Nick's Trip (24 page)

Happy sat on his favorite stool, staring straight ahead into the bar mirror, one hand around an up glass, the other holding a lit Chesterfield. Mai stood at the service bar and drank a shift Heineken while she talked to me about some unfortunate young marine she was dating. I stocked the backup liquor beneath the rack and nodded occasionally as she talked.

A guy named Dave drank coffee and sat alone at the end of the bar, reading a pulp novel called
Violent Saturday
, by W. L. Heath. Dave was the Spot’s reader—every joint had one—who never drank anything stronger than black coffee. I suspected he
was an on-the-wagon alkie who simply liked the nostalgia of sitting in a bar, but I never confirmed it. The only time he ever spoke to me was when I tried to empty and clean his overflowed ashtray. “Don’t do that,” he had said quietly, gripping the side of it. “Dirty’s the way I like it.”

When Mai left I put Bob Marley’s
Kaya
on the house deck and turned up the volume. I poured myself a cup of coffee, lit a Camel, and folded my arms. In the rectangular cutout of the reach-through I could see Ramon in a boxer’s stance, toe-to-toe with Darnell, who had raised his long arms, exposing his midsection. Ramon punched Darnell’s abdomen with a left and then a right. Darnell smiled and slowly shook his head.

That was how the afternoon and early evening passed. Buddy and Bubba came in, whispered quietly to each other, and split one pitcher before leaving with a sneer in my direction. Len Dorfman stopped by for a late Grand Marnier and talked loudly about a “savage” he had locked up that day, until a hard stare from Darnell sent him out the door. And Boyle came by for a draught beer and a shot of Jack.

Boyle mumbled about “the fucking streets” and his “fucking kids” throughout his round. I left him, and when I stumbled back from the walk-in with two cases of Bud in my arms, he was gone. A damp five-dollar bill lay across the Cuervo Gold coaster next to his empty shot glass. I restocked the cooler to Let’s Active’s
Cypress
while Darnell mopped the kitchen and hosed off its rubber mats. When I was done I slid a worn copy of
London Calling
into the tape deck and hung the dripping clean glasses upside down in the rack above the bar. Then I drained the sinks and wiped everything down and poured two inches of Grand-Dad into a heavy shot glass. I opened a bottle of Bud, stood it next to the shot, had a taste of both, and lit a smoke. An unlatching sound came from the direction of the front door.

A man and a woman walked in and took the two steps down into the bar area of the Spot. A stream of cold air flowed in with them. The man walked slowly and deliberately, and stopped in
front of the bar, running his hands through the waistband of his tan polyester slacks. The woman stopped two feet behind him and stared. The heavy drama of cops was present in each choreographed movement.

“You Stefanos?” the man said.

“That’s right.”

“Too late for a drink?”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” I said genially, keeping my arms folded. “I’m about closed. Just waiting for my friend in the kitchen to finish up.”

The woman spoke in a low dull voice. “He’s finished now. Tell him that, and tell him we want to be alone.” She had military-short brown hair and round Kewpie-doll lips. Her pocked cheeks had been camouflaged with rouge.

“Detectives, Metropolitan Police,” the man said, and quickly opened his coat to reveal a badge suspended from his breast pocket. “I’m Goloria, and this is Wallace.”

“Detectives?” I said, feigning surprise, looking them over. Goloria wore a stained London Fog raincoat over a brown plaid sport jacket. Wallace had on a gray wool skirt with a cotton oxford and a vinyl Members Only jacket worn over that.

“Just tell your friend to leave,” Goloria said, “so we can talk.”

“Now?”

“Tell him.”

I walked back to the kitchen. Darnell was finished and dressed for the weather, his brown overcoat buttoned and his leather kufi tight on his head. He had been standing in the dark, looking at us from the reach-through.

“Better get going,” I said.

“You sure, man?”

“It’s all right. They’re cops.”

“That don’t mean a
fuck
in’ thing. You ought to know that.”

“Go on, Darnell. It’s all right.”

