Murder by Candlelight (6 page)

Picking up the whiskey bottle,
twisting off the cap with a practiced motion, John took a long
pull. "Nev'r be too 'shamed to drink right out'a the bottle, my old
man used to say. Better 'an breaking off the neck on the edge of
the bar, booze and glass all over." Johnny looked over at Z, John's
eyes glazed. "He use'a do that, you know that? Even after he got
rich. So's he don't get too high-falutin' was his
excuse."

"Yeah."

"You been ta the reunion?" Drunk, John
changed subjects like a jukebox flipping records.

"Some."

"I'm goin', soon as I get myself
'nother nip." John uncapped the bottle again. Took a drag. Replaced
the cap. "See anybody you know?"

"Ted."

"Be jus' like him to come to a shindig
like this. Show off his tin badge. He was always a dumb ass. It's
just that bein' a dumb ass don't show as much in high
school."

They sat there for awhile, John taking
sips of booze.

John looked ... old ... his face a map
of Bermuda-tanned lines, his substantial nose more hooked than Z
remembered. Johnny was wearing a monogrammed, white silk shirt with
diamond cufflinks. White wool pants. Italian shoes.

"I can't go," Johnny said at last,
more to himself than to Z. "Can't go."

Z glanced over to see tears running
down John's cheeks.

Johnny always felt things more than
other people, as a child, cried more than anyone when he fell and
hurt himself, laughed too loud and too long.

Why did kids have to grow
up?

"You know me, Z. ... I'm not a bad
guy. Hell, I'm no wors' 'an most. I'm in the entertainment
business. Just like Worlds of Fun." John giggled at that thought.
Took a wet wheeze of breath. "Only I'm in the adult entertainment
business while they're doin' children."

Johnny Dosso frowned.
Looked mean. "I can buy and sell 'em. The whole damn lot of 'em!"
He shook his head. Was dizzy. Recovered. "Fuck 'em! They all used
to cheer me when I was quarterbackin' the team. Even if it was you
that made the scores. It was
me
got you the ball."

Johnny seemed to soften
again, the liquor ruddering him one way, then the other. "I know I
didn't throw so hot. I know it was you with your fuckin' fine hands
that made me look good." John shook his head to clear it. "They
don't understand. I
had
ta go into the business. Didn't have a
choice.

"My son ...." The tears were flowing
again.

John was thinking of the
son who'd killed himself over ten years ago. Z had gone to the
funeral; big Catholic brouhaha with not a word about a hell-bound
sin like suicide. Gun accident, everybody said.
Priests
, as well.

As for John's wife, also at the
burial, the two of them had been estranged for years, John's string
of hookers having a lot do with the bust-up. Like any good
salesman, John used the merchandise he peddled.

"Well," Johnny said, wiping his hands
quickly across his eyes, brushing away the tears, "piss on 'em all.
Piss on the kids whose families pushed 'em into bein' doctors. And
fuckin' lawyers." John made an obscene gesture. "The girls at
Northtown? All bitches. All of 'em. Pretending to be virgins, so
some rich bastard'ed marry 'em. That don't make 'em nothin' but
whores. The cunts." John laughed. "Had my share of 'em in high
school. Same ones as wouldn't spit on me today."

John had pulled himself together. Why
he'd come to the reunion at all, Z couldn't guess; maybe to remind
himself of the friends he used to have; maybe to recapture long
lost innocence.

"Been good talking to you, Z, but I
got to go."

Dismissed, Z tripped the catch,
pushing back the massive door to ease himself into the August
oven.

Nothing else to be said, he shut the
door. Again, the heavy thunk.

Z clear, John jerked the car into
reverse, the limo's tires slipping, twin clouds of rock dust
shooting under the car as it swerved into the street. Wheels
cranked the other way, John revved the Lincoln's powerful engine,
then jumped the car into gear to squeal off down Howell, turning
left to careen along 32nd, headed for North Oak.

All of this happening a
long two days ago: a "reunion experience" Z would
never
subject himself to
again -- though he hoped Bud would be pleased with the
result.

* * * * *

Chapter 3

Though business types drank wine with
lunch in fancy restaurants, Bud's didn't open until 4:00,
Gladstone's lowlife tanking up later in the day.

Bud's Tavern was located near a
ramshackle of empty warehouses along the Missouri river, north of
the ASB bridge, Z arriving a little after happy hour.

Leaving the Cavalier, he crossed the
cracked concrete walk to the tavern's paint-flaked door.

Hesitating before going in, Z turned
back to check on the Cavalier (the car hunkered down to seem
not-worth-stealing,) then looked up to admire the rusty,
rivet-angled superstructure of the ASB, the old bridge no longer
carrying cars but still transporting trains. The ancient span's
auto lanes had been recently torn down a viaduct replacing them:
the substitute, another soulless concrete road that accidentally
crossed a river.

Turning with a sigh, tugging open the
tavern's door (the door solid enough to keep in the riffraff,) Z
paused to let the stale smell of hops and malt leak out. (Some beer
joints like this had taken to calling themselves "Drinking
Establishments," Z speculating that the difference between "joint"
and "establishment" was about a buck a bottle.)

Bud's was the sort of
place where a person in a clean, checkered work shirt and
steel-toed boots was overdressed;
would
have looked that way if the
light inside was better, Bud keeping the wattage low to shield the
regulars from the reflection of their red-veined noses in the
mirrored glass behind the bar.

Dim light also helped to hide the
roaches.

As it did in fancy
restaurants.

Stepping inside, closing the door,
waiting to let his eyes adjust to the gloom and his nose to the
sour smell, Z made out Bud's barman, Olin Brainbridge, sloshing
beer for two retirees. Further down the bar was a scraggly haired
man in a well-greased baseball cap; a guy who might have been taken
for a muffler welder if he'd been a little cleaner.

