Pretty Girl Gone

by David Housewright

  Family restaurant? Not my family, I told myself.

  Still, most of the booths were filled—most with families—and so were half the tables. Three waitresses moved between them, serving food and beverages. Two men worked the bar, one old, one not so old. I drifted toward the bar. Before I was halfway there the older bartender called to me.

  “McKenzie. What’ll ya have?”

  That stopped me. There were joints where they actually knew my name. Just not this one.

  While I thought about it, the bartender waved me over. He was bald, round, soft, and as milky white as mashed potatoes. Yet his eyes were bright and he smiled like a man who took it as a personal triumph whenever he could make someone laugh.

  “I’m guessing you would be Nick Axelrod,” I told him.

  “At your service,” he said loudly. It seemed everything he said was loud. He extended his hand and I shook it. His grip was firm but he didn’t try to impress me with it.

  “Since this is your maiden voyage aboard the Good Ship Nick, the first drink is on the house.”

  “In that case, make it a single malt Scotch.”

  Axelrod laughed boisterously.

  “Good one,” he said. “Glenlivet?”

  “Perfect.” I removed my jacket and draped it over the back of the stool.

  “Water, ice?” Axelrod asked.

  “On the side.”

  For some reason Axelrod thought that was funny, too.

  “I’m guessing Coach Testen told you I’d be by,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah. Tried to be cool, but you could tell he was all hot and bothered. Said a little prick in an expensive leather jacket was besmirchin’ the good name of the Victoria Seven and I should throw your ass out.”

  “Why would he say that?”

  “I don’t know. You don’t look so little to me.”

  “I meant about throwing me out.”

  “Coach is probably tryin’ to protect his image. Thinks he’s John Wooden, for cryin’ out loud.”

  “He thinks he’s in the same league as the Wizard of Westwood, a man that’s won ten NCAA basketball championships?”

  “What can I tell ya? Hey, you know what you need? Roast beef served open-faced on sourdough bread with garlic roasted mashed potatoes and gravy. Yum. Your mother couldn’t make it better.”

  “That’s no endorsement. My mother could barely make dinner reservations.”

  Axelrod thought that was hysterical.

  “The woman could mess up Pop-Tarts,” I added.

  If he had been able to reach across the bar, Axelrod probably would have slapped me on the back. Instead, he rapped the bartop with his knuckles and proclaimed, “You’re okay, kid.”

  I felt as if I had just passed some important initiation, which was what I was going for: Why else would I insult my mother’s culinary skills?

  “Seriously,” Axelrod said, “You’re not leaving here until you eat something.”

  “Do you have a salad bar?”

  “No, we don’t have a salad bar. This is Nick’s.”

  “Someone has to make a stand against healthy food.”

  “Damn straight. Hey, Jacey.”

  A waitress seemed to appear out of thin air.

  “This is my daughter, Jace,” Axelrod said.

  Of course I recognized her. The girl from Fit to Print.

  “Hi,” she said. Her smile was bright, but brittle. You could smash it with a word. Her eyes had the look of a small animal suddenly confronted by something much, much larger.

  “Good evening, Jace,” I told her. “My name is McKenzie.”

  “Mr. McKenzie.”

  “Jace. That’s an interesting name.”

  “My real name is Judith Catherine, but since I was a kid everyone called me J.C. Somehow that was abbreviated to Jace.”

  “I like it very much. It’s pretty.”

  Jace’s smile became relaxed and warm, her eyes less frightened.

  She was a good height for her age, about five foot seven. Her features were small and well turned, not yet beautiful, but beauty was there, like the buds on a rose bush. She smiled as though she had a lot to smile about.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Axelrod said, his voice taking on a conspiratorial timbre. “Jacey’s too young to be working in a place that serves alcohol. Shh . . .”

  “Daddy, what’s alcohol?” Jace asked.

  “We’ll talk about that when you’re twenty-six. Just remember, what do you do if the police arrive?”

  “Buy ’em a drink and take them in the back room?”

  “That’s my little girl.”

  Jace rolled her eyes. “As if . . .” She turned to me, her pencil poised over the order pad. “What would you like for dinner?”

  “It’s called supper,” Axelrod said. “He’ll have the special.”

  “It’s supper when you eat at home,” Jace insisted. “When you eat out it’s called dinner.”

  This time it was Axelrod’s turn to roll his eyes.

  Jace promised to return in a few minutes with my order. Axelrod watched her depart.

  “I’m going to miss her,” he said. “She’s at that age now where she’s actually pleasant company, where she has interesting things to say.”

  “Is she going somewhere?”

  “College. In the fall. You think I want my daughter hanging around Victoria all her life? Don’t get me wrong, Victoria is a great place to grow up and a great place to grow old. In between, for someone who wants to make something of herself—Jace’ll be graduating high school soon. It’s time to move on.”

  “You seem to have done all right,” I volunteered.

  “Yeah, well, all I ever wanted was right here. I guess you could say I was seduced by small dreams. Jace, though, Jace has big plans, big ambitions.”

