Merlot (5 page)

Sassie, one of his headliners, had slipped
and fallen near the end of the Brunch and Buns shift. She had
slipped on a patch of icy condensation just at the edge of the
stage and landed, rather inappropriately, on an ill-placed,
long-necked beer bottle. The force of the fall inserted the beer
bottle with some unfortunate side affects.

For her part, Miss Sassie, really pissed off
and currently unable to sit down, was pacing back and forth across
the stage indignantly rallying the rest of the dancing crew. She
had them conducting a work stoppage. They were sitting down, fully
clothed, in the middle of the stage. Demanding the heat get turned
up and that beer bottles no longer be allowed on the edge of the
stage.

“Milton,” Osborne instructed through clenched
teeth after spraying his phone with disinfectant. “Get down there
and toss that twat out into the street. Then get the rest of them
back to work.”

Milton returned twenty minutes later,
sporting a perfect bloodied imprint of Sassie’s orthodontia on his
right hand.

“They ain’t moving,” he said, holding his
throbbing right hand, the individual teeth marks were already
beginning to puff, the overall bite area felt as if it was on
fire.

“What do you mean, not moving?” Osborne
pushed his chair back and thrust his left arm out as nurse
Serpentina wiggled forward with the blood-pressure cuff and
delicately rolled up his shirtsleeve.

“I reached for her, Sassie, I mean. They were
all gathered around her and she bit me. Someone else grabbed hold
of me, wouldn’t let go and…”

“What in the hell do you mean grabbed hold of
you, for God’s sake. You’re three times their size.”

Milton glanced downward.

“Oh, yes, well I see, this won’t do. I can’t
have a bunch of my dancers sitting around with their clothes on,”
Osborne sprayed a heavy dose of disinfectant in Milton’s
direction.

“Oh dear,” muttered Serpentina, gradually
releasing the blood-pressure cuff.

“What now?” Osborne growled.

“Nothing to worry about, sir.”

“Hmm-mmm, wait a minute. Yes of course. You
could just get down there and dance for the customers while I think
of something here,” he directed.

“Well, that’s just it. There really aren’t
any customers down there. They all sort of left,” Milton replied,
not looking at Osborne, examining his hand, caught in the fact that
he hadn’t lied but on the other hand hadn’t delivered all the bad
news.

“No cust… what? No customers down there, why
it’s, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon and you’re standing here telling
me there’s no one downstairs? No one requesting lap dances? No one
drinking? You’ve got to be kidding!”

* * *

Otto was making his way through the
fairgrounds delivering two hundred and fifty pounds of bacon and
batter to each of his five stands. He could only hope it wouldn’t
be enough.

The forecast was for high humidity and
temperature in the upper 90s, which meant if you were
deep-fat-frying bacon or even just walking around the fairgrounds
picking up cash, it was bound to be awful.

* * *

Merlot glanced quickly from the paper on the
passenger seat to the road and back again, reading the ad he had
circled. His previous two stops had been completely fruitless. The
first was anything but what the ad had described as a good runner,
a nondescript old Chevy that wouldn’t start.

The second vehicle he looked at was a
Plymouth wagon that started but had some distinct bearing problems,
which made themselves known on the test drive around the block. He
was on his way to see about a Honda Civic, “as is”.

The faded blue-four door vehicle sat in the
driveway of the suburban home sporting a rear bumper sticker that
stated
Plumbers Do it Better
. The test drive was acceptable
despite the lack of a muffler but the guy shut the whole deal down
as soon as Merlot suggested that he would take care of the title
transfer.

“Look, no hard feelings but this belonged to
my kid who decided it would be more fun to party than to go to
class. I’m just trying to demonstrate to the genius that nothing in
this life is free, including this car, which his mother insisted we
buy for him.”

“But when you flunk out of school it’s time
for some rule changes and one of the things that’s going to change
is this ride. So, no offense but it’s a fifteen hundred dollar car
that’s given me too many problems already.

“If you don’t want to go down and do the
title transfer with me then I can’t sell to you. It’s just that
simple.” He took a sip of his coffee that basically told Merlot to
hit the road.

