PALINDROME (3 page)

“Like I said, Ax . . . Anyway, what’s done is
done.”

My attempt to console Ax was inadequate. He
stood. “I’d better go.”

I knew that Gabi had been in tears since the
evening before. She had gotten sick and missed the entire event
while she was in the bathroom at the Suds Shack. She was going to
meet me in a few minutes. I knew her so well. I knew that she felt
obligated to bare her soul. She was guilt-laden over last night’s
poorly timed case of indigestion. I checked the time on my cell
phone. “Gabi will be here any minute.”

“Going, going, gone.”

I agreed with a tentative nod but didn’t want
to see Ax leave. He was halfway to his car when I called out.
“There’s one thing I can’t figure out—Vincent never had the chance
to drug me. I had the margarita in my hand until I finished
it.”

Ax got into his car and pulled the creaking
door shut. He leaned out the window. “Someone did it. We’ll just
have to figure out who’s guilty.”

Ax pulled away. I turned and looked at Lake
Ronkonkoma and wondered if it was anywhere as deep as the trouble
the two of us had just found.

Four: Round About the Cauldron Go

Keith
the bartender drove a muscle
car. I mean you’re not really surprised, are you? It was a new
Camaro V8 with an aftermarket performance package. Like Ford’s
excellent reproduction of the original Mustang, Chevy had recreated
the sixties muscle car in exquisite fashion. The exhaust burble was
deep enough to give you blunt-force liver damage. The muscle car
was waxed to the extreme—the tires were dressed over twenty-inch
rims.
Does bartending pay that well?
If it did, I would have
to pick up a couple of nights at the Suds Shack after this mess was
over and sorted out. Ax and I were always hard up for the rent and
made money wherever we could.

Allie was impressed with his car. She met
Keith at the gym. Equinox was not a gym for the faint of
pocketbook—annual membership at the classy workout club ran well
over a grand. When you met someone there, you figured they had some
bucks. Allie was looking for someone like that. She would have
preferred that Keith drove a BMW or a Benz, but the Camaro was a
classic design and as mentioned, it was polished up real
pretty.

Keith had sold her a bill of goods. He had
told her that he was studying at Hofstra Law School and was only
tending bar to keep busy over the summer. He told her that his
father was the inventor of cell phone technology and that the
licensing royalties from Verizon, AT&T, and the rest pulled in
millions each year.
Yeah, good one.
So, while Allie was not
totally sold on Keith’s story, he was not hard on the eyes and the
possibility of getting close to all that wealth excited her. She
agreed to a first date.

Allie was a Muttontown girl. Muttontown was
part of Long Island’s Gold Coast where people of prominence and
wealth lived. She came from a good home, and her parents both
worked hard to pay the monthly mortgage bill, the exorbitant Nassau
County property taxes, as well as the school superintendent’s
absurd 500K annual salary. Like most good parents, they strove to
provide Allie with a better life than they’d had themselves. To
keep up with the Joneses in a highfalutin North Shore town like
Muttontown, her parents had to pony up: a 3 Series BMW for her high
school graduation gift, fifty thousand per year for Ivy League
college tuition, iPhones, iPads, designer clothes, and enough
spending money to feed a working-class family of six. So, Allie
didn’t want for much. She was, however, a bright girl and had some
doubt that her future NYU theater arts degree would go on to earn
her a humungous salary. Allie was working Plan B, looking for a
Long Island money player to marry.

Prime was the place to take a girl when you
wanted to impress her. The posh eatery was located on the water in
Huntington Harbor with a view to die for, and prices that could
stop your heart if the cholesterol from the aged steaks didn’t clog
your aorta first.

Allie was dressed first-date appropriate in a
white jean skirt, wedges, and a knit top that drew modest attention
to her pretty cleavage. They had a drink on the outdoor deck, which
overlooked the marina. Keith drank basic and strong: Kettle One on
the rocks with a splash of tonic water. He had gone into great
detail about the precise quantities of how much vodka and tonic
water to add to his drink. He proffered his instructions to Prime’s
bartender as if no one else was capable of matching his skills as a
mixologist. Allie picked from the cocktail menu; she ordered a
pomegranate martini made with Gray Goose Vodka.

