All listed rules taken from the bar employee’s handbook where my mother worked while she was in school. The rules are 100% real. The story itself is 40% true.
- No drinking or smoking marijuana on the job or six hours before.
***
“Would you be willing to wear a wire?”
The vice cop sitting across the metal table looked like a brick; broad but sharp-angled, and his skin was tanned to a shade of deep, rusted red that matched his hair. Diane hadn’t noticed much about him beyond his color and the sound of his voice (heavy, worn, certain) because she’d been too busy staring at her hands and wondering how many years in jail the dime-bag of grass in her purse would cost her. When she raised her head and met the cop’s eyes she saw something like worry there.
Bannister. He’d said his name was Detective Bannister. Said so right there on the shiny badge on his shirt.
“A wire? Like…in the movies?”
Bannister smiled gently.
“If you wanna think about it that way, yes.”
“I…why? To where?”
His eyes were like her father’s, Diane decided. Tired, but warm. Not like cops she’d dealt with before; he wasn’t out to get her, or the dime she had on her, which she wouldn’t even have if fucking Huey hadn’t asked her to hold for him. Bannister coughed.
“Your employer, The King Liquor Bar. And I hope you understand that with an active investigation, I can’t give you the whole picture.”
“Of course.” Diane nodded, aiming for serious and deciding she’d landed on ridiculous.
“What I can tell you,” Bannister said, producing a folder from beneath the table and opening it to a head shot as he passed it across to Diane, “Is that we’re interested in this girl.”
Misty. Misty Holl…Hollingsomething. Hollingsworth! She’d been waitressing Diane’s first two shifts behind the bar.
“Do you know her?” Bannister asked.
“A little. We worked together a couple of times; that’s it. Why? Is she in trouble?”
Another gentle smile from Bannister. He wore a white shirt, clean and freshly starched, with short sleeves and one pocket, right over his heart. From the latter he pulled a business card and slid it across the table to Diane.
“You don’t have to decide about the wire right here. If your bosses busted you with it on it’d probably be the end of the line for you there. So think about it.”
“What would I need to do?”
When Bannister and another cop had picked her up outside a coffee shop near the boardwalk and asked her to come with them in a way that didn’t feel like asking, Diane’s brain–a nimble, capable one that had just finished powering her to a 4.0 through her junior year at UNC–gnarled with panic. The thought of her parents bailing her out of jail at 21 for pot possession was too much to bear; she’d have to quit life and move to the Himalayas. With mountain relocation seemingly off the table for now, curiosity was starting to gnaw at her.
“Nothing,” Bannister said. “You’d just do your thing; we know what we’re listening for,” The big cop stood and put out a hand. “Like I said, take a day or two and weigh it. No hard feelings if it’s no. But,” and he pointed those worried eyes directly at Diane’s as she shook his hand, “Might be a chance to do some real good. Just think about it.”
He walked around behind her and opened the door.
“Number on the business card is my desk line. Call if you decide it’s yes.”
“Yes. Sir. Officer. If that’s it can I go?”
“Of course,” a small twinkle flashed in Bannister’s eyes, “Any reason I shouldn’t let ya?”
***
- It is a must that barmaids look good through the use of provocative tops, halters, and midriffs. Hot pants must be worn at all times.
***
“Hey hey summer school, looking good!”
Diane flipped Huey off as she walked past him to punch her time card behind the bar. He knew she hated the uniform, hated the jokes he made about how her shorts “really *ass*entuated her best feature”, hated that Maurice the GM insisted she get some tops that “showed off the girls” if she wanted to keep working there. She did not want to keep working there. She did want money, though, and missing out on summer work study gigs back at UNC meant home to St. Pete and the bars, where everything smelled like Canadian Club or Pina Coladas, and sand seemed to settle everywhere, no matter how many blocks you were off the beach (3, in the case of King Liquors).
“Fuck you, Huey. Don’t ask me to bring in your stuff again.”
“What? It’s not like I don’t share.” He was behind her then, close. “Shared plenty last night…”
“Yuck.”
Huey was one of King’s shift managers. He’d trained Diane her first week there, and when he’d come on to her after her second shift behind the bar, she couldn’t find it in herself to say no. He was surfer pretty, with long hair he wore back and a wave-carved torso, and he was nice. He had a big mouth, and he wasn’t nearly as charming as he thought he was, but Diane liked to think she could read people pretty well, and Huey felt like safe ground.
