Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge

by Paul Krueger

  “Here.” Bailey handed over her UPenn bottle opener. Figured it would be that part of her education that proved useful in an interview.

  “Wonderful.” Sorensen bowed his thanks and popped open the beers. Bailey took hers with a smile, threw back a healthy glug, and almost coughed. It was darker than she’d expected, and much stronger, too.

  “You like it?”

  Bailey nodded, smiling even as her eyes watered.

  Sorensen brightened. “It’s my own microbrew. Russian imperial stout, about twelve percent ABV … or maybe it was fourteen percent. Are people still drinking beer a lot? Like, it’s still cool?”

  “I’m more of a cocktail person myself,” Bailey said politely, “but—”

  “Yes!” Sorensen jumped to his feet. “See, I knew it.” He pointed out his window to a huge black facade. “Next Sorensen venture’s gonna be a little cocktail place right up there, in the Willis Tower.”

  Bailey stopped herself from wincing. That name was something no true Chicagoan would ever call the Sears Tower. Her mental broadcast of Sorensen’s thoughts came in a bit slower after half a beer, but still, when she racked his brain, she discovered he genuinely had no idea that the landmark had recently—sacrilegiously—been renamed. In fact she wasn’t even sure he knew where he was. Then she remembered that she should speak.

  “Oh?” she said, sipping the beer. “Really?”

  “And,” Sorensen said proudly, “it’ll be a distillery, too. Not of everything, of course; just gin, vodka, rum, tequila, and … what’s the one that tastes like oranges?”

  “Triple sec?”

  “That’s the one!” Sorensen said. “My business partner—he’s the one with all the booze knowledge—he says it’s better to start small. But I thought up the name,” he added proudly. “Apex. It’ll take up the top three floors—”

  Dimly Bailey could read his mental image: a stylized logo that made the A look like the tower—the Sears Tower, thankyouverymuch—in silhouette. Along with it was an image of his partner, a small, energetic old man with an impressive mustache.

  “You’re working with Garrett Whelan?” Bailey burst out.

  Sorensen paused, his hands spread in a dramatic representation of Apex’s facilities. “How’d you—”

  “I, uh, read about it in the Trib,” Bailey said. It was a stupid lie—who even read newspapers anymore?—but Sorensen didn’t seem to notice. If anything, he was delighted.

  “Gary—I call him Gary, although I don’t think he likes it—he’s a great guy,” he said. “With the way he talks, though, I’m not gonna play Scrabble with him anytime soon. How do you know him?”

  “He’s, um, an old family friend,” Bailey said, her heart sinking.

  Garrett can’t be distilling it himself. Where would he even find the space? Or the money?

  Sorensen. He was the money, Apex was the space, and with every sip Bailey was losing her ability to investigate telepathically.

  She plunged back into his brain. He was picturing busy bartenders behind counters, fending off customers who reached for drinks like a horde of brain-hungry zombies. And there was Sorensen, dressed as a pharaoh, mingling freely beneath gigantic steel vats—

  The image wavered. Shit.

  “Is the beer not good?” Suddenly concerned, Sorensen leaned over the desk.. “Would you prefer an IPA? Or a lager? I could have Jess come in and make you a cocktail: martini, old fashioned—”

  “No,” Bailey said, hastily gulping her beer. “It’s great. Tell me more about Apex.”

  “Right on. Except, well, there isn’t that much more to tell,” Sorensen said. “We’re not officially open for business yet. Oh! But you should definitely come to our grand opening. You don’t have other plans on Halloween, right? I mean, I know there’re a lot of cool parties going on but—”

  Halloween. Bailey resisted the urge to shiver.

  “Um, yeah,” she said. “That’d be great.”

  “Radical.” Sorensen gave her the hang-loose gesture. “I’ll have Jess get you an invite.”

  She saw him imagining the party—people in costumes from glass wall to glass wall, drinking until it was November—but her bottle was down to the last few mouthfuls, and the picture was faint.

  “Anyway,” Sorensen said, “enough about me. Did I forget to ask you anything?”

  Plenty, Bailey thought.

  “Um, no,” she said, then smiled. “I think you covered it.”

