by Mike Faricy
“I did “Girls, Girls, Girls” one thru seven. Had a supporting role in “Babes in Toyland” three and four. I played an elf and a toy tester. I was the girl on the bar in “Drunk and Disorderly.” Did you see it?”
“No, I guess I missed that one, too.”
She shook her head like she couldn’t believe it. “Well, what do you do for fun? Do you ever have any? Fun, I mean.”
“Once in a while, I guess.”
“I guess,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Kind of a drag if you ask me.”
“Hey, Swindle, you sure you don’t know anything about Gino and Dudley Rockett?” It was the third or fourth time I’d asked her.
“I’ve been with a lot of guys, most of ‘em I never even knew their name,” she said then drained her glass.
“You remember Gino? The cops arrested him in the courthouse today. You were there. They said he attempted to kill Dudley Rockett. Remember him? He was your agent.”
“Charging Gino? Not my problem then is it?” She signaled Jimmy behind the bar with a slight wave of her empty glass.
“Hold on, Jimmy,” I called. “Hey, no offense, Swindle, but I don’t want to bring you back to the party tonight so drunk you can’t enjoy yourself.”
“I’ve never been that drunk,” she said and signaled Jimmy with her glass again.
“No doubt, but I’m sure Tommy wouldn’t be too happy.”
“Tommy’s never happy,” she said then slid her purse off the table, snapped it open, and pulled out a package of cigarettes. She stabbed one into the corner of her mouth then flicked her lighter and lit up.
“Sorry, no smoking in here. It’s been the law for about the past decade.”
“The law,” she scoffed then shook her blonde hair back over her shoulder and blew smoke across the table in my direction.
“Come on, we can go outside if you’re gonna smoke,” I said and slid out of the booth.
Swindle stared up at me with bloodshot eyes then took a long drag and blew her smoke at me. I thought of Candi describing her as a real pain in the hole. That was turning out to be a fairly accurate assessment.
“Hey look, Swindle. I’m sorry you can’t be down at the police station sitting around. I’m sorry you have to sit here drinking Brandy Manhattans at my expense. I’m sure you have a very productive life, and there are things you should be accomplishing right now. But Tommy told me to keep an eye on you. You’re not happy about that. Neither am I. So let’s just try and get along, maybe make the best of it.”
She seemed to think about that for a moment. She took another long drag, blew the smoke toward the ceiling, and tossed her cigarette into her empty drink glass. It sizzled on the ice cubes and slowly began to extinguish.
“Yeah sure, whatever. Look I gotta pee,” she said and slid out of the booth.
I handed Jimmy a twenty while Swindle staggered into the ladies room.
“Where’d you pick her up?” Jimmy asked.
“I didn’t, she’s a client.”
“Business that bad?”
“I didn’t think so this morning, but I’m beginning to wonder,” I said.
A couple of heads in the mid-day drinking crowd turned to appraise her once she exited the ladies room taking itty-bitty steps in her heels toward the door.
“I better drive. Give me your keys, and I’ll lock up your car. I’m parked just across the street in front of my office.”
Thankfully she didn’t argue. She fished her keys out of her purse and called after me. “Grab another pack of cigarettes out of my glove compartment and that lipstick case in there, too.”
I had parked Swindle’s purple Miata convertible behind The Spot. Based on the smashed front end, the scrape along the passenger side door, and the groaning muffler I’d say she didn’t drive it very well. I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t lipstick in the silver tube with the gold top stuck in the corner of her glove compartment, but I grabbed the thing anyway.
We weren’t due at the Tutti Frutti for another couple of hours, and I thought it might be a good idea to get some food in her. I held the door to the Fleetwood as she slipped unlady-like into the front seat.
By that time I climbed behind the wheel Swindle had reclined the passenger seat and was lounging back suggestively, sniffling and rubbing her nose.
“You missed some,” I said, indicating the remnants of white powder around the base of her nostrils.