“What’s buggin’ you today?” he laughed as she opened her register. “Extra bad case of the “Too Good to Be Here’s”?
“It stresses me the fuck out to hold, ok?”
…and it REALLY stresses me out to think I’m being arrested for possession then sitting in front of a cop with a purse full of grass for an hour, is what she meant, but Bannister had expressly asked her not to tell anyone on King Liquor’s staff about their meeting. “We don’t know who might be involved,” he’d said.
“Ok, Jeez,” Huey said. “Should be pretty low-key tonight. Miranda and Grace are coming in later; you wanna work a full shift or take off early?”
“I thought last on meant last off.”
“Sleeping with the boss has perks.”
Diane rolled her eyes.
“I’ll think about it.”
Diane counted the money in her register twice (7. Bartenders are responsible for their register, therefore no one can go into it), then slid it shut with a satisfying “ding” and turned to Huey, who was cleaning the taps.
“Hey, were you friends with Misty?” she asked. Huey glanced over his shoulder at her and kept polishing. Diane considered telling him those taps wouldn’t shine unless he was cleaning them with a bottle of “It’s 1955 Again”, then decided against it. Huey never seemed to appreciate her sense of humor. Maybe if she wore something to *ass*entuate it.
“Sorta,” he said, “She waitressed on and off for a few months here, left…gotta be right around when you started. Why?”
“Found out she’s a friend of a friend, just curious.”
***
- Barmaids shall not serve anyone to the point of intoxication
- All shots poured in shot glasses must be poured as close to brim of shot glass as possible.
***
“ ‘ey! Hey Girl! Come on down here a minute!”
The man at the end of the bar wore a tan jacket and pale green shirt with a stain on the collar. He was at least forty, heavy and balding, and not a regular like most of the crowd at 7:30 on a Tuesday night.
“Be right there sweety!” Diane called down the bar as she counted change for a couple of giggling co-eds fresh off the beach. The man laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.
“Best hurry now; I’m a friend of Maurice.”
Diane shot a quick, questioning look at Huey, who’d parked his butt against the bar back in wait for customers. He shrugged.
“What can I get you, hun?” she asked. “Hun” and “Sweety” and the like didn’t feel natural to Diane, but Grace told her she’d get better tips if she “tossed a little sugar” at the customers.
“Michelob and a Seagrams. How long you been here, darlin’? I’m friends with all Maurice’s girls; I’m Marty.”
He put out a red, sweaty hand, which Diane took without flinching.
“Diane; I just started a couple of weeks back.”
“Nice to meet you, Diane. Lemme buy you a drink.”
Diane smiled with as much flirt as she could muster while she poured his drinks.
“I’m not allowed while I’m working.”
“Didn’t I say I was a friend of Maurice? It’ll be alright.”
“And if Maurice comes in tonight and says it’s ok I’ll have one with you, ok?”
Her hand was still in Marty’s. He gave it a small squeeze.
“Come on, just one, I promise I’ll cover for you,” he said, grinning at her with big, white teeth.
“Hey, Diane!” Huey called from down the bar, tapping his wrist, “There’s other customers!”
“Sorry hon, bar rules,” Diane said, pulling away with enough force so Marty would have come over the bar if he hadn’t released her.
“We’ll do that drink later!” he called, chuckling as he threw back the Seagrams.
“Thanks,” Diane said low as she passed Huey. His answering nod was so small she almost missed it. She was glad she didn’t.
***
- All girls must be willing to take polygraph upon request.
***
“Hey, do you remember Misty Hollingsworth?”
The bar was slow, so Huey told Diane and Grace to “take their break together”, which meant they had 30 minutes with a pack of Virginia Slims and a “damaged” 6er of Budweiser. It was the biggest on the job favor Huey could do for anyone, and he knew Grace was the only barmaid Diane got along with. The other full-timers hated her because she was in school, or because she was eating into their tips, or because she was younger and prettier than the rest of them (these were the things Diane repeated to herself when Miranda or one of the other maids said something especially mean/bitchy/hurtful). Grace was more like her; a grad student at UCF, 25, and only unresented because her 4th straight summer at King’s granted her acceptance as a quasi-full timer. She was tall and pretty, skinny as the Slim she was smoking, and sure of herself.
“Yeah, Misty! She was a sweety, why?”
