by Nick Thacker
“No, you stop. Much older? And what do you mean, ‘it can pass?’ If I wanted…”
This time she played the part of confused bystander. “If you wanted to what, mister…”
I realized I hadn’t told her my name. I thought for a moment, wondering if I should give her a ruse, just to make sure we were safe. I examined her face once again, looking for any tell that she wasn’t who she said she was. Like I explained, I’m really good at figuring this stuff out. So when the ‘examining’ became nothing more than ‘checking her out,’ I decided to go with the real deal.
“Mason. Mason Dixon.”
She waited. “Wait, really? Mason Dixon?”
I nodded.
I thought she might launch into a tirade about my name, but she loosened her expression and went on. “And I didn’t mean anything by it, I just don’t appreciate the ‘old guy’ jokes. You don’t even know how old I am.”
“I’m going to guess you’re thirty-eight.”
I almost spit out my drink. For one, she was ten years off. Second, I knew I looked ten years older than thirty-eight. Hell, I might even look older than forty-eight. I had pockmarks from long-ago scars, scratches that even lit napalm couldn’t smooth, and a nose that could sink the Titanic. And that was just my face.
“So, no?”
“No. Not even close. But thanks.”
I took a moment to take stock in what was happening. There was a girl, a woman, a lady with the southern charm and common decency I typically find lacking in modern society, apparently with money, apparently with a request only someone like me could fulfill, and she was standing in my bar. In a town of 400 people, interested in me.
Interested in me.
That’s when I knew I was off-base. I was assuming things that weren’t true — they couldn’t be true. She’d said it herself: I was way too old for her and the only reason she’d stayed behind after her brother left was that we’d had a shared experience. That experience, of course, had been a potentially life-changing and traumatic one.
I backed it down a notch. No one’s ever accused me of being a ‘nice guy,’ but I’ve definitely been labeled a flirt. It’s just my nature, though. I’m going to joke with the waiter or waitress, and I’m especially going to appreciate any attention tossed my way by the opposite sex.
“You want to guess mine?” she asked.
“Not really, no.”
She scrunched up her face in a way I assumed she thought would make it uglier, but it backfired horribly.
“I have a rule that I don’t guess ages and I don’t guess if they’re pregnant.”
“I’m not pregnant.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed you were.”
“Come on,” she said. “Give it a shot. You’ll be surprised.”
I listened to her voice and watched her eyes. Of course I wanted to guess; I’d already started. I just didn’t want to guess out loud, as that’s when we get into the most trouble. But the voice and the eyes usually tell you everything you need to know about a person — not just age.
Her voice wasn’t high like the schoolgirls, or thin like the city chicks, but somewhere deeper and thicker than those. It sounded like she was from somewhere nearby, like she’d grown up in this hellhole and escaped at a young enough age to go have a life and experience the world.
And her eyes — those eyes. My God, if my nose could push a laser-guided missile off course her eyes could correct it. They were big, fluffy, and brown in a way that I didn’t know brown could be. They had a sadness to them, not surprisingly, but they also had a sharpness. A wit I knew I matched with my own baby blues.
“Twenty-five,” I said.
“You’re an asshole. Give me a real guess.”
“Twenty —“
“No,” she said. “Come on.”
“Fine.” I sighed. “Thirty… three?”
She laughed. “I’m thirty-nine.” She said it and then looked away and peaked her upper lip in the corner like she was disgusted with herself. “Ugh. Thirty-nine. Almost forty. Can you imag —“
She cut herself off, but I was laughing. “Yeah, I can imagine. It’s not so bad, really. Feels a lot like the other ones. It’s really about who you’re with.”
“Who were you with that prevented your midlife crisis, then?” she asked.
I took a sharp stab at the remaining old fashioned in my glass, then mopped up an invisible spill with my trusty rag. “My wife,” I said.
She didn’t say anything, so I thought I should clarify a bit. “I buried her on my fortieth.”
She opened her mouth, but then closed it quickly. I liked her; she didn’t like to be rude. She came up to the bar and sat; I hadn’t even noticed that we were standing close to each other, on the side of the room, until she started moving. She pulled up and dropped her head down a tiny bit, just enough to let me know.
“It’s not a —“
“It’s a big deal,” she said. “I’m so… I’m so sorry.”
“Really,” I said. “I’m over it.” That was true. “I’m a different man because of it.” That was not true.
She pushed her glass out and toward me. I guess without even realizing it I’d come across the bar and took up my post, the drink sentinel once again. I grabbed it and started mixing.
“Wait,” she said. “What’s that — what are you drinking?”
“Old fashioned.”
She frowned.
“Historically it was just whatever spirit the bartender has on hand, sweetened up a little, with a dash of bitters thrown on top and some cool water. Folks would come into the tavern and ask for ‘their medicine’ — the bitters — but they’d need it smoothed out a bit to help it go down. I like them, but I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit from the good ‘ol days, since we’re working with far better spirits. And we have ice. Still, it’s a good drink. ‘Sposed to be medicinal.”
She smiled at me again. “I could use some medicine. I’ll take one of those.”
