by Jim Nisbet
NINE
SET ME UP, YOU SAY TO QUINCY, AS YOU EASE YOUR FILTH ONTO the stool farthest from the front door of the Uncertain Bollard. Martini, high dry and Arctic, Quincy says, with a swipe of his rag over your little personal bartop hectare, and he spins a square of cocktail napkin in front of you. Boy oh boy oh boy, you say, aloud but more or less to yourself, sixty bucks. Less twenty percent that’s forty-eight dollars and say, Quincy? Say, what? I been meaning to talk to you about that. About what? About how five goes into forty-eight nine times with three dollars left over? That is does, Quincy says, as he inverts a quart of Andrei Rublev, the well vodka, over his stainless steel cocktail shaker. So say I drink all nine of them here, you coyly advance while trying not to wheedle, you think you could throw me the tenth one for three? I’ve allowed for a twenty percent tip, you blan-dish. Quincy fakes the pour spout atop a quart of extra dry Vermouth toward the cap of the cocktail shaker, which he then immediately evacuates it into the sink. Nine of what? he says, capping the shaker and giving it what for. Why, nine martinis, of course, you admonish him. The fuck I been drinking in here for twenty years? That’s all very well and good, Quincy says, as he continues to give the shaker what for. But a martini in here is now six-fifty. How to convey the roar that rises through the column of my spine and bifurcates into both ears like a Blue Angel chandelle over the Alcatraz of my corpus callosum? Your over-reacting, suggests the smart money, though I, too, am shocked. A what in where is how much? you demand to know, like you’re some kind of journalist, and Quincy, placing a frozen martini glass on the serviette in front you decants the shaker into it as he says, this puppy here, as of last week, is six-fifty. Is it any wonder that this society makes people crazy? you ask aloud, nay, shout. As Quincy visibly winces the smart money adds, is it any wonder that this society makes crazy people crazier? It’s not society, Quincy says, as he defensively coaxes every last thickened drop into the surface tension that rises a full molecular layer above the actual rim of the martini glass, it’s the economy. Fuck the economy, you calmly pronounce, drawing inner peace from the very sight of your first cocktail in three weeks, through the clear fluid of which filaments snake, like maleficent sea serpents guarding the two olives of doom. Give me a pencil, you meekly request in a shaken voice. Quincy complies, then goes about his business at the other end of the bar. Despite that he pours a generous drink, despite that he lets me drink in here in the first place, I’m cutting that bastard’s tip back to fifteen percent, you decide, as you lick the tip of the pencil and retrieve another napkin from the stack. Fifteen percent of sixty bucks is nine. Sixty less nine is fifty-one. Six dollars and fifty cents divided into fifty-one is seven point eight four six. Round up to eight. The shaft. That’s what it is. The economy is giving me the shaft. Not like the shaft you gave Riparian Sam, the smart money points out. I’m coming up one drink short on what I thought was a sure thing, you continue, ignoring all moral vectors, as usual, and secure in what is perhaps the least paranoid aspect of your self-awareness, which is the knowledge that the smart money only brings up moral vectors to tweak you. Quincy, you’re shafting me, you say aloud. I don’t make the rules around here, Quincy states the obvious. I’m just the morning man, six to two. No time for lunch? My customers eat my lunch for me. Don’t change the subject. What do you want me to do, Quincy asks, showing just the least sign of impatience, make you pay up front? Now you’re insulting me, you reply. Since when have I ever owed you a red cent for anything? I—you count the spondees on the bar with a forefinger—pay—my—bills. Cash and carry, Quincy notes mildly. That’s right, you iambic fuck. Hey, Quincy says, laughing despite himself. No wonder I let you drink in here. It’s a large wonder, in fact, observes the smart money. You stay out of this, you inadvertently respond aloud. Quincy looks around. You talking to me? He walks down the bar and shakes the remnants of the first cocktail into your glass, topping it off thereby, if perhaps with alcohol somewhat diluted with the water accrued from the melting ice. I am confronted with a dilemma, you