Dirty Words

Last Call

I wait.

The bar is too clean, all pristine oak tables and shiny brass fixtures. The people are also too clean. The dudes all wear blue denim shirts with tan slacks. The chicks are decked-out uniformly in trendy black dresses and bottle-blonde hairdos like the girl on T.V. Hair By Stepford.

It's not easy being the pecan in the peanut gallery, surrounded by a hundred Brians. I miss the bars with the air so choked with cigarette smoke that the air hung in front of your face. They're all like this now. I've become less a man without a country than a drunk without a bar. This is not my New York. My New York is almost gone

The bartender checks my glass. I nod for another. She smiles, more for the tips than my charm. So far I've ordered four bourbons, but drank none. Despite self-awareness regarding my too-often consumption, not drinking is easier than you'd think. Without getting too Descartes-ian about it, I'm working. It's a personal job, but I'm still working. You fuck up in my vocation, the boss doesn't humiliate you in front of the cute secretary you're trying to bang. Nope. I fuck up and I spend a few decades in a concrete cage. Or in a box for eternity.

The barmaid leans over when she pours to give me a better view of her already ridiculously public boobs. It's her game, and it's not a bad one. I'm just not in a boob mood. Never thought I'd say that

"Love your shirt," she says.

She'll remember the shirt more than my face.

Friend of mine lives in the Upper West. Tells me he regularly sees this huge dude in the neighborhood-guy is like six-four, six-five-wearing a bright pink baseball cap. It's kinda weird, seeing this big guy in that hat. Fourth time my buddy sees the guy, he realizes that the guy is Liam Neeson.

Isn't that something? All that time, and all he saw was that pink fucking hat.

Liam Neeson is a man who knows how not to be seen.

The devil is in the details.

I smile my best harmless, bland grin at the bartender. "Can't go wrong with hula girls on a shirt."

She giggles, takes the money and mouths a "thank you" at me with a sexy pout that probably made the frat boys drool in their Jager Bombs. I pour the liquor into the glass next to mine and sip my Coke. The night drags like church on Super Bowl Sunday. I wait some more.

I'd heard about Brian before I met him. Nothing good.

My day had already started out badly. My favorite watering hole, The Lady Luck Saloon, still had its metal shutters down when I arrived for my first libation of the day. I stood outside like a moron for fifteen minutes before I remembered that Andy, the owner, had "some bidness" to take care of in Jersey the night before.

Andy's known me since I was a kid, used to do gigs with my old man back in the days before the Alzheimer's took hold of my Pop. Most of the time, I do the freelance gigs today, family business and all, but sometimes Andy picks up a job or two here or there for some extra scratch.

I had to go with my Plan B bar and walked up to Dino's on 11th street. Dino's was a throwback bar, back to a time when keeping nodding junkies off the floor was considered hoity-toity on Avenue A. Most East Village bars nowadays seemed content working a faux blue-collar poser bullshit line. It isn't my scene; I hate Pabst Blue Ribbon and fedoras on wormy trust-fund babies.

Jeez, you'd think I didn't like pretty much anybody in the town any more.

I pretty much don't…

Josh, the bartender, jumped when the door banged shut behind me. He was chewing furiously on an unlit cigarette, looking like somebody had his nuts in a George Foreman grill. I glanced around. There was one couple sitting by the jukebox and a drunk old-timer swaying to the music over his beer. Unless Janelle, Josh's rumored pit-bull excuse for a wife was in the can, there was nothing that I could see that should have had the man so riled. Besides, Josh was six-two, sleeved in tattoos, and had been behind the sticks for twenty years. In almost any bar crisis, Josh was still the scariest man in the room.

Although I have heard that Janelle is scarier.

"What's got your panties twisted?" I asked, sitting in my regular seat in the far corner, facing the door.

"Hey, T.C. You seen Brian?"

"Brian who?" I helped myself to a bar napkin and daubed the sober-sweats off my brow.

"I don't know his last name. Black hair, always in a suit?"

"Not ringing a bell."

"Always makin' quick trips to the bathroom?" Josh raised his eyebrows and rubbed a finger under his nose in an unmistakable gesture.