She sat up and twisted the rear view mirror so she could examine herself. She wiped up the remnants of powder with her finger then rubbed her finger tip across her gums and slouched back.
“Happy?” she sneered.
“Not by a long shot,” I said and readjusted the mirror.
She seemed to sulk for a moment then reached into her purse and pulled out an iPhone housed in a sort of sequined leopard skin case. She punched in a number, listened for maybe thirty seconds then growled, “Shit,” and tossed the phone back into her purse.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“What do you feel like eating?” I asked.
“Are you kidding me? I don’t care, just order something for me, nothing fatty,” she groaned, slinking down in her seat and giving off an attitude.
I had a comment on the tip of my tongue, but decided to keep quiet; the night was going to be long enough as it was. I figured the dollar menu would serve us just fine.
“Three McChicken sandwiches, two small fries, two medium cokes,” I said into the screen.
“Will there be anything else?” a voice replied.
“No.”
“Thank you, your total is seven dollars and thirty-seven cents. Please pull ahead to the first window.”
I drove ahead to the window.
“Seven dollars thirty-seven cents,” the girl said.
I handed her a ten.
“Three sixty-three is your change. Thank you. Please pull ahead to the next window.”
I pulled ahead to the next window. A hand thrust out a moment later holding a bag with our food. I took the bag and handed it over to Swindle, who didn’t react. She was either asleep or passed out, so I gently set the bag on her lap. I took the two cokes and placed them in the console tray and drove away.
The thought never crossed my mind to wake her. I cautiously lifted the bag of food off her lap and set it on mine. Then quietly began to eat as I drove onto the Interstate. I proceeded to drive along the beltline encircling the Twin Cities for the next couple of hours while Swindle softly snored in the passenger seat, and I ate all the food.
I pulled up in front of the Tutti Frutti a little later that evening and parked on the street about fifteen feet from the front door. As I turned the Fleetwood off Swindle groaned in the passenger seat and half rolled toward the door.
“Swindle, hey, Swindle, we’re here,” I said, shaking her gently on her hip.
“Don’t touch me,” she groaned.
“Come on, we’re at the Tutti Frutti, Tommy’s waiting for you.”
“I said don’t touch me,” she shouted and slapped my hand away.
I spanked her once across her hip, hard and shouted, “Come on, get the hell out of my car.”
“Ouch! Hey, what do think you’re doing?”
“Get out, Swindle, you pain, we’re at the Tutti Frutti.”
“What? Already?” she asked, sitting up, twisting my rear view mirror again, and staring into it. “Oh God, look at me, I look like shit.”
I couldn’t argue with her. Her makeup had left deep dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. Her hair was a mess and sort of pressed off to one side in a very bad case of bed-head. The red lipstick had rubbed off her lips and somehow found its way onto her front teeth.
“You can duck into the ladies room in the Tutti Frutti,” I suggested.
“Oh God, I need to pee,” she groaned. It seemed to be turning into a regular theme. She grimaced then fluttered her feet rustling the fast food wrappers I had tossed down onto the floor suggesting she didn’t have a lot of
time to wait.
“The ladies room would probably be the best place, come on.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Don’t touch me, Biker, I gotta pee,” Swindle half shouted as we entered the Tutti Frutti. She seemed to have a slight stagger to her step and her leather skirt had shifted about four inches off center. She blasted past Biker and made a beeline for the restroom.
Biker didn’t even blink at Swindle’s disheveled state. He stared at me trying to place my face.
“Hey, Biker, Dev Haskell, we met before, partied with Tommy D’Angelo that night. How’s it going?” I lied.
He sort of snapped back to reality with the mention of Tommy’s name. Then suddenly grew all sweet and charming, shook my hand while he placed his left hand on my shoulder.
“Oh yeah, knew you from somewhere. God, that was a night wasn’t it?’ He sounded like he was still trying to remember when and where.
