6 Days to Get Lucky

by L E Franks

  I swiped a credit card and filled a pitcher, pulled a draught, and mixed a tray of cosmos for Simone. This led me to look for the table of regulars I called my Cosmo Girls—a group of women who could be classified as cougars if they were interested in anyone but each other.

  I waved and wondered what 'book’ they’d be 'reading’ for this month’s selection and considered signing them up for the vodka-of-the-month-club. If I’d known book clubs were this much fun, I might have joined one myself.

  Instead, I added silly skewers of fruit to each glass—my way of saying hi and providing a tiny hedge against their inevitable alcohol poisoning if they kept drinking like fish.

  I got a return salute once Simone had delivered their round and turned away to face the mirrored wall behind the bar. I just wanted this night over.

  The reflected chaos made my head ache and the back of my neck itch, and I was glad once more that I’d kept Natalie away from my wardrobe tonight. Just the thought of a bowtie made me gag.

  Cam prowled through the mirror-scape, before disappearing again—keeping a healthy distance from the hurlers I hoped.

  I turned to check.

  Corwyn and the rest had retreated to tables shared with the college team and collected a few diehard basketball fans, no longer sober enough to differentiate between sports. It was past time for them to go home. I made a note of a few, and as soon as the music started, I’d have Blake sweet-talk them into cabs or at least make calls home.

  Will this night never end?

  10:15 p.m.

  Time was ticking backward.

  Two more Buds and a Corona, locals. Three stouts and a shot of Irish whiskey—no mystery there. A plate of fries, an order of wings… the monotony went on.

  I hated St. Patrick’s Day for the mindless consumption, fully cognizant of the hypocrisy: my tips were the best of the year. The drunker the patron, the fatter the pocket—that was the old saw. But I hated the glazed looks, the almost desperate consumption, the race to the bottom of a glass.

  I started serving club sodas and cutting off the sloppy, ordering plates of fries and serving baskets of Marco’s garlic rolls. Anything to stave off an implosion of the alcohol-saturated. I checked my watch again.

  10:20 p.m.

  The first strains of Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” tore through the buzz, sending their audience into a frenzy. At least the band didn’t suck.

  I moved down the bar, bumping shoulders with Ian. “How’re you doing?”

  He grinned back.

  Idiot.

  “Great! Is it always like this on a weekend?” Ian swiped at a spill practically before it splashed across the bar top, and I admired his technique.

  “No!”

  What a horrible thought.

  “Can’t you see that they’re all turning into Four-Leaf-Zombies?” I made a dramatic gesture that ended at one of the suits still wearing a basketball jersey in Memphis colors, his mouth slack, his stare fixed on his bourbon and water.

  “Oh.” Ian’s eyes flew wide in alarm.

  “Yup. It’s only gonna get worse. Keep an eye on that one. Cut him off and let me know if he topples. Letting your customers get trampled is leaving yourself open to a lawsuit.”

  I patted him on the back, a lot less enthusiastic than when I found him, and tagged Christine for her break. She almost looked grateful for a change, her upper lip only partially curled in disgust when I touched her arm to get her attention.

  “Take fifteen—get some food while the band plays, that should take some of the pressure off.”

  I didn’t wait for her response, just slid into her spot, starting on a dirty martini, vodka, extra olives.

  I glanced up. “Rachel! What are you doing here?”

  Rachel Renoir was my favorite attorney. She practiced family law with a ruthlessness that sent opposing counsel peeing down the legs of their thousand dollar suits at the mention of her name. She was relentless, and currently short one girlfriend.

  “Flying stag tonight?” I flipped a bar napkin in front of her and set the glass down. She knocked back half her drink before answering.

  “Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever?” Her eyes were slits as the rest of the liquor slid past her vermillion lips.

  I started on a second martini before she’d eaten her last olive. She ran a red talon around the rim of her glass, drawing a mournful hum from my barware to match her mood.

  “What’s wrong, honey?” This time I gave her four olives, small consolation for a broken heart.

  “She asked for space.”

  “Space? Is that bad?”