"So what you're saying is, I don't want to know the guy."

"Probably don't." He took a deep breath.

"You know I don't."

Josh held his hands up, palms out. "Hey, I don't judge."

"Yes you do. That's precisely what you do."

"Whatever." Josh waved away my offense as he lit the cigarette and walked out the door for his tobacco constitutional.

Except the schmuck hadn't even poured me a goddamn drink yet.

I waited impatiently. In the meantime, I took another bar napkin and smoothed it out on the bar in front of me, hoping that when he returned he'd notice the conspicuous void on the mahogany.

Josh finally got back to his job, slightly more relaxed for the nicotine, and immediately tore back into the story. "So, this fucker, he was here all last night drinking heavy. Keeps making those trips to the bathroom and coming out fresh as a daisy." Josh popped another cigarette between his lips. If he stepped out for another smoke, I was going to knock him out and pour the whiskey myself.

"And?" I smoothed the napkin over with my fingers. Josh didn't notice. Not that I didn't want to hear his story, but c'mon. Priorities here.

"At closing time, either the blow was bad, or he'd hit the wall, but I gotta peel him off the bar." The wet filter between Josh's teeth split from his nervous gnawing. Josh made a face, pulling the white filaments off his tongue. "He comes back a couple hours ago in the same clothes as yesterday, coked off his nut again, just yelling and knocking over glasses. You believe that shit? On a fucking Sunday?"

I didn't know what it being Sunday had to do with anything in particular, but I said, "Go on…"

"I don't need this horseshit on a Sunday," he said, less to me than to the Vengeful Gods of All Things Bartending.

"What'd you do?"

"I go to grab him. You know what the sonofabitch does?"

I sighed, crumpled up my poor lonely bar napkin. Looked like my bad day had every intention of teetotalling my sad and dry spirit. "I do not."

"He pulls a knife. Says he's cutting anybody who touches him."

That made my ears prick up. In the years since New York went the way of the 1%, you don't hear so many stories take that kind of turn like they did daily in the bad old days.

For the record, to old-school cats like Josh and me, those were the good old days.

That said, I had an idea where the story was going. Josh keeps a Bernie Williams-Edition Louisville Slugger behind the bar for just such emergencies. "Will he live?"

Josh threw his hands up. "I didn't do nothing. He's an accountant for the fuckin' mob."

…uhhhhhh…

Okay, now.

And I'd thought I'd heard them all.

Every Bridge and Tunnel half-wit with a lick of Italian in his blood pulled that card at some point or another. Half the time, they weren't even Italian anymore. There's what's left of the Irish mob, the Chinatown Tongs and the Russians in Queens who were giving the Westies a run for the title of most psychotic crew in New York history. Hell, I'd even come across a few Japanese cats missing their pinkie fingers hovering around the karaoke bars in Little Korea.

Regardless, anybody who couldn't earn their own, said they're connected.

Or work for the mob.

Or grew up with yadda, yadda, blah-fucking-blah.

I knew the mob had better things to do than execute people over bar brawls.

First thing you learn out about mob and mob associates when you encounter a real one: Nobody claims to be mob or a mob associate.

Josh knew that too. He must have seen disappointment in my face. "I know, I know," he said, "but an accountant? Who the hell would say they're a mob accountant?"

He had me there. I'd have to wait for Andy to get back into town. He's better acquainted with those guys. I just freelance

Since it didn't look like I was going to get that drink, I decided to move on. Josh's nerves were interfering with my mojo. Besides, if Janelle walked in, the added stress might make his head explode, and I didn't need the dry cleaning bills.

I switched atmospheres and went over to Zen to see Vic and Bertie. Zen ran on the trendy rail, but the jukebox was decent and nobody bothered you with unwanted conversation. Bertie was five-feet-nothing of blue-haired smartass who drank too much while she bartended, but she reserved the only padded chair for me-in the far corner of course, facing the door. Vic was a soft-spoken monster of a man who watched over Bertie until the bouncer arrived.

Since she didn't charge me for every other drink and on my birthday she bought me a hula girl shirt, she was all right with me. Problem was, she liked causing trouble with her mouth. She often got herself into fixes and liked to see Vic get her out. She was just that kind of girl.