Huey was a full-timer; problems at the bar meant problems for him. Not so for Grace; two months and she’d be back at school, like Diane. Maybe there was room for confidence there.
“Can I tell you something wild?” Diane asked, chain-lighting a new cigarette and crushing the old one beneath her wedge.
“PLEASE. It’s so boring tonight.”
“A cop stopped me today and had me come to the station with him.”
“Pigs,” Grace pushed a fog bank’s worth of smoke into the salt air, “A narc?”
“No! Or maybe. I dunno. I had Huey’s dope with me; if he’d searched me I’d be in jail right now. He asked about Misty.”
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t say…but he asked me if I’d be willing to wear a wire here.”
Grace’s eyes went saucer-big.
“Far out,” she said, shaking her head, “But he wouldn’t say why?”
“No. I thought I’d ask you, since…”
“The other girls hate you?”
“A+ for you.”
Grace grinned.
“Fuck ‘em, right? Anyway, you’re thinking about it wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“If they want you to wear a wire, that means something’s up here, Misty’s just a bit player.”
“A bit player?”
“Sorry; I’ve been watching The Rockford Files with my dad a bunch. But yeah, think about it! If they’re asking about her, they’re probably looking for her. And they’re probably looking for her because they think her being gone has something to do with King.”
“Like what?”
Grace reached into the 6er at their feet and cracked a fresh one, savoring a long pull before answering.
“I don’t know. But I know Maurice is gross; the only reason he hasn’t come on to you yet is because he hasn’t been in for one of your shifts. And I’ve heard Huey mention he’s got business “off the books.” I’d totally believe there’s shady shit going on here.”
“What kind of shit?”
“Hey, girls!” Huey was hanging out the back door a few feet down the alley. “Sorry to cut the break short, but Maurice just called; he’s coming in. We’re all in the shit if he catches ya’ll out back.”
“Coming boss!” Grace said brightly, and tossed her half-drunk beer down the alley, where it shattered against the wall of the dry-cleaners next-door.
“Hey, so do you think I should do it?” Diane asked as they headed in, voice low. “Wear a wire, I mean?”
Grace shrugged.
“Don’t be a bunny about it if you do,” she said. “Like I said. Maurice has a rep.”
***
- The police should not be called for problems with a customer unless violence is involved. Do not call the police unless you are ready to press charges. If a customer becomes disorderly in the lounge, the doorman is to ask him to leave. If a customer refuses to leave, bouncers will use all of their persuasive ways, short of violence (BLOOD) to remove him from the lounge without calling the police.
***
“Hey busy girl, I been waitin’ for you to get back on the clock!”
Marty, the gross-out, was slouched low in his stool with his back braced against the bar and his legs spread wide.
“Ready for that drink?” He took a swipe at Diane’s ass as she passed, pawing it clumsily despite her best effort to dodge him on her way around the bar.
“Still working!” She called. Marty laughed that awful, sneering chortle of his.
“Fiiiiinnneee we’ll wait for Maurice like you wanted. But you better promise me that drink.”
Diane did her best to ignore the brazen up and down he was giving her as she checked her register and turned her eyes toward the door when she finished. Chuck was bouncing that night; a big goon of a kid from California who liked talking about cars and Ronald Reagan and Florida pussy, order dependent on his mood. He’d be worthless if Marty got any fresher. She’d have to lean on Huey, who was chatting with a pair of girls at the other end of the bar. Something that felt like jealousy, but Diane told herself was just annoyance nestled in her gut.
“School girllllll how’s it looking tonight?”
Chuck had materialized in front of her register. He was every bit of 6’5’’, which he thought made his staring down the barmaid’s shirts every chance he got inconspicuous.
“Hey Chuck,” Diane smiled up at him briefly. “Soda?”
“Sharp,” Chuck said, “You’re sharp, D.” He slid a quarter across the bar (5. No free drinks to anyone). “Hey, Marty!” he called down the bar. “Big Mo coming in tonight?”
“You know I’m only here when he does,” Marty slid off his stool and waddled to the one beside Chuck, parking himself as near to Diane’s register as he could.
“Been telling this one I know the man all night and she won’t have a drink with me; can you believe that?”
Chuck leered.
“No shit? D, this is Maurice’s best friend right here. You can have a drink with him, no sweat. She’s new Marty; she don’t know how things are here yet.”
