Chance

by Robert B. Parker

  Pearl got through with the worm and got up and shook herself and proceeded. We went with her.

  "Who's Gino Fish," Susan said.

  "Sort of filled the number-one slot," I said, "when Joe Broz got old."

  "Broz retired?"

  "Not really, but his kid's a bust, and Vinnie left him, and he's about seventy, and his heart's not in it anymore."

  "And where does Shirley's father rank in all of this?"

  "If it weren't for Gino, he'd have Broz's slot," I said.

  "He might get it anyway. He's ambitious."

  "So what's the connection?"

  "Gino's guy Marty Anaheim had some people following me."

  "And you're sure it's about Whatsisname, Shirley's father?"

  "Better than that," I said.

  "Hawk and I braced Marty and he asked if Julius hired us to do anything with Anthony Meeker."

  "Why are they interested?"

  "I "Don't know."

  "What would you speculate?"

  "Money."

  Susan smiled.

  "That would always be a reasonable guess, wouldn't it," she said.

  "Yes."

  "And the other guess would probably be sex," Susan said.

  "So young," I said, "so beautiful, and yet so cynical."

  CHAPTER 10

  There were maybe a dozen places in the phone book with the word Starlight in their name. I eliminated places which wouldn't employ waitresses, like Starlight Video, or the Starlight Laundry, and narrowed it down to The Starlight Lounge in Lynn, and a roadhouse called Starlight Memories on the beach in Salisbury. I took the wedding picture of Anthony and Shirley with me and went to check out the waitresses. The Starlight Lounge was closest, out at a traffic circle near Lynn Beach where the causeway to Nahant branched off. It had been built after the war and was called the Redwood: a lot of glass windows, a lot of exposed pine stained red, the kind of restaurant that sold fried clams and hamburgers and frapps before the fast food franchises were invented and put them out of business. After that for a while it had been a bait and tackle place, and then it was a place that sold ceramic lawn statues, and then a pizza joint, and then, for a long time, an abandoned building except for a month in the winter when Christmas trees were sold out of the parking lot.

  In 1989 somebody painted it all over a dark blue, windows included, put in a bar and a bunch of cheap tables and chairs, installed a spinning strobe light in the high center of the room, hired a bunch of waitresses to work topless, and The Starlight Lounge was born.

  It was still bright daylight when I parked there at 5:20 in the afternoon. There were a couple of motorcycles parked outside and a truck full of cement sidings was nosed in at an angle taking a space and a half, as if the crew hadn't been able to wait a moment longer when quitting time came.

  The inside of the place was painted the same dark blue as the outside. I took off my sunglasses and waited for my pupils to dilate. The strobe reflector in the ceiling turned slowly, scattering the light like confetti. There was heavy rock music playing. I didn't recognize it, but I didn't expect to. All rock music sounded to me like glass being ground.

  To my right there was a long nearly empty bar, where once maybe there had been a soda fountain. I went over and leaned on the end of it. One of the bartenders came down to get my order. He was wide faced and curly haired with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up over his thick freckled arms. He put a paper napkin down on the bar in front of me and said, "What'll it be?"

  "Got any draft beer?" I said.

  "Nope. Bottle only."

  "Got any New Amsterdam Black and Tan?"

  The bartender grinned at me.

  "You got to be shitting," he said.

  "What have you got?" I said.

  "Bud, Bud Light, Heineken."

  "Bud," I said.

  The bartender got me a long neck, popped the cap, put a glass beside it, and went away. I looked around the room. The guys from the forms truck were at a big table down the bar drinking beer and making small talk with the waitresses. There were two guys in motorcycle jackets at another table, and there were four waitresses. All of them bare chests and short shorts and a lot of hair.

  Leaning on the far end of the bar opposite me was a guy with a round head and sloping shoulders. He too was wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled. The music banged away through a couple of speakers up high somewhere in the dark blue top of the dim room. I drank my beer. The bartender returned.

  "You want another one?" he said.

  "Not yet," I said.

  "Who's in charge of this joint at the moment?"

