Last Call Lounge

by Stuart Spears

  “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. It was almost enough for me that she hadn’t said no. “Of course.”

  I knew what I was going to do. I was going to take the money. All of it. Fuck Worm, fuck Sarah and Jacob and the bar and Mitchell and my house and all of it. I was sick to death of all their shit. I was gonna take all the money and take Ruby and live in France until the money ran out. If Ruby said yes, I was gonna say “fuck off” to it all.

  We rode back to the bar in silence. Ruby stared out the window again. Sunday traffic was thin. It was one of those stretches, those highways, that could be anywhere and for a moment I felt lost. Tire places and discount furniture stores and parking lots. Everything gray and loose. Too spread out. When I saw the sign for our exit, I felt my shoulders loosen and I started to sweat.

  At the bar parking lot, Ruby unlocked her door but didn’t get out. My back was wet against the bench seat and salt was on my skin. I lit a cigarette and offered her one. She took it, smoked with her arm out the window. Her legs were crossed and one shoe tapped at the other. Then she opened the door and lifted herself out. She closed the door and stood for a moment with her back to me. When she turned around, she crossed her arms and leaned down into the open passenger window.

  “Okay,” she said.

  I held my breath.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll evacuate with you. We can evacuate together.”

  I tried not to smile, tried not to appear too excited.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s great.”

  She dug into her purse and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pen.

  “Call me later,” she said. “We can discuss the preliminary arrangements.” She handed me the scrap. Her number.

  “I will,” I said. She curled her long white hand and tapped a fingernail on the chrome of the door.

  “Do not make this a story that I later have to preface by saying, ‘In retrospect, I should have known better,’” she said, giving me her serious, lawyerly voice. “At the moment, I’m looking forward to it.”

  I nodded.

  “Me, too,” I said.

  She rapped her nails on the chrome again, then turned on her heel and walked to her little red Toyota. She waved, a small, curled waved, as she pulled past. I finished my cigarette and watched her turn up the street. I sat in the cab, rubbing her number between my thumb and forefinger. I pulled out my phone and turned it on and it rang almost immediately, a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “John? It’s Allen.”

  I sat up. A chill ran over my back.

  “Hey, Allen. What’s up?”

  “Well,” he said. “I just wanted to follow up on something.” His voice was a slow drawl, like an airline pilot. “When I was in your place the other day, about the mask? Mitchell mentioned something about a guy named Worm.”

  I closed my eyes and rubbed at my forehead.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Do you know Worm?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Real name Raymond Fletcher?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  Allen sniffed, a small, quick sniff. Nothing, really, but in that sniff I heard something and I knew Allen had changed his mind about me, that he had come to a new conclusion about me and, in that cop way, he now understood more about me, about who I was.

  “Yeah,” Allen said. “They found him dead in his truck this morning. Shot through the head.”

  THIRTEEN

  “It was point blank, gun pressed to his head,” Allen was saying. “The cab of the truck was torn apart. They were looking for something. He had been severely beaten, too.”

  My legs were numb. I opened the cab door and got out, but felt shaky so I sat back down.

  “How well did you know him?” Allen asked.

  I felt the afternoon heat on my face and chest. My ears were ringing.

  “Pretty well,” I admitted.

  Allen sniffed.

  “Listen, Little John,” he said. “It’s obvious there’s more to all this than you’re telling me.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “This is now a murder investigation,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of leeway here.”

  “I know.”

  “If you know something, you need to share it with me.” The friendliness was gone from his voice, the familiarity. He was business now.

  In the moments between his questions, a thought was forming in my head. I saw everything clearly, or thought I did. If I told Allen the whole truth, I’d have to give up the money. I couldn’t go with Ruby to France. But if I told him about Oscar, left out the parts about me and the money, I might be okay. Oscar was obviously dangerous, but I thought maybe I was safe. He had already ripped apart my office and found nothing. He wouldn’t go back to the bar. He could tear my house up, but he wouldn’t find anything. If he did show up, I’d give him back the money, minus my savings. All I had to do was get through the night, head out to Austin the next day.

