talent at work, but my always-racing, always-analyzing mind had pushed me to a nervous breakdown five years before. Thin blades of sunlight shining through the not-quite-closed blinds on the east-facing window meant late morning, somewhere around eleven o’clock. Not that the hour mattered; I only worked one day a month, when I made my regular pilgrimage to Atlantic City to win my monthly expenses at the gambling tables. Sometimes it helps to remember everything... like the number of aces and face cards played from an eight-deck blackjack shoe.
I had left my silver-handled walking stick leaning up against my night table. Using it, I limped into the kitchen. Four aspirin and a glass of orange juice made breakfast. Then I returned to my bedroom, where I dressed methodically in my last pair of clean pants, a blue-and-gold sweater, and worn leather loafers — all remnants from better days, when I had been a wunderkind at a Wall Street investment bank. But that had been before my nervous breakdown. And before my run-in with the taxi.