  "In charge?"

  "Yeah. There a manager or anyone?"

  "Me and Vie, I guess," the bartender said.

  "Vie the guy at the other end of the bar?"

  "Yeah. Mostly he's the bouncer. It get real busy he comes back here with me. But usually one man can handle it. It's a beer crowd, not a lotta mixed drinks, you know."

  "How about if the bouncer end gets real busy."

  "Oh, sure, I'll come around, give him a hand. But Vie don't usually need much help. Whaddya need?"

  "I'm a private cop, looking for a guy's missing," I said.

  "I want to show his picture around to the waitresses, see if any of them know him."

  "Yeah?"

  "I don't want trouble from Vie, or you," I said.

  The bartender shrugged.

  "I don't see no harm to it," he said. He turned and jerked his head at Vie, and turned back to me.

  "You got some sort of license or something you want to show me?" he said.

  I took out my wallet and showed him. Vie moved down the bar toward us, casual, just strolling down to see what's up. Nothing he wouldn't be able to handle. Up close he was shorter than I was, but thick, and long armed. His short crew cut was flecked with gray.

  There was some buildup of scar tissue around his eyes, and his nose was thick and flat.

  "Guy's a private eye," the bartender said.

  "Wants to ask around after a missing person. I said I didn't have no problem with that.

  You?"

  "He show you something?" Vie said. His voice was a soft rasp.

  "Yeah. He's legit."

  "You make the piece?" Vie said to the bartender. The bartender grinned.

  "Right side, back on his hip," the bartender said.

  Vie nodded approvingly. He was studying my face.

  "You used to fight," he said.

  "Yeah."

  "Tough way to make a living."

  "Had its moments," I said.

  "Yeah," Vie said in his soft rasp, "It did. Who you looking for?"

  I took out my picture.

  "Name's Anthony Meeker. Been gone about a week. He may have dated one of your waitresses."

  Vie and the bartender both looked at the picture. Then they looked at each other.

  "Yeah," Vie said.

  "That's Anthony."

  "Tony the Phony," the bartender said.

  "Tell me about him," I said.

  "You know who his father-in-law is?" Vie said.

  The waitress who was serving the forms guys yelled "Vie."

  Vie turned easily, rolling against the bar so he was looking at her.

  "This jerk was grabbing my tits," the waitress said, nodding at a long-haired kid in cement-stained white overalls. He and his four friends were laughing, secure in their numbers.

  Vie walked slowly over from the bar toward the boy.

  "That's like the only rule in this joint," the bartender said.

  "You can't touch the waitresses. You start letting them touch the waitresses and they'll be fucking them on the floor in a half hour. Place would turn into a zoo, wasn't for Vie."

  "Think he'll need some backup?"

  "Vie? Naw. Watch."

  Vie stopped about three feet from the table, and spoke in his soft rasp.

  "Look all you want, don't touch. Capeesh?"

  "Hey, Vie," the ki
d said, playing to his friends, "she's flapping them hooters in my face, you know? Hard not to take a bite."

  Vie nodded.

  "You kids are new here. You didn't know. Now you do. You touch one of the waitresses again, you gotta leave."

  "What if we don't want to leave?" the kid said.

  Vie said something too softly to be heard. The kid leaned forward in his chair.

  "What was that?" he said.

  Vie hit him a nice left uppercut that looked like it didn't travel more than six inches. It knocked the kid out of his chair and sprawling backwards on the floor. Vie stepped maybe a step back, and stood balanced easily, hands hanging loose near his hip. The kid lay on the floor a moment, dazed. The other three were frozen in their seats. They were probably tough enough kids in their neighborhood. But this wasn't how fights started in their world.

  First there would be some smart remarks and then some threats and then one guy would push another guy and some other guys would usually break it up, and maybe one time in ten a few punches were thrown, and then someone broke it up.

  "You think I can't take all four of you?" Vie said in his soft rasp.

