This Is a Bust (17 page)

“I like your hair, too.”

I was a little uncomfortable and ate more out of
nervousness than hunger.

When dinner was done, we headed for Bayard in the old
part of Chinatown, where Lonnie lived with her dad and stepmom.

“What are you going to do now?” Lonnie asked.

“I'm just going to go home.” And drink a little, I thought.

“It's still early.”

“It's almost 10. What do you want to do?”

“Can I see your apartment?”

I was shocked by how forward she was.

“Maybe we can listen to records, Robert. I want to hear the
kind of music that you like.”

“Oh, Lonnie, I think I'm just going to sleep.” I slouched some.

“You didn't seem that tired before.”

“I feel it now, though.”

I walked her to her door, which had sheet metal bolted in
the front.

“I'll see you real soon, okay?” I said. Lonnie tried to smile
then let go of me. I had almost forgotten we were walking arm in arm.

When I was alone, I
put both my hands in my pockets.

It was
good I hadn't taken her home. I was five years older than her. That wasn't right. Five years. That's how long 
college is.

What was she thinking we'd do back at my apartment,
anyway? Maybe she just wanted to neck. That would have been okay. Or maybe she wanted more? She lived with her parents, went to school part-time, worked full-time, and helped out ungrateful kids at church. That's tough for anyone to do and still feel like a woman. How much did I really like her? I wasn't sure, but I did know that if that DJ had come over and bugged her at the dance, I would have felt like playing piñata with his head.

The liquor store was two rights and a left from Lonnie's
apartment. It was below street level, so you had to go down a narrow, rusty stairwell and walk over a concrete slab 
that had a green streak where rain would trickle down 
and collect.

I hadn't been there in a month, since I didn't like to splurge
much on the hard stuff when there wasn't anything to celebrate. Today there was a banner hanging over the door that read “New Management — 25% Off.” I had to buy a bottle of something to celebrate that.

I ducked under the door frame and admired the Linda Lin
Dai poster hanging behind the counter.

Wang the fortune-teller was wrapping a white ceramic
bottle of rice wine with old issues of American newspapers. He called out my name as if I would be on sale for the next five minutes only.

“Policeman Chow! Policeman Chow!”

“Wang, looks like you've got a new line of work here.”

“It's only part-time,” he said. “They needed help figuring out
the metric system, now that it's the law.” I looked around and saw a sign that said one quart was now a liter, and half a gallon was now 1.75 liters.

Didn't two quarts make a half-gallon? And 1.75 liters sure
sounded a lot smaller than
two liters. Someone was getting ripped off here. The only other customer in the store was the midget.

“Big celebration?” I asked him.

“When you're as small as me, everything's a big
celebration!” he said. “I'm going to get a little drunk and write some poetry tonight. Nothing exciting. Now what's the story with you being dressed up?”

“I went to a dance tonight.”

“You smell like plum sauce.”

“That's from the duck.”

“Did you go to dinner or a dance?”

“I went to both.”

“So, it was a date, huh?”

“You know, if you'd just put your probing mind into
something constructive, you'd be a millionaire.”

“I'm already as rich as I want to be,” said the midget. “How
much money do I need? I already get to play games all day. What else would I want to do?”

“Well, you could start a game store.”

“Then games wouldn't be fun anymore. Anyway, Moy's
hard-hearted dad would drive me out of business.”

“Are you saying that your business would get beat?”

“You need to be ruthless to play games and run businesses.
But at least there are rules in games; you don't get to move more than once per turn just because you have more money than the other guy.”

Wang slipped the wrapped wine bottle into a doubled-up
red plastic bag. “If the midget started a business, we'd all end up working for him, I'm sure,” he said.

“I'd like having a Chinese boss for a change,” I replied. “It'd
make work a lot better.”

The midget reached for his wallet and shook his head.
“Think of the sweatshops. They all have Chinese bosses.” The midget handed over a five to Wang. Wang reached his hands under the counter, shrugged a few times, and pulled out three bills for change.

“Come by and see me when you're free and feel like losing,”
the midget said to me. He swung the bag over his shoulder.

“Don't drink so much you can't play anymore,” I told him.

The midget smiled. “I'll be dead before I can't play,” he said
on the way out. I watched his little legs waddle up the steps.

“Policeman Chow,” Wang said slowly, “I understand that
you're one of this store's best customers.”

“Used to be. I've switched to beer for the most part. I was
starting to have blackouts from this stuff.”

“Beer kills brain cells. I'm not kidding, that cheap alcohol
will ruin you. Oh, I have to tell you something. The midget told me not to sell you any alcohol.”

“And why not!”

“He told me that you're an alcoholic.”

“That's ridiculous. If I'm an alcoholic, how could I walk
around with a gun?”

“What I thin
k is that you're drinking the wrong alcohol.

Beer
is low-class. The best liquor puts you in a more profound state of mind. All the best Chinese dynasties
were run by drunks.”

“I don't know about profound. I would wake up and 
not
remember what day it was after a night with the 
hard stuff.”

“A lot of people don't know what day it is,” Wang said,
dismissively. “Try this,” he said, holding up a plain-looking brown bottle. “You like coffee, right? This is the sweetest coffee you'll ever have.” He punched the price into a calculator on the counter and turned it to face me. My eyebrows twisted involuntarily and he knocked off a buck.

“Okay,” I said.

“I hope to see you here again,” said Wang. “But don't tell the
midget I sold you this. You want me to wrap the bottle?”

