Boldt (19 page)

“That's kind of interesting.”

“Yeah, isn't it just.”

“The thing is, he just went into the bar on the corner and is still in there.”

We think about it for a moment.

“I'll go into the bar while you take a look at the apartment,” I tell him. “I want to take a look at the guy.”

“Supposing he makes you,” Murdock says, “or maybe somebody else in the bar does?”

I shake my head.

“I've never been in there in two years,” I tell him. “And I'd have to be awfully unlucky to bump into somebody we know.”

“The guy could still make you.”

“Look. I'll worry about that,” I tell him. “Give me the phone number and I'll call you from the bar if he moves out before you're through.”

“Yeah,” Murdock says, “and it'd be just my luck if some drunk's phoning his girlfriend.”

I begin to get pissed off.

“Look, just go up there will you, and stop acting like you're about to piss in your pants.”

“Listen,” Murdock says, twisting around to face me, “I just want this done right, you understand? My reasons aren't your reasons, you know what I mean?”

“Just get up there will you and stop bleating.”

“I'll do that,” Murdock says, getting out of the car and slamming the door. When he's gone, I take my glasses from the top pocket of my coat then I take my coat off and lay it on the driver's seat. I take off my tie and holster, wrap them in my coat and stuff the coat under the seat. Then I put on the dark glasses and roll up my shirt sleeves, get out of the car and lock it and cross the street, down the block and into the brightly lit bar.

It isn't exactly bulging with customers. There's a man and a woman sitting at a corner table quietly arguing about something that's important to their lives; they look up briefly when I come through the door and then they go back to their soft intensity. A couple of guys are sitting at the far end of the bar watching a movie on T.V. The bartender's watching the movie as well, arms folded, leaning against a shelf at the back of the bar. The young guy is sitting on his own reading a paper he's got spread out on the counter in front of him, his elbows and his drink resting on the open newspaper.

I walk to the near corner of the bar and the young guy takes no notice of me whatsoever. Neither does the bartender. He just stays where he is, arms folded, staring up at the T.V. screen as Audie Murphy uses his other expression as he talks to the girl. I stand there for a minute or so and I don't want to cause too much hassle but I've got to say something unless it'll look crazy.

Before I can say anything the young guy speaks without looking up from his paper.

“Arthur,” the young guy says. “There's a guy.”

The bartender turns his head slightly then takes one last lingering look up at the screen, hauls his body from against the shelving and ambles over to my end of the bar, looking at me without saying anything. I don't say anything either, so for a minute or two it's a complete standoff then finally the bartender manages to move his mouth and he says, “What'll it be?”

It occurs to me that that must have been one of the lines I'd caught from the movie that's flickering away above our heads.

“You sell drinks?” I ask him.

“Oh, yeah,” he says. “We do that, from time to time.”

“Am I in luck tonight?”

“Well, I could maybe arrange something.”

“That's fine,” I say to him. “In that case, I'll have a vodka and a twist of lemon, but if you don't have the lemon, don't bother sending out for it just on my account.”

The young guy gives a short sharp laugh but he still doesn't look up from his paper or change his position in any way.

“Or maybe you have to import the vodka yet?” I say to the bartender but by that time the bartender has turned away and has started on his hard work. I sit down on a stool at the bend of the bar a couple of stools away from the young guy and look up at the T.V. screen. Audie is drawing his gun and he shoots one of the villains. At the sound of the shot, the bartender stops work and looks up at the T.V., but, of course, by that time he's too late; he's missed the action and he swears to himself as he turns back to his work, almost hurling the ice into my glass. Then he turns back and brings the drink over. Instead of throwing it at me he sets it down in front of me and walks back to where his leaning was interrupted.

I take a sip of my drink and there is a sudden burst of energy from the young guy. He lifts up his drink from off the spread- out paper and turns over the page, and when he's done that, he puts his drink and his elbows in exactly the same places as before.

