The Devil She Knows

by Bill Loehfelm

  The bar, its street side almost all window, did resemble an aquarium in reverse. A people tank is what it looked like. A giant cube of air sitting on the floor of a reef somewhere warm, surrounded by giant fish peering in at the small, strange creatures contained within. She expected the lemony angelfish to tap a fin on the glass, scattering the patrons inside under the tables and into the corners.

  What a difference, she thought, reaching for the door, between the fake warm-water paradise depicted on the exterior of the bar and the frigid bay swelling up against the seawall right across the street. No pilings, no piers, no angelfish or purple coral there. Just the drop-off straight down into the dark.

  Inside Cargo, a light crowd loitered, Saturday evening having not yet morphed into full-on Saturday night. Small groups of guys, pint glasses in hand, stood around at the bar. Their eyes settled on Maureen as she came in. She turned down her collar and pulled her hair out from under her coat, letting it fall down her back. If they’re going to stare, may as well give them something to gawk at. But she kept her coat buttoned, self-conscious about being out in her battered and stained waitress black. Cargo was a lot brighter inside than the Narrows. Rough edges were hard to hide. From the corner of her eye, Maureen watched the blank male faces rotate back to a basketball game on the TVs behind the bar. She hadn’t put on enough of a show.

  She took a seat at the bar, four stools away from anyone, and ordered a Bass draft. As she drank, Maureen watched the two bartenders, one male and one female, with envy. Had she stayed at Cargo, she’d be bartending by now. Only women worked the floor but it was about fifty-fifty behind the bar, a pretty good ratio, actually. Vic had made her vague promises when he hired her. John had even called over and put in a good word. But Vic was old-fashioned, Tanya told her after a couple of months, and wanted only men behind the bar. The Narrows had never had a female bartender and never would. Old-fashioned? Maureen had said. Sounds sexist to me and possibly illegal. Tanya had only smiled at that. So sue him, she’d said, and see what it gets you.

  Of course, Maureen had never confronted Vic, preferring instead the softer route of batting her eyelashes and cocking a hip at Dennis when bartending shifts opened up. She’d tried it only twice, ashamed of herself both times, giving up after realizing that she was neither the first nor the prettiest waitress to try that angle. Nor was she offering anything worthwhile, like her body, in exchange for the promotion. Not that Dennis was like that; he had never even hinted that getting on her back or on her knees would get her off the floor and behind the bar. She took several long swallows of her Bass. Dennis wasn’t like anything now. All he was now was dead.

  The female bartender, a petite pretty brunette a good five years younger and sporting fake tits three cup sizes bigger than Maureen’s, grabbed up the pint glass and whisked it away for a refill. An impressive boob job, Maureen had to admit. The girl had stopped short of overdoing it, showing restraint many women didn’t have. Maureen did think the girl’s top stuck too tight to her shape. It was a wonder she could breathe. But then Maureen smiled to herself. Hypocrite. If you had that chest, you’d be wearing shirts just like hers—at least at work. Maureen peered down into her coat. Maybe she was better off on the floor; her legs and rear end were her moneymakers, not her chest. Her best features would be wasted behind the bar. And all things considered, she thought, she’d rather have the cash in hand than be wearing it around on her chest. When the bartender returned with her beer, she caught Maureen looking.

  “Whadda think?” the bartender said, turning to give Maureen a profile. “Not bad, huh?”

  “That’s good work.”

  The bartender cupped her breasts from underneath, staring down at them. “They’re still sore.” She looked at Maureen, frowning. “Should I have gone bigger?”

  “No, you got it just right,” Maureen said. “A lot of thin girls like you, they overdo it. End up looking kind of—you know—obvious. And kinda freakish, to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, thanks,” the bartender said. “I don’t even ask the guys. They’re useless. They always think bigger is better.”

  “They do,” Maureen said. “And they always want us to think small is bigger than it really is.”

  The bartender laughed. “Amen to that. Maybe I’ll try that with my boyfriend next time: ‘It’s okay, but can you go another size up?’” She laughed again, extending her hand. “I’m Tracy.”