“Bar rules,” Diane said, without much conviction. The men were leaned in close enough to smell; dollar store cologne for Chuck and something like old ham for Marty.
“Seagrams. 3 of ‘em, and shake it a little while you pour, huh?” Both men cackled. Diane could feel their eyes in her back as she grabbed the whiskey from bar’s back wall.
“Chuck!” Huey, finally, had come over. “Maurice is gonna be here in 5, and it’s your ass if you’re not at the door.”
Diane lined three glasses up on the bar. As she put the last one down Marty grabbed her wrist. “Now that’s a pretty bracelet,” he said, his voice suddenly huskier. “Want more like it? I can get ‘em for ya, sweetheart. Just say the word.”
Diane recoiled without meaning to; Marty’s warm, meaty flesh closed on her arm was suddenly, horribly familiar. His eyes went small and beady.
“New maid needs to work on her attitude, H,” he said, “I’m trying to be nice over here.”
Other bouncers, Eric or especially John, the big sweetie from Tampa, might have decked Marty for grabbing a barmaid. Chuck stood idle, grinning and watching.
“She’s new, Marty,” Huey said. “Chuck. Door. Now, dipshit.”
Marty still looked pissed, and that didn’t seem to sit well with Huey, who clapped him on the shoulder. “Hey man, how about that drink? I’ll do it with ya’ll instead of Chuck; door guy has to stay sharp.”
“In case anyone gets rowdy,” Marty said with a grin and a wink at Diane. She shot a glance at Huey, who wouldn’t meet hers.
“It’s cool D,” he said, “It’s like Marty says. He’s a friend.”
***
- Every barmaid and every bouncer will write a letter each day stating all occurrences during their shift using specifics and not generalities. Final register reading must be on each note.
***
Diane was on her second break, working on her shift note, when a tall man wearing a loud suit and sideburns all the way down his jawbone sauntered into the bar. He had sunglasses hooked in his collar and carried a battered leather briefcase, and moved like he owned the place. Diane would have pegged him for Maurice without Chuck’s shouting “Captain on the Bridge!” when he walked in. Maurice ignored him and went to Marty, who’d taken a break from letching at Diane to letch at Grace while she covered her register. Diane hoped he’d keep it up. Grace had picked up a towny boyfriend that summer; a big bruiser of a kid from the panhandle named Vince. Vince and his friends were in the bar that night, shooting whiskey and pool and monopolizing the jukebox with Lynyrd Skynyrd. Vince was a meathead, and so were his friends, but they were big enough to stuff Marty and Chuck together through a keg hose if given a reason, and prior to the “Captain’s” arrival, Marty had been doing his damndest to give them one.
Diane watched as Huey poured a pair of drafts for them, then stood and laughed loudly at something Maurice said. How well Huey knew Maurice was hard to pin down. Lots of things about him were, really. Questions like “How long have you been at King?” and “What do you want to do when you get older?” got answers like “Awhile” and “I’ll figure something out”, always coupled with variations on “Now get outta them panties.” He seemed at ease with the boss, and when he leaned in close to speak with them before all three broke up laughing again, he didn’t look like Maurice’s employee. He looked like an equal. Maybe even a friend. When he looked Diane’s way she snapped her eyes back to her note; it was ten more minutes before her break was over, and she hoped if she looked busy, the owner and his friend(s?) would ignore her.
“Excuse me.”
Diane saw Maurice’s shiney two-tone wingtips first. They appeared beside her chair, somehow ahead of a cloud of cologne that felt familiar the way Marty’s hand on her wrist had. Her hand stopped exactly where it was on the page, in the middle of a letter “A”. When she looked up he was smiling down at her, teeth unnaturally white and straight, yin to the bushy black yang of his sideburns.
“It’s Diane, right? Diane Price?” he said, putting out a hand, “I think we only met the day you were hired; I’m Maurice. This is my bar.”
They’d met twice, the day she was hired, and on her first shift. It was the second time that he’d told her to show her tits more.
“Yes sir,” she said, standing, “It’s nice to see you again.”
Maurice looked back at the bar.
“Seems nice to me!” He called to Marty, who chuckled and raised a beer at her. “My friend’s a little worried about your hospitality,” he said, “Just make sure we’re taking care of the guests, yeah? Your job is customer service, and that last word, that’s the most important one. You know what service means?”
“Yes sir,” she said, unable to muster anything else. The cologne was paralyzing, consuming; it and her and Maurice’s radio-smooth voice were the only things in the bar.