declaim, and morose, I confront the morass. And your usual vista? Quincy asks, not unkindly. The underside of an overpass, you smile dreamily. Porous, gray, unyielding—although the odd heavy truck does make it tremble. That might certainly coax me from one alcoholic haze to the next, Quincy confirms, speaking personally. You nod distantly. The horrible present quakes with insubstantiality, the smart money whispers. The telephone rings behind the bar, next to the cash register. Quincy takes up the receiver, listens. Hiya babe, he says after a moment. Quincy lifts a foot and parks it along the edge of the sink under the bar, and toys with a stack of napkins there. No, no, he says, not busy. Your face burns. I enjoyed it, Quincy says. He catches the receiver between his shoulder and the side of his face. I don’t want to know what your husband wants to know. You consider your cocktail. You breath in deeply, breath out slowly. And what, in the end, is solved? Nothing, says the smart money. If somebody had showed me a boat when I was ten, you theorize, my whole life may have been different. Different how, the smart money says, abruptly interrogatory, you mean you might have gone to sea with iron men in iron ships, with whom and therein to watch pornography, while intelligent machines did all the sailing? And all the loading and unloading? And all the hiring and firing? And all the evisceration of the union pension fund? The question seems relevant, you hedge. Inverting a highball glass, Quincy twists its mouth atop a stack of napkins, causing their edges to separate into a spiral. I haven’t gotten enough of you, he says softly. That’s too much information, you say to the smart money, not taking your eyes off your drink. Too much. You want to do something about it or not? Quincy asks the telephone. You touch the stem of the cocktail glass with the tips of the fingers of both hands, as if it were a delicate moment in time, as if you could handle a matter of delicacy in any way shape or form whatsoever. But seven drinks with the possibility of an eighth, you are brooding, as opposed to nine drinks with the possibility of a tenth, makes the difference between two to three days of satisfying oblivion at five to three drinks per day, and two to three days of a less than satisfying semi-oblivion at four to less than three drinks per day. A muddling stultification. Maybe you should repurpose your adulterous ways, Quincy is saying, and even the smart money is cringing inwardly. Except that inward is the one direction you don’t want to go, that you really can’t go. You lost that capacity a long time ago. Inward is dark, there really is not that much there, a few signposts, maybe, many of them splintered or even missing, just jagged stubs with bush clover and California poppies sprouting round them. And the lonely wind. This reminds you of the country. Forget the country, the smart money reminds you, you wouldn’t last a day. Besides, most bars out in the county? They figure the martini for a fairy drink, you order one, they tell you so, and the next thing you know they’re stomping you face down into a ditch out back. What a vision of America, you manage to croak. Finish that drink, the smart money advises, you’ll feel better. You finish the drink. I no longer feel at home here, you say to nobody in particular. Customer, Quincy says off-handedly. he drops his foot from the edge of the bar sink to the floor. I gotta go. What? Sure. Another? he says, hanging up. You blink. It is written, the smart money says, and you repeat the remark, adding, all over my face. My opinion exactly, Quincy remarks, tossing the balance of the cocktail out of the shaker and into the sink. You hear about that couple, got themselves popped out at Land’s end last week? A tremor ripples through your extra-pyramidals. I thought you had more self-control than that, the smart money remarks. Are the extra-pyramidals voluntary or not? you respond archly. Minding their own business, they were, Quincy says, as he drags the stainless beaker through the sinkful of ice. Surfer dude and his wife. Two kinds. You know, you say carefully, there was a couple of cops came to call under the bridge just this morning, wanting to know about that exact same case. Sounded like it, anyway. Oh yeah? Quincy says, evincing only mild interest, two cops came in here asking about whether I knew anything. Now your eyelids flutter. When? Yesterday.