  Maureen shook her hand. “Maureen. Nice to meet you. I used to work here.” She leaned forward on her bar stool. “Is John working tonight?”

  Tracy jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “He’s in the back. I’ll get him for you.” She was gone before Maureen could protest.

  During her walk to Cargo, Maureen had debated how to approach John, the closest thing she had to a friend right then. She remembered from working for him that he was fierce about his own privacy. He’d probably extend her the same courtesy and not ask too many questions. She needed to think out loud, to figure out what to expect next, if anything, from Sebastian, maybe from the cops, but she didn’t want to give away any secrets. She wanted to stay out of the story as much as possible.

  Tracy reappeared. “He’ll be right out.” She winked at Maureen. “And he said your drinks are on the house.”

  Maureen thanked her, immediately forgiving the dirty insinuation in Tracy’s wink. That’s the downside of being private, Maureen thought. People fill in the blanks however they want. After Tracy had walked away, Maureen slid a ten to the far side of the bar and settled in to wait, growing warm inside her coat. She felt small and hard to see, hunched over her glass and wrapped in her big coat, so she sat taller on her bar stool.

  Moments later John emerged from the dark back hallway and into the light of the barroom, frowning at a clipboard, cigarette tucked behind his ear. The puzzled look on his face reminded Maureen of Vic’s expression as he had studied her cigarette pack, but the resemblance to Vic ended there. John’s fair Irish face had healthy color. His body was flat and hard where Vic’s had gone soft. And while Vic sported a ponytail that grew grayer by the day, John had cut his hair so short that the blond close to his scalp was almost brown. And he wore glasses now, with thin copper frames that made him look as if he belonged at a lecture hall podium instead of in a bar. She thought of Jimmy the teacher. He and John were friends. Thank God, Jimmy had bailed early in the set last night, before Maureen had tipped totally over the edge.

  Maureen smiled when John looked up from the clipboard. He was a handsome man. She pushed the tip of her tongue against her teeth. One of these days, I gotta get me one of those. A man like Molly had. Like Rose had. John looked, Maureen realized, more than handsome. Maureen saw a lot of good-looking men. Saw them every night. What John looked was happy. That was rare.

  After thousands of nights reading people for a living, of judging what they really wanted—a better life—and seeing what they’d let themselves accept—a good time—Maureen had learned to spot the happy ones right away, those precious few who moved with ease and confidence, like well-fed lions on the plains and not like twitchy cats on a railing stalking a quick kill. Looking at John, Maureen felt something turn over in her stomach. Lust? The skin at her collarbone ignited; she touched her damp fingertips to it. No, not lust, one of the other six: envy.

  John tucked the clipboard behind a register and from a cabinet under the bar grabbed a black leather coat. He came around to her side of the bar. “Hey, Maureen.” She tilted her head and let him kiss her cheek. “How ya been?”

  Suddenly she was choking on tears. John noticed. He slid his smoke from behind his ear. “Let’s step outside.”

  Maureen bolted for the door.

  Outside, the cold hit her hard, whisking the heat from her skin and the water from her eyes. This close to the harbor, the frigid air felt thick and smelled of salt. It felt good going down as she inhaled it through her nose. She strode across Bay Street and skipped up onto the wide brick sidewalk opposite Cargo. Keeping
her back to the bar, she shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her peacoat and pressed her stomach hard against the metal railing that ran the length of the promenade, guarding the drop-off down to the water. Behind her, she heard John’s boots on the pavement as he crossed the street, his pace relaxed and casual. She heard the ring of his Zippo as he paused on the sidewalk to light his smoke. With a long exhale, he settled in beside her at the railing.