As I entered, Vic was talking to some guy dressed like he just finished shooting a Botany 500 ad.

Vic waved. "Hey T.C., come meet a friend of mine. Brian, T.C."

I'm not sure who I'd been picturing, but it sure as hell wasn't Johnnie Suburbia over there. How did I know it was the right Brian? He looked like an accountant of some kind, his pupils were the size of a ball-point tip, his suit looked like it had been slept in, and he worked his teeth back and forth like he was grinding corn meal in his cheeks.

Oh, and he had a line of blow trailing from his left nostril that almost touched his ear.

Looking at him, I realized that I could have sat next to him a dozen times and never remembered. He grinned at me like a man with a used Pinto to sell. "Hey Big Guy. Nice to meetcha."

I hate people who call me Big Guy. I scraped a smile across my face. "Hey." I tapped a finger to my nose. "Missed a spot."

"What? Aw, shit." He wiped his nose and cheek with the back of his arm. "Good looking out, brother. Whatcha drinkin'?"

"Makers." I glared at Vic. Vic wouldn't meet my eyes.

Brian waved at Bertie, who already knew what I was having and was setting it down on a napkin. She didn't look at me either. "On me, Bertie."

"Thanks," I said.

"No problemo." He threw the salesman grin again. He was quickly becoming the walking embodiment of my pet peeves. So far he hadn't smacked me on the shoulder or had his shirt label sticking out. Small favors. "So, what's T.C. stand for?"

"Thomas Jefferson."

"Huh?"

"My mother couldn't spell."

He didn't get it.

Brian leaned close, whispering, "You party?"

Ah. A peeve I'd forgotten. People who use "party" as a verb. "Define party."

He opened his palm under the bar to show me a small glass vial. I glared at Vic again. He looked over, winced when he saw what Brian was offering me, then put his eyes back on the bar.

"Not my kind of party," I said with as much friendliness as I could muster, which was none at all. Brian didn't seem to notice or, frankly, give a shit.

"No problemo." He laughed like a sick hyena and smacked my shoulder.

I downed my drink. "Sorry guys. Gotta run." I may be a drunken hypocrite, but I like to keep my vices safe and law-abiding, if possible. Just being next to the guy made all the old alarm bells ring.

As I walked behind them, I saw Brian's goddamn shirt tag sticking out.

Fifteen years ago, Vic and Bertie were young St. Marks squatters. So green to the Big Bad City, they smelled like the inside of a Greyhound. They quickly connected to the wrong scene. I don't know if they were shooting junk before they got to New York or if it got hold of them upon arrival, but they were fighters. I could see it in them the same way I see my own reflection in the morning, when the hangover is sumo-wrestling against my conscience. Only I don't fight it so much any more.

I watched them clean up, straighten out their shit, and build a semblance of a life together. Whenever possible, I'd slip them a few extra bucks without letting them know. I was proud of them. A lot of the St. Marks junkies from back in those days wound up doing the Sid Vicious bellyflop on abandoned tenement floors.

I wondered why Vic was hanging out with that jackass.

I hoped it wasn't what I thought.

After the unease of my sojourn into Zen, I made my way back downtown and finally caught a break in my shitty bar-hopping afternoon. I saw Andy opening Lady Luck's gate from two blocks north and had to restrain myself from breaking into a joyous sprint when I did.

"Don't tell me you've been waiting out here for me all day," he said as I approached.

"Might as well, the afternoon I've had."

Andy checked his watch. "Hmm. Three o'clock and you're stone sober."

We walked in together. Lady Luck was built around an old horseshoe bar, had about thirty pictures of Sinatra for decoration and high windows so that the cruel, cruel sunlight only trickled down into drunken eyes. All that, and Andy allowed me to pick the records for his jukebox. Only box in Manhattan with Big Mama Thornton, that I knew of. Best of all, Andy would break my arm if I ever tried to pay.

And I mean he would break my arm.

In many places.

But lovingly.

"How was Jersey?"

He shrugged. "Simple. You coulda done it."

