Lucky Bastard (23 page)

Apparently, working for the Chinese Mafia has its perks.

When I step outside, my non-vegan cabdriver hasn’t yet returned, so I stand on the corner of Grant and Market to wait for him, hoping he shows up soon so I don’t end up missing my drink with Tuesday and her breasts.

Sometimes I just can’t control my fixations.

I’m standing there less than a minute when someone calls out to me.

“Hey, Holmes!”

I turn to see Doug shuffling toward me, doing his best gangsta-rap walk with his pants halfway down his ass and a big grin on his face.

“I thought that was you,” he says, giving me a knuckle tap. “What’s the word?”

“Grease.”

“Grease?” says Doug, looking completely baffled.

“Sure. It’s the word that you heard. It’s got groove, it’s got meaning.”

“I got no idea what you’re talking about, Holmes.”

“That makes two of us.”

A cab comes driving down Market with its light off. It’s not my cab. Apparently, the driver of my cab doesn’t understand the meaning of a quickie.

“You look sharp, Holmes,” says Doug with a big, ridiculous grin. “What’s up with the threads?”

“I’ve got a hot date.”

A streetcar rolls past, traffic moves east and west, everyone’s going somewhere, and I’ve got someplace to be but I’m standing still.

A crow lands on the top of the street sign next to me and Doug lets out a whistle.

“What?” I say.

“That’s bad luck, Holmes.”

“What is?”

He points at the crow. “If it was two, it would be good luck, but a single crow means bad luck.”

What a surprise.

“Three crows means health,” he says. “Four means wealth, five means sickness, and six means death.”

Well, at least there aren’t six of them.

“But maybe there’s another one around here somewhere,” says Doug, looking up and down Market Street.

I don’t care how many crows there are. It’s after six o’clock and my cab hasn’t returned and I don’t see an off-duty one anywhere. If I don’t get to O’Reilly’s soon, my window of opportunity with Fake Tuesday is going to close.

“Hey, Bow Wow, you got any wheels?”

“Shit yeah. Right around the corner. You need a ride, Holmes?”

D
oug’s ride turns out to be a lemon-yellow Toyota Prius with a rear spoiler, mag wheels, and a vanity license plate that says
BOWWOW
. The custom eight-speaker stereo system with a subwoofer in the trunk is currently thumping out some unidentifiable rap song with a heavy bass line and lyrics that would make a cockney whore blush.

“I didn’t know you could get a Prius in this color,” I shout over the thumping.

“Custom ordered, Holmes,” he shouts back at me. “It’s a sweet ride, right? All the brothers think it’s da bomb.”

Doug has a way of peppering his urban speak with outdated suburban-hipster lingo.

As far as I’m concerned, the car isn’t so much of a bomb as it is a public nuisance. The thundering stereo system has me looking around to make sure we’re not being stalked by dancing elephants. Fortunately, it’s just a five-minute ride to O’Reilly’s. But I’ve still got three minutes
to go and Doug is trying to sing along to the lyrics in a way that makes me realize he could use a coolness intervention.

“Hey, Doug.”

“Bow Wow, Holmes. Ain’t no Doug around here.”

“Right. Sorry. Bow Wow,” I say, turning down the volume until the dancing elephants become gorillas at a ballet recital. “Can I ask you something?”

“Say what’s on your mind, Holmes. Dr. Bow Wow is
in
.”

“Right,” I say, wondering how the doctor is going to react to my analysis. “Look, I know it’s probably none of my business, but why are you doing this?”

“Because Bow Wow’s got your back,” he says, making a fist in a show of solidarity. Either that or he just had a seizure. “You’re on the case, Bow Wow’s gonna back you up.”

“I don’t mean giving me a ride. I mean this,” I say, gesturing to everything inside his car.

He shrugs and smiles. “I’m not diggin’ your meaning, Holmes.”

“I mean this persona you’ve created. The clothes. The voice. The car.”

It sounds harsh coming out of my mouth, even to me, but this has to stop.

“What’s wrong with the car?” he says, his smile faltering.

“It’s a little bright. And this music. It can’t be good for you. I think it’s taken three years off my life already. Have you ever listened to Green Day or the Pixies?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Holmes,” he says, his shoulders sagging more than normal, the perpetual smile gone from his face. He reaches over and turns the volume up and brings back the dancing elephants.

Maybe this isn’t a good idea. Maybe I should just leave it alone. But now that I’ve started it, I can’t let it go.

I turn the music back down.

“Listen, Doug.”

“It’s Bow Wow,” he says, like a scolded child, sulking and looking straight ahead.

“How long have we known each other?”

“I don’t know. Couple of years.”

“And in that time have I ever steered you wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess not. Though there was that time you told me women liked it when men waxed their nuts.”

“I mean besides that?”

“No, not that I can remember. But that really hurt.”

“I’m sure it did,” I say. “But what I’m trying to say is that this, the clothes and the bling and the car, it’s not a good look for you. To be honest, it’s not a good look for anyone. And while I admire the effort you’ve put into it, I don’t believe it’s who you are inside.”

The car suddenly comes to a stop.

“We’re here,” he says.

I look out the windshield and see the crowd of happy-hour revelers gathered out in front of O’Reilly’s. It’s ten after six. Scooter Girl’s ride is gone from in front of the
mortuary and I’m hoping Tuesday is still somewhere inside.

