The Martini Shot (11 page)

I was assigned a public defender. When I saw how young he was, and his cheap suit and wrinkled shirt, I knew I was in trouble. Rollo had his expensive lawyer, who he was more and more in debt to by the day. I heard from this fellah I knew that Pat had got some well-known criminal defense attorney in the county, a man Miss Mary knew from her church.

I say “I heard” because I had not spoken to Pat since the night of the arrest. Well, not more than a few words. Once we were released, I had called him on his cell.

“Can't speak to you, Sleepy,” said Pat. “My lawyer says we shouldn't be talkin to each other. 'Specially not on a cell. Could be our phones are tapped.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Huh?”

“You ain't give no statement or nothin, did you?”

“Nah, man…”

“Did you?”

Pat said, “I gotta go,” and the cell connection went dead.

That was our conversation. He sounded scared.

Time passed and nothing happened. That is how these things go. You get charged and then you wait. We didn't even have a trial date. But I couldn't relax. Personally, I felt that I was in a tight spot. I wasn't gonna cut no deal with anybody, cause that meant I had to roll over on my boys. And yet, I didn't trust my rookie lawyer to make a good case for me at a jury trial. I could do prison for a short stay, but I didn't know if I could do the full nickel.

One day, I saw Rollo out on the street, sitting curbside in his idling Marquis. I slid into the shotgun seat and dapped him up. Rollo had that skunky smell on him. He had been getting his head up, but his high had not taken him to a good place. His face said grim.

“What you think, Sleepy?”

I knew he was talking about our chances. “I don't know.”

“I need money,” said Rollo. “My lawyer's costin me. My man put up my bail and I owe him big, too. What I got to do is, I got to be back in business so I can get in the flow.”

“You can't do that now.”

“I know it. But I can't get back to doin what I do best if I'm incarcerated.”

“Maybe we'll walk. If Day don't show up to testify, they got no case.”

“I'm tryin to take care of that. What I'm stressed on is Pat. If he flips on us—”

“Pat's my boy.”

“I'm sayin, if he
does
testify against us, to keep his self out of the joint—”

“He wouldn't. He'll stand tall.”

“Okay,” said Rollo, looking at me full for the first time, his eyes flat and waxed. “I'm bringin it up, is all.”

“Pat's straight,” I said, but my voice sounded weak, like I didn't believe my own words. Rollo had put a cold seed in my stomach.

Not long after, I was walking through the business district of our neighborhood, when I saw Pat, Miss Mary, and their attorney, a slick-looking dude in pinstripes, sitting in the local coffeehouse at a window-side table. Pat had grown his hair out some, which made him look less hard. He was wearing khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt. He looked like one of those prep school boys the two of us had hated on all our lives. He was smiling. I stood on the street, watching him. It was September, still warm out. But I felt cold.

Later in the evening I tried to phone his cell, but he didn't pick up. He had caller ID, and he knew it was me. It was plain to me that he didn't want to talk to me no more. I got the feeling that, far as he was concerned, we were through.

He was coming home from work, this hardware store they got downtown, the next time I saw him. This was in November. He was on foot. Since our arrest he had gotten a job, his first. He was wearing a red shirt with the store logo on the front of it under his North Face fleece, and he had his head down, his arms pumping at his sides, the way he had always moved since we was kids. I had gone to the store earlier in the day, looked through the plate glass that fronted it, and seen him in there, talking to a customer. I figured he was on till closing. And I knew the way he'd walk home after he got off, through that alley that cuts down toward his mother's house.

I was sitting beside Rollo, who was under the wheel of his Marquis. In the backseat was JoJo, this man Rollo knew from where he grew up, in the housing units deep in the city. JoJo had been in lockup for a time, but he was home now. Me and Pat had got smoked up with him before, a while back.

When Pat saw Rollo's car in the shadows of the alley, he stopped walking. He didn't back up or nothin like that. But he didn't come forward, neither.

“Fellas,” he said, with that easy smile of his. Like he had done no one dirt.

“Waitin on you,” I said, leaning out the window. “Let's get our heads up, man.”

“I'd like to,” said Pat. “But I can't be dropping a positive if they make me pee.”

“I got some shit can fix that,” I said, meaning this drink I got up the health store that could erase the marijuana in your urine. Pat knew what it was. He had told me about it originally.

“I better not.”

“Come on and visit, son,” said Rollo, his booming voice coming genially from inside the car.