“Good girl. I’ll be in tonight doing some work in the office, but I’ll check up on ya when I’m on the floor.”
Then he patted her ass and walked back toward his friend.
“Glad to have ya!” he said over his shoulder. “I know you’ll do great here. Huey always picks the good ones.”
***
- All barmaids will check to see that all of their monies are put away in safe. If they do not, they will be subject to a $100.00 fine. Barmaids must check to see that the safe is locked.
***
Huey cut Diane for the night an hour after her break. He didn’t say why, but she knew her “service” had suffered since the conversation with Maurice. Marty had retreated to the office with his friend, which should have made work it’s normal, easy self. It was the smell. Maurice was so soaked in that damn cologne he’d left some right where he’d parked himself by her register, and it froze her every time she caught a whiff. She knew from a neuro-psych class she’d taken last fall that memory was tied more tightly to smell than any other sense but knowing something and appreciating the weight of it are different things. The world was full of reminders–cops (especially the lazy ones who roamed the boardwalks), tequila, the entire city of Daytona–but nothing like this. Nothing else was this visceral.
Getting cut didn’t mean you were off right away. There was front house cleaning, cooler cleaning, and an inventory check to be done before Diane could go home (and it would be home tonight, not Huey’s). The first two were quick, but inventory was no joke; any shot she’d had at fitting in with the not-Grace barmaids she’d shot to hell with an inventory mistake her first shift (38. If for any reason there is a discrepancy in inventory check, that difference will be reported as a shortage. The barmaids will divide this shortage, and they will be held responsible to pay all shortages.). She was totaling up the Jack Daniels when she started crying.
“Would you be willing to wear a wire?”
Thinking about Bannister’s question wasn’t comforting. If anything, it made her feel worse. Without it swimming around in her brain, she could dismiss Maurice and Marty as a couple of skeezy old grossouts. But it was there. And because it was there, she had to wonder if they were more than that.
“Hey!”
Grace’s voice, chipper and weightless, startled Diane so badly she almost dropped the bottle in her hand. When she turned to look at the pretty girl smiling at her in the doorway, Grace’s face fell.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” she said low, ducking into the store room. “Was one of the customers a jerk or something?”
No. But it wasn’t something she could tell Grace, because she hadn’t told anyone. Well. She’d told the cop, the fat one who took her report in that beach town precinct last spring. But he kept asking how drunk she was, and treated the thing like it wasn’t real, and if you’re not believed, did you really tell someone?
“I’m ok!” Diane said, brushing a hand quickly across her face. “What’s up?”
Grace’s brow was furrowed.
“You sure?” she said, taking another step into the room and closing the door softly behind her. “You don’t look good, sweety. Are you stressed…” and here she dropped her voice to a full whisper, “about the thing we talked about earlier?”
“I’m fine!” Diane insisted, putting the bottle back. “Just ready to get home.”
“Ok,” Grace said, the same way her parents said “Ok” when Diane swore she’d be home by 11 in high school. “Well. Maurice wants to see you in his office.”
***
- All Money to be put in a paper bag with tape and sealed WITHOUT COUNTING.
***
Marty was leaning on the hallway wall outside Maurice’s office, slouched so his gut and hips were impossible for Diane to avoid as she squeezed past him. She thought he was doing it on purpose until he opened his mouth, when she realized he was too drunk to stand.
“Shay dat ass,” he said, giggling, “Tolyou shoulda been nishe to me.”
Diane pushed past him, and he stumbled, swinging out toward the bar as he did. “Shoulda been nishe,” he said again, and then he was gone, waddling one foot to the other, penguin-like toward the bar. Diane watched him go, reminded herself to breathe only through her mouth in Maurice’s presence, and pushed the door open.
The naked flourescent bulb in the ceiling was so bright Diane swore the roach that retreated from her feet when she walked in cast a shadow. The carpet was grey and grimy, frayed in spots. There was a desk with a typewriter and papers strewn across it, and a file cabinet beside it. In the middle of the room was a round table, and that was where Maurice sat, the bar ledger in front of him. He looked up and smiled at her.
“Diane, sit down.”
The air she pulled into her mouth was too dense, infused with Raid and Maurice’s scent, but her brain was still working. She did as she was told. Maurice’s eyes were not smiling.
“Do you know why you’re here?”
Diane frowned.
