Dirty Words - [23]

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.

Dead Soon After.

The cops said a skull fracture killed him. They had no suspects.

But I did.

Brian suddenly jumped from minor irritation to legit problem. I didn't know who he did the books for, but I could only assume he was doing a bang-up job if they were willing to throw a hit his way. Hits aren't cheap, or given casually.

If it was a hit, it was the most trivial thing that I'd ever heard a hit put out for, and believe you me, I've seen a lot of people die over trivia.

Like I said-if.

I couldn't imagine Brian getting his own hands dirty, though. He was too fond of talking big and making threats. No real violence had happened around him.

Yet.

I hauled over to Lady Luck to see if Andy had anything. Like me, Andy was a creature of habit. He'd be there before opening, drinking espresso and reading the paper with his daily bran muffin. He hated the muffins, but at his age, he considered them half-breakfast, half-medicinal.

I needed some hair of the dog. Shit, I needed the whole Westminster Dog Show the way I felt.

I knocked on the door. Andy unlocked the bolt then sat back down at the bar where the crossword and his accursed bran muffin waited.

I locked the door behind me. The weight of the room hit me like an open-handed slap as I entered.

I smelled menthol cigarettes. Andy doesn't smoke anymore, much less menthols. He glanced at me and then towards the back. Vic sat alone in a booth.

"Been waiting for you," Andy said. "You know where the Makers is."

I helped myself to a couple of fingers, belted it and refilled before I went over to Vic. I slid into the opposite bench, smelling days worth of scotch seeping off of him. Vic looked tired, his clothes wrinkled and dirty. His fingers trembled on the cigarette, ash spattered the table. I didn't say a word. He was the one who needed to talk, came looking for me.

We drank in funereal silence. Every time Vic tried to talk or even look at me, tears would well and the silence would stand. I didn't feel it was my place to ask the questions.

Instead, we just sat and quietly drank the city away. An hour passed. Vic had four more drinks, slipping deeper into himself with each sip.