Their table was ready much sooner than Allie
had expected. Keith commented, fabricating, “I know people here,”
taking credit for the quick seating at the exclusive
restaurant.

“You’re an impressive guy,” she said.

Keith shrugged in an effort to appear
modest.

She was mulling over Keith’s
cell-phone-fortune story as the waitress pushed in her chair. The
martini was beginning to take the edge off, and the
air-conditioning felt good after coming in from the warm night air.
Intellectually, Keith was no match for the NYU guys she had dated
during the school year, but he was an acceptable change of pace. He
spoke about his experiences on Long Island and the fun summers he
had spent in locations she was familiar with. He was good-looking
and sure of himself. She was enjoying herself and felt loose enough
to ask some probing questions.

“So, where are you from?”

“Originally?”

“Of course originally.”

“I grew up in Chicago, but I’ve spent so much
time traveling it’s hard to name a place I really think of as home.
I guess I’m from here now.”

“Why’d you move around so much?” Allie picked
up a breadstick and began to nibble on the end. She wasn’t a big
fan of carbs, but she was feeling her drink and needed to put
something into her stomach.

“My dad was a big executive at Motorola. You
know how those big companies operate; if you don’t let them move
you around every few years, they figure you’ve lost the spark. They
send you to some gulag to do a meaningless job, and you’re never
heard from again. They put you in charge of staplers and
paperclips, and you wake up one morning to realize that your career
is over and decide to commit suicide.”

Keith Cooper’s real father drove
containerized freight for a living. He left Keith and his mother
for a twenty-two-year-old hairdresser when Keith was just twelve.
His father did share the same name as Martin Cooper, the Motorola
executive credited with the creation of modern cell phone
technology, but that was about all. From there the story grew—while
attempting to Google his father’s current whereabouts, he
accidentally stumbled on the Motorola exec’s Wikipedia page and
sort of reverse-adopted him as his father. If anyone checked his
story, they would find that Keith Cooper’s father was Martin
Cooper. He figured most people would not look any deeper than that,
and the multimillionaire-father story got more women into bed than
the trucker-who-abandoned-his-family version. Keith was quite a
talented bullshit artist when he had something to work with.

“I’ve been everywhere, L.A., Texas . . .
Japan.”

“Japan, oh that’s so cool. What was it
like?”

“Congested, and you can’t get a good dessert
over there. Everything’s red-bean this and green-tea that. I don’t
think chocolate’s a Japanese staple.”

Allie laughed. “No chocolate? I’d hate it
there.”

“And everything is tiny. If you check into a
hotel and get a regular room, you get a space the size of a closet.
The place is totally messed up.”

“Don’t put down the Japanese,” Allie said,
taking up their cause. “They’ve had so much trouble: the tsunami
and the nuclear power plant meltdown. Those poor people are living
such a nightmare.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean, those people are
screwed. I think it’s all payback for the way they treated
Godzilla.”

“
What?”
Allie laughed so hard she
almost spit out her breadstick. “What are you talking about?”

Keith chuckled at her reaction. “You’ve never
watched those old dubbed movies? The Japanese hunted Godzilla, King
Kong, and every other creature into extinction. They were all
created as the result of some radiation blunder.” He did his best
to impersonate Darth Vader: “It is their destiny.”

Allie’s eyes widened. “Okay,
I guess
they had it coming. Is that what you’re implying?” She was still
laughing.

The waitress came over to their table. “My
name is Dana and I’ll be your server tonight. I see you’ve already
got drinks. Can I start you off with an appetizer?” The staff
members at Prime not only had to be professional, they had to be
much, much more. The male waiters were dark and handsome. Dana was
strikingly pretty and statuesque enough to hold her own on the
Victoria’s Secret runway. Keith couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.
Allie noticed immediately. He picked up on the fact that he had
been spotted—he flipped open the menu and pretended to study it so
that he could buy a little time.

“Sushi?” he asked.

“That’s fine,” she said with
indifference.