Pat shook his head, relaxed his shoulders, and walked to the Marquis. He got in the backseat, next to JoJo. Pat recognized him and they pounded fists.

“How you doin, young?” said JoJo.

“Working,” said Pat, with a shrug. “You know what that's like.”

“Not really,” said JoJo, and everyone laughed.

“You been all right?” said Rollo, looking at Pat in the rearview.

“I'm straight,” said Pat.

“Nothin to report?” said Rollo.

“My lawyer said I ain't supposed to talk about the case with you guys.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I'm a listen to my lawyer,” said Pat.

“Right,” said Rollo. “You
should.
I guess what I'm askin is, though, have you heard anything about our chances? 'Cause none of us have heard shit.”

“I don't know any more than y'all do,” said Pat, with a shrug.

Looking at him, knowing him as long as I did, I almost believed him.

“Thought you guys had some pieces,” said Pat.

“I got some bud will make your dick hard,” said JoJo.

“We can't smoke it in my car, though,” said Rollo. “I ain't tryin to get pulled over again.”

“I heard
that,
” said Pat.

“Let's go over to the school,” I said.

Rollo pulled down on the transmission arm and gave the Mercury gas. We rolled down the alley with the lights off until we hit the main road.

It was full night. Rollo parked in the lot of a garden-style apartment building. We looked around, saw no one, and got out of the car and crossed the street. We passed under a lamp and then into shadows. Then we went up a grassy hill covered in fallen leaves, and into the woods that bordered the elementary school where me and Pat had gone to kindergarten and beyond.

In the woods it was plenty dark. There was not much of a moon overhead, but our eyes adjusted quick. The branches of the trees were damn near bare. JoJo had freaked a Black 'n Mild with his weed, and he lit it from a Bic and passed it around. It wasn't long before we got up on JoJo's hydro. We started laughing and stuff. Pat got to giggling, like he did when he got blazed.

“Hey, Sleepy,” said Pat. “You remember that time, in elementary, when we got up on stage and did that song?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Kris Kross,” said Pat, blowing off the embers of the blunt. “What happened to them?”

“They grew up,” I said.

“We were wearing bow ties, man,” said Pat. “My mom was there, watching us. Yours was, too. Remember?”

“I do.” My voice cracked some when I said it. The branches above us were like black arms. Rollo nodded his head, just a little. Pat didn't notice, but I did.

“We were
kids,
” said Pat, as if in wonder.

JoJo shot Pat in the back of the head. Pat said “Uh,” and fell forward. His blood, like one of them ink drawings, bloomed in the night. There wasn't no gunshot sound. JoJo had one of those suppressors screwed into the barrel of his heater. He was a professional. He owed Rollo a favor, and now his debt was erased. Rollo put another one into Pat's head, and we walked real quiet out the woods.

Days later, at the funeral home, there was police in vans, taking pictures from out in the lot. It was an old scheme of theirs, trying to see if the killer would show up at the viewing for his victim. Me and Rollo had been questioned right away, but they had nothing. What they needed was a weapon or a witness. The gun was gone forever, and we damn sure wasn't gonna talk. So on the murder, they had no case.

It was a big turnout for Pat: kids from our high school, relatives, people from the Sullivans' church. Miss Mary was in the viewing room, standing by Pat's casket. I avoided her at first, but I had to go up there. Pat did not look as bad as I thought he would. They had done a good job on him with makeup and shit. He was wearing a suit.

I stood before Miss Mary, stepped into her arms, and gave her a hug. She looked wasted, her skin the color of putty. Her hair was tangled, and lipstick was uneven on her mouth. She stood back from me and took my hand and squeezed it.

“Sleepy.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Look at me, Sleepy,” she said, staring deep into my eyes. “Do you know who did this?”

“No, ma'am,” I said. “But I'm gonna find out.”

“I want you to promise me something,” she said.

“What?”

“I don't want any retribution for this. I don't want another young man to die. I don't want you or your friends to murder someone over my son and go to prison for it. This all…this has to stop.”

“Okay.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes.”

I couldn't believe it. In spite of all that had gone down, she was thinking of me.

Funny thing is, I don't even know for sure if Pat was gonna flip. It might not have mattered, because Rollo had been right all along about Day. He turned out to be a straight bitch. Day did not show up to testify in court, and the hard felony charges against me and Rollo were dropped. I got probation on the possession and walked out of that courtroom free. Rollo got a little bit of time.