Darnell walked out and passed without looking either of them in the eye. He closed the front door tightly as he left the
Spot. I emerged from the darkness of the kitchen and took my place behind the bar. “The Guns of Brixton” ’s thick bass came from the house speakers. Goloria and Wallace had taken seats at two adjacent stools. Wallace lit a smoke and put her black vinyl handbag next to the ashtray in front of her. Sitting there, her shoulders appeared to be broader than Goloria’s.

Goloria said, “What are we listening to?”

“The Clash,” I said.

He turned to Wallace and raised his thin eyebrows mockingly. Then he turned back to me. “Turn that shit off and fix us a couple of drinks. When you’re finished, come around the bar and let’s have a talk.”

“Sure. What’ll it be?”

Goloria looked up at top call and squinted. “Crown Royal on the rocks, with a splash. Wallace’ll have the same. Okay, Wallace?” Wallace nodded.

I moved to the stereo and hit the
STOP
button on the deck. After that I filled two rocks glasses with ice and free-poured the whiskey. I topped it with a spurt of water from the gun, and set both glasses down in front of the cops. Then I drained my Grand-Dad and kept my eyes on Wallace as I did it. I grabbed my bottle of Bud off the bar, walked around to their side, and stood behind them. They swiveled their stools around to face me.

“What can I do for you?” I said.

Wallace blew some smoke in my direction, and Goloria sipped whiskey while we looked each other over. He was on the low side of forty, but his long narrow face had a cancerous gauntness. His mouth hung open and his lids drooped as he studied me. He looked somewhat like a hound.

“Ste-fa-nos.”

“That’s right.”

“Greek?”

“Yeah.”

Goloria rubbed a bony finger along his ten o’clock shadow and grinned. The rubbing made a scraping noise in the bar. He
looked at Wallace. “Wallace, I’ve known a few Greeks in my years on the force. Hardworking people. Restaurant people, mostly. A few professionals, here and there. But never a Greek detective. That’s strange, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Wallace deadpanned. “It’s strange.”

“Well, maybe not so strange,” Goloria said quickly, “when you think about it. I mean, the Greeks never did mind taking on the dirtiest jobs—not if there was a buck in it for ’em. Hell, you can’t even get niggers to do restaurant work anymore.”

“What’s your point?” I said.

“My point is, being a detective—a private detective that is—it’s dirty work. And it’s usually work where you can pick up a quick dirty buck. So I figure it’s not too different for a guy like you to be in the private detective business.”

“’Cause it’s dirty,” Wallace said.

“I figured that out,” I said. “You two practice this before you walked in?”

“Shut up,” Goloria said, and then flashed me a smile of sharp carnivorous teeth. “Okay?”

I swigged from the neck of my beer, swallowed, and sighed. “What do you want?”

Goloria said, “You’ve been out in my district asking questions about a woman named April Goodrich.”

“What district is that?”

“The Third.”

“I’m looking for her,” I admitted.

“Well, now you can stop. I’ve got that covered, understand?”

I said, “Let’s skip all the bullshit. What we’re really talking about here is the reward money that Joey DiGeordano put out on the street. Am I right?”

Goloria said, “Say that again?”

Wallace eased herself down off the stool and stood on the wooden floor under the smoky light of the conical lamp. She opened the clasp of her vinyl handbag. Goloria set down his drink, rose, and slowly straightened out his raincoat against his
chest with both hands. I backed up a step. The Spot was quiet and suddenly very small.

I looked at Goloria. “I’m not in it for the reward money. So I’m saying that I’m not in your way. That solve our problem?”

“I don’t know a Joey DiGeordano,” Goloria said.

“I thought maybe you did,” I said, watching Wallace knead something inside her handbag.

“What else you think?” Goloria said.

“I thought for a second, maybe you were just a little bit Greek.” My eyes narrowed as I felt the warmth of the Grand-Dad. “You know. Dirty.”

“He told you to shut up,” Wallace said unemotionally.

“Sorry,” I said. “Detective Gloria?”

“It’s Go-loria,” he said, taking a step toward me.