  “Well, I really liked meeting you, Bailey,” he said, rising. She rose, too, and they shook hands. “You’ll hear from us soon, all right? And please do come to the party!”

  Bailey was out the pyramid door in two seconds.

  “Bailey!” Jess popped out of nowhere. “How’d it—”

  “Move!” Bailey yelled, practically pushing her to the side. “I mean, um, sorry! Let’s just be friends, okay?”

  Once downstairs and out of the elevator Bailey dug out her phone and stared at its empty black screen. The number she dialed would determine the course of everything that happened next. Her mom was right: the day she interviewed was going to change her life.

  She made the decision and dialed. After three rings, a voice growled, “What is it, kiddo?”

  “Vincent—wait, how’d you know it was me?”

  “Got a special phone. It tips me off in case I’m about to get a call I don’t want. This one of those?”

  “Probably.” She bit her lip. The worst-case scenario flashed through her head: he would hang up, abandoning her for breaking bartending law. She would have to face this crisis alone, and do it before someone managed to slip her a shot of oblivinum.

  But it wasn’t just about her; it was about all of Chicago. So she explained everything: the forbidden interview; the cocktail she used outside her official duties; the telepathic information that fitted together all the terrible pieces.

  “What am I going to do, boss?” she said. Her chin trembled, and when she touched her cheeks, she found they were wet. She scrubbed at her eyes, mascara streaking her hand. Even if Vincent disbarred her and forced her to knock back oblivinum, there was no use crying.

  “You’re gonna get up here,” he said. “And when you do, I’ll tell you what’s next.”

  THE DEVIL’S WATER DICTIONARY.

  The Gold Rush

  A beverage to bridge the abyss between minds

  1. In a shaker with ice, mix two ounces of bourbon, one ounce of honey syrup, and three-quarters of an ounce of lemon juice.

  2. Shake well.

  3. Strain results over a single large piece of ice in an old fashioned glass, and serve.

  The power of telepathy has been known to bartending since at least 1872 in the form of the whiskey sour. The Wisconsin bartender Zedediah “Lucky” Gurnisson took credit for the cocktail’s invention. Though initially good publicity, the claim backfired when another bartender fixed himself a whiskey sour and used telepathy to determine that Gurnisson was lying—both about inventing the drink and about people calling him Lucky.

  Variations of the whiskey sour evolved into what is now known as the gold rush as early as the 1950s, although its initial applications were less than aboveboard: in particular, the Philadelphia bartender Chester Lyndon set out to refine the unreliable whiskey sour after mistakenly believing that it was necessary to root out communist spies among his regular customers. (Lyndon was later forcibly disbarred.) The editors of this book advise that the gold rush is best deployed in sparsely populated areas, where the psychic feedback is more manageable.

  LEMON JUICE.

  FIG. 62—Citrus limon.

  Unlike orange juice, which is still magically functional even after extra levels of processing, lemon juice must be squeezed fresh. (Commercially available lemon-shaped squeeze bottles are rightfully regarded as a joke.) It has been effectively combined with all five of mixology’s base liquors, rendering it perhaps the most vital nonalcoholic mixing ingredient besides ice. Lemon juice is frequently used with a sweeten
er to counteract both its acidic flavor and its chaotic effect on a drinker’s animus. Some point to this necessary harmony of sour and sweet as symbolic of the need for balance in the practice of the craft; more literal minds will realize that lemon juice simply tastes awful straight up.

  HONEY SYRUP.

  The substitution of honey syrup for sugar was Lyndon’s true breakthrough. In the interests of keeping his ingredients “all-American,” he chose honey harvested from bees he kept in his backyard, using only rainwater to boil it into syrup. The result was improved telepathic clarity and control, which he misattributed to his own patriotic fervor. When a bartender in Greece duplicated his success using local ingredients, Lyndon denounced the result as nothing more than a fluke, a label he affixed to every non-American gold rush until his death in obscurity some years later.

  FIG. 63—A beehive.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The impromptu courtroom erupted in shouts of outrage at Bailey’s accusation. Oleg Kozlovsky had to bang his shot glass five times before the audience calmed down. “Apologies, Ms. Chen,” he said, stooping forward to lean on the bar. “Repeat, please, what you’ve said.”

