Helluva Luxe

by Essary, Natalie

  She stopped shuffling money and rolled her eyes at me. “Please, Salem.” Then she stood on the rungs of the stool, leaned over the bar, and retrieved a brushed metal thermos that was etched with the club’s twisted logo, black on black. Her name was monogrammed underneath. She set it on the bar in front of me, grabbed the waistband of my pants, and pushed a huge wad of bills down my front pocket. “Drink me,” she whispered. And then she whisked the rest of the cash away and disappeared through the swinging doors.

  You’re damn right I drank it. Bring it on, I thought as I tossed it back. Whatever the hell was in that thermos tasted like melted sex. It was so good I even started watching Burns and Allen.

  Rorke reappeared about twenty minutes later and led me out the back door to a private parking garage, lit with purple bulbs and painted like the inside of a spider web. We drove to a greasy spoon on the east side of town, right off the highway. The flickering sign spelled Moonstems, but half the bulbs were out, so it looked more like Monsters. And it sounded like a prehistoric bug zapper. When we walked through the door, the first thing I saw was a sandwich board with a list of cleverly worded rules about how not to piss of the wait staff. This meant we were in the place to be seen afterhours. And sure enough, we turned a corner and every square foot of available space was occupied by people who looked like they’d just left the Luxe. Angry punk was playing on the stereo, but you could barely hear it over the inebriated buzz.

  Rorke suggested we sit outside, and I followed her.

  The back patio was completely deserted. There were several metal tables with beach umbrellas attached, and no signs of life but a few grackle eating Splenda packets off the ground.

  “Are you sure we’ll get waited on out here?”

  “They know me,” she said.

  She pulled a flask that matched her thermos from the inside pocket of her leather jacket and set it on the table occupying the darkest corner. Then she sparked the red candle in the middle of the table and used it to light her cigarette. She kicked up her boots on the extra chair, looked me dead in the eye, and exhaled. The air smelled like burgers and rain. I felt like I was participating in a ritual.

  “Have a seat, Salem.”

  I thought about pulling her up outta that chair and having my way with her, but I needed to eat first, so I sat down.

  “What do you order?” I said.

  “You get points for asking.” She leaned forward. “What you want is a basket of cheese fries with extra crispy bacon. They’re known for their breakfast tacos, omelets, and such, but you gotta trust me on this one.”

  You would’ve thought she was giving me a racing tip, she said it so succinctly. I was obviously not dealing with a Diet Coke girl. I suspected as much before, but now I was certain. This was a woman who knew how to eat.

  But then she said, “Jalapeños on the side.”

  “Wait. What? On the side?”

  “Your points have been retracted,” she said. She even crossed her arms.

  “Now, hold up, woman. I know the rule. We’re on your turf, and I respect that. You obviously come here all the time, so I’d be a fool to order blind. But come on now. You could kill somebody with that knife in your hair, or the fork, for that matter, and you’re ordering japs on the side?”

  “Lordy, lordy, look who’s waited tables.” She looked proud. “Japs on the side. I dig you, Salem. You know, waiters are the only people who can use that word. In any other world you’re gonna piss somebody off.”

  “And you wouldn’t know that unless…”

  “Oh yeah, sure. I’ve waited tables,” she said. “Are you kidding? I’m a lifer, obviously. And if you’re not man enough to order on-the-side, you’ll eat your own soggy fries.”

  “The juice,” I said.

  “You’re damn right, the juice. They’re not fresh.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Fair enough.”

  She took a swig from the flask and handed it over. Then a pink-haired waitress banged out the back door, wearing more tattoos than clothes and singing a better than average Al Green. Rorke stood up, lazily wrapped an arm around the girl’s waist, and dipped her backward. Her lips brushed the girl’s neck as she whispered something, and they were both grinning when she introduced me. Then Rorke ordered for us, and the waitress banged back through the door, singing and grinning the same way she came out.

  “Kari’s a good friend of mine,” she said, as if she knew what I was wondering. “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed, though.”

  “Is that what you whispered?”

  “Nah. I ordered you a side of ranch, pussy.”