Is she pissed off or just jealous?
he
wondered. Keith picked a couple of sushi rolls off the menu that he
had tried before. “We’ll have a Dragon Roll and a Montauk Roll.” He
checked with Allie for approval, but none was forthcoming.
Apparently she was leaning more toward being pissed off. If a guy
had roving eyes on the first date . . . not a good sign.

“Tap water or bottled?” Dana asked.

“Tap?” Keith asked, with a gesture toward
Allie, hoping to invest her with the decision.

“Sparkling,” she replied. “Definitely
sparkling. You haven’t lived here long enough to know that Long
Island water is undrinkable?”

The mood of their date had turned on the
proverbial dime. It had become really ugly, really fast. Dana
hurried off to retrieve the bottled water. She was back within two
minutes. Keith and Allie filled the two minutes with silence. Dana
filled Allie’s glass first, and then while reaching across the
table to fill Keith’s glass, knocked over Allie’s water glass and
splashed water on her blouse.

“Christ!” Allie jumped out of her chair,
grabbed her napkin, and began to dry herself. “Pretty but clumsy,”
she mumbled angrily. “Look at me; I’m soaked.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dana said. She grabbed a
fresh napkin from the next table and helped Allie dry herself.
“Really, I’m so sorry. Let me help you to the ladies’ room.”

Allie shook her head in disgust before she
glared at Keith. “I’ll be right back.” She stormed off. Dana
followed.

Keith settled back into his chair and blew
out a deep sigh. He was thankful to have received a short stay of
execution. He was wondering if his date with Allie was completely
over or if there was a chance to patch it up. He pulled out his
cell phone and dialed his friend, Vincent. It rang four times
before going to voicemail. Keith left a message, “Dude, I’m on the
date from hell. I just laid out big bucks for cocktails at Prime,
and the goddamn waitress spilled water all over my date. Shit, man
. . . Okay, call me back. Blue balls tonight, bro.”

~~~

The restrooms at Prime were private, a series
of individual booths set in a row. Dana found one that was
unoccupied and held the door open for Allie. “Can I come in and
help you?” she asked.

“Okay, grab something to help me dry off with
and come in.”

Dana wasted no time. She grabbed several
linen napkins from the supply stand and followed Allie into the
restroom.

~~~

Allie returned to the dinner table. The wet
spot on her blouse was still visible but she was no longer soaked.
The table had been reset with a dry tablecloth. The sushi
appetizers were already on the table and the presentation was
beautiful.

“I asked for a new server,” Allie said. “I
hope that’s all right with you.” She tilted her head and met
Keith’s gaze head on, daring him to challenge her.

“Fine. That chick was totally clumsy.”

“That’s what happens when your boobs are too
big.” She reflected for a moment and then started to laugh. “I’m
just kidding—I wouldn’t do that to her. I went a little crazy, but
I’m not a total bitch.” She took a sip of her martini. “This looks
beautiful, but I don’t think I can eat now.” A moment passed. “Do
you want to get out of here?” she whispered.

Keith looked down at the sushi platter, forty
dollars worth of raw fish. He was about to open his mouth when he
felt her toes along the inside of his leg. He looked up in surprise
to meet Allie’s suggestive smile.

“How hungry are you?” she whispered in a
concealed manner, leaving no doubt as to her intentions.

Keith snapped his fingers. Dana stopped at
their table. She still looked embarrassed. Keith pointed at the
sushi. “We’ll take this to go . . . and the check too.”

“We feel terrible about the little accident,”
Dana said. “It’s on the house.” She picked up the sushi platter.
“I’ll just box this up and be right back.” She dashed off.

“Smart move, handsome,” Allie said to
Keith.

“I’ve got chopsticks at my place,” he
said.

“You won’t need them. I’ll let you eat it off
my naked body,” she whispered after checking to make sure none of
the other diners could hear her.

Allie stood and walked off in the most
provocative manner possible, leaving Keith dumbfounded at the
table. He whipped out his cell phone and left another message for
Vincent. Bravado was unmistakable in the sound of his booming
voice. “Dude,
un-believable
—I’ve never had anything like
this happen to me before, but I am totally gonna get laid. Don’t
bother to call me back. I’ll be busy . . . Hey, by the way, where
the hell are you, man? Later!”