  I couldn't see his face. But the forms guys could and it told them something. None of them said anything. The long-haired kid on the floor was sitting up now, his forearms on his knees, still listening to the bells ringing. Vie turned and walked back to the bar. v "He's the one hired me," I said.

  "Phony Tony's father-in-law?"

  "Yep."

  "Julius Ventura?"

  "Yep."

  "Why's a guy like him hire a guy like you?"

  "Hero worship," I said.

  The long-haired kid got his legs under him finally and wavered over toward Vie.

  "You sucka-punched me, you sonovabitch," he said.

  Vie looked at him without interes't.

  "You wanna try that when I'm standing up facing you?"

  Vie looked at me without expression for a moment and back at the kid. The other three guys at the table had stood and were looking half ready to come to Long Hair's aid.

  "Look at something," I said to the kid.

  "Look at how you're standing. Then look at how he's standing. You see? All you need is a bull's-eye painted on your face. Look at him. See how he's balanced? He looks like he's still leaning on the bar, but see where his hands are? It's the difference between amateurs and professionals. And if you're going to be a tough guy it's a difference you better learn."

  The kid looked at me hard for a minute as if he were trying to focus. He'd been half gassed even before Vie hit him. And, probably, on his best days, he wasn't a thinker.

  "You a tough guy?" he said finally. But there was no bite to it.

  He was just talking to talk.

  "But oh so gentle," I said.

  "Go sit down."

  "Either you guys want to arm wrestle me?" the kid said.

  The bartender snorted. Vic's expression didn't change.

  "Guy with arms like you? I wouldn't have a chance," he said.

  "Goddamned better believe it," the kid said.

  "Any one of you want to try me, I'll put your arm flat fucking down."

  "I believe you would," I said.

  "Appreciate it if you'd go over and calm your buddies down," Vie said.

  "Keep them in line for me, if you would."

  "Yeah, sure," the kid said and began to move away from the bar.

  "You change your mind on the arm wrestling, anytime. You unnerstand. Anytime you wanna try me… flat fucking on the bar…"

  His voice trailed off into some sort of mumble and then silence as he went back to his table, and told his buddies how he'd outfaced Vie over arm wrestling.

  "Arm wrestling," Vie said softly.

  "Arm fucking wrestling."

  "So tell me about Phony Tony," I said.

  The bartender moved down the bar to open four Bud long necks for one of the waitresses.

  "Always flashed a lotta dough," Vie said.

  "Always come on to the waitresses. Flirt with them, tip them big. But no touching, which was good. I didn't want to have to throw Julius Ventura's son-in-law out on his keister."

  "But you would," I said.

  Vie shrugged.

  "Have to, he touches the girls."

  "But he didn't," I said.

  "No. He was pretty much no trouble. Always acted like he was dangerous, let everybody know who his father-in-law was. But he never caused no trouble."

  "Was he dangerous?"

  Vie smiled softly.

  "The arm wrestler would clean his clock," Vie said.

  "Used to bet on stuff. Be a basketball game on the tube, say. He'd bet who'd score the next basket. What the score would be in one minute, whether a guy would make both free throws, who'd commit the next foul. Crazy! Bet with anyone, guy next to him at the bar, the waitress." Vie pointed with his chin at the bartender.

  "He'd bet Keno whether the next beer order would be Bud or Heineken."

  The room had filled some as people got off work. And the waitresses were hustling beer and bowls of Spanish peanuts to the tables. Four or five guys were at the bar. Most of the customers were men, but there was one table with three women at it. All three were smoking.

  "He date any of the waitresses?"

  "Yeah, Dixie. She's the one with the red hair, down here, just picking up."

  "Mind if I talk with her?"

  "No. I'd just soon you talked in the back room though. People won't think she's standing around gabbing while they're waiting for their drink."

  He gestured around the corner of the bar toward a black door with an opaque frosted glass window in it. There was a hole in the door frame where a doorknob used to be. I pushed it open and was in a storeroom piled high with cases of beer and cases of empties.