I should be relieved, but I'm not. I can't stop thinking on Miss Mary. She was always real kind to me, and it hurts to picture her now. 'Cause in my head I can see her, sitting on the edge of her bed. Praying the Rosary, up in her room.

I am writing this down now for her. I ran into Rollo once or twice since he been out, and I did not like the look he had in his eyes. In case something happens to me, I want Miss Mary to know that I was involved in this thing. The truth is, I got no deep remorse for what got did to Pat. Pat was in the game, and he knew what time it was. But I'm real sorry for what I took from his mom.

“I hate Arabs,”
said Paddy.

A guy sat facing a good-looking blonde in a booth against the far wall. The guy was minding his own business. He and the girl were splitting a pitcher of draft and smiling at each other across the table. He would say something, or she would, and the other one would laugh. It looked like they were having a nice time. Paddy was staring at the guy like he wanted to kick his ass.

“How you know he's an Arab?” I said.

“Look at him,” said Paddy. “Looks like Achmed Z-med, that guy on
T. J. Hooker.
”

“Adrian Zmed,” said Scott, the smart guy of our bunch.

“Another Arab,” said Paddy. This was five or six years after the Ayatollah, Nuke Iran, and all that crap. Paddy was the only guy I knew who hadn't given that up.

Me and Paddy and Scott were in Kildare's, a pub up in Wheaton we used to drink at pretty regular. Wheaton was our neighborhood, not too far over the D.C. line, but a thousand miles away from the city, if you know what I mean. It was a night like most nights back then: a little drinking, some blow, then more drinking to take the thirst off the blow. Only this night ended up different than the rest.

I'd put the year at 1985, 'cause I can remember the bands and singers that were coming from the juke: Mr. Mister, Paul Young, Foreigner, Wham. Hell, you could flush the whole Top 40 from that decade down the toilet and no one would miss it. Also, Len Bias was lighting it up for Maryland on the TV screen over the bar, so I know it couldn't have been later than '85. Maybe it was early '86. It was around then, anyway.

Paddy was up that night, and not only from the coke. He always seemed angry at something back in those days, but we had chalked up his behavior to his hyper personality. Just “Tool being Tool.”

O'Toole,
I should say. Up until he was twenty-three, Paddy's name was John Tool. Most everyone who knew him, even his old man before he kicked, called him Tool. It was a nickname you gave to a fraternity brother or something, like Animal Man or Headcase, which was all right around the fellas, but didn't go over too good with the girls. Paddy liked it all right when he was growing up, but when he got to be a man he suddenly felt it didn't suit him. Still, he wanted a handle, something that could make him stand out in a crowd. He wasn't a guy you noticed, either for his character or his appearance. I think that's why he changed his name. That and his women problem. He'd never had much success with the ladies, and he was looking to change his luck.

What he told us was, he'd paid to have one of those family-tree things done, and found that he was all Irish on his mother's side. Turned out that his great-grandfather's name was O'Toole. A lightning-strike coincidence, he said, that Tool and O'Toole were so similar. So he made the legal switch, adding Paddy as his first name. He said he liked the way Paddy O'Toole “scanned.”

It was around this time that he went Irish all the way. Started listening to the Chieftains and their kind. Became a Notre Dame fan, got the silver four-leaf clover charm on a silver-plated necklace, and had that T-Bird he drove, the garbage wagon with the Landau roof, painted Kelly green at the body shop where he worked. Then he fixed a “Kiss Me, I'm Irish” sticker on the rear bumper, which totally fucked up what was already a halfway fucked-looking car.

Paddy began to drink more, too. I guess he thought that being a lush would admit him to the club. When he got really torched, he talked about his mother's cooking like it was special or something, and referred to his late father as “Da.” His eyes would well with tears then, even though the old man had beat him pretty good when he was a kid. We thought it was all bullshit, and a little off, but we didn't say nothin to him. He wasn't hurting anyone, after all.

We didn't say anything to his face, that is. Scott, the only one of us who had graduated from college, analyzed the situation, as usual. Scott said that Americans who had that Irish identity thing going on were Irish the way Tony Danza was Italian. That most Americans' idea of Ireland was John Ford's Ireland, Technicolor green and Maureen O'Hara red and Barry Fitzgerald, Popeye-with-a-brogue blarney. And by the way, said Scott, John Ford was born in Maine. I didn't know John Ford from Gerald Ford, but it sounded smart. Also, it sounded like a lecture, the way Scott always sounded since he'd come back home with that degree. Scott could be a little, what do you call that,
pompous
sometimes, but he was all right.