8
I POURED THE DRINKS AND we spent the rest of the night at the bar, just talking. Talking in a way that brought me back to the first days I’d opened, fifteen years ago, when the oldies weren’t nearly so old and they’d come in asking for drinks that made my soul grow.
‘Whiskey Smash’ meant something back then, and it wasn’t just a name on top of a description on a menu. It had oomph, real impact, a true drink that meant something. ‘Martini’ came with a set of preferences. James Bond would have gotten an earful trying to get me to shake his vermouth and gin, but he’d have eventually listened because I would have made him listen.
The conversations back then were as pure as the drinks. Even ten years ago. They would come in, heading right toward me — they never knew me — but they knew what they wanted, and I respected that. They had it in mind and on taste buds already. I could see it in their eyes. They salivated, knowing I could whip it up ‘just the same way so-and-so used to,’ and they tipped me well for doing it that way.
It was never about the money. It helped, but money was always a grace note to the larger orchestra hit. Seeing them swoon over a perfectly poured cocktail after I’d slaved over it, never grabbing for the unopened bottles of mixers (cheaters) that lay within reach, never allowing even a minuscule piece of pulp through my juice strainer into the glass, was what I did it for. I knew they’d appreciate the taste, even if they couldn’t understand the process, but back then a few of them even asked about that, too. They wanted to know how I did it, how I took an egg white and some fruits and made them mad about a new whiskey I’d just gotten in.
Talking to Hannah brought me back to that. I knew I’d help her even before we discussed price. Most people can’t afford me since I’d never done this sort of thing, but something told me she could, even if I changed my mind and did decide to charge her. She brought me back to the days when I could just stand at my tower and look out, talking to those who understood, ignoring the idiots who didn’t.
Most of the mark
s were idiots, and I told her that. They came in confused, not really sure how they’d gotten there, but that was to be expected. I knew, but they didn’t. Simple as that. They’d walk in, frown a bit as their eyes adjusted to the brighter light than outside, then they’d sit down and start drinking. Or talking. Sometimes both, if I was really unlucky.
But I didn’t tell her about the token.
I couldn’t — how could I?
The token was the coup de grace of it all; it was the last piece of the puzzle. The requisite designation that told me what I needed to know, even though I always tried to verify it for myself. Most of the time they’d slump it onto the table like it was an archaic gold piece, capable of getting them whatever they wanted. In their minds they lived in a world in which they could get what they wanted, and this was just another form of currency.
I didn’t tell her about it because I was terrified of it. The token hadn’t been on the mark’s person. That was a first. It was always on their person. Somewhere, even if it was wedged between a sweaty sock and the sole of a shoe, it was always there. They sometimes forgot to ‘spend’ it with me, but they always had it.
I told myself Joey would find it — he knew to look for it — and focused again on the woman who had stolen my evening.
She asked about the way they were, the marks. If they were smart about it at all, or if they fit their stereotype and were driven by something other than the head perched on top of their neck. I laughed and told her that stereotypes were there for a reason, and you could tell by what they drank.
The idiot marks always drank something out of their league. They never really understood what they were drinking, they’d just seen someone — their father, their older brother, that ‘cool’ friend they wanted to be — order it and pretend to like it.
Micheladas, dry martinis, Jack and Cokes, these all fit the bill. Most guys had no idea why these were their drink choices, they had just always sidled up and ordered them. Sometimes it would be disguised a bit, like Bond’s own ‘shaken, not stirred’ style. Wrong, but he liked it that way. He was fictitious, too, so it’s hard to fault the guy.
I always figured that the first rule of not following the rules is you have to know why you’re not following the rules. The marks never knew why they ordered things the way they did, and that’s always the easiest tell.
I thought about the mark tonight, the one Joey was taking care of. He’d ordered scotch, but he had been hesitant about it. Not in a way that meant he was drinking above his pay grade, but in a way that led me to believe he was just doing it because he thought it was the right thing to do.
“What did you think of that guy?” I asked.
“The… dead guy?”
“Well, yeah. Before he was dead.” I am admittedly bad at making small talk, but I really had no other option at this point. “I mean, did he have any reason to kill you?”
She looked at me strangely. “You do realize that normal people don’t talk like that, right?”
“I guess… yeah, sorry. Did you have any enemies? Anyone who might want you…” I stopped.
“Every sentence has the word ‘dead’ in it.”
“I’m not trying to —“
“I know. Still…”
“Sorry. Anyway, you didn’t recognize him?”
“Never seen him before in my life.”
This was a typical answer, actually. The marks we dealt with in my line of work were the kinds who preyed on women they’d never seen before. Something about the unfamiliarity of it all made them think they could get away with it, I guess. I wasn’t surprised she had never seen him, but I wanted to make sure I did my due diligence.
“You don’t think he was a friend of your —“
“My brother doesn’t really have friends.”
I filed this statement away for later. If she was telling the truth, then her brother was something of an enigma. Everyone has friends, or at least people who know you well enough they’d call you a friend. Her brother, while obviously distraught after the death or murder of his old man, was still somewhat of a loner. He had barely spoken to me, and when I’d gone out to find them, he was holed up in the restroom while his sister was outside on the phone.