Merlot hit the road to the next ad on his
list, a Saab. It turned out to be a perfectly nondescript olive
drab vehicle that started, seemed to drive well and the seller,
Bernice, was more than willing to let Merlot do the title transfer
for an additional hundred dollars.

“Like I told you,” Bernice said talking
through the cloud of cat hair that swirled around her while she
scratched the stomach of the feline on her lap. “Terry’s in the
Marines, on his third tour, just loves the Corp. I just figured he
wouldn’t want to deal with this by the time he returns. I’ll put
the money in a savings account for him. I looked all over, but
couldn’t find that title anywhere, checked the kitchen drawer,
Terry’s room, even the garage.” She said, dropping the cat off her
lap to make room for the one at her feet.

He could feel his allergies kicking in. Cat
hair seemed to be everywhere, drifting across the room, settling on
him, clinging to his socks and trousers. He figured he had enough
on him to knit a small sweater and he was hoping the verbal house
tour wouldn’t last too much longer.

“I even checked the damn bathroom, but didn’t
find anything there, either. Well, I’m gonna have another,” Bernice
half cackled.

She was a large woman, squarely built. He
guessed she hadn’t been out of the house since 9/11. Her tightly
permed blue hair had an unkempt look to it. She wore a stained
house dress, like she had been cleaning, although tell where. She
ambled toward the kitchen counter and her vodka bottle, more of a
field gait then a walk.

“You want a drink?”

“No, no thank you. Look, let me get you paid
so I don’t interrupt anymore of your day. I can have my niece come
and pick the car up this afternoon. I’ll get the title changed and
I want to make sure the insurance is on there too, you know, before
she drives it.”

“Sure you don’t want a little something,” she
asked pouring a good three inches of vodka into her glass, adding
barely enough orange juice to suggest color.

“Time was I wouldn’t have to offer a drink to
get a nice young man to spend some time with me,” she said touching
her hair. Her glassy eyes drifted off in the direction of the Nixon
administration.

“I’ll throw in an extra hundred dollars, just
to give you something to maybe get a present for Terry.”

“Oh, heavens, you don’t have to do that,” she
said, then quickly scooped up the cash a nanosecond after he had
counted it out. She folded the money, stuffed it inside her bra,
then took a long swallow from her drink.

He grabbed the keys from the counter and made
a hasty retreat toward the door, gently prodded cats away with his
foot. He was eager to get to his car and pop a Benadryl.

“Bernice, I can’t thank you enough. My cousin
will be very happy. Now she can get to school without worrying
about where her next ride is going to come from,” he said, shooing
cats away with his foot, a little more forcefully this time.

“I thought you said it was your niece?” she
said, swirling her glass and casting a sharp eye at Merlot.’

“Well, she is my niece, and my cousin, too,
it’s sort of an involved family situation, you know,” he
stammered.

“Believe me, I do know!” she exclaimed, then
drained her glass.

* * *

By the time Merlot returned to his office,
his eyes were glazed, the lids puffy, and his nose was plugged. He
was wrapping lengths of tape, sticky side out, around his hand in
an unsuccessful attempt to remove cat hair from his slacks and
shirt. The problem was there was just too much cat hair. He didn’t
have a lot of time to fool with it since getting the vehicle had
taken hours longer than he had expected. He could feel a rash
developing on his arms and legs, down his back and he finally just
gave up and took off his clothes, dumped them in the waist basket
and changed into his softball uniform.

“There a game today?” Buddy asked as Merlot
strolled past on the way to tossing his clothes in the Dumpster.
Aged somewhere beyond one hundred, Buddy had tended bar as long as
Merlot could remember. Currently he was the eleven-to-three
bartender in the front bar. He didn’t wait for an answer.

“Damn it, the schedule they gave me is all
screwed up. I didn’t know there was a game or I would have gotten
someone to cover for me.” Buddy served as the unofficial manager
and believed he didn’t have a lot of games left in him, so to miss
one was a big deal.

“No, there’s no game today, Buddy,” Merlot
replied, attempting to scratch his back without seeming too
obvious.