So back to Kildare's. For years we had gone to this other joint around the corner, Garner's, made your clothes smell like Marlboro Lights and steak-and-cheese. But Paddy, who before he went Irish had never moved up off of Miller Lite, said the Guinness there was “too cold,” so we changed locales. “Kildare is a county in Ireland,” said Paddy, the first time we went in there, like he was telling us something we didn't know, and Scott said, “So is Sligo,” meaning the junior high school where all of us had gone. Paddy's mouth kind of slacked open then, like it did when he thought Scott was putting him on. I said, “Dr. Kildare,” just to hear my own voice.

Kildare's wasn't anything special. It was your standard fake pub, loaded with promotional posters and mobiles, courtesy of the local liquor distributors. The sign outside said “A Publick House,” like you could fool people into thinking Wheaton was London. I don't know, maybe the hometown rednecks bought into it, 'cause the joint was usually full. More likely they didn't care what you called it or what you dressed it up as. It was a place to get drunk. That was all anyone in these parts needed to know.

So the three of us were sitting at a four-top in the center of the room. I was hammering a Bud and Scott had a Michelob, another way he had of wearing his “I went to college” badge. Paddy was on his third stout, and there was a shot of Jameson set neat next to the mug. I didn't know how he afforded to drink the top-shelf stuff. He made jack shit at the body shop and went through a gram of coke every few days. But he still lived with his mother over on Tenbrook, and it didn't look like he spent any money on clothes. I guess his paycheck went to getting his head up.

“I Want to Know What Love Is” was coming from the jukebox. Lou Gramm was crooning, and I was thinking about my girl. I had met this fine young lady, Lynne, worked an aluminum siding booth up in Wheaton Plaza, who I thought might be the one. She had dark hair and a rack on her like that PR or Cuban chick who played on
Miami Vice.
I wanted to be with her but I was here. It was partly out of habit, and mostly because I knew Paddy would be holding. Also, Paddy had practically begged me to come. He didn't like to drink alone.

“You guys ready to do a bump?” said Paddy.

“Shit, yeah,” I said. I mean, what did he think? Hell, it was why I was sitting there.

“I gotta work tomorrow,” said Scott.

“What's your point?” said Paddy.

“It's a real job,” said Scott. At the time, Scott was putting in hours at a downtown law firm and studying for what he called the “L-sats.”

Paddy looked over at the booth where the Arab dude sat, smiled kind of mean, then moved his eyes back to Scott. “Like my job isn't real?”

“All I'm saying is, it's not the kind of job where you can just fall out of bed, stumble into a garage with a headache, and start banging out dings.”

“Oh, I get you. Big smart lawyer. What you makin down at that law firm, Scott?”

“Nothing. It's an internship.”

“Better get in there refreshed in the morning, then. You wouldn't want to lose a gig like that.” Paddy turned his attention to me. “Meet me in the head in a few minutes, Counselor. Okay?”

I had just dropped out of community college for the last time and had gotten this job at a local branch of a big television-and-stereo chain. The company called us “Sales Counselors,” like we were shrinks or something. Paddy thought it was a laugh.

“Okay,” I said.

“Watch this,” said Paddy, and he got out of his seat.

Paddy navigated the space between the floor tables and headed for the booth where the guy was drinking with the blonde. He walked right up to their table and bumped his thigh against it, hard enough to rattle their mugs and spill some of their beer. The guy looked up, not angry, just surprised. Paddy pointed his finger at the guy's face and said, “Pussy.” Then Paddy made a beeline to the men's room, which was down a serpentine hall. The doorman, one of three cousins who owned the place, was standing nearby. He saw the whole thing.

“That was smooth,” said Scott.

The guy at the booth was staring at us, like, what's up with your buddy? Funny, with his face square on us, he did look like that Achmed Z-med dude. The blonde was busy mopping up the spilled beer with some napkins. I thought of going over to apologize, or shrugging to let them know that we were innocent in whatever had just happened, but I didn't, 'cause it would have been a betrayal of my friend. I just looked away.