Behind the bar was a black-and-white
TV. Tuned to the sports channel, what else? Volume kept low so as
not to disturb the dedicated drunk.

Figuring Bud might not like his
business spilled out on the bar, Z sat down at one of the round
tables that huddled near the "cocktail lounge's" dilapidated pool
table.

Seeing Z enter, Olin Brainbridge
finished "gassing up" the regulars and headed toward Z's
table.

Arriving, Olin paused to sneeze; after
blowing his nose on his wipe rag, grinned his apology.

Z remembered Bud had said his counter
man was sick.

"Bud here?" Z asked.

"He's in back."

From the look of the tavern's
"action," Bud was keeping out of sight for reasons other than to
count the day's receipts. "Get ya something?"

"No."

"A man don't normally take up a seat,
less he has a drink." Not said to be unfriendly, Olin just making
the constant conversation of the dedicated barkeep. Z wondering if
barmen kept yammering in their sleep.

"What's on tap?"

"Got Old Milwaukee."

"OK."

Olin smiled at making a sale. "Ain't I
seen you in here once or twice? You that friend of Bud's he's been
talking about? Old high school buddy?"

Z nodded.

"You want me to get Bud for
you?"

Z nodded again.

"You fellows OK down there?" Olin
called, turning.

All three drunks happy for the moment,
Olin sauntered to the bar, slipping behind and along it to
disappear through curtains at the counter's other end.

Abruptly, curtains billowing, Bud
burst out of the back room, Olin trailing him, Bud heading for Z's
table.

Big grin on Bud's face.

Reaching the table, Z waved Bud to
sit, Bud showing confidence in the sturdiness of his chairs by
thumping down on one.

The fat man safely seated, Z's nod
said everything Z had to say.

"You
did
it, boy!" Reaching across the
small table, Bud wrung Z's hand.

There was something ... odd ... about
Bud's manner, about his tone of voice (other than that the sound
was too high for the size of the big man's body.)

"I knew I could count on you," Bud
enthused.

Sweating.

Whatever Bud had been doing in the
back had made him sweat, Z putting his hand below the table to wipe
off Bud's damp shake.

"What I'm saying," Bud
said more quietly, Z's look chilling the big man's enthusiasm, "is
I don't know a
thing
about what you did. You get my meaning? But that I'm
grateful." Bud lowered his voice even more. "And you got my promise
that this stops with me. I'll never tell if
you
don't." This time said with a
grimace and a nervous chuckle.

"Yeah."

"Good to know he'll never bother me
again, though."

Z nodded.

"That's fine. That's just fine. I owe
you." Bud looked up, then all around. "And I'm going to pay up now
so we can both forget this. Forget all about it, isn't that right,
Z? No sense bringing it up again. Am I right?"

"Yeah."

"Good ol' Z. Best damn footballer
ever. And best damn friend a man ever had. I can't tell you what
this means to me, Z. I told you, I wasn't sleepin'. Now, I can get
a good night's rest. Have to have that, running the bar all night.
All night until closing, is what I mean."

"Yeah."

"This old place's my whole life," Bud
said, looking around like a child grins at a toy. "I couldn't do no
better, 'cause I never learned, much, how to read. You know that?
The letters all go wiggly on me when I try."

"Dyslexia."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Don't own a TV," Bud rushed on,
expecting Z to be amazed.

Z pointed to the TV behind the
bar.

"Don't own one at home, that is. Don't
even watch the bar's TV cause it's locked on the sports channel.
Don't like sports no more, now that I can't play myself. No siree.
This joint's my life, for sure. Got all my happiness wrapped up
right here. Not your usual day job. I been asleep all day. Just got
up, in fact."

For being so happy, there
was still a lot of "sad" clinging to Bud Izard. Of course, Bud had
a mountain of meat for sadness to cling to. Though you always heard
that fat people were jolly, Z had never seen one yet, who was. A
fat man would pretend to be happy-go-lucky, sure, but that didn't
make it so. It was probably the same for fat women, though Z didn't
pretend to know much about women, fat
or
thin.

"But what am I runnin' off at the
mouth so much for?" Bud said, starting up again. "You said a
hundred? Am I right? And I said you'd have to wait. But I just
wouldn't feel right making one of my best friends in all the world
wait for his money. Nosiree. I got the money right
here."

Proving he was heeled, Bud bent
forward to pull a folded-over stack of greenbacks from his back
pocket.

Z wondered if Bud kept the money on
him for fear of a stick-up, figuring a hood would go after the cash
drawer in the register.

All in all, Z was glad he didn't have
Bud's job. Too many fights. Too much chance of a drug-crazed kid
gutting you.

Meanwhile, Bud had unfolded his wad
and started to count.

"No charge."

"That's crazy!" Bud protested, waving
a hand so huge it made a breeze. "I got the money now. Hell, I was
going to make it two hundred. A man's got to take care of his
friends. Easy come, easy go, I always say."

Z shook his head in such a way that
Bud stopped counting.

"Well, hell, Z. I owe you a favor,
then. Matter of fact, if its' action you're looking for, you come
to the right place."

"
Got
a girl."

"I know that. Hell, I know
that. I wasn't talking about
that
kind of action. I meant, if you was interested in
a game of skill, I got a room at the back for that. You'd make a
fourth. I guess now, a third." Bud winked, at the same time leaning
to one side to reach behind him and stuff the bills in his wallet
pocket. "I'm too far from the river to get me a license to be a
gambling casino, but I do all right."

Z shook his head.

"
Nothing
I can do for you?" Z shook
his head again. "If there ever is, you just come to see old Bud
Izard. You got a friend in this establishment, you can bank on
that."