  “You’re such a bitch,” I said. I shook my head at her, but my smile was harder than anything I’d felt in a long time. “Finish your fucking story.”

  Chapter 14

  “He fell in the doorway,” Wolf said.

  I was in the back office with the staff, afterhours. We were rolling quarters and slinging dish about the regulars.

  Not mine, of course. Nobody touches my crew, verbally or otherwise.

  This was harmless stuff. Who snorted what. Who screwed whom. Who got caught in a bathroom stall, snorting what or screwing whom. The usual.

  And then Wolf walked in with a mess on his hands.

  Zayzl jumped up like there was a fire and demanded to know the same thing the rest of us were kinda wondering: Why the hell would Wolf bring some kid who couldn’t hold his fun into the office? Fools pass out in bars all the time. There’s a procedure staff should follow that doesn’t involve carrying limp bodies into the back office world where they can wreak havoc and lawsuits. Unless, of course…

  “He asked for you before he hit the ground,” Wolf said, looking at Zayzl. “The kid’s clean.”

  “My ass he’s not on anything!” Zayzl is shouting at this point. “Aw, Jesus, don’t put him in my favorite chair! Who the fuck is he?”

  A beat of silence passed.

  I sighed. I’d recognize that pouty mouth anywhere. Even on a dude. “He’s your ex-girlfriend’s little brother.”

  Zayzl gaped at me like a fish.

  He turned back to the kid and then back to me.

  Wolf had his fists shoved in his pockets. He couldn’t seem to look anywhere but down. There was more, and it was stuck in his throat. I felt sorry for him.

  And then he said, “She’s dead.”

  A chair squeaked.

  A clock ticked.

  Ash unknowingly kicked on “There is a Light,” and my skin started to crawl. It was one of those moments you can feel sticking to you as it happens.

  Zayzl walked out of the room.

  Wolf reached for a bottle of liquor.

  I lit two cigarettes.

  “She OD’d, didn’t she?”

  Wolf nodded. He handed me a shot, and I handed him a smoke.

  “Does Ash know?”

  He shook his head.

  “Where’s Lily?”

  “You know the answer to that.”

  “The front’s locked up?”

  He nodded.

  We sat there for an hour without saying anything else, staring at the kid sleeping in our worn-out chair. It was the calm before the storm.

  The next night, my crew gave me the laundry list of party drugs that chick was on. It’s a wonder she lived as long as she did. The police found what was left of her stash in that damn goat-shaped backpack. Her journal was there, too. Evidently, it would’ve landed her in the ward, if she’d survived. They said she’d been going for days.

  All I could think was, thank god it didn’t happen in our bar. I was so happy she moved out. I didn’t feel sorry for her then, and I still don’t.

  Her little brother, on the other hand, had no money and nowhere to go but back home to his folks. He said they lived on another planet in some doily-bedazzled Midwestern model home, and that they weren’t very open-minded.

  I saw fear in his eyes.

  He didn’t tell me what he was running from, but I knew he had to be desperate
if he’d go to Zayzl, looking for help.

  So I made a decision.

  He goes by Chance now. He works security, the booth, the bar. Whatever needs to be done, he doesn’t care. He can do it all. Just turned twenty-three, and he thinks he wants to be me when grows up. He has these dark chocolate eyes. I don’t have the heart to tell him you never grow up if you live at the Luxe.

  Oh, stop looking at me like that, Nick. You wouldn’t have sent him packing either, and you know it.

  Obviously somebody had to help the kid, and Zayzl could hardly stand the sight of him. In fact, after her funeral, he officially crossed over to the dark side. He had a midlife crisis at thirty and started pulling any stunt that made him seem like a crazy badass, as long as he had an audience. If there was a bicycle in the bar, he rode her home and didn’t come back ’til the next day. When he wasn’t hitting on women, he was talking smack about Ash. She was just as secretive then as she is now, and people wanted to know about her. But not everybody trusted Zayzl as a reliable source, so his audience was limited to this band of outcasts who wanted in the family so badly they were willing to play dirty.