  “It is when you haven’t had sex in a week and you’ve missed three dinner dates in a row.” I winced at the familiar litany.

  “Missed or cancelled?”

  “Does it matter?” She nibbled on an olive, licking her lips as if to rid them of salt or tears, before attacking her drink.

  “Um, maybe? Depends if the sex and dinners fell victim to your latest case, or if she just bailed for no good reason.” I changed tactics to lighten the mood. “For the record, you say you haven’t had sex for a week? Try a month, then we’ll talk. A week is nothing.”

  Rachel just stared, and I suddenly felt for her opposing counsel.

  She continued to sip while considering me.

  I should’ve run.

  I could see she was having a moment, replaying my words, mentally riffling through facts, laying out a strategy before pouncing. She lived by the 'best defense is a good offense’ theory of everything.

  “Still no Mr. Right? I thought you had that one in the bag.”

  How she made her eyebrows slant in FatBoy’s direction without moving, I’ll never know. Probably part of the voodoo magic she employed in her work.

  “No Mr. Anything. Besides, he’s straight.” I had no independent brow movement so I had to be satisfied with the lie I barely spit out from between clenched teeth. Not that it mattered. Not to Rachel.

  “Riiiiiiight. Straight.” She smiled, and I wondered how many angels just dropped dead in terror. “Uh-huh. I don’t know who you two are trying to fool, but it ain’t me.” She tapped the bell of her glass, the ping a plaintive wail reminding me that she was once more dry.

  “Leave FatBoy alone.”

  I’d have my “we’re just coworkers/friends” spin reinserted later. For now, I’d fake it. I made her another cocktail, sending it across the bar with my best frown.

  She accepted her drink, then snorted as she held up the single olive I’d given her, run through by a pink plastic cutlass. “Really, Nick? You’ve certainly put me in my place.” I ignored that.

  “Call your girl. Beg and plead and tell her you’re sorry. Promise you’ll go down on her or whatever you lesbians like the most, but get her back.” My tone was a little too bitchy, still stinging on behalf of FatBoy.

  I took a breath and softened my approach. “She’s good for you, Rach. I like her.”

  “Says the man who can’t see what’s right before his own nose.”

  “I can see plenty. I can see my friend is being an idiot. Cold sheets aren’t going to make anyone happy, especially your clients…” or me.

  I slid another full skewer of olives into her still full glass.

  “You haven’t taken a vacation in ages—take her away, fly somewhere sexy… what’s sexy?” I racked my brain and tried to think of a place where Rachel could woo her girlfriend without scaring the natives with her shark-like tendencies.

  “I do have a timeshare in Maui….” Rachel mused, and I dropped my bar towel.

  “You have a timeshare in Maui?” I parroted. “Since when?” I was dying to know. A timeshare was so…. not Rachel.

  Not anyone under fifty, actually.

  “Um, since ’08?” She shrugged sheepishly. “I thought it’d keep me balanced after law school. I went with a friend to one of those promotions. She left with a set of silverware, and I had a contract for three weeks in the tropics.”

  “Wow.
Did not expect that. So when was the last time you visited?”

  I was back to wiping glasses and tidying Christine’s station.

  “Uh… never?” She buried her face in her drink, and I thought about offering her a snorkel.

  “Well, now that sounds like you.” I patted her arm. “Even better—you can take her somewhere you’ve never taken any of your many, many, many, many girlfriends.”

  “Slut!” She growled at me.

  “Whore,” I rebutted with a grin.

  Rachel just nodded and eased off her barstool. She dropped two fifties next to her glass and was pulling out her phone before she reached the door. I watched her go. No good-byes, those weren’t her style—but she didn’t need any extra, she had plenty of her own.

  I felt my smile broaden and checked my watch again.

  10:32 p.m.

  Maybe the rest of the night would pass as easily.

  * * * * *

  Christine came back, and I took the opportunity to check out the Leprechauns up close. I’d been listening to them butcher covers of every well-known Irish rock group of the last thirty years, and it caused me to speculate about Blake’s judgment. There was a strong possibility Blake was suffering from some post-midlife existential crisis. Dragging the bar into it by tearing down a wall just to build this band a stage, was a case in point.

