Dennis gave her a long, humorless stare. It lasted almost a full minute before a grin curled the corners of his mouth. “All I know is Vic’s comping the upstairs for him. I’m putting up a full sit-down with an open bar, on the arm.” He shook his head. “And then Vic cries at me that we’re bleeding cash. And I got one girl on the floor for a Friday night with our best-drawing band.”
“Woe is you,” Maureen said, looking over at Sebastian. How much money would he make upstairs? Thousands, probably. Two times, five, six times what she made in a year. I need me a fucking fund-raiser, she thought. “I get it. This is you telling me I got the better deal tonight, sticking down here instead of being sent upstairs.”
“You said it, not me. You can thank me later. Vic and I both know you’re the only girl I got that can run this floor on her own. So you and me, we gotta hustle enough drinks to offset the big money-suck upstairs.” Dennis patted Maureen’s shoulder, tilting his chin in Sebastian’s direction. “Think of it this way: you and me, we’re making our own valuable contribution to the future of Staten Island. Behind the scenes, as it were.”
Maureen snorted. “Whatever for that bullshit. The truth is, I’m the only one dumb enough to come running when you come calling.” She pulled a smoke from her pack, held it up between their faces. “How about you let me have a few minutes’ peace?” she said. “They’re the last I’m gonna get for a while.”
3
Maureen awoke into pitch black. The old leather of the couch creaked beneath her as she straightened her sore legs. Where the hell was she? What time was it? She sat up, a rush of nausea doubling her over. A fog of stale whiskey and sour body odor floated around her. Christ, her head was killing her. Dennis’s office, that’s where she was.
She did a quick body check. Fully clothed, thank you, Jesus. After a few deep breaths, Maureen felt she could move without hurling. Best to be careful, though, so she lay back down on the couch. She listened for noise from the bar. Everything was quiet. Must be after closing time. Was she the only one around? Had Dennis left her, locked her in the office? No, he wouldn’t abandon her like that. He never even let any of the girls hit the parking lot alone after hours, and that was right across the street. Poor Dennis was probably sitting at the bar, nursing a cocktail and waiting for her to resurface.
Maureen squeezed her eyes shut, forcing the last of the night to replay across her lids. The fuzzy scenes materialized out of time and sequence.
She watched Dennis half-carry her to the office, saying something about her being too drunk to go anywhere. She saw herself ducking into a stall in the ladies’ room for another bump of coke. More than once. Three, four times? Everyone had come down from the party upstairs, seventy-five, maybe a hundred people, bam, all at once. God, the bar had been slammed all night, like Vic was giving away the store. That was the logic behind the coke. And the coke, like always, had betrayed her in the end, sending her to the bar for shots of Bushmills. Still zinging when the band wrapped up and the crowd cleared out, she had doubled up on the booze. To make sure she could sleep that night. Well, it had worked. Trying to walk that tightrope again, Maureen: the coke to keep running, the booze to shave the frantic edge off the high. Keep it steady, manageable. She’d made it to the end of the night, at least.
So this didn’t count as falling off the wire, right?
She put her hands to her waist, looking for her apron. Not there. Not good. On the floor? She bent, tipping bile to the back of her throat. She swallowed it down. She searched the floor around the couch. Her money. Where was her money? Hers and the bar’s. She sat back up, dizzy. Calm down. Dennis had to have it. If he had walked her to the office, he’d taken care of the cash, too. How embarrassing, the manager doing your checkout like you’re a rookie. She was gonna owe him for this, big-time.
Maureen leaned her clammy forehead into her palm. Tell me, please, where did I get the blow? She tried to settle her mind on a specific face. The band. I got it from the band. That’s right, the drummer. The drummer with the shoulders and the cheekbones and the huge…wait, no. That last part she’d imagined, right before she passed out—oh, God—with her hand up her skirt. Another miserable effort to take the edge off. She felt dangerously sick again. What if Dennis had walked in right in the middle? Didn’t happen. That I’d remember, no matter how twisted I was. Did I even get off? Even give it a decent try? That, she couldn’t remember. Fucking cocaine.