  The nights Kendol and Z showed up were different. I didn’t like the way the bar felt when they were in it. Those two came complete with rechargeable batteries, their own soundtrack, and a plastic entourage that just kept growing. On their perpetual hunt for the latest It Girl, they collected this gaggle of users. It was exhausting to watch.

  I can’t imagine a dozen people kissing my ass every night. I keep my girls around because they’d prefer to kick it.

  But I’ll admit he got me under his lens once. It wasn’t planned, of course. I was tanked and surrounded by hot rock stars. That’s my excuse.

  One sec, I think I have a copy in my wallet. It’s easy to see what kind of man Kendol is. Here, check it out, Nick.

  Rorke handed me a small, worn photograph and flicked her Zippo so I could see. I leaned in.

  It was him. The guy I’d hated on sight. The guy in the Steampunk gear, from the picture I found in the notebook I only dreamed I opened. Right after the fire that didn’t really happen. He was the only one, other than Rorke, that I didn’t recognize from MTV. And I’d be a monkey’s flaming uncle if he was straight. But sometimes you can’t be sure with little Goth boys who collect pretty women. He felt shady to me, with his huge, hollow eyes and his skinny turtle neck. Everything else about him was completely forgettable, which was probably why he changed his name to Kendol and started using his influence for evil. His sex appeal was all attitude and tight pants. I didn’t wonder what Lily saw in him. It was obvious he moved in circles beyond the reach of her little bar.

  “We all met up at some show and then had an after-party at the Luxe. I think Chance took that picture.”

  I handed it back to her and said, “Must’ve been one hell of a night.”

  She nodded, her lips a straight line. She was still looking at the picture.

  “Where was Lily?”

  “Snuck off to meet Ash.”

  “So you were a decoy.”

  “Did you really think rock stars would be enough to get me on that carnivore’s dinner plate?” She settled back in her chair and lit a cigarette. “I’m my own fucking rock star.”

  All of the sudden she seemed tired. But then our food arrived, and she picked up the thread of her story when she picked up her fork.

  Chapter 15

  Lily was juggling them both. Or juggling it all, I should say. And the effort was starting to leave a mark. Kendol saw it too. He knew she had a secret. He kept trapping it with his lens like some modern day da Vinci.

  I tried not to hold my breath.

  Then one night I found Lily sitting alone at my bar, half-lit and sorry-eyed. She said she needed to talk to somebody, and I was the only one she could trust.

  Zayzl was out for the night watching Honky at the bar up the road. Almost everyone we knew, in fact, was at the bar up the road. Even Ash gave herself the night off, but I don’t know where she went. I saw her walk out the door, but the look in her eye was so startling I didn’t ask questions.

  “She flinches when I touch her,” Lily said. “And it seems really quiet around here lately, Rorke. Not a peaceful kind of quiet. The other kind.”

  “Honey, I don’t know what you expect from her.”

  “Something is waiting,” she said.

  “Waiting to happen?”

  “Maybe.” She sighed. “Kendol will be here soon. He’s taking me out for sushi, and then we’re going to the after-party. Of course.” Her voice was flat. She was baiting me. I was supposed to be making her feel better, and I wasn’t doing my job. It took me a minute to catch on.

  “You’re not going to the show?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “But you love Honky.”

  She just stared at me like I should know better, and she didn’t hear Ash walk up behind her.

  Ash put one hand on the back of Lily’s chair, one hand on the bar, and leaned in level to Lily’s eyes. Her voice was low and smoky. “Why aren’t you going to the show, baby?”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You’re dressed like you want to.”

  Lily didn’t respond.

  “You forgot it was tonight, and you made plans with him?”

  Lily turned her head.

  Ash sighed.

  I felt compelled to interfere.

  One of my crew was riding the board for Ash. I got her attention and made a crazy gesture with a Honky flyer that was lying on the bar. Then I mimed breaking something over my knee and cocked my head toward Lily and Ash. It took my girl about three seconds to stop laughing at me and find what I wanted. She potted down the song she had playing and announced the show at the bar up the road. Then she slipped on “Broken Days”.