  And, if I told Allen about Oscar, the police would be out looking for him. They might pick him up. Ruby and I could go to France and by the time we got back, Oscar would be safely in jail. That was how it seemed to me at the time, anyway.

  I took a deep breath.

  “There was a guy,” I said. “Last night. He was looking for Worm. Frank thinks he might be the guy Worm buys his coke from. A guy named Oscar.”

  “You think Worm was in trouble with this Oscar?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” I put my cigarette to my lips. I was trying to steady my thoughts. Worm was dead. “I saw Worm a couple nights ago. He was really nervous. He kept looking out the window.”

  “What window?”

  “The window at my house,” I said.

  Allen sighed, more parental than cop now.

  “It didn’t occur to you to tell me any of this earlier?” Allen said.

  “Allen. I couldn’t.”

  “And why not?” he asked.

  I paused. “I saw Worm because I was buying an eight ball from him,” I said.

  Allen was silent.

  “Tell me about Oscar,” he said finally, his voice flat.

  I described Oscar as best I could – the rolled up sleeves, the Latin Lords tattoo. Allen listened without comment as I described our exchange, how I threw him out.

  “So let me see if I have this straight,” Allen said when I had finished. He was angry now and his voice was loose and full of sarcasm. “Your new busboy – a drug dealer – recognized this guy Oscar as a drug dealer. Oscar dealt to your friend Worm, who was a drug dealer. ”

  “I guess,” I said. “That’s about right.”

  “I can’t believe I’m actually gonna say this,” Allen said, the Galveston twang back in his voice. “But I’m glad your father didn’t live to see this. It woulda killed him.” And he hung up.

  It took a moment, when I entered the bar, for my eyes to adjust to the change from blinding to shadowy. I stood in the doorway, the phone as heavy as a brick in my hand.

  Boyd leaning back in a barstool, his boots scuffing against the bar rail. The TV was on, baseball. The whiny whir of the power drill came from the back door.

  “We need change,” Boyd said, not taking his eyes from the game. “Ones and fives. And the banks are closed.”

  “Is Mitchell unscrewing the back door?” I asked. “For your shift.”

  “Yeah, he came in,” Boyd drawled. “I didn’t even know about it.”

  “You don’t feel like helping him?” I asked.

  “How many guys does it take to unscrew some boards?” he shot back, not taking his eyes off the game.

  I studied him, the back of his head, the way his boots were scratching at the metal of the rail. Anger filled me and I kicked the back of his stool, kicked him upright so his chest thumped into the edge of the bar.

  “Get your lazy ass back there and help,” I said. “Or
you can try to find some other job that will put up with your shit.”

  Boyd stretched his full length in front of me and glared into my face. Then he rolled his eyes and walked slowly out the front door.

  I slammed my way into the office and put my head down on the desk. I rubbed at my eyes with the meat of my hands. Through the door I could hear the faint murmurs of the television, the squeal of the screws being worked out of the wood. Then, Boyd yelled, a vicious bark. I stood up and opened the office door in time to see Boyd shoving Frank, hard, in through the opened back door. Frank stumbled and, before he could right himself, Boyd shoved him again. Frank fell to the floor in the bar room and rolled onto his back.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I yelled.

  Mitchell and Boyd stood on either side of Frank, daring him to stand up. Mitchell held the cordless drill at his side.

  “This fucker was sneaking around in the back alley,” Boyd said. “When he saw me come around the corner, he tried to run.”

  Frank scrambled to his feet. Mitchell grabbed him by the arm.

  “What were you doing back there?” Mitchell demanded, his voice a tight squeal. “Did you break in to the bar?”

  Frank pouted and looked at the floor. Everything in me went tight. I grabbed him by the shoulder, spun him around and slapped him across the cheek with the back of my hand. He had a half-smile stuck on his face, even after his eyes went wide with surprise.

