“Don’t get too excited with your words, Shaney. Be nice, stay calm. Let my bosses know through me you’re both those ways. That’s the minimum I can do for you for your foam lesson and free beers. If I were you I’d tell me to tell them you’re thinking about it. That way you have time.”
“Time for what?”
“For thinking about it.”
“I’m thinking about it then. That make you feel better?”
“Good man.” He puts a ten dollar bill on the bar and leaves with the other man. I yell “You paid too goddamn much, fella,” as they go through the door.
I call Kelly and tell him what just happened and ask if he really did switch from Eco to Stovin.
“I had to, Shaney. I know those bums. They throw a brick through your window one night, next night they drop a stinkbomb when customers are around and so on. Next thing you know your life and trade aren’t worth a dime. It’s protection money you’re paying them, and with your temper, maybe protecting them from you. They also cart. So you get less carting, so what? Stick what they don’t pick up in the corner trash can, but at least you’ll be alive.”
“What do you know what happens if you go to the police?”
“That I don’t advise and don’t tell Stovin’s you asked me about it. But go, and bricks, bombings, I hear everything but jet fighters can come down on you at one time. Give them the sixty and forget about it.”
I don’t know what to do. Maybe they’ll give up on me now knowing I’m absolutely against them carting for me and they’d be better spending their time trying to change the mind of another storeowner who’s an easier mark. I’ll just take a wait-and-see attitude without maybe stirring up more trouble with them by calling the police.
Same two men come in two nights later and sit at the bar. The stocky one says “Hi, Shaney.”
The thinner one says “How you doing tonight, Shaney?”
A young couple, almost teenagers — I didn’t check their ID’s because business isn’t so good and they looked over the minimum age — are sitting at the other end of the bar. I just finished giving them a couple more tequila sunrises and I go over to the men.
“Those two down there,” the stocky man says. “They’re not junior undercovers, are they?”
“What’s your name?”
“Why you want to know?”
“You know mine, I want to know both of yours. I don’t see why that should be a problem, and it’ll be easier for me to speak.”
“I’m Pete, he’s Turner. But those kids down there.”
“Why would they be?”
“Or the fellows at the table in back. They look it.”
“No, nobody here’s anything but plain customers, which I wish you guys were too.”
“We will be if you do what we ask you to and not what we don’t like. You called Kelly, didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Kelly told us. He didn’t volunteer so don’t go getting back at him. But we knew you’d call him so we called him ourselves today and first he said no and when we said you already told us you called him, he said yes you did. He advised you right, didn’t he?”
“He advised me to let you cart my garbage.”
“And you’re taking his advice, right?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to be protected.”
“Talk lower.”
“I can’t afford sixty, that’s another thing. It’s too much.”
“If we made a special deal of fifty for you, but nothing less, you’d do it, right?”
“Let me think about it.”
“Think about it now. We don’t want any more stalling.”
“I need time to think. I don’t make money decisions quickly.”
“I said think about it now. Get us some beers just to make it seem more like we’re here for pleasure and not so much hard business.”
I start drawing them their beers.
“And put a real big head on those, Shaney, just like the other night.”
I give them the beers with a big head. Pete puts a ten on the bar. “Keep it. See — already you’re twenty dollars ahead with us. So consider the first month as only being thirty dollars for our services, five less than what you pay Eco, if you go with the fifty we’ll charge you a month. Now what do you say? I can only give you three more minutes of thinking time. Things are picking up for us around here, so we’re very busy.”
“How would I explain to Eco?”
“Just say you felt it better going with us because we gave you a better deal.”
“Fifteen dollars more a month is better with one less pickup day?”
“That you don’t tell him.”
“Suppose he says what was the deal so he can maybe meet it?”
“You say you already made up your mind.”
“But I know Eco personally. George Ecomolos. He comes in for beers every now and then. I know his garbage guys. They’ve been with him for ten to twenty years and I give them free shots and a sandwich every now and then. They’re nice guys — Eco himself a nice guy too. No, I can’t do it.”
“Don’t worry. Once you stop paying Eco to cart for you, he won’t come in to drink again.”
“I said I can’t, that’s it. You want trouble, well all right, you’re talking to the guy who can give it. Big deal. Bust a window of mine out or throw a bomb in whatever it’s made of — explosives, fire — but you’ll wind up in more trouble than me. Believe me, much more.”
“Don’t be silly — we can’t be. Now is it no or yes? Just sign your fate with a single word, Shaney. Yes or the other?”
“No, damn you. I said no.”
“Okay, pal. See you.”
“Bye bye, Shaney,” Turner says.
They get up to go.
“Wait,” I say when they’re almost out the door.
“Okay for a quick change of mind,” Pete says. “As I said, we’re very busy.”
“No, forget it. I almost changed it but I can’t. I’ll take my chances. I’m also calling the police.”
“You’re getting so silly it’s ridiculous.”
“Remember, these people are my witnesses. They saw you in here.”
“Saw what?” the young man at the bar says.
“You going to involve these nice kids, Shaney? Besides, they seem too young to even be drinking. You could lose your license.”
“I’m nineteen,” the young man says “and she’s legal age too.”
“No, you’re right,” I say to Pete “I’m leaving them out of it. I’ll do it all on my own. My father had a bar before me, did you know that?”
“Not interested,” Pete says.
“Hey bartender,” one of the men at the back table yells “bring us another pitcher of beer.”
“And my grandfather on my mother’s side before him and some great-uncles too. They were all tough and I’m tough, tough as you guys, that you better believe. Maybe tougher because it’s for so long inherited.”
“I’m sure of it, Shaney. I’m shivering in my jeans. And get your old man and hundred-year-old uncles to stand up with you.” They leave.
“What was that all about?” the young woman says.
“Something. But if you don’t mind I’d like you both to go now, last round on the house, but come in again when I’m not so shaken up.”
They leave. I get the back table a pitcher of beer and fresh glasses and call the police.
Two detectives come later that night. One says “We’ll keep someone out front tonight if you want. We’d also like to hook up a recorder under the bar with a foot pedal on it, just in case they come in again, so we can get them on tape. Unless they threaten you when you’ve witnesses or you get it recorded, it’s impossible to prove who’s telling the truth. Customers in back know anything?”
“They heard us arguing maybe, but didn’t know what it was or were too stewed to. And I don’t want recorders, just police protection. But I swear to you, those same two come in again when you’re not around, then no questions or anything I’m going to hit them over the head with my club.”