“The lucky leprechaun's in rare form tonight,” said Scott. “You guys drop me at my parents' place after this, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You want to get busted for something, that's up to you, but I got too much to lose.”

“I said we would.”

Scott's eyeglasses reflected neon from a Bud Light sign up on the wall. His hair was curly and short, and he was soft-featured and overweight. He had rose-petal lips, like a girl's. Scott was one of those guys, you could tell what he was gonna look like when he got to be an old man, even when we were kids.

I pushed my chair away from the table, got up, and walked toward the head. The doorman was giving me the fisheye, his arms folded across his chest. I didn't look at the Arab guy or the blonde.

I made it through the hall, black-paneled walls lit by a red bulb, and knocked on the locked men's room door. Paddy opened up and I slid in. The room held a toilet, a stand-up urinal, and a sink, all on the same wall. The toilet didn't have a door on it or nothin like that, so if you had to take a shit you did it in front of strangers. There was a casement window by the toilet, always cranked open some to let out the smell. Everything was filthy in here. Paper towels overflowed the plastic trash can by the sink and were crumpled like dirty white carnations on the tiled floor.

“Here you go, Counselor,” said Paddy. He held a small amber vial in one hand and a black screw-on top in the other. Inside the top, a small spoon dangled by a chain. He dipped the spoon into the vial and produced a tiny mound of coke that he held to my nose.

I could see that there wasn't hardly any coke left in the vial. I knew if I did one jolt I'd be hungry for it the rest of the night. Even if we could find someplace to cop, I didn't have the dough to buy any more, and I didn't know if Paddy did, either.

I was thinking of this as I pressed a forefinger to one nostril and snorted the mound into the other. A good cool ache came behind my eyes.

Paddy produced another mound, and I did it up the other nostril the same way. He scraped out what was left in the vial and did that himself. He found some more in there somehow and rubbed that on his gums while I ran water from the faucet, wet my fingers, tipped my head back, and let some droplets go down my nose. Then I took a leak in the stand-up head.

“Hurry up,” said Paddy. “Everyone's gonna think you're in here suckin my dick.”

“No they won't. 'Cause everyone knows you don't have one.”

“Axe your mama if I have one.”

“Look, you gonna be a good boy out there?”

“I was just fuckin with that guy.”

“For what?”

“I don't know.”

I tucked myself back in and zipped up my fly. I was already speeding and there was a drip, tasted like medicine, back in my throat. I wished my girl was out there; I could break away with her if she was. But it wouldn't be cool to split now, seeing as Paddy had just got me lit up. And by the time I got to her place, I'd be crashing. I'd hang with Paddy for a while, cop some more someplace, then knock on Lynne's door later on.

We walked out into the hall. “Everytime You Go Away” was playing in the house. I felt tall and funny. Our waitress was going to the girls' room, and I reminded her to wash her hands. She edged by us in the narrow passageway without even giving us a smile.

Good as I felt, I had forgotten about the doorman. My stomach flipped some as I saw him standing by our table. Our bill was on the table, and Scott was kinda slumped in his seat. We went there, and Paddy spread his hands, like, What's going on?

“Pay your tab and get out,” said the doorman, pointing at the bill.

“We're not finished drinking,” said Paddy.

“You're finished,” said the doorman. “Pay your tab and get out.”

“What, 'cause of
that
guy?” said Paddy, jerking his head toward the Arab and the blonde. “He was bothering me. Sayin shit, and stuff. I wasn't just gonna let it pass.”

“I saw the whole thing,” said the doorman. His face was ugly and it was stone. “Pay up and get out. You're not welcome in here anymore.”

The doorman was short and wore one of those Woody Allen hats to cover his hair plugs. Basically, he was an insecure guy who liked to act tough. We all knew he couldn't walk it, and he knew we knew, and it just made him more mean. He was not a physical problem, but the Harris brothers, a couple of guys worked nights in the kitchen, were. They had been wrestlers at our old high school, and there was no love lost between them and Paddy.

We dropped some money on the four-top. Scott stood and put some green in, too. A few of the drinkers at the tables and booths were checking us out with anticipation, waiting to see what we would do.

I already knew we weren't going to do a thing. Paddy's face had gone pink and he was just standing there, swaybacked, staring at his shoes. He was a pale-skinned strawberry blond who could have been handsome if his features had been hooked up better. I couldn't say what made him unattractive exactly, but there was something off about his looks. Scott called him an inbred Redford.