  At his side stood Ida Worth, the South Side Tribune, and Garrett Whelan, who knew perfectly well what Bailey had just said. With volcanic eyes he stared down at her, as if he were trying to boil her from the inside out.

  But Bailey wasn’t backing down. Warmth coursed through her, and she used it to shield herself from his withering gaze. It was almost fun, she thought, standing in open defiance against him. Maybe she imagined it, but even now her fingertips felt electric.

  “I said, ‘On the charges of conspiracy, conduct unbecoming, and extralegal distillation, I accuse Garrett Whelan.’ Unless we stop him—”

  More shouts of outrage.

  “Silence!” roared Kozlovsky. Again he slammed the shot glass.

  The bar—a Greektown joint operated by Kozlovsky—was filled with a few staff who had sat down to watch the proceedings but then jumped out of their chairs in protest. A young woman bartender taking minutes on a yellow legal pad paused long enough to give Bailey a withering stare. And of course Bucket, Mona, and Zane were there. She’d expected them to come, and to be angry, so she wasn’t surprised by their looks of utter disgust. Vincent’s hand tightened reassuringly on Bailey’s shoulder as Poppy stepped forward and raised her hackles.

  “It would appear I was errant when I remanded young Bailey into your custody for the furtherance of her education, Vincent.” Garrett’s gaze passed through Bailey and landed on the hulking man behind her. “Certainly, I underestimated the magnitude of your persuasiveness. Scarcely a month under your tutelage, and already she appears to have wholly adopted your vendetta-driven credo.”

  “It’s not about vendettas,” Bailey said. “It’s about safety. It’s—”

  “Absolutely about vendettas,” Zane interrupted. Bailey swallowed a lump in her throat. “You may not know, Bailey, but there was a time when Vincent was in here every other week accusing my uncle of something shady.”

  “Unnecessary commentary,” Worth shot back. “But not inaccurate. Ms. Chen, do you want to tell us why this charge is any less of a snipe hunt than all the other crank calls Vincent has made over the years? What exactly is the immediate danger?”

  Bailey breathed deeply and swallowed. Just yesterday she’d carried on a pleasant casual conversation with one of the greatest tech success stories of the recession age. Now she was in danger of becoming tongue-tied in front of this pack of oddball bartenders.

  “Go for it, kiddo.” Again Vincent squeezed her shoulder. “Just tell ’em what you told me.”

  Bailey felt a surge of gratitude that he was standing next to her. “Garrett Whelan is, through illicit means, attempting to manufacture a Long Island iced tea. And once he’s succeeded, he intends to use it for personal gain.”

  She heard a chair scrape behind her and turned to see Zane standing, with Mona tugging at his forearm to sit him back down. Bailey flashed him the most sincerely apologetic look she could, but she got only a steely glare in return.

  “Eyes forward,” Vincent said.

  “Yes, Ms. Chen,” said Kozlovsky. “Explanations are for our ears first.”

  If Zane was pissed off now, he’d be downright livid when she was done.

  “Two weeks ago I, Zane Whelan, and, er”—it occurred to Bailey that she didn’t know either Mona’s or Bucket’s last names or even if Bucket was his real first name—“Bucket and Mona were attacked by a delirium of tremens. We barely managed to escape. When I relayed this information to Vincent, which as his apprentice I was required to do, he told me it had happened before. He theorized that the tremens were attracted to something bearing a more potent magical signature than that projected by people—specifically, the Long Island iced tea. According to him, the last time a delirium had shown up was while he and Garrett had been trying to complete their own formulas.”

  She had more to say—lots more—but Kozlovsky raised a finger. Both he and Worth turned to Garrett, who shrugged and said: “I was callow then, and bearing the simultaneous burdens of a surfeit of ambition and a dearth of common sense. Moreover, the world we lived in wasn’t the one we inhabit today. I would add, however, that neither Mr. Long nor Ms. Chen has offered any proof to correlate heavy tremens activity with the appearance of our noble craft’s panacea.”

