Josh finally got back to his job, slightly more relaxed for the nicotine, and immediately tore back into the story. "So, this fucker, he was here all last night drinking heavy. Keeps making those trips to the bathroom and coming out fresh as a daisy." Josh popped another cigarette between his lips. If he stepped out for another smoke, I was going to knock him out and pour the whiskey myself.
"And?" I smoothed the napkin over with my fingers. Josh didn't notice. Not that I didn't want to hear his story, but c'mon. Priorities here.
"At closing time, either the blow was bad, or he'd hit the wall, but I gotta peel him off the bar." The wet filter between Josh's teeth split from his nervous gnawing. Josh made a face, pulling the white filaments off his tongue. "He comes back a couple hours ago in the same clothes as yesterday, coked off his nut again, just yelling and knocking over glasses. You believe that shit? On a fucking Sunday?"
I didn't know what it being Sunday had to do with anything in particular, but I said, "Go on…"
"I don't need this horseshit on a Sunday," he said, less to me than to the Vengeful Gods of All Things Bartending.
"What'd you do?"
"I go to grab him. You know what the sonofabitch does?"
I sighed, crumpled up my poor lonely bar napkin. Looked like my bad day had every intention of teetotalling my sad and dry spirit. "I do not."
"He pulls a knife. Says he's cutting anybody who touches him."
That made my ears prick up. In the years since New York went the way of the 1%, you don't hear so many stories take that kind of turn like they did daily in the bad old days.
For the record, to old-school cats like Josh and me, those were the good old days.
That said, I had an idea where the story was going. Josh keeps a Bernie Williams-Edition Louisville Slugger behind the bar for just such emergencies. "Will he live?"
Josh threw his hands up. "I didn't do nothing. He's an accountant for the fuckin' mob."
…uhhhhhh…
Okay, now.
And I'd thought I'd heard them all.
Every Bridge and Tunnel half-wit with a lick of Italian in his blood pulled that card at some point or another. Half the time, they weren't even Italian anymore. There's what's left of the Irish mob, the Chinatown Tongs and the Russians in Queens who were giving the Westies a run for the title of most psychotic crew in New York history. Hell, I'd even come across a few Japanese cats missing their pinkie fingers hovering around the karaoke bars in Little Korea.
Regardless, anybody who couldn't earn their own, said they're connected.
Or work for the mob.
Or grew up with yadda, yadda, blah-fucking-blah.
I knew the mob had better things to do than execute people over bar brawls.
First thing you learn out about mob and mob associates when you encounter a real one: Nobody claims to be mob or a mob associate.
Josh knew that too. He must have seen disappointment in my face. "I know, I know," he said, "but an accountant? Who the hell would say they're a mob accountant?"
He had me there. I'd have to wait for Andy to get back into town. He's better acquainted with those guys. I just freelance
Since it didn't look like I was going to get that drink, I decided to move on. Josh's nerves were interfering with my mojo. Besides, if Janelle walked in, the added stress might make his head explode, and I didn't need the dry cleaning bills.
I switched atmospheres and went over to Zen to see Vic and Bertie. Zen ran on the trendy rail, but the jukebox was decent and nobody bothered you with unwanted conversation. Bertie was five-feet-nothing of blue-haired smartass who drank too much while she bartended, but she reserved the only padded chair for me-in the far corner of course, facing the door. Vic was a soft-spoken monster of a man who watched over Bertie until the bouncer arrived.
Since she didn't charge me for every other drink and on my birthday she bought me a hula girl shirt, she was all right with me. Problem was, she liked causing trouble with her mouth. She often got herself into fixes and liked to see Vic get her out. She was just that kind of girl.
As I entered, Vic was talking to some guy dressed like he just finished shooting a Botany 500 ad.
Vic waved. "Hey T.C., come meet a friend of mine. Brian, T.C."
I'm not sure who I'd been picturing, but it sure as hell wasn't Johnnie Suburbia over there. How did I know it was the right Brian? He looked like an accountant of some kind, his pupils were the size of a ball-point tip, his suit looked like it had been slept in, and he worked his teeth back and forth like he was grinding corn meal in his cheeks.
Oh, and he had a line of blow trailing from his left nostril that almost touched his ear.
Looking at him, I realized that I could have sat next to him a dozen times and never remembered. He grinned at me like a man with a used Pinto to sell. "Hey Big Guy. Nice to meetcha."
I hate people who call me Big Guy. I scraped a smile across my face. "Hey." I tapped a finger to my nose. "Missed a spot."
"What? Aw, shit." He wiped his nose and cheek with the back of his arm. "Good looking out, brother. Whatcha drinkin'?"
"Makers." I glared at Vic. Vic wouldn't meet my eyes.
Brian waved at Bertie, who already knew what I was having and was setting it down on a napkin. She didn't look at me either. "On me, Bertie."
"Thanks," I said.
"No problemo." He threw the salesman grin again. He was quickly becoming the walking embodiment of my pet peeves. So far he hadn't smacked me on the shoulder or had his shirt label sticking out. Small favors. "So, what's T.C. stand for?"
"Thomas Jefferson."
"Huh?"
"My mother couldn't spell."
He didn't get it.
Brian leaned close, whispering, "You party?"
Ah. A peeve I'd forgotten. People who use "party" as a verb. "Define party."
He opened his palm under the bar to show me a small glass vial. I glared at Vic again. He looked over, winced when he saw what Brian was offering me, then put his eyes back on the bar.
"Not my kind of party," I said with as much friendliness as I could muster, which was none at all. Brian didn't seem to notice or, frankly, give a shit.
"No problemo." He laughed like a sick hyena and smacked my shoulder.
I downed my drink. "Sorry guys. Gotta run." I may be a drunken hypocrite, but I like to keep my vices safe and law-abiding, if possible. Just being next to the guy made all the old alarm bells ring.
As I walked behind them, I saw Brian's goddamn shirt tag sticking out.
Fifteen years ago, Vic and Bertie were young St. Marks squatters. So green to the Big Bad City, they smelled like the inside of a Greyhound. They quickly connected to the wrong scene. I don't know if they were shooting junk before they got to New York or if it got hold of them upon arrival, but they were fighters. I could see it in them the same way I see my own reflection in the morning, when the hangover is sumo-wrestling against my conscience. Only I don't fight it so much any more.
I watched them clean up, straighten out their shit, and build a semblance of a life together. Whenever possible, I'd slip them a few extra bucks without letting them know. I was proud of them. A lot of the St. Marks junkies from back in those days wound up doing the Sid Vicious bellyflop on abandoned tenement floors.
I wondered why Vic was hanging out with that jackass.
I hoped it wasn't what I thought.
After the unease of my sojourn into Zen, I made my way back downtown and finally caught a break in my shitty bar-hopping afternoon. I saw Andy opening Lady Luck's gate from two blocks north and had to restrain myself from breaking into a joyous sprint when I did.
"Don't tell me you've been waiting out here for me all day," he said as I approached.
"Might as well, the afternoon I've had."
Andy checked his watch. "Hmm. Three o'clock and you're stone sober."
We walked in together. Lady Luck was built around an old horseshoe bar, had about thirty pictures of Sinatra for decoration and high windows so that the cruel, cruel sunlight only trickled down into drunken eyes. All that, and Andy allowed me to pick the records for his jukebox. Only box in Manhattan with Big Mama Thornton, that I knew of. Best of all, Andy would break my arm if I ever tried to pay.