  They stood silent awhile, smoking beneath a thin, sickly maple tree, its bony branches clacking overhead in the cold breeze off the water. The maple was young, one of a matching underdeveloped dozen, Maureen saw, running along the winding promenade to the marble-columned Borough Hall at the end of Bay Street. Each tree had flood-lights in its roots, pointed up at its branches. But, she noticed, at best only half the lights worked, throwing fractured, haphazard shadows up and down the promenade and over the Borough Hall steps like ink stains. The whole setup probably looked a lot better, pretty even, in the spring and summer, when there was color and life to balance out the vandalism. She couldn’t remember ever noticing the trees before. Maybe they were new. Either way, the beautification project hadn’t reached her end of Bay Street. She hoped the maples lived through the winter.

  She turned and stared with John across the black water at the carnival lights of Manhattan to their left. Out there somewhere, lost at night against the sparkling backdrop of New Jersey, stood the Statue of Liberty. You could see her from the ferry, Maureen knew, even at night, but not from the island.

  Maureen pulled her hands from her pockets and laid them on the cold metal rail. She studied the cracked skin and red knuckles of her fingers. She looked up at the stars through the tree’s bare branches, crooked like black lightning against the night sky. Beside her, John’s leather coat creaked at the elbows as he moved his cigarette to his lips. His coat was so worn out that the leather looked as if it might drop in pieces to the street if he moved too fast. What would John do if she went to pieces at his feet? His jacket, she thought, looks like I feel: faded, cracked, abused, loose at the seams. But the jacket worked, the leather held together, even if it groaned when pulled tight and tested. Maureen figured she could hold together, too. Her knuckles aching from the cold, she fished a cigarette from her purse again. She leaned close to John as he lit it for her. On his skin, he carried the scent, if not the warmth, of Cargo’s overworked heater.

  “I like the glasses,” Maureen said.

  “These?” He took his glasses off, tucked them inside his jacket. “New addition. I was standing at center bar one night and realized I couldn’t read the score on any of the TVs. Plus filling out the schedules, the goddamn inventory sheets.” He shrugged. “You can only fight it for so long.”

  Maureen looked down at her shoe tops, kicking the toe of one foot against the railing, making the metal hum. “You heard about Dennis.”

  “Fucking unbelievable. Had a couple of cops in for lunch talking about it.”

  “Bad news travels fast.”

  “Especially on Bay Street,” John said. “We’re a tiny colony on a small island.” He raised his chin at Manhattan. “Not like over there.”

  “You heard how it happened?”

  “Train got him.” John blew out a long cloud of smoke that drifted away over the water. “Fucking idiot.” He crossed himself. “God rest his soul. I always liked him. One of the few class acts left around here.”

  Maureen pinched her nose, willing the picture of Dennis on his knees from her mind. Pictures of him exploded on the tracks replaced it. Goddamn. Was that how she’d remember him? No. She wouldn’t let that happen. The ugly pictures would fade. She’d just found out about his death. Things would change.

  “You know where he was, right?” she asked. “On the tracks by the Narrows. Cops are calling it suicide. That’s what Vic told me.”

  “It happens,” John said. “Rough way to go, but he’s not the first to try it that way and succeed. You see it in the papers. Though the cops told me most people do it at a station, jump in front as the train pulls in. Hell of a thing to do to everyone else just trying to get home for dinner, never mind the poor SOB driving the train.”

  “There’s no station near the Narrows,” Maureen said.

  “He wanted privacy,” John said, “or he didn’t want someone getting hurt trying to stop him. Not everybody wants to be a public spectacle.”

  Maureen straightened as tall as she could. She took a deep breath. “I’m having a hard time with it.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” John said. “I don’t blame you. Death close to home is tough.”

  “It’s more than that.”

  John’s eyes narrowed. “You sleeping with him?”

  “No,” Maureen said. “God, why does it always come back to that? We’re not all banging our brains out.” She scratched at her scalp with both hands. “I kind of blame myself for what happened, maybe a little bit.”

  “How? Maureen, that’s ridiculous.”

  “I worked with him last night.”

  John lobbed his cigarette high, sending it arcing into the water. “And so you could’ve stopped him? Should’ve seen something that gave away his plans? You should’ve done what, read his mind?”

  “I didn’t see anything,” Maureen said. “I didn’t.”

