I stopped at Ray’s for lunch, took my usual seat in a booth, and waited. After a while, the cook, who was Ray the owner, stuck his head out of the kitchen and said, “In the ladies room. She’ll be out soon.”
I waited for several minutes more. A couple came in and took a seat. They had to wait too. After five more minutes, the fellow called out, “Is this place open for business?”
Ray came out and took their order. He looked at me and shrugged. Then he came over to my table.
“You know what you want?” he asked.
“A burger and some fries, Ray. And coffee.”
On his way back to the kitchen, Ray stopped at the ladies room door and pounded. “Come on out, Bunny. You have customers.”
The bathroom door opened, and Bunny came out. She looked at me, and then away. She took water and tableware to the other party.
Ray called out, “Order up,” and Bunny went to get my burger. She brought it over and put it in front of me. Then she turned to walk away without saying anything.
This was the lady I slept with last night and intended to sleep with tonight. And she acted like I was wearing an AIDS medical alert bracelet.
“Hey!” I said. “What’s the idea.”
“Order up!” Ray called.
“I have to get this order,” she said and hurried away.
When I finished my burger, I waited again. I could have tossednthe money on the table and left. I could have walked out on the check. But I waited. After about a half hour, she came over and took my money.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” I said when she brought the change. “As if I didn’t know.”
“What do you mean?” she said, still not looking me in the face.
“Come on, Bunny. I know the heave-ho when I see it. We’ve done it enough times already. Who is it this time?”
She sat down across from me.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.
“Since when?”
“I don’t. But here it is.” She paused and looked out the window. “Barry is back. He wants to go out with me again.”
“Then do it,” I said. “Just do it. But this is it.”
“It? You mean I’ll never see you again? We can’t stay friends like before?”
“Oh, you’ll see me. Ray makes too good a burger. I’m cutting you out, not Ray. From now on, Bunny, you’re just the waitress. Bring my food, take my money, and just don’t talk to me. I can’t do this anymore.”
I left her crying, went back to the office, and gave my notebook to Rodney.
“Copy these notes to the whiteboard,” I said. “I take good notes, so you shouldn’t need much translation. If you don’t understand something, mark it and ask me about it tomorrow.”
I got the bottle from the desk drawer and left without saying anything more to Willa or Rodney. She knew better than to ask what was wrong. She’d seen me through the same thing enough times before.
I threw the bottle in my car for later and went to Oliver’s for now. Sammy was on duty, my friend, my shoulder to cry on, my ear to bend. There were a few customers there. I limped up to the bar and hoisted my broken body onto a barstool.
“What the hell happened to you?” Sammy asked. He pushed a tumbler of a double Jack neat in front of me.
“Got beat up by two guys.”
“On a case?” he asked. He was drying glasses from the washer and putting them on a glass shelf behind the bar.
“Yeah. A couple mokes playing soldier.”
“You sure do look like shit.”
“I get that all the time.”
“You charge extra for getting beat up?”
“Pro bono. Helping my sister.”
“Ain’t that always the way?”
I knocked back the double and pushed the glass across to him.
“You need some pain killers, Stan? I got some good stuff. Muscle relaxers.”
“Pour.”
He filled the glass. Sammy’s doubles were more like triples, and it didn’t take long for them to take a guy down.
“Drinking heavy tonight?”
“Yeah. Got problems.”
“With the beat-down?”
“No.”
“The problem named Bunny?” Sammy had helped me through this mess a couple times before. He knew the signs.
“It is. Just when you think everything’s kosher, she yanks the rug.”
“Why do you put up with it, Stan?”
“I don’t know. Best blow job in town might be a good reason.”
He finished drying his last tumbler and went down the bar to refill a draft beer for another customer. Then he came back.
“How do you know she’s the best blow job in town? Have you had all the blow jobs in town?”
“Had my share,” I said. “Bunny’s the best. Of course, the worst one I ever had was wonderful.”
I pushed the tumbler across again, he poured.
“So what are you telling me?” Sammy asked. “You fell in love with a blow job?”
“You would too. Bunny’s nickname is ‘the Spoiler.’”
“How’s that?”
“Once she’s waxed your carrot, you’re spoiled for anyone else.”
“The Spoiler. That’s pretty good. But you’ve had some nice la-dies. What happened to that wife you had? She wasn’t around very long either.”
“That was Brenda. Divorce. I met her when we were both on the rebound. We only knew each other about two months.”
“She sure was easy on the eyes.”
“She was. I couldn’t believe such a lovely peach would have me.”
“You’re always hard on yourself,” Sammy said.
“She didn’t stay lovely for long. Turns out she had a split personality, and both of them gave me shit every day of the week.”
He laughed. “That’s a joke, right?”