“One for the books, Biker, one for the books. Hey, Tommy told me to meet him at the victory party. That somewhere special?”
“Private party room upstairs. That door next to the bar, take the stairs.”
“Folks up there already? Tommy here?”
“Some of the usual crowd. Tommy and Gino got a little delayed I guess.”
Yeah, I’d seen the delay going down with Aaron and Detective Manning in the hallway of the courthouse, but didn’t feel the need to tell Biker about it.
“Hey, when Swindle comes out will you tell her I’m up in the party room?”
“Yeah, Swindle,” Biker said and just shook his head.
There was a guard of sorts at the stairway. A young woman in Goth makeup wearing black latex and a cape stood next to the door. She was holding a spear about eight feet long and didn’t react when I spoke to her.
“How’s it going?” I said.
She looked straight ahead, sort of standing at attention the way someone who’d never served in the military thought you stood at attention.
“The party for Gino up these stairs?”
Still no reaction. If I’d been drinking, I probably would have pulled some stunt like drawing a mustache on her face or worse. Instead, I just opened the door and went upstairs. The kid probably thought she added to the atmosphere.
The party room was a nice enough place. There were a half dozen reclining nude portraits gracing the walls. If I recalled, prior to the Tutti Frutti this place had been called Dusty’s, a cowboy theme bar serving long neck beers with a mechanical bull ride in one of the corners. The nude portraits seemed to be all that remained of Dusty’s.
A buffet table ran along a far wall. A number of aluminum chafing dishes held different foods and were kept warm by small flames burning beneath and what looked like heat lamps positioned over the trays. People were clustered in small groups talking in hushed tones not quite whispering, but almost. Next to the buffet table was a bar that seemed to draw me toward it.
“Hi, what can I get you?” She was a cheery thing, the bartender. She could have been pretty, probably was until she added fifteen pounds of metal piercing to her head. The ridge of both ears looked like a zipper had been sown onto them. I counted a half dozen jeweled bars running down the bridge of her nose. Her eyebrows looked like she’d had a bad experience with a staple gun, and her lips looked like the branch on a Christmas tree. I caught myself staring for a long moment.
“What would you like, sir?” she asked.
“You got a Summit EPA?”
“Yes sir, care for a glass?”
“Just the bottle will do.” I felt like asking her something personal like how she ever cleared airport security? Or were flying magnets a danger? Instead I just said, “Thanks,” and walked away.
I was standing in the middle of the room looking around and not recognizing anyone. I had hoped to run into Candi, but if she was around I didn’t see her, and she wasn’t the sort you’d miss.
“How in the hell did you get in here?” It was Heidi. A least I think it was. She was adorned with more of her fake piercings. She’d dug out her red and purple skunk wig and had pulled the thing onto her head. She was poured into a military-looking sort of corset which was actually pretty good.
“Well, at least I didn’t have to wear a costume.”
“Very funny. Not. You certainly seem to be climbing the social ladder. How did you rate to get in here?”
I looked around the room and thought if the state medical authorities knew about this group they’d drop a net over the entire bunch.
“I think all these people fell off the social ladder a long time ago.”
“I suppose you’d feel more at home in those dreadful dive bars you frequent. With people drunk and obnoxious or just passed out.”
“Probably. Hey,” I leaned in close and adopted the same hushed tone as everyone else. “What’s the deal, I thought the D’Angelos were having a victory party? This feels more like a funeral.”
“Figures you wouldn’t have a clue. Get me another drink and I’ll fill you in,” she said then handed me what looked like a large bathroom glass.
“You’re either drinking mouthwash or lime Kool-Aid?”
“A Green Fairy.”
“What?”
“A Green Fairy, of course you wouldn’t know. It’s the latest thing and she can really make a good one,” Heidi glanced over at the zipper headed bartender.
“Be right back.”
“Better give me another Summit and a Green Fairy,” I said then set my empty down beside Heidi’s glass. “Hey, what’s a Green Fairy anyway?”