What, did those two people drink in here? The cops? The couple. Never heard of them, Quincy said, although, you know, if I still read a newspaper I mighta read about it. All you can do is grunt. Well, Quincy says, doing his thing with the vermouth, how many couples get popped for no reason out at Land’s End? Ever think about that? Not many, you respond, especially with no reason. Come to think of it, Quincy says, adding a healthy dose of Andrei Rublev to the shaker, what would be a good reason? Or any reason? I don’t know, you shrug. They pissed somebody off? That’s pretty pissed off, Quincy observes, capping the shaker. I had a friend once, he says. Went to high school with him. He shakes the shaker with vigor, another reason to drink in here, observes the smart money. Lot of these places, they got these husky kids working in there, they shake the shaker like they never jerked off in their life. He’s out at Land’s End with his kid one afternoon, just to look at the ocean. How old was the kid? I don’t know, Quincy says thoughtfully. I was at the wedding, so he couldn’t have been… He stops shaking the cocktail. In order to think, apparently. My friend was carrying him around, so maybe he wasn’t walking yet. He resumes shaking. Came up from the beach and caught a guy breaking into his car. Guy turned around and shot him. Wow, you say, genuinely shocked. And the kid? Quincy pours. They found him sitting there between cars next to his father, unscathed. His father was dead. Jeeze, you say thoughtfully, that’s superhero material. Huh? Quincy says, genuinely nonplussed. That kid could grow up to be, you know, a masked crimefighter. The martini topped off, Quincy screws the bottom half of the yet-to-be-emptied shaker into the ice-filled sink. Never thought of it that way, he says thoughtfully. It’s more or less the initial plot device of Batman, the smart money tells you to tell him. The kid that grows up to be Batman witnesses the murder of his own father. Or both his parents, maybe. From then on, he’s snakebit. So what’s your excuse, Quincy asks, looking you in the eye. This guy knows too much, you council the smart money fearfully. He knows nothing, the smart money retorts with contempt. Good question, you say aloud, and I might ask you the same. I don’t consider myself snakebit, Quincy says simply. And me? you ask. I was just kidding, Quincy lies easily. Just making conversation. Well, you repeat stubbornly, maybe those people at the beach pissed somebody off. Like you mean, maybe they interrupted a guy breaking into their car? Wouldn’t that piss you off? Not enough to shoot somebody, Quincy replies. Oh, so you’d rather let him get the cops on you, send you to San Quentin? Folsom? Vacaville? Pelican Bay? Guy shoulda thought of that in the first place, Quincy states the obvious. Maybe he was desperate, you suggest. No shit, Quincy replies, desperate and stupid. Could be, you say thoughtfully. They ever catch the guy who killed your friend? Quincy shook his head. What about his kid? You mean, Quincy says, did the kid grow up to be Batman? You puff a little air through your lips, by way of expressing frustration. No, Quincy says. After the funeral, I lost track of him and the whole family. Later I heard his wife remarried and left town. So that kid had nobody to count on, you say, nobody. I guess so, says Quincy. Except his mama, maybe. What the fuck do you know, you say. Huh? Quincy says. Forget it, you say. Quincy studies you for a moment. After a long moment he says thoughtfully, I guess you know from snakebit. Could be, you reply with mild acid. Could be. Well look who’s here, a third voice says. Both you and Quincy turn and, Lo and behold, Quincy says, we were just talking about you. He turns to you. These the guys? These are the guys, you say cheerfully. They take adjacent stools at the far end of the bar, their backs to the door. And what was you saying, the younger of the two asks, about us. We were wondering if you were the same two cops who visited the two of us yesterday and the day before I guess it was, in the course of your investigation of that nice young couple who got popped out to the Land’s End last week. How’s your tinnitus? the older one abruptly asks you. Just a squallin’ and a squealin’, you manage to tell him. It sounds like somebody’s tuning an AM radio way out in eastern Montana, where here’s no stations. Jeeze, sympathizes the younger cop, who plainly doesn’t believe you. It sounds like a kindergarten playground a half a block away, you persist, only it’s not. It’s in your head. See? the older one says to the younger one. You better start wearing those gun muffs. He turns back to the bar. Shamus, Jr., here, he takes target practice? He shakes his head. He won’t wear the gun muffs. Thinks gun muffs are for pussies. That’s okay, I assure him, because tinnitus is definitely not for pussies. That’s true, Quincy says, I know a guy committed suicide behind his tinnitus. You gentlemen ready for a drink? Coffee, the older one says. Ginger ale, the younger one says. That’s a lot of sugar, the older one tells him. Gun muffs, sugar, the younger one replies without humor, what are you, my mother? She told me to keep an eye on you, his partner replies easily. He straightens up and sits back from the bar as Quincy places a napkin in front of each of them. While we’re on the subject, the older one says to nobody in particular, we think we may have found the guy’s been going around town shooting people. Yeah? Quincy says, as he spritzes