“Just put it in a bag. I don't need the newspaper.”

“You don't read much, do you?”

“I don't trust the
New York Post
,” I said, pointing to his pile
of newspapers. “Don't you know there's a liberal bias in the American media?”

—

Back in my apartment, I put the bottle down on the coffee table. I took a glass out of the sink and washed it. I turned the TV on. The communist station was showing a reenactment of the Long March. It was a tearjerker.

The Taiwan station had a news magazine on. Scientists
thought another earthquake would hit Taipei, followed by a tidal wave. Nobody could agree on when, though. The show ran through some stock footage from earlier earthquakes.

I re
ached for the bottle and twisted the cap. The metal 
tabs
snapped like knuckles that had been waiting to crack all day.

I poured from the bottle into the glass into my mouth. I
licked my lips and licked the cap. It was good and sweet 
and the lingering smell of it calmed a primitive part of

my brain.

Some knocks came at the door. I
doused my throat with 
another glass, hoping it was for my neighbor, but the knocks only grew louder.

I really hate to put a cap back on a bottle unless it's finished,
but I screwed it back on and went to the door. Maybe it was Vandyne again to chew me out for drinking.

It was Lonnie. She was glaring at me with bared teeth. I
saw why she didn't smile much. Her front two teeth were slightly turned in to each other like an inverted V. It didn't make much of a difference when you saw the rest of her, but I'm sure Lonnie was painfully self-conscious of it. At least in public.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I came in the front door behind an old woman.”

“I hope yo
u didn't wait long. You know the lock's

broken
anyway.”

“I thought you might be a little drunk by now,” she said.
“Maybe a little lonely, too.”

“How did you know where I live?” I asked, backing away
from the door.

“Everyone knows where you live.” She came in and closed
the door behind her.

“Lonnie, I was just sitting down for some Taiwan TV. Can I
make some tea for you?”

“Why don't you give me some of that?” she asked, pointing
to the bottle of coffee liquor.

“You ought to lay off that stuff, and stay away from any
other alcohol, too. It'll stunt your growth.”

“I'm not some little kid, you know,” growled Lonnie. She
grabbed the bottle, took the cap off, and hoisted it before I could do anything. Working at the bakery counter sure gave her fast hands. I grabbed her arm and twisted the bottle out of her grip.

“What's the matter with you? You know I could be charged
with endangering the welfare of a minor?” I asked.

“I can drink! I'm over 18!”

“Yeah, b
ut I'm older than you, and I say you can't in my
house!”

I wan
ted to close the bottle but the cap was gone, so I took a swig and then another.

“You t
hink I'm ugly, don't you?” she asked as her whole body
heaved. She coughed and her eyes watered.

“You're not ugly, you're a very pretty girl.”

“Then what's wrong?” She was crying full on now. “Why
don't you like me?”

“I do lik
e you. A whole lot.” I could feel an all-nighter
coming on.

“You don't think I'm sexy?” asked Lonnie. She swaggered to
the couch and dropped.

“You're fine,” I said. “Just fine.” I took a few more swigs from
the bottle.

“I liked you the first time I saw you. I could tell you were a
great guy,” said Lonnie, crossing her arms. “It's because I go to community college, right? You think I'm stupid.”

“I don't think you're stupid! The movie review you wrote
was really good. I couldn't write like that.”

“You want to give me more of that drink?” she asked.

“No,
you don't get any of this,” I said. I finished the bottle 
to
make sure.

Lonnie sighed. “I never cared what Dori said about you because I knew you were good.”

“What did she say about me?”

“She said the only reason you got your job was because
you were born here and knew English, otherwise you'd be waiting tables.”

“I'd rather wait tables than work her dumb job.”

Lonnie reared up and snarled. “Dumb job! You think my
job
is dumb! You don't think I'm good enough for you!”

I couldn't think fast enough to recover, so I tried the
honest
approach.

“Lonnie, don't worry, you're not going to be there forever.
You're going to finish school,” I said. I couldn't think of the next thing to say. I was feeling warmer and it was getting hard for me to focus. My ears were feeling tickly.

“Are you okay, Policeman Chow?” asked Lonnie, looking
worried.

I sat down next to her and put the bottle between my feet.

“That liquor was strong stuff,” I said. It occurred to me that
I never bothered to check the proof. I bent down to pick up the bottle, but came up with Lonnie's hand instead.

I moved in and kissed her mouth hard. She turned her head
and bit her V-shaped teeth into my neck. I shucked her coat off down to her arms. She let go of me to get the sleeves off and wrapped her legs around my waist. That was how I carried her into the bedroom.

—

The sound of cars honking woke me up. I was lying in bed, completely naked except for one dress sock. My arm was stretched over my nightstand and my alarm clock was on the floor. My throat and head ached. My lips and fingers were sore. I couldn't remember too much. I went out to the living room and saw an empty bottle on the coffee table. That was explanation enough.

I went by the window and I could tell by the way the cars
were double-parked that it was a weekend. I went to the fridge and got a beer. Everything was going to be okay.

I went to the bathroom and found a note from Lonnie on
the closed toilet lid.

“Thank you for everything, Robert. I hope I didn't
talk 
too much and bother you.” Her phone number was at the bottom.

Can't be bothered when you can't remember. I decided
not
to call her because I didn't want to ruin whatever lie she'd told her dad and stepmom about last night. Even if Lonnie was the one who picked up, you can hear a phone conversation from every room in a Chinatown apartment.