“Nothing funny about it. One night she broke a whiskey bottle on the sink and threw it at me. Twenty stitches in my arm. The scar’s under this cast or I’d show it to you. Anyway, that did it. Some things cannot be forgiven. That was expensive whiskey.”
Sammy laughed at my portrayal of love gone awry.
“She took everything we had,” I said, “which wasn’t much, leaving me only this watch.”
“Quite the heirloom.”
“Yeah, a real collector’s item. She told the judge I should have done better by her, should’ve made sure we’d have more assets that she could take.”
“Didn’t you have any defense at all?”
“I used my P.I. skills and made candid videos of her in flagran-
te delicto.”
“What’s that?”
“Fucking another guy. I tell you, Sammy, she had talent between the sheets. Those videos would have been too hardcore for the Internet. The judge gave her everything she wanted.”
“What happened to the videos?”
“The judge kept them.”
Sammy laughed so hard he started coughing.
“Don’t get married, Sammy,” I said when he quieted down. “Don’t set yourself up for that divorce shit. Just find a woman who hates you and buy her a house.”
“I’ve heard that one.”
“I’ve lived it.” I emptied the glass and pushed it over.
“You driving?” Sammy asked.
“I am.”
“This is the last one, then,” he said. “Unless you want me to call you a cab.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Sammy leaned on the bar. “You don’t want to get pulled over.”
“That’s okay. With these crutches I couldn’t walk a straight line anyway. Put this on the tab. How much is it?”
“National debt,” he said.
“Okay. I’ll have Willa get square with you. We got a windfall.”
“Some advice, Stan. Don’t be so quick to take the Spoiler back.
She knows you’re always there for her. Let her find out what it’s like to not have you in reserve.”
“Easier said than done.” I leaned back and sighed. “The Spoiler.”
“Well then, pal, ignore my advice. It’s better for my business. You quit drowning your sorrows, and I go on Food Stamps.”
He moved to another part of the bar to talk to a couple of customers. I took my time drinking the last drink.
A fellow I didn’t know came in and sat next to me at the bar. I hoped he wasn’t looking to pick me up. I wasn’t that desperate.
“Mr. Bentworth?” he said.
I turned and looked at him. He was bigger than me—who wasn’t—and well-dressed. His nose was bent. Uh-oh.
“Who wants to know?” I said. That’s what they always say in cowboy movies.
“My name is not important.”
Nobody wants to tell me their name.
“Maybe you should get an important name. Might help with your self-esteem issues.”
He was not moved by my humor. He continued. “My sources tell me you might know the whereabouts of an old friend.”
“I don’t have any old friends. Or any young ones.”
“My old friend,” he said. “I’m looking for him, and I have reason to believe he might be living around here under an assumed name.”
“Is that better than an unimportant name?”
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get a laugh out of this guy.
“His name used to be Tony Curro. You know him?”
“Nope. Never heard of him.”
“I figured that’s what you’d say. How did you hurt yourself?”
“Discount bungee jumping.”
He lowered his voice. “Well, you understand, if you know my friend and don’t tell me, your next jump will be without the bungee.”
“Why do you think I know him?”
“No reason I shouldn’t tell you. We got an anonymous tip saying I should look you up. That’s all he’d tell me.”
That could only have been Vitole after I visited him. I hadn’t given him my name. He must’ve gotten my license number and had it traced.
Now I understood why Vitole had ignored my warning and demanded that Buford put the twenty grand back. If he got rid of me without outing Buford, his money train would keep rolling. Assuming I didn’t cave in and give Buford up.
All I could do for this fellow was lie. “I can’t help you. I really don’t know the guy you’re looking for.”
“Well, my family gave me the job of finding Curro. This is as far as I’ve gotten, and all I found is you. Here’s a card with my cell phone. If you think of anything, call. If I don’t hear from you soon, I might have to come calling again.”
He got up and went out the front door.
Buford got it right when he said my ass would be in the crosshairs if the mob found out we were connected. I wondered how many of his relatives this guy had told about me.
I called Rodney.
“Get your laptop going and find the GPS for this number,” I said. I read the number to him and then said, “When you find where it is, call Overbee. I’ll let him know to expect your call.”
“You got it, Uncle Stanley.”
“No, I don’t yet, but I expect to.”
I called Buford.
“Remember when you told me the mob would be on me?”
“Yes. What happened?”
“I just had a visit. I got his cell phone number. Rodney will be calling you with his location.”
“Not to worry, Stan. We’ll take care of it.”
My crutches and I limped out to the car. It was almost suppertime, but I wasn’t hungry, I wasn’t up for seeing Bunny, and I sure wasn’t going to eat anything I cooked myself. Not in this shape.
I drove home, took the bottle into the apartment, and drank myself to sleep.