With an effort, she stood, kicking around in the dark for her shoes. What is wrong with you, Maureen? How many other girls have you watched run down this rat hole? That’s why you ditched that stupid powder to begin with. She found her shoes and managed to squeeze her feet into them without having to bend over. She took a deep breath and strained again to hear any sound from the bar. She thought she heard voices. At least she wasn’t alone. Time to face the music, lady. You gotta get home somehow, so you can clean up and come back here tonight. Nice life. When you get home, that coke goes down the toilet. God, I sound like my mother.
Arms held out in front of her like a B-movie zombie, Maureen shuffled across the dark office. She found the door and shoulder-leaned it open, her own brutal headache urging gentleness and caution.
The barroom glimmered in the flames of a few tea candles set out along the bar. No lights. The chairs rested upside down on the tables, the ceiling fans hung motionless. What’s with the candles? At the end of the night, the candles went out and the lights went on. Maureen spotted a figure in the shadows, couldn’t make out a face. There was definitely someone at the bar. Why not leave a light on? She was about to announce her resurrection but the words died as her eyes adjusted to the candlelight and she realized who it was, and what she saw happening.
Frank Sebastian was looking right at her, or at least in her direction. Kneeling in front of Sebastian was Dennis, his back to Maureen, his head bobbing up and down, piston-fast, at Sebastian’s crotch. With one hand, Sebastian steadied himself on the bar. The other hovered over Dennis’s head, just brushing the curly hair, as if Sebastian both wanted to grab hold of what was happening to him and feared ruining it.
Sebastian growled and his body shook; Dennis double-timed it. Maureen’s knees went weak, almost out from under her. She turned to the wall, propping herself up with one hand. Sebastian roared. Maureen threw up on her shoes.
In the ladies’ room, her stockings in the trash, Maureen stood barefoot on the dirty tile, holding her shoes under the hand dryer for a fourth consecutive cycle. The shoes only had to get her home, not even into the house; she’d leave them on the porch. Whatever she’d made that night, thirty of it was going to Payless. Tears welled in her eyes and she hadn’t yet fully caught her breath. Her hands shook, and not because she was barefoot on the cold floor.
Maureen had worked late nights in bars for eleven years, ever since she was eighteen. The Narrows was her third on Bay Street alone. She’d witnessed more public sex, in cars, in alleyways, in bathrooms and broom closets, than, at the rate she was going, she might ever have over the rest of her life. Straight sex, gay sex, you name it. Masturbation, group sex. Shit that, had she gotten it on film, would make her a fortune on the Internet.
As a younger woman, she’d had sex in public places, had for a while gotten pretty into it. Though she’d been as careful about privacy as the opportunities permitted, she knew she’d been seen. Such was life in the big city, even her Staten Island corner of it. Hell, she heard John, her upstairs neighbor and former boss at Cargo Café, the last place she’d worked, and his girl, Molly, going at it like gangbusters all the time. So what had her so upset now? That she’d been caught spying? Had she been watching? Not really, she decided, more like she was just there at the time. Everything had happened so fast, at least once she realized what was going on, that she’d had no time to decide whether to keep looking or to turn away. She had turned away, even if it was to throw up and not out of any sense of decency.
Dennis had rushed over to her, steadying her with firm hands
on her shoulders. Passing her bar napkins from the stack in his hand, he’d offered ice water and wet towels. Maureen refused everything in her desperation to run away and hide in the ladies’ room. Of the three people involved, she was by far the most unnerved. In fact, Dennis was as calm as an uncle tending a niece overloaded on cotton candy, acting not at all like a bar manager moments ago caught blowing a local politician.
Sebastian had ignored Maureen, turning his back and sauntering away down the bar, so casual that Maureen felt like the one caught with her pants down. She even heard a quiet laugh from him as he moved out of the candlelight and into the darkness at the end of the bar, where he became a large dark shape among the other shadows.
