by E. R. Fallon
Catherine sighed. “I’ll have to call them.” She stepped away from Camille and went to use the phone near the kitchen.
Camille hung up her jacket in the employee break room and then helped Violet unpack the crates of liquor.
“I asked your mother why Max doesn’t like me, and she started to answer me but never finished. Do you know why he avoids me?” she asked her.
“I’m not sure,” Violet said. “He’s nice enough to my mother and me, but he knows us well. Maybe it’s just that he doesn’t know you very well.”
“I’ve been working here for years,” Camille replied. “He’s never given me the chance to get to know him, he just seems to avoid me.”
“Max is a peculiar guy,” Violet said. “I wouldn’t let it worry you.” She smiled.
Camille nodded. She went behind the bar counter to put some of the whiskey bottles on the shelf and prepare for the afternoon influx of drinkers. Camille checked the money jar, which they kept filled to bribe away any of the more youthful police they knew who responded to noise complaints when the packed bar roared with music and laughter and conversation well into the night. It looked a little low and she pointed this out to Violet.
“I’ll ask my mother to refill it when she’s done with her call.”
Camille could hear Catherine scolding the distributor on the phone.
A group of men in construction worker garb entered the pub and sat down at the bar. All three ordered beers and Camille served them.
“Is Max around?” one of them, the thinnest of the group, asked her.
“Yeah, he’s upstairs,” Camille replied. “Why, you want to place a bet?”
“Yeah, how did you know?” he replied quietly, confirming she’d been right about Max.
“I took a good guess.”
“I look that desperate, huh?” the guy asked with a smile and Camille saw he was flirting with her, which she experienced often in her line of work.
A man, tall, handsome and youngish looking, burst into the bar and approached the group of men.
2
“When are you gonna pay me what you owe?” the young man demanded from the thinner guy at the bar.
“I’ll get it to you soon, I’m gonna place a bet today and then I should have it,” the guy answered.
“And if you lose?”
“I won’t. I feel lucky today.”
“You better hope you’re lucky,” the young guy said, and for a moment it seemed like he might strike the other man.
Camille stepped out from behind the bar. “Hey, take it easy,” she told the young guy. “Or else I’ll have to get the big guy to throw you out.”
There was no ‘big guy’, it was just a phrase Camille had learned to use over the years when patrons got out of line. And in this kind of neighborhood situations like that—guys barging in and demanding money from other guys—happened quite a lot.
“Relax, miss, I’m not gonna do anything to him. At least not inside this place,” the young guy responded with a spark of mischief in his nice brown eyes. His short, wavy dark hair was styled elegantly. “What’s your name?” he asked Camille with a grin, revealing good teeth, just then seeming to comprehend that she was young and good looking. But she didn’t easily fall for that kind of charm.
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Camille replied.
“Come on, tell me.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah, it depends.”
“On what?”
“Are you going to buy a drink? Otherwise, you’re distracting me from the customers.”
“I don’t really drink,” the guy replied.
“What’s your name?” she asked him.
He held out her hand for her to shake. “Johnny Garcia Jr.”
Camille swallowed and was still for a moment. Johnny Garcia had been the name of her father’s best friend, and he had died long ago, before Camille’s father had, according to her mother. But Camille didn’t know the circumstances.
How common was the name? Possibly, they were related, and this guy could have been his son. But Camille didn’t mention it. She shook his hand and his skin felt smooth and cool. “Camille O’Brien,” she said, but the surname, a common one, didn’t seem to register on his face.
He held her hand for longer than he needed to. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll buy a soda or something.”
“We only have cola,” Camille replied and went behind the bar again.
“That happens to be my favorite.”
She couldn’t tell whether he was serious or was just saying it to amuse her. She dispensed seltzer water in a glass from the sprayer and got out the syrup and squirted some in a glass to make the drink. Johnny watched her stir it with a knife.
“You live in this neighborhood?” he asked her.
Camille nodded. “I’ve never seen you around.”
Johnny shrugged. “I’ve been around.”
Just when she thought he’d forgotten about the guy who owed him money, Johnny slammed his fist down on the bar in front of the guy as the guy and his friends got up to walk away.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Johnny asked them.
The man’s friends started to intervene, and Johnny indicated to a gun tucked into his waistband that Camille hadn’t noticed before.
“Take it easy,” she told him, although the sight of guns in her neighborhood wasn’t uncommon.
“I never use it unless I have to,” Johnny said with a wink while eyeing the men.
One of them grunted in anger and then they all sat down again. Camille figured that maybe that had something like a knife on them but that wasn’t any match for a gun.
“You’ll need to pay for your beer before you try to leave again,” Camille told them.
“Yeah, you need to pay the lady,” Johnny said to them.
“I got to go upstairs to place my bet,” the guy who owed Johnny told him. “That way, I can win enough money to pay you.”
“You think I’m so stupid that I’m gonna let you out of my sight?” Johnny asked the man.
“You’re gonna come with me?” the guy said.
“You can go upstairs when I say you can.”
