"We ever going to get this done?" Geraghty asked.
"As soon as you get the lines right."
"If I have to drink any more of this slop, I'll puke."
"Don't drink it. Just wet your lips. Now let's try it again."
He nodded to the cameraman, and Geraghty turned around to face the bartender.
The two people next to him started to talk loudly. Canned jukebox music started up. Geraghty began telling the bartender why he thought Shi-ite Muslims were really good people and how the world would be safe in their tender, loving hands.
The director waited until the sound mixer looked up from the tape recorder and nodded that the mix of background sounds was just right. "Now," the director said.
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Remo could see Geraghty's shoulders hunch up in tension. He wheeled on the director and whined, "This suit itches. Why do I have to wear this suit?"
"Because it fits in with your image as a man of the people."
"People, my ass. Some people wear Pierre Cardin suits. Why can't I?"
"People who wear Pierre Cardin suits don't drink Bunco beer," the director said.
"Nobody drinks Bunco beer," Geraghty said.
"Come on. Let's just do the commercial and get out of here," the director said. Geraghty turned back to the bar. He began to tell the bartender about the vicious discrimination against the Spanish-speaking in St. Louis. The bartender looked bored.
The director waited for the sound mixer, then said, "Let's do it."
Geraghty slowly turned from the bartender and looked at the camera, as if he were surprised to see it there.
"Hello," he said, 'Tm Joey Geraghty." He stopped and looked at the director. "When do I get my check? My agent told me to be sure to get my check."
"I've got it here," the director said. "Now will you do this damn thing?"
"AH right," Geraghty said. \
They set up again, and when the director called "Move," Geraghty again turned to the camera, again feigned surprise, again said, "Hello, I'm Joey Geraghty, and I'm not an actor, I'm a newspaper-
man.
'Tm here at Purchkie's Bar with a couple of friends." He waved over his shoulder at the two
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models behind him, who dutifully smiled at the camera and made believe they were listening to Geraghty.
"I'm making this commercial because they paid me to. But also because who knows more about beer." On cue, the two pseudo-patrons laughed. The bartender tried to smile. He was missing his two front teeth, Remo noticed.
"So let me give it to you straight," Geraghty told the camera, "the way I try to give everything to you." He raised the glass and wet his lips with his beer. Remo could see he kept his lips pressed tightly together. Geraghty reached down and picked up the can from the bar.
"Bunco beer is good beer. That's the way I'd put it." He looked over the director's shoulder at the girl holding the cue cards. "It's a beer for all night. A beer for friends. So when you're spending all night with a friend, drink Bunco beer. Say Bunco and you'll be a winner."
The bartender laughed, and so did the two customers as Geraghty turned back to the bar and again raised the glass of beer to his closed lips.
"Okay," the director yelled, "that's a wrap." Geraghty said, 'Thank God," and poured the rest of his beer over the bar. "I hate this stuff. It tastes like horse piss."
He waved at the bartender. "Purchkie, my usual."
Purchkie poured a precise ounce of Courvoisier brandy into a snifter. He put it in front of Geraghty, who swiyeled it around in the snifter, smelled it, and said, "Thank Jesus for something a human being can drink." He sipped it and yelled at the director, "Don't forget my check."
He told the bartender, "Purchkie, I'm making you famous."
"You're making me broke," Purchkie said.
"My columns make you famous."
"Famous don't hack it, Joey. You bring me people in here and they don't spend nothing. They just stand around gawking at the regulars. Can't you get me fifteen beer drinkers?"
"The only place you can find fifteen beer drinkers together is in jail," Geraghty said. "Besides, beer drinkers sweat. I'm going to go change."
He left the bar abruptly for the men's room. The camera crew was already dismantling and moving toward the doors. Remo went to the bar. He passed the two models who had been in the commercial.
He heard the woman say, "That Geraghty. What an asshole."
Remo stood at the bar, and when Purchkie appeared, Remo ordered a beer.
"So that's Joey Geraghty?" he said.
Purchkie nodded.
"Good customer?"
"Naaah. I never even seen him in here and then he started writing about the place. He picked it out of a phone book. When he kept doing that, I invited him down. But he don't come much, which is good."
"Why?"
'"Cause I got working people hanging out here. If he hangs out with his fancy French suits and his patent leather booties and his brandy, for Chris-sakes, brandy in a snifter, and starts talking about police oppression and civil rights and like that, my good customers'11 leave him in a spitoon."
"What about all those people he writes about?" Remo said. "What about Irving the Matchless?"
"He makes that crap up. But I'll tell you. Some people are like real dopes and every day there's a column like that, you watch. I get a dozen guys in here. You can tell they run shirt stores and they're going bust. And they sit at the tables and look around waiting for an arsonist to come talk to them. But they don't drink worth a fart." "They ever find an arsonist?" "I don't know," Purchkie said. "Some days, there's a lot of guys coming in with pinstripes. They ain't my regulars. There's a lot of conversations I don't want to know about."
Joey Geraghty returned to the bar, wearing a light gray plaid suit, nipped at the waist, with straight-legged pants. The jacket's lapels were within M inch of what Gentleman's Quarterly had advised would be the season's hottest style. His tie was two inches wide at the base, down from last week's three inches. He looked at Remo.
"What do you think about Islamic destiny?" he asked Remo.
"It's okay," Remo said, "as long as it don't make colored folk uppity."
Geraghty looked at his brandy. "I should've known. In this place."
"What do you think about Islamic destiny?" Remo asked.
"I think it's the wave of the future," Geraghty said.
VWe all going to march forward to the fifteenth century?" Remo asked.
"You can't judge what a movement is going to be
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like after the revolution, when it's in the middle of a revolution."
"When people eat each other, you can be pretty sure they're not going to turn out to be vegetarians," Remo said.
"You're a racist," said Geraghty. He took another sip of his brandy.
"No, I'm not," Remo said. "I just like to be able to tell one wide receiver from another. When they all start calling themselves Mustapha, I'm in trouble."
"Racist," said Geraghty.
"Aren't we all?" said Remo.
"Right. We are. All of us. What's your name?"
"Remo."
"Don't tell me your last name. I don't like last names."
"How about Irving the Matchless?" asked Remo. "He have a last name?"
Geraghty looked defensive. "Sure. Who wants to know?"
"I was just wondering. He come in here?"
"Sure," said Geraghty.
"Introduce us?"
"Well, if he comes in. And if I'm here. But I'm not staying. And he's not usually here today."
And Remo knew the bartender was telling the truth. Irving the Matchless was a figment of Ger-aghty's imagination.
Remo left a five-dollar tip and took his beer to a table. The bartender had been right. Within a half-hour, the bar, even though it was still before noon, was filling up with nervous men who ordered Olivas on the rocks, didn't drink it, and sat around looking at each other and at the door whenever it