  “What ambitions?”

  Axelrod laughed loudly.

  “They seem to change from week to week, but they’re big. Very big.” He laughed some more.

  The restaurant continued to fill up until only a few empty seats along the bar remained. Glancing at the other patrons, I discovered that they were all white. I don’t know why I found that so disconcerting, but I did. Maybe Jace had a very good reason to hide her relationship with the Hispanic kid at Fit to Print.

  While Axelrod busied himself assisting the other bartender, Jace served the hot roast beef.

  “Thank you,” she said when she set the plate in front of me on the bar.

  “For what?”

  “For what. For not blowing my cover.”

  “I take it your father doesn’t know about Tapia.”

  “Nobody knows. Not really.”

  “Is your dad a bigot? Will he not understand?”

  Jace looked at me like I had just slapped her.

  “My father is not a bigot.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought . . .”

  “My father wants me to go to college, that’s all.”

  “And you want to stay here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because of Tapia?”

  She nodded.

  McKenzie, my inner voice told me, you’re an idiot.

  Jace busied herself with other customers, while I ate. I had to admit, the roast beef was delicious, and while the mashed potatoes weren’t quite as good as mine, I ate every forkful—no Atkins Diet for me! Jace eyed the empty plate before she cleared it, glanced at my waistline, then back at the plate again.

  “Huh,” she said. “You must work out.”

  “Not recently, unfortunately.” I retrieved my wallet. “Should I pay you now?”

  “Boss says it’s on the house.”

  I opened my wallet, took out a fifty, and dropped it on the tray Jace was holding.

  “I don’t imagine that includes tips,” I said.

  “That’s way too much.”

  “I remember what it was like to be a poor, starving college kid.”

  “Thank you,” Jace said.

  “You’re welcome.”

>   She moved away, stopped abruptly, and spun toward me.

  “You’re on his side.”

  “If I should have a daughter, I’d want her to go to college, too.”

  “Puhleez,” Jace said.

  Still, despite her outrage, she didn’t return the fifty.

  In between drink orders, Axelrod came to visit. He told a lot of jokes—most could be heard by the rest of his patrons—while I behaved like I had taken Good Cheer 101 in college. Eventually, I asked the questions I had come to ask.

  “Beth was pretty,” Axelrod said in reply to one of them. “Only she wasn’t very bright and she took herself way too seriously. At least that’s what I always thought. ’Course I think everyone takes themselves way too seriously.”

  “How about Coach Testen?”

  “Him most of all. He pretends that winning the championship ranks as one of the greatest sports achievements of all time. I can understand. I mean, it’s the only thing he’s ever done. Only you know what? It wasn’t nearly as exciting or earth-shattering as Coach and some others make it out to be. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind that he’s nurtured it, made a legend outta it. Around here some people treat me like I’m a celebrity cuz of it. It helped me make a go out of this place.” He gestured at the restaurant. “So, believe me, I don’t mind.

  “What you gotta remember, small towns are different from big towns. The past is more important to us. We tend to live there longer. That’s why Coach gets nervous when he thinks someone might tarnish the legend he’s created. Have you seen his museum? Good God.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  “So you know what I mean.”

  “Tell me about the night Elizabeth Rogers died,” I said.

  “You’re not gonna let that go, huh? Okay.”

  Axelrod added very little that I didn’t already know except this: The Seven, all of them, had left the party an hour before Elizabeth had.

  “We’d been hoarding beers all night without the parents or Coach catching on. Especially Coach. The man woulda freaked. When we had enough, we left and went to drink them.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Josie Bloom’s basement. His parents were gone and we went down there and just got wasted.”

  “Was Jack Barrett with you?”

  “I don’t know where Jack was.” Axelrod seemed serious for a moment, or as close to it as he could manage. “I never asked him where he was.”

  An instant later, he was back to his jovial self.

  “I heard Jack was angry with Beth,” I said.

  “Nah, it was the other way round. Beth was getting all paranoid on him, accusing him of things, saying how he was sleeping with another girl, stuff like that.”

  “Was he?”

  “If he was, none of us ever found out about it, and being as how Victoria was such a small town back then, we probably would have. I figure Beth saw the writing on the wall. She knew Jack was going to leave her for the U and this was a way of saving face. You know, dump him before he dumped her.”

  “They broke up?”

  “Well, sure. It was inevitable. I mean, God, they were kids. If Jamie got involved with someone at that age, I’d whack her upside the head.”

  I flashed on Tapia, but said nothing.

  Axelrod was laughing loudly again, or at least he increased the volume on the laugh that seemed never to end. I glanced about. No one was looking at us. I guessed that Axelrod’s patrons were used to his outbursts.

  “Jack left the party,” I said.

  “Yep.

  “Then you and the others left.”

  “Yep.”

  “Sometime after that, Beth left.”

  “I guess.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Were you ever questioned by the Chief?”