The movie drones on and the quiet argument at the corner table continues almost inaudibly and the bartender and the other two guys and myself watch the T.V. Then the young guy straightens up and stretches his arms above his head like someone who's been asleep, and when he's done that he slaps a palm on the newspaper and says, “Arthur, give me one more will you then I got to be getting back.”

Arthur picks a glass off the unit he's been leaning against and without taking his eyes off the T.V. screen wanders over to the draught tap and sticks the glass underneath. He pulls on the tap and only when the glass is half full does he look down at what he's doing.

“One of these nights the T.V.'s going to break down, Arthur,” the young guy says, “and you're going to have to learn to do everything all over again instead of using braille.”

“Yeah,” Arthur says, looking back up at the screen as he puts down the drink in front of the young guy. I look through the night black-plate glass and across the road down to where the car's parked. No flashing lights. Murdock's taking his fucking time. The young guy drinks half of his beer in one long pull. When he's finished taking his first gulp, he doesn't put his glass down, as if he's going to make the second half disappear as quickly as the first, and then maybe tell Arthur good night and slide off his stool back to the apartment. So I say to him, “I used to be a beer drinker, your age.”

He looks at me.

“Yeah,” I tell him, drank it all the time, just like you drank that. Bang. Straight down. Then the next thing I know I'm getting these pains in my gut so I go see the Doc and he says, ‘Cut out the beer, otherwise you'll have gut trouble the rest of your life.' So I say, ‘Sure Doc, I'll do that, thanks a lot.'”

The guy is still looking at me, his face a mask.

“So you know what I do?”

There's still no response and still no flashing lights from down the street.

“So you know what I did?” I raise my glass with the vodka in it. “I went on to this stuff. Crazy, I know. I mean if the beer was screwing up my gut, what would this stuff do, know what I mean? But let me tell you something even crazier. After I go onto this stuff, my stomach's fine. Never acts up again. Not once. And I went onto this some time ago, I can tell you.”

“That's very interesting,” the young guy says and stops looking at me while he raises his glass to his lips. Still no headlights.

“Yeah, I can tell you,” I tell him. “Been plenty of years since I was a young guy like yourself.”

I move a stool closer.

“You ever use this stuff?” I ask him, pointing at my glass.

“Sometimes,” he says, then he downs some more of his beer, trying to get it all down in one but this time he doesn't quite manage it.

“I tell you you should switch like I did,” I tell him. “Here, why not join me in one.”

The movie's just finished and the bartender is passing by, so before the young guy can object, I order two more vodkas and this time the bartender actually hears the first time and looks at the young guy and says, “You want one?”

Christ, I got a bartender who discusses business.

The young guy shakes his head.

I shrug and say to the bartender, “In that case make mine a double.” Then I turn to the young guy, “No, don't get me wrong; I'm new around here and so I drop in the first bar I see and try and drum up a little conversation, no more than that.”

“No more than that,” the young guy says, staring at me.

“Well actually, now you mention it,” I say to him, “I'm kind of new in town and this is my first night, and you looked like a guy who'd know his way around, know where the action is, know what I mean?”

Still no sign of headlights but Murdock walks into the bar and goes over to the counter midway between the young guy and the two guys watching T.V.

“And what sort of action would that be?”

The bartender puts my drink on the bar but he doesn't go away; he stands there and looks from me to the young guy and back again and listens in on our conversation.

“You looking for broads?” the young guy asks.

Murdock raps on the bar but the bartender takes no notice.

“Well...” I say.

“No, I didn't figure you were looking for broads,” the young guy says. Then he slips off his stool and grabs me by the shirt, pulling me to him and saying, “I don't like fags trying to make me, you know that? In fact, I can't stand them being around me.”

The bartender still doesn't move. The two guys continue watching T.V. but the couple at the table stop their arguing and watch the scene and so does Murdock, as if he's some guy passing through and taking in the local color.

“Well, look,” I tell the young guy, “you got me wrong. Listen, I only—”

“Yeah, I got you wrong all right,” the young guy says, pushing me backward as he walks out of the bar. I straighten up my shirt and get back on my stool.

