I shuffled my feet. “Listen, Lee. I’m not drunk… I didn’t come over here tonight to bother you. I just wanted to talk, maybe spend the night. Just sleep with you.”
Lee looked down at the overcoat that was billowing at her slippered feet. “Sorry, Nick. About my friend in there”-Lee motioned her chin-“it’s nothing serious really, he’s just a friend.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“Well, I want to. And I want to talk. I’ve been meaning to call, to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Lee looked down again and then raised her head. She brushed some of her brown hair off her face. “This isn’t a good time, I know. But I’m graduating in January, in a couple of weeks. And after that… I’ve decided to leave town, Nick.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. My parents have been bugging me all year, ‘What are you going to do after graduation?’ I guess they’re probably right. My father wants me to do some paralegal work, he’s got a job lined up for me. I’m going back up to Long Island. It’s not like I’ll never be back. Who knows, right?”
“You’ll figure it out,” I said. “You’ll do fine.”
“Thanks.” Lee put her arms under mine and locked her hands behind my back. She kissed me lightly on the base of my ear. “How’s it going for you?”
“Things are moving.”
“Yeah?” She smiled. “What about your friend’s wife? You find her? ts hfin”
“I’m close, I think.”
“Anything on your friend Henry?”
“I’m getting close on that too.”
“What happens to you after that?”
I chuckled unconvincingly. “Short-term goals for me, Lee. You know that.”
Lee kissed me on the lips for a long while. I didn’t want her to pull away. I didn’t want to lose the warmth of her face, or her smell. When she backed up, her eyes were wet. It could have been the bitter air, but I wanted it to be the loss.
Lee handed me my overcoat and smiled. “Bye, Nicky. I’ll call you. Soon.”
“So long, Lee.” I turned and walked down the stairs to my car.
I stopped once more that night around the corner at May’s, for a bourbon and a glass of beer. Steve Maroulis was behind the bar. Before I left I placed a ten-dollar bet with Maroulis on a horse named Miss Emmy and then drove back by Lee’s. The windows of her second-story apartment were dark now. I headed for Military Road and drove home through empty streets.
EIGHTEEN
The next day I replaced Mai behind the bar at three o’clock. Monday night was the worst shift of the week, and it was traditionally hers, but Mai was making me do penance for my trip to southern Maryland. I stuffed my blue bar rag into the waistband of my jeans, smoothed it out on the side of my hip, and passed through the service entrance to the bar.
Happy sat on his favorite stool, staring straight ahead into the bar mirror, one hand around an up glass, the other holding a lit Chesterfield. Mai stood at the service bar and drank a shift Heineken while she talked to me about some unfortunate young marine she was dating. I stocked the backup liquor beneath the rack and nodded occasionally as she talked.
A guy named Dave drank coffee and sat alone at the end of the bar, reading a pulp novel called Violent Saturday, by W. L. Heath. Dave was the Spot’s reader-every joint had one-who never drank anything stronger than black coffee. I suspected he was an on-the-wagon alkie who simply liked the nostalgia of sitting in a bar, but I never confirmed it. The only time he ever spoke to me was when I tried to empty and clean his overflowed ashtray. “Don’t do that,” he had said quietly, gripping the side of it. “Dirty’s the way I like it.”
When Mai left I put Bob Marley’s Kaya on the house deck and turned up the volume. I poured myself a cup of coffee, lit a Camel, and folded my arms. In the rectangular cutout of the reach-through I could see Ramon in a boxer’s stance, toe-to-toe with Darnell, who had raised his long arms, exposing his midsection. Ramon punched Darnell’s abdomen with a left and then a right. Darnell smiled and slowly shook his head.
That was how the afte hfien rnoon and early evening passed. Buddy and Bubba came in, whispered quietly to each other, and split one pitcher before leaving with a sneer in my direction. Len Dorfman stopped by for a late Grand Marnier and talked loudly about a “savage” he had locked up that day, until a hard stare from Darnell sent him out the door. And Boyle came by for a draught beer and a shot of Jack.
Boyle mumbled about “the fucking streets” and his “fucking kids” throughout his round. I left him, and when I stumbled back from the walk-in with two cases of Bud in my arms, he was gone. A damp five-dollar bill lay across the Cuervo Gold coaster next to his empty shot glass. I restocked the cooler to Let’s Active’s Cypress while Darnell mopped the kitchen and hosed off its rubber mats. When I was done I slid a worn copy of London Calling into the tape deck and hung the dripping clean glasses upside down in the rack above the bar. Then I drained the sinks and wiped everything down and poured two inches of Grand-Dad into a heavy shot glass. I opened a bottle of Bud, stood it next to the shot, had a taste of both, and lit a smoke. An unlatching sound came from the direction of the front door.
A man and a woman walked in and took the two steps down into the bar area of the Spot. A stream of cold air flowed in with them. The man walked slowly and deliberately, and stopped in front of the bar, running his hands through the waistband of his tan polyester slacks. The woman stopped two feet behind him and stared. The heavy drama of cops was present in each choreographed movement.
“You Stefanos?” the man said.
“That’s right.”
“Too late for a drink?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” I said genially, keeping my arms folded. “I’m about closed. Just waiting for my friend in the kitchen to finish up.”
The woman spoke in a low dull voice. “He’s finished now. Tell him that, and tell him we want to be alone.” She had military-short brown hair and round Kewpie-doll lips. Her pocked cheeks had been camouflaged with rouge.
“Detectives, Metropolitan Police,” the man said, and quickly opened his coat to reveal a badge suspended from his breast pocket. “I’m Goloria, and this is Wallace.”
“Detectives?” I said, feigning surprise, looking them over. Goloria wore a stained London Fog raincoat over a brown plaid sport jacket. Wallace had on a gray wool skirt with a cotton oxford and a vinyl Members Only jacket worn over that.
“Just tell your friend to leave,” Goloria said, “so we can talk.”
“Now?”
“Tell him.”
I walked back to the kitchen. Darnell was finished and dressed for the weather, his brown overcoat buttoned and his leather kufi tight on his head. He had been standing in the dark, looking at us from the reach-through.
“Better get going,” I said.
“You sure, man?”
‹" w“ It’s all right. They’re cops.”
“That don’t mean a fuck in’ thing. You ought to know that.”
“Go on, Darnell. It’s all right.”
Darnell walked out and passed without looking either of them in the eye. He closed the front door tightly as he left the Spot. I emerged from the darkness of the kitchen and took my place behind the bar. “The Guns of Brixton” ’s thick bass came from the house speakers. Goloria and Wallace had taken seats at two adjacent stools. Wallace lit a smoke and put her black vinyl handbag next to the ashtray in front of her. Sitting there, her shoulders appeared to be broader than Goloria’s.
Goloria said, “What are we listening to?”
“The Clash,” I said.
He turned to Wallace and raised his thin eyebrows mockingly. Then he turned back to me. “Turn that shit off and fix us a couple of drinks. When you’re finished, come around the bar and let’s have a talk.”
“Sure. What’ll it be?”
Goloria looked up at top call and squinted. “Crown Royal on the rocks, with a splash. Wallace’ll have the same. Okay, Wallace?” Wallace nodded.