"What's that mean?"

"I meant it was straightforward. Sheesh, you're sensitive when you're sober."

"What'd he do?"

"The guy?" He shrugged again. "He wasn't particular about who he stuck his dick into. Knew it too."

"Living dangerously, huh?"

Andy hit the light switches. "Used to."

My drink arrived before I noticed Andy making it. Everyone thought Andy was just a skilled bartender. That's not to say that he couldn't sling booze with the best, but I knew otherwise. Those hands had paid for the bar I was sitting at, and it wasn't simply due to his magnificent Mai-Tai recipe. He's sixty-six and faster than a man half that age. I know. I'm half that age. I've done the math.

I tasted my drink. "Andy, do you know any… accountants for the families and/or crews?"

Andy stopped counting the register bank. "Accountants?"

"Accountants."

He looked up and ran his fingers through his bone-white hair. "Never heard of any, but I'd have to assume they have some. Why?"

"Some cokehead's wandering around saying he is one."

"Probably just a jerk-off who says it to get out of jams," he said, dismissively waving his hand at the idea.

"Figured that, but why the hell would he claim to be an accountant? That's what I can't get."

"Good point." Andy cracked an Amstel bottle with his hands and sipped. It wasn't the screw-top kind. "Name?"

"Brian. Don't have a last name. Preppy-looking fella."

"He a problem?" Andy raised an eyebrow. I knew what the question within the question was.

"If he is what he says, he's certainly making a show of it. If he gets busted, well…he seemed soft."

Andy made a face like he'd just bitten into a cockroach. "I'll make some calls." In Andy's estimation, the worst a man could be was soft. Soft men would fold faster than Superman on laundry day to save their own asses. In our line of work, soft men could get you killed the same as a bullet.

My train of thought derails when the jackass claps me on the back, making my drink slop over. He laughs at a joke that I wasn't listening to. I resist punching his larynx and fake a laugh instead. He orders us another round, takes a gulp and staggers off to the jukebox. One more Dave Matthews song and I swear to God… While he's gone, I dump my shot into his glass again.

"You done?" The bartender asks, pointing at the wings I'd ordered.

"All yours." When the wings came out, I offered the jackass one, trying to at least appear friendly. He sucked off the meat and dropped the spit-covered bone on the other wings. I've spent the rest of the night fighting the urge to pull his scrotum over his forehead.

A few days ago, I walked back into Zen to check up on Vic and Bertie. Afraid of what I might find, I was a little ashamed at the relief I felt when I saw a new girl bartending.

I got a dirty look from her when I "ahem-ed" her eyes away from her iPhone. "Where's Vic and Bertie today?"

She looked up with an unusual amount of suspicion for somebody who doesn't know me. "You a friend?"

I got a chill at her tone. "Friend, customer. Take your pick."

"Then it'd be best if you talked to them." With that, her attention went back to the phone. Instinct told me Brian was involved. Couldn't tell you why. Instinct also told me it was already bad.

I spent the afternoon trying to find them at all the other watering holes. As the sun set, I ended up at Lady Luck again, confused and aggravated.

"What's wrong with you?" Andy asked. "You look like ten miles of cat shit."

"You seen Vic or Bertie?"

"Yeah, he came in looking for you. He seemed upset about something." Andy scratched his stubble. "Looked like he hadn't slept in a while. Circles under his eyes."

I wondered if his sleeplessness was chemically induced. "Did he leave a number?"

"Nope. Just asked if I'd seen you. I said, "nope". Then he left."

Damn.

Things got complicated fast. When a waitress from Zen came into Lady Luck, I got the first of several accounts about the previous night's hubbub. I asked who else had seen it. She gave me names and I tracked them down. In the end, I got five different versions from five different witnesses. It was like living in my own personal fucking Rashomon.

The story that I've accepted is the one I managed to piece together from the consistencies in each account. Brian was one of those consistencies.

No signs of Vic or Bertie. Amazing how you can see people nearly every day, spend hours together and never exchange numbers or addresses. I didn't even know their last names.