“You gonna come with me?” the guy asked him again.
Johnny contemplated something then said, “I’m not gonna come with you, but I do expect you to pay me in twenty-four hours, by tomorrow afternoon. Understand?”
“Or else what happens to him?” one of the man’s friends asked.
“You know what’ll happen to him,” Johnny said, and his voice filled with dark undertones.
“We’re gonna go with him upstairs. Okay?” the other friend said to Johnny.
“Are you asking me or are you telling me?” Johnny said, eyeing the man, and the room felt smaller with tension.
“Asking,” the guy finally said, in a whisper, and Johnny backed down.
He nodded at them to go.
“Look at them,” Johnny said to Camille as the group of men got up from the bar and went upstairs. “The guy already owes me money and he’s gonna place a bet with someone else to try to pay me back and then he’s gonna owe them money.”
“It’s a vicious cycle,” Camille observed.
“What was that?” Johnny asked, having not heard her.
“Nothing. You sure know how to make an entrance,” Camille said to Johnny when the three men had disappeared upstairs.
“The guy owes me a lot of money. What else was I supposed to do? Otherwise, he’ll never pay me back,” Johnny said with a smile.
Camille thought that Johnny’s way might have been like her father’s, if she had known him. But she kept that to herself.
Catherine came out of the kitchen and glared at Johnny from across the room. Violet joined her and both women stared at Camille talking with Johnny.
Johnny seemed to feel the women’s wrath towards him. “I should go,” he told Camille. “I’ll see you again soon.”
&n
bsp; “I wouldn’t count on it,” Camille replied with a grin, and Johnny laughed.
She watched his tall, well-built frame leaving the pub and as soon as he’d left, Violet and Catherine pounced on her.
“What was he doing in here?” Catherine demanded. “Do you know him?” she asked Camille.
“I only just met him now,” Camille responded.
“Honey, I care about you,” Catherine continued speaking, and Violet’s face flushed with jealousy, “and I’m going to warn you to stay away from him.”
“Yeah, I don’t know his name, but I know his face—he’s the leader of the Cuban gang that moved up here over the years. He’s bad news,” Violet chimed in.
“His name’s Johnny Garcia. And thanks, ladies,” Camille replied. “I appreciate your concern. But I don’t need anyone telling me who I can or can’t talk to. I have my mother for that.”
Gang guys didn’t scare her. Billy, the guy she’d almost married, and whom she met through her stepfather, worked for the Italian mob but wasn’t a made member because he wasn’t fully Italian. Besides, Camille didn’t know the full extent of Violet and her mother’s involvement with Max’s bookie operation upstairs, but they knew enough to let him operate it and probably took a percentage. She stopped short of telling them they were hypocrites.
“How do you know him anyway?” she asked Violet and her mother.
“We’ve seen them in the neighborhood, causing trouble. Lots of them moved here from the East Side over the years,” Violet said.
“So, you don’t really know him, you’re just making an assumption about him,” Camille countered, her voice becoming emotional because she was convinced of Johnny’s connection to her father.
“Honey, we know enough to tell you he’s bad news,” Catherine said.
A customer came in and sat down and Camille breathed a sigh of relief.
“What can I get you?” she asked the woman and didn’t pay any mind to Violet and her mother, who were still standing nearby. As far as Camille was concerned, that conversation was finished. She would decide for herself what kind of person Johnny Garcia was.
3
Violet McCarthy’s grandfather, Sean, had doted on her when she was a little girl. In the streets Sean McCarthy was considered a brutal leader of the Irish mob, but to Violet, he was her kind grandfather. His death a few years ago from a stroke had devastated Violet, but she and her mother had stepped up to take his place and lead the gang. Women gang leaders weren’t common at the time, but once word got around that the brutality of Violet and her mother matched Sean’s, most men didn’t have a problem doing business with them, not even the more traditional Italians.
In the wee hours of the morning, Violet closed the pub for the night and cleaned up the place. McBurney’s was named after her Scottish great-grandmother.
Her mother sat at the bar, drinking, as she sometimes did after closing. Over the years, Violet had come to realize that her mother could be considered an alcoholic, though her mother didn’t like to think of herself in that way.
Max paused as he put on his hat and headed out the door.
“Vi,” he called to her. “Do you need my help tonight?”
Sometimes Max assisted her in bringing her intoxicated mother to her mother’s apartment over the pub.
“I think I’ll be okay tonight, Max, but thanks,” Violet replied. Her mother’s behavior embarrassed her, as it had embarrassed her grandfather, and she didn’t like anyone witnessing it, not even Max, whom she’d known since forever.
Max looked at Catherine, who was pouring her fifth or sixth drink of straight vodka into a shot glass. “You’re sure?” he asked Violet.
She nodded. “Yeah, we’ll be fine. Thanks.”
He waved goodbye and opened the front door to leave and a trickle of cool evening air blew inside and carried with it the smell of food from the restaurants outside.
Once he’d left, Violet approached her mother at the bar.
“Mom,” she said quietly, to not startle her.