  There was an old school teachery-looking desk shoved into an open space on one wall under a small window set high. And a light bulb hanging on a cord from the ceiling fixture. I leaned my hips on the desk and waited. In maybe a minute the door pushed open and Dixie came through.

  She said, "Hi. I'm Dixie Walker."

  "Your father a Brooklyn Dodger fan?"

  She smiled.

  "I guess so. My real name's Frances, but he always called me Dixie."

  I said, "My name's Spenser. I'm a detective. I'm looking for Anthony Meeker. You used to date him?"

  "Yeah, sort of, I guess. You can look at my tits, you want to, I'm used to it. I don't mind."

  I glanced down at her chest. Her breasts were quite small, with long nipples.

  "I'm trying to keep my mind on Anthony Meeker," I said gallantly. In fact, I thought women walking around topless looked kind of… not silly, exactly, more like sad.

  Dixie smiled.

  "Sure," she said.

  "I just didn't want you feeling uncomfortable."

  "Thank you. Tell me about Anthony."

  "Well, you know who his father-in-law is?"

  "Yeah."

  "He made a lot of that," Dixie said.

  "So you knew he was married."

  "Oh sure you got that kind of hang-up?"

  "Just the facts, ma'am," I said.

  "He's a grown-up guy. He wants to fool around, ain't my business to straighten him out, you know?"

  "Was he fun?" I said.

  Dixie shrugged.

  "That's the thing. You think he's going to be. You know, kind of a wild guy likes to spend money, always got a smart remark. Promises a lot."

  "But?"

  "But he's not fun. He'd pick me up after work and we'd go to a place he's got down the road and drink a little Southern Comfort, maybe a joint, and do the deed. He doesn't really spend money.

  He just gambles. And when he's not losing his dough on whatever he can find to lose it on, he's talking about his plan, how he's got a system, and how he's going to go to Vegas and bust the town with it. He's pretty boring."

  "That's why Vegas is there," I said.

  "Guys like Anthony
to bust it."

  Dixie smiled.

  "Yeah. I used to tell him, "Anthony, they ain't in business for you to win, out there." But he had his system, he said. And as soon as he got a kitty together, he was going out and come back rich."

  "He say where he was going to get the kitty?"

  "No."

  "He say what his system was?"

  "Yeah, he talked about it all the time, but I got no idea what he was talking about. I never paid no attention."

  "Atlantic City's closer," I said.

  "Hell, there's a place in Connecticut the Indians run. Be a two-hour drive."

  She shook her head.

  "It was like his dream," Dixie said.

  "Go to Vegas and bust the town. It was like his whatchamacallit, the thing people say when they meditate."

  "Mantra," I said.

  "Yeah, it was like that."

  "When'd you see him last?"

  "Oh, not for a while. Last year sometime. His wife found him out, and that was it."

  "You think he's faithful to her since."

  Dixie looked at me as if I had asked her about pigs whistling.

  "He told me it was his wife, but he was ready to dump me anyway, something better came along."

  "So you figure he's got a girlfriend now?"

  "Anthony's always going to have a girlfriend. It ain't just sex.

  He needs somebody to brag to."

  "Would he leave his wife, you think?"

  "Wife's his ticket to ride," Dixie said.

  "Anthony needs a lot of money and he don't know how to earn it."

  "Anthony sounds like kind of a lizard," I said.

  Dixie smiled a little.

  "Phony Tony."

  "How come you went out with him?"

  Dixie shrugged. Her small naked breasts looked vulnerable in the unshaded light from the bare bulb above her.

  "I ain't got that much else going right now," she said.

  CHAPTER 11

  Why is someone a compulsive gambler?" I said to Susan. We were having dinner at her place in Cambridge, sitting at her counter eating Chinese takeout. Susan gave Pearl the Wonder Dog a Peking ravioli with her chopsticks. I was eating with a fork.

  "I don't know," Susan said.

  "But you're a goddamned shrink," I said.

  "You're supposed to know stuff."

  "I know a lot of stuff, and one bit of stuff that I know is that it is unwise to generalize about the causes of compulsive behavior."