Maureen punched the big silver button on the dryer to start another cycle, holding her shoes under the hot air in one hand. She held her free hand out in front of her. Still shaking. And not the sick shakes, or the hungry shakes, or the exhausted shakes. She knew the varied kinds and how to distinguish them. Her years on the floor had taught her the differences. What mattered was where the shaking started: your belly, your head, your muscles. These particular tremors had started deep in her chest, vibrations rising from under her heart. She had the fear shakes, the worst kind. Because whatever the amount bursting from the coffers upstairs, what she had witnessed between Sebastian and Dennis was worth a lot more. She could kill Sebastian’s political career with a phone call, an anonymous e-mail or two. How many of those big checks would get canceled if word of this late-night hookup got out?
How big a check could I get, Maureen wondered, for making sure the secret doesn’t get out?
Blackmail was an interesting thought, in an abstract kind of way, but Maureen didn’t give it much credence. Sebastian was no kind of enemy to her. She had no reason to do him dirt like that, to mess with the guy’s whole life. He could have good plans for his political career. At the very least he could have kids out there in the world. Maybe even grandkids. And what about Dennis? He’d be ruined too if word got out. Kissing ass was a bar manager’s job, but sucking cock was a whole ’nother story. Dennis would be done in the bar business, not just at the Narrows, and up and down Bay Street, but all over the island. God, what would Tanya think? She and Dennis had extracurriculars of their own happening. Not much hope for me, either, Maureen thought, at the end of the day. Nobody wants a waitress who can’t keep a secret. Fuck it. Forget it.
When the hand dryer died, Maureen set her shoes on the counter. She leaned on her palms, her fingers splayed, and looked down at her hands, her knuckles white from the pressure of her weight. She was a realist; she knew damn well she’d never tell a soul what she’d seen. Blackmail? What was that? Moral quandaries aside, plans like that didn’t even work in the movies, never mind real life. She knew a hell of a secret, but in real life the secret was worthless; she’d never use it. No great loss. Really, all she wanted was home and bed, to forget everything about tonight except the money.
Before she left the bar, she’d have to make sure both men understood she had no plans for what she’d seen. Because the fact remained that she was stuck, trapped, in an empty bar with them. She didn’t need them getting nervous.
Man, she thought, I never should have quit Cargo.
After a couple of gentle knocks, Dennis leaned in through the door. “Everything okay in here?”
Glancing at Dennis in the mirror, wincing and nodding as she did it, Maureen slipped into her shoes. They smelled funky, but at least they were dry. Turning, she swept her hair from her face, smoothed the front of her skirt. “Listen, about tonight. As far as I’m concerned, it never happened. We counted our money and went home. Forget it.”
Dennis came into the bathroom, easing the door closed behind him. He leaned against it. “It may not be such a bad thing, that you saw what you did. Between us, at least.”
“Of course not,” Maureen said. “I don’t care what you do and who you do it with. It’s not my business. It’s not gonna change anything around here.”
When Dennis took a step closer, Maureen backed up against the sinks. He noticed and stopped, raising his hand. Silent for a long moment, he seemed to be thinking something over. “I’m glad to hear that, though it’s not really what I meant.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You’ve had a long night and I’m sure you wanna get going. Let’s continue this conversation another time.”
“I’d rather not. Can’t we leave it here?”
“I wish we could,” Dennis said. “But believe me, once you hear me out, you’ll see how important it is that we talk. And let’s not mention anything about present or future conversations to Sebastian.” He stepped back to the door, pulling it open and stepping aside for Maureen to walk through. “You and me. Next shift maybe?”
“We’ll see.” Maureen realized her backside remained pressed up against the counter. “Gimme another minute to get myself together.” She tried to smile. “You know how girls are.”
“I’ll meet you out front,” Dennis said, walking out the door.
As the bathroom door creaked closed, Maureen turned and hit the cold-water tap. So Dennis didn’t want to let it go quite yet. That’s outstanding. Things were getting complicated already. Maureen held her cupped hands under the rushing water until it flowed over her thumbs. Watching the water, she recalled a picture from her kitchen calendar, one of the summer months long gone. A waterfall someplace warm. A snowy curtain of water blurred by mist and framed by black stone and bright green ferns and vines. Long-legged birds waded in the rippling pool at the bottom of the falls. Central America, Africa, maybe the Caribbean; she couldn’t remember. Wherever that waterfall was, that was where she wanted to be.