  “And that’s no crime,” John said. “I bet a lot of people are feeling exactly what you are right now, wondering how they let him get away from them. You can’t blame yourself for this. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. People keep secrets. Dennis had his, like the rest of us.”

  “I know, I know,” Maureen said, turning away.

  Of course John would say she wasn’t to blame. Any reasonable person would tell her that. Any rational person who didn’t know what she’d seen. Should she tell John about that? No. Why put this on him? There was no guarantee that what she’d seen had anything to do with Dennis’s death. Besides, even with what he didn’t know, John was right. What happened to Dennis, the train and everything he was involved in that came before it, wasn’t her fault and it was none of her business.

  “I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I do,” Maureen said. “It’ll go away, I guess.” And when would that happen? “But there’s more to it. The cops. Vic said they’ll do an investigation.”

  “Ah, I see,” John said, glancing over at Cargo. “The police.” He frowned at the bar as if it might bolt for the harbor and make a break for it if he wasn’t careful. He watched the place like he’d watch a dog of questionable obedience let off the leash. “Maureen, what are you really worried about?”

  “You think the cops will wanna talk to me? Since I saw Dennis last. Maybe. Probably.”

  “I’m not a cop,” John said, “so I don’t know.” He looked at her. “You’ll find out, though. If they want to talk to you, they’ll come knocking. Trust me on that.”

  “If that happens,” Maureen said, “what do I tell them?”

  “The truth,” John said. “What’ve you got to worry about? You weren’t even around when he did it, were you?”

  “No.”

  “Were you?”

  “No, no. Of course not.”

  “Dennis didn’t say anything to you,” John said, “or anyone else that you know of about killing himself?”

  “Like I said, I had no idea.”

  “Then what are you worried about?”

  “Nothing, I guess,” Maureen said. “Cops make me nervous.”

  “So you’re using me for practice?” John lowered his eyes, studied the sidewalk. “You’re hiding something and doing a poor job of it. And I’m no suspicious cop asking questions.” He raised his eyes to her face. “If you want my help, you have to tell me what’s really going on here.”

  Well, it’s only fair, Maureen thought. If she wanted help figuring things out, she had to give up something. Did it have to be the truth? Maureen rocked back on her heels. The wind kept blowing her hair across her face, into her eyes. Maybe she could explain the situation in ge
neral, stay away from specifics.

  “You’ve been in the business a long time,” she said. “You know how it is after hours. It’s late. Everyone’s exhausted. There’s booze around, maybe other stuff.” She swept her hair from her face. “Things happen.”

  “What is it, then? Ecstasy? Coke? Don’t tell me you went back to that shit. Don’t even tell me you’re dealing.”

  “It’s not that,” Maureen said. “It’s Vic. It’s the place I’m worried about.” She took a deep breath. “There are things I know, about the bar, maybe about last night, that I don’t wanna talk about.” She paused. Had she gone too far? “For Vic’s sake. I don’t want to sell him out.”

  John nodded, thinking. “Don’t worry. Vic’s a smart man. And he’s been in the business just short of forever. He knows what to keep under wraps. Tell the cops what you saw, which seems to be a whole lot of nothing. Anything Vic’s got to hide is his problem, not yours. You got nothing to worry about.”

  “Right,” Maureen said. “I got nothing to worry about. Other people’s secrets are their problems.” And mine are my own, she thought.

  “Exactly,” John said.

  She looked up at John. Go figure. She’d given him nothing of substance in the conversation and in return had gotten nothing of value. And whose fault was that? I got nothing to worry about, she thought.

  Right.

  I’m only shaking because I’m cold.

  7

  Maureen anchored her end of the bar until closing time, alternating Bass and ice water in an effort to preserve her wits. Because of the registers and the bottle rack, she could see only the top of her head reflected in the bar mirror. Not having to sit there avoiding her own eyes made relaxing easier. She had to keep her cool if she wanted John to take her back on. She had to show she wasn’t damaged goods. And she had to get herself home eventually; she couldn’t move into Cargo. Being alone with everything had to happen.