  Can’t you just use normal words? Bailey thought. You sound like you swallowed an SAT prep book.

  “Look.” She yanked a folder out of her bag and opened it to reveal a color-coded graph. “Vincent and I conducted an informal poll of bartenders in the Chicagoland area. Across the board they reported higher levels of tremens activity in the past year.” She tapped the oldest coordinate on the graph’s timeline, which dated back to November of the previous year. “And do you know what’s special about twelve months ago?”

  “Halloween?” Kozlovsky’s thick brows knitted. “More tremens. Is usual.”

  But Garrett knew where Bailey was going. He smiled ruefully. “Eleven months ago I broke ground on my newest enterprise, Apex.”

  More muttering throughout the bar. Bailey thought she could hear Zane sizzling with anger through the white noise.

  “No,” Bailey said. “You broke ground earlier than that. A year ago was when you began distilling and aging.” She flipped to the next page and held up her dossier for all to see. It showed the article from the Chicago Tribune. “Apex’s financier, Bowen Sorensen—”

  “—the Third,” Garrett interjected.

  “—was interviewed by the Trib, and he mentioned his intent to distill and distribute his own liquor. So I decided to sit down with him on a fact-finding mission.”

  “Who sent you on this mission?” Worth said.

  “I did,” said Vincent. “She said she had an in with the guy, so I told her to look into it.”

  Kozlovsky frowned. “You are running hotels?”

  “Not an inn,” Bailey said. “A connection. Someone I went to high school with works for him and—”

  “Who?” Zane interrupted. He was no longer standing but had settled for slouching moodily in his seat.

  “That’s your second outburst,” Worth said.

  “Sorry, Ida,” Zane said. The woman was at least twice his age and far higher on the food chain, but apparently being a Whelan gave you an in—not a hotel, Bailey thought with irritation—with the powers that be. “Bailey and I went to high school together. Anyone she names, I’d know.”

  Bailey and Zane locked eyes for a long moment. “Jess Storm,” she said, daring him to interrupt her again. Then she turned and continued: “During my interview with Sorenson I was able to glean that they were manufacturing vodka, gin, tequila, and rum, as well as triple sec, in industrial vats. No other liqueurs, and no whiskey. Just the ingredients necessary for a Long Island iced tea. And since one of the Long Island’s alleged effects is supernatural longevity—”

  “Fuck that,” Vincent sai
d. “Try immortality. And that’s exactly what a guy might want if he’s set to be mothballed in the next year.”

  When Vincent spoke, no murmurs arose, only gasps followed by crushing silence. Finally Garrett stirred, shooting his longtime rival an ugly look.

  “I’m almost as old as you, Garrett,” Vincent said. “After everything I’ve done in life, you think I like the idea of walking away from it all? I figure even a guy like you’s gotta feel the pinch when his ass is against the wall.”

  Bailey laid a hand on his tattooed forearm to let him know she could handle it from there. “Each attempt at mixing the Long Island creates powerful shock waves. The more he tries, the more the tremens start coming.”

  “Which Thumbelina over here knew, of course,” Vincent said.

  “Garrett’s going to rile up the demons enough to justify wartime powers from the Court,” Bailey said. “Once he’s secured an effective dictatorship, he’ll make himself untouchable via the Long Island. Unless we do something to stop him, he’ll rule Chicago forever.”

  “That’s one hell of an accusation,” Worth said.

  But Bailey wasn’t even looking at Ida Worth. She was looking at Garrett, who was whispering in Russian into Kozlovsky’s ear. Whatever he said Kozlovsky seemed to like, and he turned back to Bailey.

  “Where did you get this idea about wartime powers?” he asked.

  “From me,” Vincent said, stepping forward protectively.

  “I was asking Ms. Chen,” said Kozlovsky. “Where?”

  “From Vincent,” Bailey said. “But it still—”

  “Are you aware of the history between Garrett and Vincent?”

  “This ain’t about me, Oleg,” Vincent said. “It’s about the—”

  Kozlovsky pounded his shot glass on the counter. “No more interruptions. Ms. Chen, you have proof of your accusations?”