When the water ran so cold her knuckles ached, she moved her hands out from under the stream. She let the cold water leak through her hands and drip into the water rushing down the drain. When her hands were empty, she turned off the tap. She stood there, eyes averted from the mirror, staring at her white fingers splayed on the black tile counter and listening to her own labored breathing. Calm, cool, and smooth. That’s what the men wanted to see, so that’s what she’d give them. After a few more breaths, her game face back in place, she wiped up the puddles on the counter with a paper towel and tossed the towel in the trash on her way out of the bathroom.
Dennis waited alone for her at the front door, his hand on the key in the lock. Sebastian was nowhere in sight. He’d probably slipped away, Maureen thought, while she was cleaning up. Dennis wasn’t wearing his coat, didn’t look like he was leaving yet. Maybe Sebastian waited in the office or the men’s room and they were gonna get back to it after she left. Well, good for them. Have at it. At least somebody was getting some.
When Maureen reached him, Dennis unlocked the door but didn’t open it.
“Sebastian’s gonna want to talk to you about this, too,” Dennis said. “Probably soon.”
“Like I said, you got nothing to worry about. And neither does he. I’m looking to let it go.”
“When he asks you about it,” Dennis said, “tell him you didn’t see anything. Tell him nothing about what I said in the bathroom. Tell him you walked out of the office, puked, and that was it. It’s better for all of us that way.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“I know, but I’m different. Promise me you’ll tell him you saw nothing.”
“Dennis, you’re scaring me.”
“It’s important. Promise me.”
“Okay, I promise,” Maureen said. “Geez. See you tomorrow. Or tonight, or whatever. Now let me outta here, please. I wanna get home before dawn.”
Dennis didn’t reply, but he opened the door. Cold air rushed into the bar. Maureen stepped outside into it. After a moment’s hesitation on the sidewalk, her cheeks already starting to ache, she turned to tell Dennis one more time not to worry, that lying to Sebastian wouldn’t exactly be hard. But he had already locked the door behind her and disappeared.
Maureen turned left and headed for the cor
ner, realizing she had no idea of the time. Even the slight incline up Dock to Bay Street taxed her tired legs. After a few steps she stopped, leaning a shoulder against the rough brick wall, hunting through her purse for her cell. She’d get a car quicker if she called than if she waited on the corner, shivering like a wet dog and, with the condition she was in, looking like a low-rent Bay Street prostitute. A cramp seized the arch of her right foot, the pain regular as the North Star. She lifted her leg, rotating her foot, trying to work out the cramp. The smell of dead cigarettes rose from the gutter. The butts, mingled with the scent of the piss puddles drifting over from the parking lot, had Dock Street smelling like a filthy urinal. Why did men do that? Why piss in the parking lot before walking into a bar with a functioning bathroom? She wrinkled her nose. This, she thought, this is what your Friday night smells like. Nice.
Before she made the corner or found her phone, headlights snapped on in the parking lot across the street. Her nerves hit high alert. She hadn’t even noticed the car sitting over there. Hadn’t even looked. Stupid. The chemicals and the drama hadn’t just made her sick, they’d made her slow and stupid. She knew better. She should’ve called a cab from inside the Narrows. Should’ve waited inside until it came. The car moved, rolling in her direction. Maureen doubled back for the bar, searching her bag now for both her phone and her switchblade knife. Two things, she thought, that should’ve been at the ready. Two things that would’ve been in her pockets and not her bag before she ever left the Narrows had she not been so muddle-headed.
She found her phone first. She flipped it open, scrolled in search of the bar number. She prayed Dennis was in a position, literally, to let her back inside. If Sebastian was around, it might be handy having him there, the size of him. Speaking of Sebastian, where were the rent-a-cops? One of their gray jeeps usually sat parked within sight of the Narrows while they locked up. Maureen checked the clock on her phone; it was after five in the morning, long after closing. Except for Maureen and that dark car, the streets were deserted in every direction.
The Devil She Knows Page 3