“Green Fairy, oh, they can be nasty. Absinthe, melon liqueur and peach schnapps.”
“Absinthe?”
“It’s a French liqueur. They say Van Gogh was drinking it when he decided to cut his ear off.”
“Gee, better make it a double then.”
“Okay.”
“No, no, don’t make it a double. I know where that would be headed.”
“You sure? I can.”
“Very sure, thanks all the same.”
It was a couple hours later when Swindle finally made her appearance. She wandered in dressed in the same outfit she’d worn earlier, so she hadn’t gone home to change. God only knew what she’d been up to, but she clearly hadn’t missed anything at the victory party. Joey Cazzo, Louie and Gino and Tommy D’Angelo were nowhere to be seen.
The crowd had thinned to probably half its original size, which hadn’t been a whole lot of people to begin with. The buffet table was still in place, but the food had been on the warm-cycle for more than a few hours and appeared to have developed some sort of dried crust over everything. Heidi was flitting back and forth between a couple of small groups and Zipper Head the bartender.
I was bored out of my mind and even though the people-watching was great it was beginning to get old.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Hey, where’s the action?” Swindle asked. She’d made a beeline for the bar the moment she entered the room. At first I thought she might be okay. Now close up she appeared higher than a kite with wide unblinking eyes and dilated pupils that glared at everyone in the room.
She sniffled as she rubbed her nose back and forth then drained the top third of her drink. It looked an awful lot like bourbon on the rocks. I prayed it was ice tea.
“Where’s the action? I don’t think there is any, Swindle. Tommy and Gino haven’t bothered to show. Half the folks have already left and the other half will leave about ten seconds after the bar closes. The food has been slow cooking under those heat lights for the past three or four hours so I’d stay away from that.”
“We gotta get this place moving, get some action going. There should be a band playing or something, this sucks big time,” she said then took another gulp.
“Maybe the band is waiting for Tommy and Gino to show up. Or maybe they just cancelled.”
Swindle kept moving around, shifting her weight, and looking here and there unable to remain still. She downed the remainde
r of her drink in one massive pour, shuddered a moment then handed me her empty.
“Get me another. I’m gonna get this place moving, this is total dullsville,” she said, then staggered across the room to the stairway.
“Working friend of yours?” Heidi said in my ear.
“No, actually, my date, sort of,” I replied.
“Oh, Dev, I’m sorry I didn’t mean…”
“Relax, it’s a business deal, she’s a client.”
“You’re working for hookers?” she said.
“I better get her drink refilled, need anything?”
“No, moderation is the key.”
I walked over to the bar. Zipper Head was still there. “I need a Summit and this was Swindle’s, so whatever she was drinking, I guess.”
She handed me my Summit then filled a glass with ice and free-poured a large amount of Grey Goose vodka over the cubes.
“Actually, I think Swindle was drinking bourbon,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re right, she was.” She emphasized the word “was”. “But she always likes to mix things up. She usually starts with a white wine, then a shot or two of something strange, followed by bourbon, vodka, and then a gin martini. She finishes up with tequila shots if she can make it that far. Some extra curricular stuff in-between,” she winked.
“Sounds absolutely lethal.”
“That’s Swindle,” she smiled.
My client, I thought. And I was supposed to watch her? She didn’t just need a keeper, she needed about five years in rehab and a team of social workers.
“Oh, oh,” Zipper Head suddenly said under her breath.
“All right, everybody, let’s get it going tonight. Come on, put your hands together and start clapping.”
I turned round to see Swindle with a cordless mike sort of circling in the center of the room. Biker was quickly setting up a sound system or something behind her looking very flustered.
“Come on, clap with me you bastards. Give me the clap,” she giggled, shook her hips, raised her hands over her head, and clapped. A couple of the women followed suit, sort of beginning to dance in place. Most of the guys looked toward the door.