“Some guys,” I say to the bartender, trying to grin, playing out the end of the scene. I feel in my back pocket and begin to draw out my wallet.

“Leave it,” the bartender says. “I don't want it. Drink your drink up and clear out. This ain't no fags' bar, and I don't want no one coming in who thinks maybe he's going to change the atmosphere of the place.”

“Listen—” I begin, but the bartender cuts me off.

“Drink up and beat it,” he says.

“You want any help, buddy?”

This is Murdock speaking. The bastard. I'll kill him, the bastard.

“Uh, uh,” the bartender says, shaking his head. “Not with this customer. He ain't got that kind of trouble in him. They never do.”

I pick up my glass and take a big drink. The bartender drifts down to where Murdock is. I finish my drink and get off my stool and walk toward the door. As I'm going out, Murdock says to the bartender, “Fags. This town's getting full of them.”

“You let one in,” the bartender agrees, “and suddenly it's like with niggers, they're all moving in.”

I close the door behind me and walk down the block a way then cross the street, unlock the car and get in on the driver's side and slide over and light a cigarette waiting for Murdock. I have to wait around ten minutes and then the door of the bar opens and Murdock comes out. As he crosses the street, I can see he's grinning all over his face.

He gets in behind the wheel and says, “This town, these days you can't go anywhere without fags whenever you turn around.”

I light another cigarette and I say to him, “You bastard. What the Christ is your fucking game? What about the arrangement we had?”

“Yeah, that was a pretty good arrangement,” Murdock says. “The only thing was, I couldn't get in the car, could I? Some dumb bastard of a cop locked it up, all safe and sound.”

“Sure I locked the car. What was to stop you unlocking the car with your own key?”

“Because that's what you used to lock up the car.” I feel in my coat pocket and, of course, Murdock is right; I'd taken the keys out of the ignition without thinking about it. My own keys make a small jingling sound in my pocket.

“Yeah,” Murdock says.

I roll down the window and throw my cigarette out.

“Okay,” I say. “All right. So I lock you out. But do you have to walk in and make a sandwich out of the guy? I mean, the percentages are if he hadn't made me, he would have made you.”

“Yeah, well, he didn't unless he's a better actor than you are,” Murdock says. Then he laughs. “You were good, you really were. I even began to wonder myself.”

“Sure you did,” I tell him, “but what did you do up in the apartment apart from jerking off over his old underwear. I mean, what else could have taken you so long?”

Now I know Murdock's got something to tell me because he settles down in his seat, takes out his cigarettes and lights one. Then he takes his turn rolling down a window and, of course, I have to go along with the big build-up after the way I screwed up the car routine.

“Well,” Murdock says. “You still think I'm out on a limb about this business or have I read you wrong?”

I'm tempted to take hold of Murdock by his lapels and shake him until his teeth fly out of the window but I don't; I just say, “What did you find?”

But I'm still not going to get it that easy. Murdock says, “I broke no sweat getting in. That part was a pushover. So I'm in. It's a small apartment. The door opens straight into the lounge. Apart from that there's two bedrooms, kitchen off the main living area.”

I feel like telling Murdock I can picture the whole scene he's so beautifully painted because as Murdock knows it's not exactly unlike my own layout, but I let that pass too and Murdock carries on with his monologue.

“A nice little apartment,” Murdock says. “That's the first thing occurs to me. A nice little apartment. Or rather it would be if it was furnished right. Because the lounge is bare except for a T.V. set, a straight-back chair and a cot. A couple of clean shirts hanging behind the door. Some beer cans. The rest of the place, nothing. Nothing in the kitchen. No food. The ice box isn't even plugged in. Nothing in the bedrooms. So with all this nothing there's got to be something.” He's waiting for me to ask him what the something is but I say to myself, fuck him. He waits a while for the reaction he's not going to get and then he says, “And there it is. In the most obvious place, but do I find it right away? No. I look everywhere. Closets, everything. I even feel the walls, just in case. But the cot has a mattress.”