“No,” she said, hoping he noticed she’d left off the “sir.”
Maurice nodded like that was what he expected to hear, and turned the ledger so she could read it.
“5th line is your register from last Friday. You were short $77 that night.”
Diane didn’t say anything.
“Seems like an awfully big mistake from a sharp college girl like you,” he said, and now his eyes were smiling too.
It was bullshit. She’d checked that register. She checked the registers every shift, careful as could be. Maybe she couldn’t flirt or upsell as well as the other barmaids, but she’d aced calculus her senior year at St. Pete High; she COULD do math. It was bullshit. And there was something in the way Maurice was looking at her that made her think he knew it was bullshit.
“I’m gonna give you this one chance to pay the money back,” he said. “Do you have it with you?”
Of course not. He nodded again when she told him so, and shushed her when she started to protest. She knew it wouldn’t do any good to, but it was reflex.
“I don’t want to call the cops, Diane. I know how much that could fuck up college for you, let alone your career. You’d have a criminal record. Did you think about that when you took the money?”
Her eyes rested on the ledger in front of Maurice. She doubted it was real. The numbers were all wrong.
“Now,” he said, “There’s another way we could handle this, ya know. Marty and me, we’re invested in a couple of clubs down the beach, together-like. You pull a week down there to cover the loss, and we can call it square, no cops at all. Marty said he’d be happy to take you down there tonight and show you the ropes.”
Diane didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t go. She’d take her chances with the cops; maybe if she called Bannister, he could help.
“It’s a generous offer, Diane. I could put you in jail for this, ya know. Most guys aren’t this nice,” and then he reached across the table and put a hand on hers, “I just can’t believe a smart girl like you would make such an irresponsible choice.”
There was noise coming from the bar beyond the door. Men shouting; lots of them from the sound of it. Maurice squeezed her hand, and her brain went blank and white again, like it had with his cologne, like it had when Marty grabbed her, like it had that night in Daytona. “We’ll put ya in a cab with Marty right now,” he said softly, “And call it even. What do you think?”
Someone up front screamed. A half second later the office’s side wall, the one that faced the bar, thumped hard enough to rattle the light. The office door burst open behind Diane, and when she turned, she saw Huey standing there, breathless.
“Boss,” he panted, “You gotta come up front; Marty mouthed off to Grace’s boyfriend and he’s kicking his ass.”
Maurice’s eyes were still on Diane; she could feel them in her back.
“The fuck are we paying Chuck for?” he asked.
“Right now we’re paying him to get thumped by all five of Vince’s friends.”
Diane stood suddenly and walked to the door, ducking past Huey and out into the hall.
“Hey, stop!…ah,” she heard Maurice’s chair slide back. “You gonna call the cops, jackass?” he shouted at Huey, who said he already had.
The bar was a mob scene. Vince, massive and drunk and all rage, had Marty pinned against the bar, his right forearm pressed into his throat and his left working the older man’s belly. “Motherfucker,” he kept saying, “Talk some more shit.” Chuck was nowhere in site and the front door was open; his part of the brawl had spilled onto the street.
A hand touched Diane’s arm softly. She recoiled, imagining Maurice suddenly behind her, but when she turned she found Grace, smiling down at her.
“Hey,” she said softly, “Let’s duck out the side and get around front that way. Cops’ll wanna talk to everyone when they get here.”
“I can’t,” Diane said, as Grace pulled her toward the side door, “Maurice, he said I stole a whole bunch from my register last week. They’ll bust me.”
Grace shook her head in disgust and kept pulling Diane, past Huey and Maurice, who were trying without success to pull Vince out of Marty’s throat. Then they were outside, in the alley, down aways from the bar’s door. Glass crunched under Diane’s feet, a sharp, crackling sound that pulled her out of the fog some. She pulled back on Grace’s tug and leaned against the dry cleaner’s wall.
“I’m ok,” she said, a little breathlessly, “Can you give me a sec, please?”
“Sure, sweety.”
The night air felt good in her lungs; she imagined the salt scouring a film of cologne off her insides, imagined being clean again.
“What happened?” she asked. Grace, back-lit by a moon that had climbed high over the alley, grinned, and though it was hard to tell in the shadows, Diane thought the grin looked a little sheepish.
“I…maybe told Vince Marty grabbed my tits in the stockroom.”
After a second, Diane started to giggle.
“Wow,” she said, “That’s all it took?”