  At the moment, Lorcan was doing a throaty rendition of U2’s 'Sunday Bloody Sunday’, and I wondered, given the up-tempo dance mix vibe he was going for, if he even understood what the lyrics meant. In his hands, heartfelt and tragic became almost jaunty in its delivery.

  I shuddered, feeling sorry for the rest of the band. The song Sean sang for me after sound check was soulful and heartfelt. It had tugged at me hours later as I scrubbed my truck, and I wondered again why they’d hooked up with a wannabe like Lorcan.

  Not my problem.

  I edged into the crowd as a high-pitched chant rose to compete with the faux-Bono on stage.

  First, just one or two voices “Down With The Leprechauns!” and “Lorcan is a Fake” and “Go Home, Irish!” which, if the previous slogan had any validity, wasn’t going to do much at all, except pick at some very nasty scars in Boston.

  I hoped nobody was filming this. The last thing we needed was a wave of indignant children and grandchildren of Irish immigrants trailing down here to kick our asses after Darrell and his tribe had fucked off to stalk Lorcan’s next stop on his tour of shame.

  The chanting picked up, gathering steam from the various corners where Darrell’s legion of Little People had squirreled themselves away. They’d filtered through the crowd of drunken moshers down front, shoving the flyers with Darrell’s manifesto into hands, pockets, and whatever was convenient, before falling into an inverted vee formation at the front of the stage, with Darrell as their point.

  This wasn’t their first time at the rodeo.

  I looked around for FatBoy and caught a glimpse of him trailing Blake around the corner, disappearing from view. I rotated, looking for the rest of the security team—somewhere along the line, FatBoy had swapped their coats for FBI style nylon jackets with “SECURITY” printed on the front and back in Day-Glo yellow.

  Easy to spot, if one was around. Which they weren’t.

  Fuck.

  I could feel the night begin its swirl down the drain. I made a move to the office—to hell with the customers waiting for drinks. Most of them were the Irish teammates, and they’d behaved since their dousing the other day. I wasn’t worried they’d make a fuss if they waited five more minutes for another beer.

  It seemed impossible, and I gave up halfway to the front door, halted by the sudden pulsing of the crowd, which limited my progress to jerky fits and starts as they pressed closer to the band.

  I was next to the bar, when I waved at Ian to get his attention, and—miracle of miracles—I got it. I was giving that boy a raise if we survived the night.

  Miming at him to either make a call or hang ten, I pointed in the general direction of Blake’s office. I hoped the thumbs-up he returned was a sign of comprehension and not an indication that he didn’t need help behind the bar. Whichever, it was out of my hands.

  I swiveled, wading back into the hot sweaty bodies. Some trance music and a light show and Frisson would make an excellent gay bar. We were packed.

  Any hope of complying with occupancy limits was laughable.

  I didn’t know who was at the door—FatBoy was usually on top of the details so we were probably still legal for the entire property—but the density of bodies on the dance floor was about to exceed the population of some small countries. At least it felt like that in the press of limbs. I pushed on, and someone squeezed my ass, hard. I couldn’t tell which gender the hand belonged to.

  What a nightmare.

  I found a patch of clear space and popped my head up.

  Someone was passing out picket signs to the purple shirts, though I saw a few of the college students grab one. I couldn’t read them from the back, but I saw the moment that Lorcan did. He stuttered to a halt on stage, letting the last few words of the chorus flutter away unsung.

  Lorcan signaled a halt to the set with a slash of his fist. Moving closer, he peered down at Darrell, who threw himself forward, the sign still barely grazing the singer’s now naked glistening chest.

  The sneer and head toss reminded me of a rampant stallion confronting a rival—so pathetic in the face of their polar extremes. Of the two, Darrell stood tall in the face of Lorcan’s challenge.

  “Give it up, pretty boy—we both know you’re just a fake!” Darrell used his sign to thump Lorcan soundly on his chest. The reverberations of his act rippled through the silence falling in stages behind.