“Right. Anyway, I apologize. But you two have just got me a little confused. Being with you here, see, I just can’t figure out”—I scratched my forehead—“I just can’t figure out which one of you two’s got the swingin’ dick.”

“I do,” Wallace said, and there was a metallic flash as her brass-knuckled fist swung and connected across my jaw. On the slow trip down I felt a dull ache and after that a jolt of pain. I landed on my elbows as cold beer emptied out across my chest, and I looked up. The two of them stood there, silhouetted against the light of the conical lamp. Their figures glided across a backdrop of smoke and white stars. I rubbed my jaw and squinted up in their direction. A small puddle of blood washed around in my mouth. I swallowed it and coughed.

“Now I think you get it, right, Stefanos?” It was Goloria’s calm voice. I kept my mouth shut. He waited and spoke again. “Well, here it is anyway, for the record: I don’t want you playing detective anymore in my district. You got nothing to do with the Goodrich girl anymore. You got nothing to do with
anything
in my district anymore, understand?”

Wallace chuckled and kicked my foot. “He understands. Sure, he does.”

Goloria made a head movement toward the door. “Let’s go, Wallace.” They began to turn.

I stopped them with my voice. “Hey,” I said weakly. “You forgot to pay for your drinks.”

Goloria withdrew a wallet from the seat of his polyester slacks and balled up a few one-dollar bills. Then he walked back and stood over me and dropped them on my chest. They bounced off and fell beside me to the floor.

“Merry Christmas,” he said.

I stayed on the wooden floor and listened to their shuffling footsteps and to the opening and closing of the front door. I remained there in that position for another ten minutes of silence. When I stopped feeling dizzy I got up on one knee and jiggled my jaw and wiped nausea-sweat from my forehead.

Five minutes later I was in Darnell’s kitchen with my head in the washbasin, a steady stream of water running down my face. I stared into the blackness of the drain and thought things over for a long while.

Afterward I dried off with a towel and walked back to the service bar. I poured a shot of whiskey and threw it back, then picked up the telephone and got Mai’s number from information. I dialed that number and Mai picked up on the fourth ring.

“Hallo.”

“Mai, it’s Nick.”

“Nick, that you? It doesn’t sound like you. You drunk?”

“Drunk? Yeah, just a little.” I coughed and cleared my throat. “Listen, Mai, I need you to do me a favor.”

“A favor. Shit, Nicky, don’t ask me to take your shift tomorrow. It’s Christmas Eve.” Mai whispered into the phone. “I promised my soldier boy we’d spend all day together. He’s here right now.”

“This is the last time, Mai, I promise. I’ve got to go out of town for the day. Believe me, it can’t wait.”

“You don’t sound so good, Nicky, honest to God.” She thought things over. “If it’s really important—”

“It is. Listen, I owe you.”

“You’re damn right you do,” she said rapidly, but the edge was out of her voice. “Anyway, maybe if I come in tomorrow, Phil will remember to hand me my Christmas bonus. Fat chance, huh?” She laughed broadly. “By the way, where you going, back down to the country?”

“Southern Maryland.” I dabbed blood off the side of my mouth with a bar rag.

“Got a girl down there?” she said demurely.

“A girl?” I said, lighting a cigarette. “I’ll find out. Tomorrow.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
I packed my nine-millimeter Browning and a full clip into the trunk of my Dart and drove south on 301 in the direction of Cobb Island. The temperature was in the teens, but there was no wind and my Dart cruised effortlessly down the highway beneath a steel sheet of clouds. At Waldorf I cracked a window and huffed a Camel, and in La Plata I stopped for a burger and a Coke. A half hour later I was on the Island and sitting on a brown Leatherette stool in a nearly empty Formica-floored room that doubled as the dining area and bar of Polanski’s.

The bartender’s name was Andy. Andy had a brush cut and wore a green V-necked sweater over a white T-shirt that was exposed both at the neck and at the base of his great belly. His double-knit pants were chocolate brown and cinched with a wide black belt. Black work boots covered his long feet.