My patchwork story went as such: Closing time at Zen. Brian got rowdy. Rich, the manager on duty, told him to get the fuck out. Brian pulled his knife. Bingo, bango, bongo. Second verse, same as the first.

Rich claimed that Brian put the knife to his face. The waitress said he just pulled it. Then said she didn't see a knife. Then wouldn't talk about it. I guess she'd heard the same rumors about Brian's work associates and didn't want to be involved. One thing's certain. A knife got pulled. Threats were made.

At that point in the fairy tale, Mookie the bouncer stepped in. Mookie bounced Brian into the wall, then bounced him off the concrete.

Good bouncer.

I guess Mookie either didn't know or care about Brian's "connections". All accounts had Brian taking himself a decent ass-whupping. I smiled every time that part got mentioned. I wanted to buy Mookie a puppy.

For some reason, Bertie turned on Mookie and Rich, hollering at them. Bertie's got problems, but I couldn't understand her defending that chucklehead. Or didn't want to understand.

Rich fired her on the spot. Bertie went ballistic, throwing bottles and pint glasses at Rich and Mookie. Depending on whose story you believe, Mookie may or may not have shoved Bertie, then called her a name rhyming with "runt". It was possible.

Lord knows, Bertie could be a runt.

Bertie went home, and her version, whichever it was, got Vic stewing. That was when he came looking for me. Maybe he wanted me to get Mookie with him. Maybe he wanted me to get Brian with him. Maybe he just needed somebody to talk to and cool him the fuck down. What I do know is that he wasn't looking to employ my services. Apart from Andy, almost nobody knows what I really do.

Three days passed. I kept missing Vic and Bertie. The few people that ran across them all agreed that they looked…wrong.

I started to wonder if I was being avoided. If somebody wants me, I'm easily found. By the same token, if somebody wants to avoid me, they know where I won't be.

I kept looking out, but shit, I wasn't going to kick doors in for them. They were good people, people I considered friends in a life where I didn't have many, but they were adults. If they'd made some stupid-ass decisions over the last couple weeks and were tumbling back down the rabbit hole again, it wasn't my responsibility to throw them a line to climb back up.

It made me sad to think about it, but like I said, they were fucking adults.

So for the most part, I tried not to think about it.

Then Mookie was dead.

Just when I thought that the situation had run out of both shit and fans.

All I wanted was the goddamn weather on channel 4, and I got a motherloving murder. I almost choked on my bagel, coughing a mouthful of cream cheese and coffee right into the pretty newscaster's face on my tee-vee.

Bad way to start a morning, let me tell ya…

Some kids playing in a garage found Mookie next to his car. He'd had the unholy shit beaten out of him. He wasn't D.O.A., but he was D.S.A.

Dead Soon After.

The cops said a skull fracture killed him. They had no suspects.

But I did.

Brian suddenly jumped from minor irritation to legit problem. I didn't know who he did the books for, but I could only assume he was doing a bang-up job if they were willing to throw a hit his way. Hits aren't cheap, or given casually.

If it was a hit, it was the most trivial thing that I'd ever heard a hit put out for, and believe you me, I've seen a lot of people die over trivia.

Like I said-if.

I couldn't imagine Brian getting his own hands dirty, though. He was too fond of talking big and making threats. No real violence had happened around him.

Yet.

I hauled over to Lady Luck to see if Andy had anything. Like me, Andy was a creature of habit. He'd be there before opening, drinking espresso and reading the paper with his daily bran muffin. He hated the muffins, but at his age, he considered them half-breakfast, half-medicinal.

I needed some hair of the dog. Shit, I needed the whole Westminster Dog Show the way I felt.

I knocked on the door. Andy unlocked the bolt then sat back down at the bar where the crossword and his accursed bran muffin waited.

I locked the door behind me. The weight of the room hit me like an open-handed slap as I entered.

I smelled menthol cigarettes. Andy doesn't smoke anymore, much less menthols. He glanced at me and then towards the back. Vic sat alone in a booth.

"Been waiting for you," Andy said. "You know where the Makers is."