  “Chief Bohlig? No, why would I be?”

  Before I could answer, a man appeared just inside Nick’s heavy wooden door. His hair was parted crookedly and in need of shampoo. His complexion looked blotchy under a two-day growth of beard, and while he was clearly underweight, he was as doughy as unbaked bread.

  “Nick,” he brayed, suddenly the loudest man in the restaurant. “You no-good sonuvabitch.”

  “Hey, Josie, how are ya, man?” Axelrod called out. His voice was still loud and cheerful, but something had changed. There was an edge to it that hadn’t been there before.

  “I need a drink,” Bloom announced, scratching first his hands and then his cheeks.

  “You look like you’ve already had plenty, partner,” Axelrod said. I agreed. Bloom seemed like a man who had been to hell and back and remembered every step of the journey.

  “What’re you, my mother?” Bloom said. “A drink. Rye.”

  “How ’bout something to eat first. We’ve got a great special tonight. Jace,” Axelrod called.

  A moment later the young woman was standing there with her pencil and pad.

  “Good evening, Mr. Bloom,” she said. “What can I get you? The special?”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Bloom chanted. He stopping scratching long enough to wrap an arm around Jace and hug her shoulder. I don’t know why I was annoyed by the gesture, but I was.

  “Judith Catherine,” Bloom said. “How’s my sweetheart?”

  “Just great,” Jace replied.

  “Atta girl.”

  “How ’bout that special?” Jace asked.

  “If’n that’s the only way I’m gonna get a drink in this dump, yeah, why not?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Bloom. Good to see you again.”

  She patted Bloom’s arm and smiled before turning toward the kitchen.

  “Hi, Mr. Bloom.” I extended my hand. “I’m McKenzie.”

  He looked at my hand as though I had offered him the dirty end of the stick.

  “Who the hell is he?” he wanted Axelrod to tell him.

  “McKenzie’s been asking about the Seven,” Axelrod explained.

  Bloom grinned, but there was nothing friendly about it. Maybe it was the teeth, I told myself. They were a ghastly shade of gray and his gums were bright red.

  “Fuck the Seven,” he said. “Where’s the restroom? Hell, I know where the restroom is.”

  Bloom spun in the direction of the kitchen and staggered away.

  “Charming,” I said.

  “Ah, that’s just Josie,” Axelrod said. “He’s all right. It’s just—I told you about Coach and the tournament? Same with Josie. Winning the championship was the highlight of his life. Ever since God’s dealt him nothing but slop.”

  “Why would God do that?”

  “Who knows why God does half the things He does? I’ll tell ya, He’s sure been good to Jack though, huh?”

  I remembered something my Dad used to tell me—“God helps those who help themselves”—but didn’t mention it.

  “It’s this place, this town,” Axelrod said. “Josie should live in the Cities, Mankato; live where people don’t know or care that he stole the ball with eight seconds left on the clock and passed it to Jack so Jack could win the game at the buzzer. Only he can’t seem to get away.

  “I’ve been told he suffers from what psychologists call dual diagnosis depression, meaning he’s not only clinically depressed, he self-medicates himself with alcohol, which makes it worse. Another guy, he told me Josie suffers from biological unhappiness, whatever that means. I think it’s just that he’s been unable to deal with the terrible fact that his life, his entire existence has been defined by something he did when he was only seventeen years old.”

  “What’s he do for a living?” I asked.

  “These days? These days he’s—I’m not sure what you’d call him. Not a gambler, anyway. What Josie does, he goes around to all the bars in the county, every place that sells pull tabs. In Minnesota, the winning tabs must be posted—it’s the law—so a guy can look at a box and determine how many winning tabs are still left to be pulled. Sometimes you can get a box that’s mayb
e a quarter full or less, except the big winners, they haven’t been pulled yet. What Josie does, he looks for these boxes. When he finds one, he determines if the total amount of the winners still left in the box is worth more than the cost of all the remaining tabs. If it is, well then he just buys the entire box, guaranteeing himself a nice payday.

  “Problem is, it’s expensive. A box, even a quarter box, might cost a couple of thousand dollars and it’s illegal to buy pull tabs with a check or credit card, so Josie has to carry a lot of cash with him. Two, three, four thousand.”

  “Flashing that kind of money is dangerous,” I said.

  “Tell me about it. And Josie, he’s not what you’d call retiring.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “People know him. They know what he does, and most people, the people buying the pull tabs, they don’t like it much when he just swoops in and grabs all the winners. This one time these guys jump him in his driveway—he’s got a place out on the county road, kinda isolated. One night these guys jump him, steal about a thousand dollars. Josie, though, he hid most of his money—as much as five grand he said—in his boots. Problem was, next day he goes around bragging about it, telling how he outfoxed the muggers. So, what happens . . .”

  “Let me guess.”

  “Same guys jump him again a couple nights later. Only this time they take all of his money and his boots.”

  “Surprise, surprise, surprise,” I said.

  “Ah, Josie. What a guy.”