Bow Wow just sits there, staring straight ahead, thumbs tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of some song about bitch-slappin’ and cop-killin’. Good, wholesome lyrics. The kind of music you hope your kids grow up listening to. I figure Doug’s not going to answer me, so I open the passenger door and get out.

“You’re wrong, Holmes. This
is
who I am.”

I look in at him, still staring straight ahead, and I realize I don’t have a valid response.

“Thanks for the ride, Bow Wow.”

Then I close the door and he’s driving away and I’m walking through the horde of happy-hour drinkers into O’Reilly’s.

I
nside O’Reilly’s, the cacophony of conversations is almost enough to make me appreciate Doug’s choice in music, but I manage to avoid concentrating on specific voices, and all the conversations blend into a constant background murmur.

On the bar’s stereo system, Jimmy Buffett is singing “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw?”

The left side of the wraparound bar is dominated by a mahogany back bar with a canopy supported by pillars and illuminated stained-glass panels. Opposite the bar, the walls and drinking nooks are plastered with old photos and framed pictures of Ireland and Irish celebrities, while covering the corner walls at the back of the bar is a hand-painted mural of famous Irish writers, including Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, and Samuel Beckett.

At the moment, I feel a bit like a character out of a Beckett play, looking for meaning in the obstacles and distractions of my existence. I don’t know if my coming here
is a fruitless attempt to find some answers, if I’m only waiting for Godot, but I have my doubts that anyone here is going to be saved. Either way, today has most definitely been the theater of the absurd.

One of the characters in
Waiting for Godot,
Lucky, was apparently so named because, according to Beckett, he was lucky to have no more expectations.

If only I was so fortunate.

I find Tuesday, the fake one, sitting at the far end of the bar near Oscar Wilde with a half-empty beer in front of her. I glance around the bar, but Scooter Girl is nowhere to be seen.

The thought that the two of them might be connected continues to knock around inside of my head, and I’m more than curious as to Scooter Girl’s motivations. What is it about her situation that’s so complicated she couldn’t have dinner with me? But at the moment, I’m more interested in finding out what Tuesday wants and why she’s pretending to be the mayor’s daughter.

“Sorry I’m late,” I say, sitting down on a stool next to her. “Something suddenly came up.”

“That’s the same thing I say when I want to get rid of men like you,” she says, taking a sip of her beer.

On the bar’s stereo system, Jimmy Buffett has better odds of getting laid than I do.

“Maybe I misunderstood,” I say, stealing a glance down her V-neck sweater. “But didn’t
you
invite
me
out for a drink?”

“To discuss business. Not for your company.”

“Well, they say honesty is the foundation of any good relationship. So at least we’re off to a good start.”

She laughs and takes another drink. “Nice suit, by the way.”

“You dig me. You just don’t know it yet.”

In front of me on the bar is a small brass plate that says
THIS SEAT IS RESERVED FOR CHOCOLATE DICK
. I don’t know who Chocolate Dick is, but I bet he’s popular with the ladies.

I order a Guinness from the bartender, then I turn back to Tuesday and catch her watching me before she looks away. Not with a look of desire, but more with a look of distaste. Which doesn’t bode well for my chances of getting more than a glimpse of her cleavage.

“I figured you as more of the martini type,” I say, indicating her pint of beer. “Fund-raisers, box seats at the symphony, stiffs in tuxedos.”

“Never acquired a taste for them.”

“Martinis or stiffs in tuxedos?”

“Both,” she says.

“So you prefer beer and detectives in suits?”

“Just beer.” She finishes off the rest of hers in two swallows.

I take the opportunity to steal another peek at her breasts. Actually, it’s more like a lingering stare than a peek. Long enough for me to determine that she has a mole on the inside of her left breast. Long enough for me to
notice the outline of a nipple in the fabric of her sweater. Long enough for her to notice me staring.

“So about your father,” I say, getting down to business as my Guinness arrives and Tuesday orders another Stella.

“What about him?” says Tuesday.

“I thought you wanted to talk about him. Discuss your case.”

“Not here. This place is too public. Too many eyes and ears.”

I glance around at the people at the bar and sitting at the tables in the handful of nooks, drinking their beers and having normal conversations about normal lives. I bet some of them are even going to get laid.

“Then why did you ask me to meet you here?”

“Because I was thirsty.”

Her second beer arrives, which apparently turns out to be her third, and I notice for the first time that Tuesday’s a little tipsy. I also notice that her sweater is sliding off one shoulder, revealing a glimpse of her black bra strap.

When it comes to women, men love to catch glimpses of three things: bra straps, panties, and tattoos. They create a sense of discovery about what other treasures might be hidden. Which is half the fun of undressing a woman, both physically and mentally. The anticipation of what you might find. When you see a man checking out a woman, he’s either storing up information for a masturbation session or he’s hoping her clothes will miraculously fall off.

Right now, I’m multitasking.

“So tell me about yourself, Mr. Monday,” she says, taking a drink, oblivious to the effect her exposed bra strap is having on me.

“What do you want to know?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She gives me a sultry glance that makes me wonder if she’s bipolar or just playing hard to get. “Amuse me with your personal history.”

So we spend most of her third Stella and my first Guinness discussing my childhood, where I grew up, where I’ve lived, how long I lived in Tucson, why I moved to San Francisco, what made me become a detective. I fabricate most of the answers because I’m not about to tell her the truth since I don’t trust her. She doesn’t seem to notice. Just orders up another round of drinks and keeps asking me questions and I keep answering, both of us ignoring the white elephant in the room.