  “You brought this shit into my bar,” I yelled, shoving a finger into his chest.

  “Hey,” Frank said, shaking his head.

  I pushed him again and his hands went up in a sign of surrender. I pushed him again. He stumbled backwards until he bumped into the wall. Boyd and Mitchell were standing right behind me.

  “What the fuck were you doing hanging out in the alley?” I yelled. Frank looked to Boyd, then down at his feet.

  “Nothing,” he said, his eyes still down. I looked down, too. Frank was wearing the same cracked shoes, the same work pants, stained dark at the knees. And then it occurred to me. I took a step back.

  “Did you sleep back there last night, Frank?”

  He scratched the back of his head.

  “Yes,” he said in a whisper. Something kind of broke in me and I felt the weight of my arms and my chest. I looked to Mitchell and Boyd. Mitchell sagged, too.

  I went and sat in the stool and Mitchell sat down next to me. Frank stayed where he was. I put my elbows on the bar, rested my forehead in the palm of one hand. Boyd went behind the bar and started a pot of coffee. I turned back to Frank.

  “Did you hear anything the night of the breakin?” I asked. “Or see anything?”

  His shoulders moved up and down with his breathing, then he turned around. His face was flushed.

  “No,” he said. “But I walked around for a couple hours before I went back there. They might have broken in before I got there.”

  Boyd changed the channel on the TV, turned down the volume. He poured himself a cup of coffee, poured a shot of Jameson in it, then poured me a Beam. Mitchell got up and got a beer.

  “Want one, Frank?” Mitchell said, his voice small. Frank nodded, just barely. Mitchell opened another one and set it on a bevnap near Frank.

  I downed my shot and stood up. Yellow afternoon light poured in through the broken back door. The hallway floor was scuffed and white with dust. I stood, shaking my head, letting my eyes wander. To the office door, to the patch of wall were Pancho had been. I dug a knuckle into my thigh and turned around. All three of them were watching me.

  “Okay,” I said. “Frank, stay here and help Mitchell put the wood and stuff away.” Frank looked to Mitchell and Mitchell nodded. “I’m gonna go get some cash for the till.” Out the back door was a gray square of concrete and baked heat radiated off it and into the hallway. I looked at the fence, thought of the alley on the other side. “You got any stuff back there, Frank? A bag or anything?” I asked.

  Frank shifted his weight, rubbed his thumb under his nose.

  “Yeah,” he said. “A bag.”

  I stared out the back door, stared at the hot, yellow sunlight on the gray slab of the patio. Then I nodded.

  “When you’re done helping Mitchell, go grab your stuff,” I said. “You can stay at my house for a while.”

  FOURTEEN

  Room 212 was blue – blue paint, blue furniture, blue lighting. The bartenders wore blue silk shirts, buttoned and tucked into black pants. Even at happy hour, the music was bass-laden and loud. A steel cage was suspended over the bar. Inside was a DJ with huge brown headphones, lit from beneath by his equipment. The air was cool and clean from the air conditioner and I could smell cigarettes on my clothes.

  It was pretty busy for early evening, even with the hurricane coming. Busier than any happy hour we’d had at my bar in a long time. The crowd was tall guys in jackets with their shirts untucked and women with impossibly large breasts in impossibly short dresses. They drank from stemmed glasses and laughed with all their teeth showing. I slouched and shuffled through them toward the bar.

  Curator Jack sat in a black leather bar stool, intently watching one of his bartenders pour a shot of vodka. Jack was wearing a black and yellow bowling shirt and black pleated pants. I tossed my cigarettes onto the bar in front of him.

  “Hey, Little John,” Jack said, turning in his stool and pulling out a cigarette. “What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

  I swiveled into the stool next to Jack and lit a cigarette for myself. The bartender looked towards us and Jack gave him a gesture that apparently meant two beers.

