And I mean he would break my arm.
In many places.
But lovingly.
"How was Jersey?"
He shrugged. "Simple. You coulda done it."
"What's that mean?"
"I meant it was straightforward. Sheesh, you're sensitive when you're sober."
"What'd he do?"
"The guy?" He shrugged again. "He wasn't particular about who he stuck his dick into. Knew it too."
"Living dangerously, huh?"
Andy hit the light switches. "Used to."
My drink arrived before I noticed Andy making it. Everyone thought Andy was just a skilled bartender. That's not to say that he couldn't sling booze with the best, but I knew otherwise. Those hands had paid for the bar I was sitting at, and it wasn't simply due to his magnificent Mai-Tai recipe. He's sixty-six and faster than a man half that age. I know. I'm half that age. I've done the math.
I tasted my drink. "Andy, do you know any… accountants for the families and/or crews?"
Andy stopped counting the register bank. "Accountants?"
"Accountants."
He looked up and ran his fingers through his bone-white hair. "Never heard of any, but I'd have to assume they have some. Why?"
"Some cokehead's wandering around saying he is one."
"Probably just a jerk-off who says it to get out of jams," he said, dismissively waving his hand at the idea.
"Figured that, but why the hell would he claim to be an accountant? That's what I can't get."
"Good point." Andy cracked an Amstel bottle with his hands and sipped. It wasn't the screw-top kind. "Name?"
"Brian. Don't have a last name. Preppy-looking fella."
"He a problem?" Andy raised an eyebrow. I knew what the question within the question was.
"If he is what he says, he's certainly making a show of it. If he gets busted, well…he seemed soft."
Andy made a face like he'd just bitten into a cockroach. "I'll make some calls." In Andy's estimation, the worst a man could be was soft. Soft men would fold faster than Superman on laundry day to save their own asses. In our line of work, soft men could get you killed the same as a bullet.
My train of thought derails when the jackass claps me on the back, making my drink slop over. He laughs at a joke that I wasn't listening to. I resist punching his larynx and fake a laugh instead. He orders us another round, takes a gulp and staggers off to the jukebox. One more Dave Matthews song and I swear to God… While he's gone, I dump my shot into his glass again.
"You done?" The bartender asks, pointing at the wings I'd ordered.
"All yours." When the wings came out, I offered the jackass one, trying to at least appear friendly. He sucked off the meat and dropped the spit-covered bone on the other wings. I've spent the rest of the night fighting the urge to pull his scrotum over his forehead.
A few days ago, I walked back into Zen to check up on Vic and Bertie. Afraid of what I might find, I was a little ashamed at the relief I felt when I saw a new girl bartending.
I got a dirty look from her when I "ahem-ed" her eyes away from her iPhone. "Where's Vic and Bertie today?"
She looked up with an unusual amount of suspicion for somebody who doesn't know me. "You a friend?"
I got a chill at her tone. "Friend, customer. Take your pick."
"Then it'd be best if you talked to them." With that, her attention went back to the phone. Instinct told me Brian was involved. Couldn't tell you why. Instinct also told me it was already bad.
I spent the afternoon trying to find them at all the other watering holes. As the sun set, I ended up at Lady Luck again, confused and aggravated.
"What's wrong with you?" Andy asked. "You look like ten miles of cat shit."
"You seen Vic or Bertie?"
"Yeah, he came in looking for you. He seemed upset about something." Andy scratched his stubble. "Looked like he hadn't slept in a while. Circles under his eyes."
I wondered if his sleeplessness was chemically induced. "Did he leave a number?"
"Nope. Just asked if I'd seen you. I said, "nope". Then he left."
Damn.
Things got complicated fast. When a waitress from Zen came into Lady Luck, I got the first of several accounts about the previous night's hubbub. I asked who else had seen it. She gave me names and I tracked them down. In the end, I got five different versions from five different witnesses. It was like living in my own personal fucking Rashomon.
The story that I've accepted is the one I managed to piece together from the consistencies in each account. Brian was one of those consistencies.
No signs of Vic or Bertie. Amazing how you can see people nearly every day, spend hours together and never exchange numbers or addresses. I didn't even know their last names.
My patchwork story went as such: Closing time at Zen. Brian got rowdy. Rich, the manager on duty, told him to get the fuck out. Brian pulled his knife. Bingo, bango, bongo. Second verse, same as the first.
Rich claimed that Brian put the knife to his face. The waitress said he just pulled it. Then said she didn't see a knife. Then wouldn't talk about it. I guess she'd heard the same rumors about Brian's work associates and didn't want to be involved. One thing's certain. A knife got pulled. Threats were made.
At that point in the fairy tale, Mookie the bouncer stepped in. Mookie bounced Brian into the wall, then bounced him off the concrete.
Good bouncer.
I guess Mookie either didn't know or care about Brian's "connections". All accounts had Brian taking himself a decent ass-whupping. I smiled every time that part got mentioned. I wanted to buy Mookie a puppy.
For some reason, Bertie turned on Mookie and Rich, hollering at them. Bertie's got problems, but I couldn't understand her defending that chucklehead. Or didn't want to understand.
Rich fired her on the spot. Bertie went ballistic, throwing bottles and pint glasses at Rich and Mookie. Depending on whose story you believe, Mookie may or may not have shoved Bertie, then called her a name rhyming with "runt". It was possible.
Lord knows, Bertie could be a runt.
Bertie went home, and her version, whichever it was, got Vic stewing. That was when he came looking for me. Maybe he wanted me to get Mookie with him. Maybe he wanted me to get Brian with him. Maybe he just needed somebody to talk to and cool him the fuck down. What I do know is that he wasn't looking to employ my services. Apart from Andy, almost nobody knows what I really do.
Three days passed. I kept missing Vic and Bertie. The few people that ran across them all agreed that they looked…wrong.
I started to wonder if I was being avoided. If somebody wants me, I'm easily found. By the same token, if somebody wants to avoid me, they know where I won't be.
I kept looking out, but shit, I wasn't going to kick doors in for them. They were good people, people I considered friends in a life where I didn't have many, but they were adults. If they'd made some stupid-ass decisions over the last couple weeks and were tumbling back down the rabbit hole again, it wasn't my responsibility to throw them a line to climb back up.
It made me sad to think about it, but like I said, they were fucking adults.
So for the most part, I tried not to think about it.
Then Mookie was dead.
Just when I thought that the situation had run out of both shit and fans.
All I wanted was the goddamn weather on channel 4, and I got a motherloving murder. I almost choked on my bagel, coughing a mouthful of cream cheese and coffee right into the pretty newscaster's face on my tee-vee.
Bad way to start a morning, let me tell ya…
Some kids playing in a garage found Mookie next to his car. He'd had the unholy shit beaten out of him. He wasn't D.O.A., but he was D.S.A.