“It doesn’t take a lot with Vince. Want me to tell him Maurice grabbed my tits too?”
Diane laughed again.
“Why? Why did you tell him that, I mean.”
Grace shrugged.
“Marty’s an ass…and I remembered something.”
“What?”
High-steady siren howls were drawing closer. The cops would be there soon, and Diane would have to decide between chancing Maurice’s threat and running. She didn’t like either option.
“Well,” Grace said, “It was Huey who told me Maurice wanted to see you. I asked if he was gonna be in there too, since you report to him, and he said no, that it wasn’t his business and it wasn’t mine either. Sounded real serious when he said that last part; I don’t think he’d have told me at all, except he couldn’t leave the bar ‘cause he’s the only manager on tonight. Anyway, what I remembered was Misty, the girl you were asking about earlier? Miranda told me she and Huey were fucking, right up until she quit.”
Sorta friends. He’d said they were sorta friends. A guy would say that to the girl he was currently fucking about the last one he had, probably. A cop car cruised past the front of the alley, lighting the place with a blue/red strobes. They’d come running that night in Daytona too, because she was bleeding when the two boys who called the cops found her. She could feel herself folding inward.
“I’m quitting,” she said. “Fuck this place.”
Grace nodded enthusiastically.
“I’ve never had a one on one with Maurice; I’d probably quit if I did too. Want me to cover for you with the cops? The alley dumps out on J street; you can get out that way.”
Diane wondered how Grace became the way she was. Would she have had the guts to start a fight in the bar, if their seats were switched? She liked to think she would.
“You’re amazing Grace…could you maybe do me one other favor?”
***
- All barmaids in bar must report any violation of King rules.
***
There was a pay phone on J street, two blocks down from the alley. Diane was hustling for it when she heard Huey call to her from up the block.
“Diane!” he was jogging toward her, hair whipping in the wind behind him. She bet that was just how it looked when he surfed. She was almost to the payphone. “Hey,” he said as he reached her, “You gotta get back and talk to the cops, girl! They wanna speak to the whole staff.”
Traffic on the street was thick and the street lights were bright. Diane stopped outside the booth and faced him.
“Maurice said I stole money from the register. I didn’t.”
Huey’s face was tight, a mask of fried nerve endings.
“I,” he started, but Diane cut him off.
“You checked the books last Friday, right? Like you’re supposed to?”
Huey was silent.
“I saw you doing it,” Diane continued. “That’s my job, remember? You check the books, and I check on you. So if you checked them, how am I just now short?”
The tension in Huey’s face was still there, but it had reshaped itself, coiled into anger.
“You need to come back and talk to the cops now,” he said, voice flat and hard like pressed metal.
“How long did you listen to Grace and me in the alley tonight?” she asked.
Something faltered in Huey. She could see the gears turning behind his eyes and knew the answer they’d eventually crank out for him. The street was too crowded, too well-lit for him to try anything drastic. After a moment he turned without saying anything and walked back toward King Liquor. Diane watched him go until he reached the corner, then ducked into the phone booth and produced Detective Bannister’s card from her pocket. He answered on the second ring, and she could hear the smile in his voice when she told him who she was.
“I gotta say,” he said, “I’m a little surprised you called. I pegged you for skittish. Feel like I owe you an apology.”
“No,” Diane said, “You don’t. I can’t wear your wire, Detective Banister. I’m quitting that place. Tonight.”
There was a long pause then. Another cop car whipped past. Diane wondered if Marty and/or Chuck were dead. That would be cool.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bannister said finally, “But…I think you’re making a good choice, leaving that place. We can find someone else for our investigation.”
“You don’t need to,” Diane said, and turned Bannister’s business card over in her hand, so she could read where Grace had written her home number on the back. “I found someone for you.”
Author Bio: James Golsan works for the government and dreams of writing detective fiction for a living. He has a wonderful fiancée and a pretty rad cat and used to write political pieces on behalf of the forces of darkness. He regrets them, and his only excuse is that times were hard. If he gets drunk, he will want to go to the karaoke bar.
Great atmosphere and dialogue!!
Wow! This is awesome. So true to the era!
Loved it James! Best thing I’ve read in a long time. I’m thinking screenplays… dialogue is so good!
Still love the atmosphere you create in this story. Also… geuggh. You’ve nailed creepy skeevy old guy to an unnerving degree.