  Ash and Lily visibly flinched.

  Achilles, beware.

  I blew my girl a kiss and grabbed a kid from security to deliver a shot to the booth. Then I went back to pretending like I wasn’t eavesdropping.

  “I’m going out to dinner,” Lily said.

  Ash nodded slowly. She was inches from Lily’s face, watching her lips, watching the words come out of her mouth.

  “I thought you left,” Lily said.

  “I did.”

  Beats went by.

  I’m thinking to myself, look at the two of you fools. Am I the only one turning blue here?

  “Wolf will rat you out if you don’t show up,” Lily said. “You took the night off. You should go. Besides…you don’t want to miss this song.”

  The space between them got smaller.

  I thought, man, if I don’t find this kind of crazy love I’d rather be alone, but I still wanted to kick both their asses.

  Ash glanced at me, and I made angry eyes at the seat next to Lily. She gave in and sat down. Then she leaned back against the bar on her elbows, and the front of her black button-down gaped open. She was wearing a black corded necklace Lily made her. I wanted to kiss the ends of my fingers. She was perfect. She was edible. I could’ve served her intensity straight up and made a killing. “I don’t think you want to miss this song, either,” she said.

  “Kendol is on his way.”

  Ash leaned forward. I could tell by the turn of her arm she had her hand on Lily’s thigh. “Rorke will cover for you. Let’s take a ride.”

  Their eyes locked.

  Time. Ticked. By.

  “I can’t ditch him,” Lily finally said.

  “Why not?”

  Lily blinked slowly, and her lips parted a little, so I’m thinking Ash’s hand headed north.

  “He’s not your friend, Lily. None of them are. You know you’d rather come with me.”

  Lily’s face flushed hellfire red. She picked up her wine and slammed it, no easy feat. “No,” she said. “It’s not enough.”

  “Not enough?” Ash grabbed Lily’s arm and pushed up her sleeve. Underneath was a row of bloody little cuts. “Is this enough? Will thi
s pretty mess make you famous?”

  My stomach turned.

  Lily yanked her hand away and pulled her sleeve back down.

  “Look at me,” Ash said.

  “I can’t.”

  “Stay with me tonight.”

  “Please, don’t. I’m trapped,” she said. “You have no idea what it’s like, being caught between the two of you. I have to fix things. I’m running out of time.”

  Ash shook her head. She wasn’t buying it. Lily’s shoulders started to shake.

  Ash stood up and walked away.

  Then I heard a door slam.

  Chapter 16

  Kendol’s dog and pony show sounded more like a gaggle of hens coming through the door, so I assumed they’d taken a couple cocktails up the nose in the car on the way over. I could feel the room splintering in half, Stephen King style, dark versus light.

  “Are we early?” he said.

  Lily smiled at him. “No, you’re just in time. Let me grab my jacket.” She was swiping at tears as she said it, and then she ducked under the bar and pulled me to her.

  “Don’t say anything about the fight, Rorke. Please.”

  “That wasn’t a fight, Lily. She was begging you.”

  Her eyes welled up again, and I wished I hadn’t said it.

  And then, as if things couldn’t get any better, Chance came through the front door, rattled all to hell. He’d obviously passed Ash on the way in. He was loyal to her from the start, so I wasn’t surprised to see him drop an armful of fliers all over the floor and start asking if she was okay.

  Lily barked a laugh, an unkind one. If she weren’t family, I’d have grabbed her by the hair and told her what for. Instead I shot her my best daggers and ducked under the bar to help Chance.

  Kendol walked over to Lily and took her hand like he thought she might shatter. “Tell me what happened?” he said. He had the eyes of a talk show host, conveniently concerned.

  And that’s when it hit me like a boot to the gut, the common theme through all his work. Kendol had broken-bird syndrome, and he knew it. He was capitalizing on it. So the dangerous thing about his fixation with Lily was that he created the messes he rode in to save her from. Kinda like setting a building on fire and then showing up with a hose. Luckily, he was really only concerned for himself. So when Lily wouldn’t tell him what happened with Ash, he switched gears and got pissy.