Sometimes when people got drunk, they became tougher, but Violet’s mother was the opposite, the more she drank, the frailer she became. Violet wondered why her mother drank. Her family didn’t have a history of alcoholism, and her grandfather hardly touched a drop, so did Catherine drink because of some deep sadness that was unknown to Violet? Violet’s father had died when she was very young, so maybe that was the cause. She felt that if she asked her mother, she might cause further sadness, so she didn’t ask.
Catherine looked up at her from the bar. Her mother was a very attractive woman and had a lot of charm, but she had never remarried and barely dated over the years after Violet’s father’s death. Violet figured her mother must have missed her father a lot.
“Mom,” Violet said again, touching the vodka bottle in her mother’s hand. “I’ve finished closing. It’s time to go home.”
“Just one more drink, sweetheart,” her mother replied, her voice shaking.
“Come on, you’ve had enough.” Violet pried the bottle out of her mother’s hand and held it out of her reach.
Catherine grabbed at the bottle and tried to get it back from her. She started to fall off the bar stool and Violet steadied her.
“You’ve had enough,” Violet repeated.
“Don’t scold me,” Catherine said from the bar seat, wagging her finger at her daughter. “I’m your mother, not the other way around.”
“Please don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be,” Violet said. “Just let me take you home.”
“Where’s Max?” Catherine asked, looking around the room for him.
Violet realized her mother hadn’t noticed him leaving. “He already left. You didn’t see him leaving?”
“He didn’t say goodbye.”
“He said goodbye,” Violet said. “You were too busy to notice.”
“You’re accusing me of being rude to Max?” Catherine said, becoming oddly emotional with the drink.
“No, you were drinking and weren’t paying attention.”
Violet couldn’t quite figure out her mother’s relationship with Max. It wasn’t romantic, and he treated her mother more like an uncle or father would, and she treated him like a niece or daughter would. She didn’t know Max as well as her mother did, for he was a difficult man to become close to. One thing Violet was certain of was Max’s loyalty to her and her mother, which he had proven to them many times over the years. Earlier on, he had even killed for them.
“When did you get to be so bossy?” Catherine smiled, and Violet saw that all was well between them, the previous tension having faded away.
“I inherited it from you,” Violet smiled. “Come on, now,” she said after a moment. “Let’s get you home.” She leaned over the bar and put the vodka bottle behind it so her mother couldn’t sneak another drink.
Catherine started to stand up from the bar and Violet caught her before she fell to the floor.
“Aren’t I a sight?” Catherine laughed, but Violet didn’t find it funny because it happened quite often.
“Did you want to ask Max something?” Violet asked her mother.
Catherine nodded. “Earlier today, he was telling me that there’s this guy who owes us a ton of money through the bookie operation. Max allowed the guy’s tab to get too big, which I wasn’t happy about, and now the guy’s not paying up.”
“You’re thinking we might need some of the guys to take care of him?” Violet asked.
“Yeah. If we don’t make an example of him then others in the neighborhood will think they can do the same.”
Violet had never enjoyed the messy side of the business, as her grandfather had seemed to, but sometimes bad things needed to be done, and that was the way it had always been. They had guys who took care of that sort of thing these days, although in the past it hadn’t been that way and they had to carry out the unpleasant tasks themselves.
“Call me when you’re sober enough to make a decision,” Viol
et said.
She and her mother ran the gang together, but the opinion of her elder mother weighed more in their decisions. Though, sometimes, on nights like tonight, Violet felt she was the true leader, during those times when her mother could barely function.
Catherine nodded. “I will, but as of now, I’m thinking we should cut him out.”
“Grandpa once told me not to make any big decisions when drunk,” Violet said.
“My father was a wise man,” Catherine chuckled.
“What do you think of Camille chatting with that Garcia character?” Violet asked after a while. Camille had left the pub hours ago.
“I don’t think it’s good. I try to do my best to look out for her, like I think her own mother would want me to, but she doesn’t listen. She’s so stubborn.”
She’d asked the question in part because her mother seemed to have a soft spot for Camille—like how Camille had suggested they feature live music acts in the pub once in a while and her mother thought it was such a great idea. This had always annoyed Violet, and she didn’t understand it, and she’d wanted to test her mother. In fact, she didn’t care what Camille did, and that included talking with Johnny Garcia.
“Why do you care so much what happens to her?” Violet asked her mother.
“You seemed to care too.”
“I acted like I did because you did.”
“You don’t like Camille?” her mother asked.
Violet shrugged. “I don’t dislike her. I don’t know her that well.”
“I thought you two were friends.”
“I’m nice to her because you like her. But I don’t hate her. Why do you like her so much, anyway?”
“It’s complicated,” her mother stated, and after a minute, Violet comprehend she wouldn’t elaborate why.
She considered pushing her mother for an answer then thought better of it because the answer might make her more jealous.
“Let’s go,” she said, and put her arm around her mother’s waist. She assisted her mother with standing up from the bar stool. “Max offered to help me walk you home.”