soda into a glass full of ice. I, who have ducked my chin low over the bar in order to suction the top layer of surface tension off the top of my martini with my lips, raise my eyebrows interrogatively. Which means they go front to back over the bar, parallel to its surface, instead of up and down, perpendicular to it. What’s he got to say for himself? Quincy asks, as he stands the glass of ginger ale on the napkin in front of the younger cop. Not much, the older cop replies. How could he, Quincy says, retrieving a ceramic cup from the little dishwasher under the bar and placing it on the napkin in front of the older cop. There can’t possibly be a rational explanation. Wait a minute. Did you say people? There’s more than the two victims out at the beach? So it would seem, the older cop says. A corner of his upper lip lifts as he watches Quincy pour coffee. Even from the other end of the bar you can smell that the coffee has been sitting on the burner since six-thirty this morning, but, Yeah, you get your oar in, you were only talking about some couple out to the beach when you talked to me. The younger cop is watching you wordlessly, and he doesn’t touch his ginger ale. That’s true, the older cop says. Ballistics makes out we’re up to four, maybe five gunshot victims. He waits patiently as Quincy sets a little stainless pitcher of cream, a spoon, and a chrome-topped glass dispenser full of white sugar on the bar in front of him. We got the gun for sure, we got a suspect, maybe. That’s a relief, you row your oar. Guys going around the city popping people off, it makes everybody nervous. Like the Zebra killers. Remember them? The cop takes up the spoon, starts stirring, and upends the sugar dispenser over the vortex. Sugar cascades into his coffee, he’s stirring and watching, everybody’s watching it. Damn, honey, he says to the coffee, you’re older than I thought. Hell, Quincy says, as if mesmerized by the cascade of white sugar, I remember the Zebra case. Black guys, you say, as if startled, going around town shooting white people at bus stops. Completely at random. Killed five or six people. They killed sixteen people, the older cop says to his coffee. What? you say, aghast. At a minimum, he adds, setting the sugar dispenser back on the bar at last. I never heard that, Quincy says. Not many people heard that, the older cop says. But some authorities think it could have been as many as seventy. They killed a lot of homeless, hitchhikers, people with no antecedents, as we say down at the Department of Unexplained Deaths. Is that your department? Quincy asks. No, the older cop says, pausing over the rim of his coffee cup. We work out of the Department of Explained Deaths. Exclusively. He sips once, twice, a third time. Damn, he says, setting the cup down. You may be old, but this coffee’s older. I made it fresh this morning, Quincy protests. The younger cop glances at his watch. Still, he does not speak. An interesting aspect of the Zebra murders? The older cop dabs a corner of his napkin at the corner of his mouth and looks at it. What broke that case was a snitch, he says. What broke the snitch was a tip that came from the old 500 Club at the corner of Haight and Fillmore. Quincy frowns, trying to remember something. The young cop assumes a respectful attitude, as toward a body of knowledge to which he has n
o direct access. Last time I saw that place open, I say, it was surrounded by cop cars. An array of them fanned through the intersection, the hood of each one pointed at the front door of the bar, which held down on the northeastern corner. Every door on every vehicle stood open and behind each door crouched a cop with a drawn weapon. Shotgun, pistol, whatever, that weapon was pointed at the front door of the 500 Club. That’s the place, the older cop said. You’re older than I thought. They say everybody who drank at that bar got handed a foot of duct as they came in the door, so they could tape their piece up under the bar. That way, when the cops came in and frisked everybody, a regular occurrence, everybody was clean. See? I smiled. Yeah, the older cop said. It was a rough neighborhood, back in the day, Quincy concluded. What were you doing there? Drinking, I shrugged. I mighta known, Quincy said. Without a doubt, the older cop said. What do we owe you? Quincy waved a hand. The two cops stood off their respective barstools. A cop went undercover, I said to the bar. He drank in the 500 Club every night, and eventually he got the tip that broke the case. That’s the way I heard it, anyway. That’s nothing to do with the case at hand, the older cop said. He ducked his head. But—you know?—there is an odd coincidence. What’s that? Well, like the case at hand, and with the exception of that nasty incident with the machete, all of the Zebra murders were committed with a thirty-two. For no good reason, and lots of bad ones, I found this morsel disconcerting. Really? I managed lamely, I had no idea. Look it up on Wikipedia, came the suggestion. I… don’t have a computer, came the response. After a short pause, the younger cop laughed. Quincy joined in. Finally, even the older cop, after a look around, gave me a shrug, a smile, and then a laugh. Then the laughter died out. Another pause. A lotta loose ends to that case, the older cop finally said, and he said it to me. Some cases are like that. He laid a five on the bar. No charge, Quincy said quickly. The older cop waved this off. Thanks, he said to Quincy. See you around, he said to me. Then they left.