  “Well,” I said, leaning toward Jack so he could hear me over the music. “Bar got broken into.”

  Jack leaned forward and shook his head.

  “I heard,” he said over the music. “Fuckers. Bunch of fucking animals in this town.” The bartender returned and put a Heineken in front of each of us. We drank for a moment in silence, then I leaned in to Jack again.

  “You think I could buy some change from you?” I asked him. “They took all the money from my till.”

  Jack nodded and stood up. He picked up his beer.

  “Come on,” and turned toward the stairs to his office. I grabbed my beer and my cigarettes and followed.

  The walls of Jack’s office were exposed brick. Large, dark tinted windows looked out over the bar. Photographs and prints in black frames with white mattes were leaning against one wall. Jack’s desk, a white metal thing with no drawers, was completely bare. On the wall above it was a sepia toned photograph of a bamboo plant.

  “Have a seat,” Jack said, pointing to the office chair at the desk.

  I sat, resting my beer on my knee. Jack knelt in front of small white cabinet. Inside was his safe. It beeped as he entered the combination on the keypad. I reached into my back pocket for my wallet and handed Jack the three hundred dollars I’d taken from the drop. Jack counted it.

  “What do you need?” he asked.

  “Ones and fives,” I said. “They left the quarters all over the floor.”

  Jack pulled out two neatly wrapped packs of ones and two of fives. I didn’t have anything to put them in, so I just laid them on my lap. Jack closed the safe and the cabinet and sat down on the edge of the desk.

  “How’d they get in?”

  “Pried the back door open,” I said.

  “Do you have an alarm?” Jack asked.

  I rubbed my forehead.

  “No,” I said. “We did. Years ago. But the bartenders kept forgetting to set it, so my Dad finally turned it off.” Jack nodded. “Is it all right if I smoke in here?”

  “If I can bum one,” Jack said.

  I handed him one and we lit them. Jack finished his beer and we ashed into the empty bottle. I could feel the thud of the bass from the music downstairs, pounding through the floor and into the soles of my feet. Jack leaned back on the desk, crossed his arms and didn’t say anything.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said, looking do
wn at my shoes. “If I sold you my bar, what would you change about it?”

  Jack nodded, like this was a question he knew I was going to ask.

  “Well,” he said. “I’d get an alarm.”

  I laughed and smoke caught in my throat. I started coughing and my eyes watered. Curator Jack laughed, a low bellow, and smacked me on the back a couple of times. I downed some of my beer and got my breath back.

  “Mother fucker,” I said when I could talk. Jack grinned.

  “Seriously, though, Little John,” he said. “I wouldn’t change anything. Not the way you mean.”

  “What’s the way I mean?” I asked. Jack tugged at his earlobe, took a long drag.

  “You’re worried that I’d turn it into a place like this,” he said, waving toward the window with his cigarette.

  I chewed on my lip and scratched my nose.

  “No,” I said. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Look,” Jack said with a laugh. “I understand. This isn’t really my kind of place, either. But the money’s good. Hell, I can charge twelve dollars for a martini made with one shot of vodka that costs me six bucks a bottle.” He turned to look out the window onto the bar. “The thing is, places like mine are all about trend. I’m packed right now, but that doesn’t mean I will be in two years. Your place is a dive bar. It’s not going anywhere.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “That’s probably truer than you know.”

  Jack leaned back a little and looked me in the eyes. He’d been a football player and he had that jock way of being comfortable looking at another guy in the face. I sniffed and tugged at my collar.

  “You thinking of selling me your place?” he asked, his voice thick and somber.

  “Don’t I tell you every week that I’m thinking about it?” I said.

  FIFTEEN

  Frank’s bag was a duffel bag, a big black thing with a zippered flap on top, the kind of bag you’d carry your softball glove in. He put the bag in the bed of the truck and climbed into the cab. I lit a cigarette before we pulled out of the parking lot and offered him one, but he shook his head.