“Man, you look like shit, Merlot,” Buddy
continued, having decided as long as his day wasn’t going to be
ruined the least he could do would be to make the boss feel
lousy.

“How come you got your softball uniform on if
there’s no game?”

“Long story, Buddy,” Merlot was now against
the door frame, rubbing back and forth against the corner,
scratching it.

“You sure you’re okay? I mean if you don’t
mind my saying so, you really look like shit.”

“Yeah, you already mentioned that, but thanks
all the same. No, no big deal, just an allergic reaction so I
thought it was best to just ditch these clothes,” he nodded at the
waste basket he was carrying.

“I’ll run home to shower and change in a bit.
I took a couple of Benadryl so I should be okay in the next hour,
but I don’t want to drive for that period. You know, just playing
it safe is all.”

“Yeah, well, just thought you’d want to know
you were looking like shit. You sure there’s no game?”

“Yeah, I’m sure, there’s no game, honest.
Thanks for the input,” he added.

* * *

“Okay, tell all!” Karen said, not for the
first time. She was lying on the couch, taking a quick break,
watching out the window as her nephews ran in and out of the wading
pool.

“So tell me again, you called him, after I
dropped you off?”

“Yeah, unfortunately. I’m sure he thinks I’m
just a tramp. I had three or four glasses of wine last night,
another one at home. Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cindy
said.

She was finally home from the bank after
being jammed all morning long without a break. Huge overnight cash
deposits, and a nonstop line of customers almost out the door until
they closed. And this was just the warm up. They would have
Saturday night and all of Sunday’s deposits to count Monday
morning. She was scheduled to be in at 5:30 Monday morning just to
get a jump on things. The perfect kick off to the week from
hell.

“So what did he say? He must have known you
were feeling no pain, I mean the guy
is
in the bar
business.”

“He was really nice, I think,” Cindy said.
She was on her back attempting to squeeze into a pair of jeans
using one hand, kicking her legs up and down.

“What do you mean, you think? Don’t you
remember the conversation? I mean did he say, never call me here
again or don’t come into my bar ever again or anything like
that?”

“No, he didn’t say anything like that, in
fact we’re having dinner tonight, at…”

“Dinner! He’s taking you to dinner! I’d say
that’s something. Quit playing it so cool. Give me more details.
Thomas!” over the phone Cindy could hear Karen rapping on the
window at the kids,

“Thomas, don’t you do that to your brother.
You share, do you hear me?” then a pause, “Okay, play nicely.”

“So give me the details girl, come on, and
don’t hold anything back.”

“Karen, you’ve got all the details, I’m just
having dinner with him, at his place.”

“You’re going to his house, that’s…”

“No, his bar, DiMento’s. He’s working. So I’m
going to stop in and have dinner with him. He had promised me
dinner for helping him out the other day, that’s all. I’ll probably
never hear from him again after that.”

“So, you’re having dinner with this guy
tonight. You met him last night, I don’t know, it… Thomas, I’m
warning you, let your brother up, he can’t breathe underwater.
Thomas, if I, hey sorry, I gotta run here Cin, they’re trying to
murder each other out there. Thomas!” she shrieked hanging up the
phone.

* * *

For twenty-five bucks and a twelve pack
Merlot had convinced his two burned out dishwashers, La Tondra and
Celeste, to drive to Blaine and pick up the Saab from Bernice.

“Look, girls it’s all paid for, you don’t
even have to talk to her. Here are the keys and the directions.
It’s an olive drab Saab parked in the driveway. You can’t miss it.
Get it and come back here, okay? I’ll pay you each twenty-five
bucks, you can grab a twelve pack from the cooler. We got a deal?”
he asked. Then reached into his pocket and fanned out a wad of
bills.

The girls nodded and he left, hoping there
wouldn’t be any problems.

* * *

Otto sat in the air conditioned comfort of
his pickup truck, and let the cold air frost the outside of his
body. It was a humid 96 degrees in the shade, and he hadn’t seen
very much shade. He sipped a Gatorade, with the doors locked, the
windows rolled up, and the AC blowing full blast. His briefcase was
stuffed with the past hour’s receipts and he had his forty-five
tucked in his belt.