  “Well, we have a celebrity here tonight—” Lorcan casually knocked Darrell’s sign aside, stepping back as twisting momentum tore it from the clenched fist of his adversary. It clattered to the stage, and I finally caught a glimpse of a cartoon portrait of Lorcan sporting the classic red circle and slash. Little wonder he was irked. It wasn’t a very nice rendition.

  To be fair, Lorcan’s nose was significantly smaller and he wasn’t sporting devil’s horns, at least not as far as I could tell from my vantage point.

  “Why it’s Darrell Hammett and his little minions.” Lorcan bowed low, a mocking display of folding his superior height to meet Darrell at almost his level. Darrell was still short by a couple of feet, and I was immediately less sympathetic about the devil horns. To be honest, Lorcan was a prick and I was ready for him to go.

  Before Darrell could form words around his spluttered invectives, Lorcan danced back to confer with his band, ignoring the hissing, growling, and booing of Darrell’s Fraternal Brothers and their significant others. The rest of the audience was perking up from their booze hazes at the hint of live drama.

  There seemed to be dissension in the band’s ranks—never a good sign—but eventually Lorcan appeared satisfied and a silky mandolin broke the tension with a vaguely familiar tune, though the chord changes kept teasing me—the name of the song slipped away as soon as I drew it up from my memory.

  Lorcan strutted back to the front of the stage, towering over Darrell. He stood, legs splayed, groin thrust forward, shoulders canted back. He tossed his blond mane and blew a kiss to a table of bunnies a few feet away, waiting for their reciprocated swoon before turning back to the snarling man at his feet.

  “We ran you out of Chicago! How long do you think you’re going to last here when they see what you’ve done?!” Darrell jabbed a finger up at Lorcan, who paid no attention to him.

  “I’d like to dedicate this song to Mr. Hammett and all the members of his little club, who came all this way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with us.”

  “Fuck, no!” I heard myself shriek as the rest of the band joined in and music swelled.

  This was no tribute, it was the musical equivalent of a head on a pike.

  Lorcan hadn’t made it through the opening line of Randy Newm
an’s “Short People” before all hell broke loose, catching me up in its surging tide.

  I swam helplessly against the crush as Darrell launched himself at Lorcan’s crotch, the closest target from his position beneath the stage. I cringed as he landed his fist squarely in Lorcan’s ball sac—the wheeze whooshing across the sound system proved Darrell a deadeye when it came to his aim. It wasn’t his only talent.

  He was prepared when Lorcan folded faster than a pair of twos in a game of high stakes poker. Grabbing him around the knees, Darrell pulled the singer off the stage, using his momentum to throw him into the crowd where he came up swinging.

  Unfortunately, it appeared Lorcan hadn’t spent much time calibrating his boxing for an opponent so much shorter than him. The punch he threw sailed over Darrell and landed upside the head of Corwyn’s midfielder, a brawny lad named Fergal who wasted no time in grabbing Lorcan by the throat and hurling him backward across a table of locals trying to sweet-talk the bunnies out of their spandex.

  I saw Darrell fall under the feet of the ensuing melee—the punches now being thrown indiscriminately, a counterpoint to the shrieks of bunnies and cursing coming from everyone else—and I shoved my way clear to haul him up by his tee.

  “Get what you wanted?” I shouted over the din. I was too pissed to acknowledge the terror in his eyes. “Come on.” I covered his back, herding him into a corner where the band had stowed their cases. He was safe enough if he didn’t move.

  “Where are your people?” I looked around for the rest of his group, but the only purple to be seen was on him and maybe a black eye or two.

  “We have a plan—as soon as I engage the enemy, they fall back.”

  I just stared at him.

  Unbelievable.

  “This is no fucking game, Darrell. Someone is going to get hurt tonight, and it’s on you two.” He knew who I meant without me pointing at Lorcan staggering by, grappling with one of the Wolfhounds. The kid was struggling to throw an uppercut to drive the singer off of him, but he had no leverage. They fell into a table, sending the half-full drinks to the ground in a deadly glitter of broken glass and alcohol slickened flooring.