“Your brother’s married,” I said, a bit abruptly.
She nodded.
“His wife?”
I wasn’t sure what the question was, but I figured that any answer I got would be good enough for some information.
“His wife… what?”
Okay, I thought. Maybe not. I changed tactics. “His wife is… they’re still married?”
She nodded. “Unhappily, in my opinion. She’s a loose cannon, seems to be one of those that’s in it for the money. None of us ever really liked her, but she’s nice enough, most of the time. No kids, but they keep talking about it like we should all care.” She made a face that implied she didn’t really care much about when she might become an aunt, but I didn’t press into it. “He’s a bit ‘out there,’ as you’ve probably already gathered, but he’s a good man. He’s always been interested in making sure we — our family — are taken care of.”
“Tell me about your old man.”
“My father?”
I nodded, pouring some more whiskey into my glass. It was a diluted old fashioned now, the components all out of whack and hardly worthy of being called an old fashioned, but I didn’t want to interrupt anything she might be willing to explain.
9
“MY FATHER — BRADLEY RAYBURN — HE’S a businessman,” she began. “Always has been, for as long as I can remember. He currently runs — or used to, I guess — an importing business.”
“You mentioned that already,” I said. “What sorts of things did he import?”
“I’m not really sure,” she said. “But he was always working. He owned the company, but I don’t think he actually did much of the work. I mean, he was always talking to people and meeting with them.”
“Sometimes talking to people is work.”
She smirked. “You know what I mean.”
“Where did he work?” I asked. “Did he have an office?”
She nodded. “Well, sure. Different places over the years, in different states and even overseas, I think. But he always worked from home, too. Down in Hunting Island, where we grew up. Daniel and I moved away for college and never came back home. Dad had a huge office there, off the east wing of the house, overlooking the dock and the ocean, and his yacht.”
I cocked an eyebrow. Anyone who described a portion of their home using the word ‘wing’ and ‘yacht’ didn’t live in a small place. “You grew up in a mansion?”
“Not a mansion. Well, it’s big, I guess, but I wouldn’t call it a mansion.”
I laughed. “I bet I would.”
“Fine,” she said, smiling. “But growing up my mother, until she died, did a good job hiding from us the fact that we were wealthy. I only figured it out when I started having friends over. Their faces told me everything I needed to know.”
“So your mansion, on Hunting Island, next to where he parks his yacht. I thought it was all state park down there?”
She considered this. “Yeah, I guess it is. We’re on the northern tip of it, right across Johnson Creek from Harbor Island. I think he bought the land a long time ago from the state, or something like that, but it was always pretty hush-hush. Only house on the entire island, I think.”
“Yeah, I would’ve sworn there were no houses on the island. Your old man must have been really close with some state bigwigs to swing a deal like that. So why would someone want to kill him?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I honestly have no idea. Money, I’m sure.”
“How could someone get money from your father if he’s dead?”
“I guess, I don’t know… maybe they would get money because he’s dead.”
I nodded, taking another sip of the watered-down mixture. I was about to trash this round and start over, but I had her going on her father
. I was in this now, so I decided I’d better sit up and pay attention. For the time being another drink could wait. “So you think he was into some… questionable business?”
“I know he met with some shady types, but I never thought…”
For a moment I thought she might break down and lose it, but she held it together. It was essential for me to get whatever I could out of her during this first phase of grief, as they’ll often shut down completely within a day, and it could take months to open them back up again. Again, I’m no PI, but I’d seen this before. She was dealing with a whole slew of emotions — anger, disbelief, loss, fear — and I needed to dodge those mines and navigate through it to her core, where she could tell me the truth.
“I know this is hard, but if you can give me anything that might help me figure this out… It’s a tricky business, but it’s crucial that you’re honest with me.”
“You think —“
I held up a hand. “No, I’m not accusing you of not being truthful. You have been, and I appreciate that, but you’re going to start feeling all of this a lot harder in a day or two, and it will potentially get… trickier.”
She nodded, sniffing quickly. “I understand. Okay, I can tell you that he was into importing, and the company is called Crimson Club.”
I frowned. “Crimson Club? They have a logo or anything? A website?”
“Yeah on the first one. Not sure about the website. He was always old fashioned.”
“Sounds like I would have liked him.”
“Well, you’d be the only one. He was kind of a jerk. When I was really little he was a great dad, taking us to the park, going to school functions, that sort of stuff. And he was funny, too, always tricking us with puzzles and making up terrible puns, but the more money he made the more distant he became. He got more and more serious, and aside from the obligatory birthday and Christmas gifts — always some sort of puzzles — he pretty much detached from me completely. He’d make sure I knew he was still there, I guess. Always telling me things like ‘you’re the key it to all, my Hannah.’ Just an absentee father trying not to feel too estranged from his daughter, but we both knew we had nothing in common. He started working in the yacht all the time, just camping out there on the water. By the time I was in high school he had all but told us Daniel was the favorite, and besides giving me a chunk of the business and paying for school, he rarely reached out to me.”