I helped myself to a couple of fingers, belted it and refilled before I went over to Vic. I slid into the opposite bench, smelling days worth of scotch seeping off of him. Vic looked tired, his clothes wrinkled and dirty. His fingers trembled on the cigarette, ash spattered the table. I didn't say a word. He was the one who needed to talk, came looking for me.

We drank in funereal silence. Every time Vic tried to talk or even look at me, tears would well and the silence would stand. I didn't feel it was my place to ask the questions.

Instead, we just sat and quietly drank the city away. An hour passed. Vic had four more drinks, slipping deeper into himself with each sip.

Then on unsteady legs, Vic stood up and leaned into my ear. He whispered, "I didn't mean it."

Without looking up, I heard him stumbling out the door.

The room remained quiet for a few seconds after he left.

"They're using again," Andy said into the newspaper.

"How do you know?" It was a stupid question. Andy would know. I knew. I just wanted to ask, to carve the slightest sliver of doubt off of the truths that I was ignoring.

"Vic shook my hand. Saw tracks on his wrist. If he's that far down…" He knew that I could finish the sentence without him having to. "She was here earlier. Kept scratching her forearms. Long sleeve shirt seem right to you on a day like today?" The newspaper rustled.

I swallowed my anger. "The accountant?" The words were acid in my mouth.

"Him?" Andy licked his finger, turned the page of his Post. "Used to work for the Dohnaghy's up in Yonkers." Andy lingered over "used to". "Full name's Brian King. Mickey Dohnaghy seems to think the kid's a prick."

That was all I needed to hear.

They buried Mookie. Brian disappeared. I didn't waste my energy looking for him. I figured he would rear his head eventually. At which time, I would eagerly express my disapproval.

Only all hell broke loose first.

When I showed up at Dino's yesterday, the joint looked like Detroit after the riots. Angie, the owner, stood behind the bar with a stunned expression, looking over the wreckage of her bar. The air was tangy from the bleach that the Mexican kids were slathering over the floor. Even under the bleach, I thought I could still smell…

…blood?

"What the hell happened here?" I said. "Where's my stool?"

"Vic and Bertie…" She opened her mouth twice to continue, then completely lost her shit, collapsing into sobs. It took a lot of comforting and even more tequila to stifle her tears and get to the goddamn story.

Vic and Bertie were at Dino's the night before. Somebody walked in and blasted Vic with a shotgun.

Just like that.

He was probably dead before he hit the ground. I hope he was.

Two pieces of buckshot caught Bertie in the throat. She took a while. Bertie lay on the bar floor, bleeding out while the ambulance took its time.

You know that a pizza will get to you faster in Manhattan than an ambulance? Been proven. Look it up.

By the time paramedics arrived, the only person alive in the bar was Josh, who'd caught some glass in his face. He tried to stop Bertie's bleeding using his shirt without strangling her. It didn't matter. He'd have been better off ordering a fucking pepperoni pie and hoping the delivery kid had CPR training.

Vic was in my barstool when the shotgun vaporized his chest, taking my stool with him.

Josh only caught a glimpse of the shooters. They were in ski masks.

The tally: Three people and the barstool that I'd spent years molding to my ass were dead. All tracing back to Brian, a big mouth who backed it up with a little knife.

He wasn't hard to track. His mouth cut a path like the runway lights at LaGuardia. Even in bars where his name wasn't known, his behavior was. He'd been kicked out of a few places and pulled his knife at one. The path led uptown. I followed.

As I moved north, I'd catch news reports. Even in a city as violent as New York, the Dino's Massacre (as it was called) was a sensational story. The media ate it up. The cops moved fast. Within hours, a shotgun was found in the trunk of a Chevy, the same Chevy witnesses saw burning tracks away from Dino's. By nightfall, the cops had Mookie's brothers in custody.

Somewhere in my shallowest sense of self, I felt sorry for them. Amateurs.

So I wait. He gave me a look when I walked in, but without recognition. I bought him a round and fed him my shots. He almost got into a fight with a kid at the pool table. He reached into his pocket and I reached into mine. His knife didn't come out, so neither did my.45. That's okay. He'll pull it eventually. He always does. Everyone will see who pulled first.

I'll wait.

And all I'll leave behind is the memory of an ugly shirt.