God Save the Child

19

The Odds’ End was on a side street off Broadway in the Bay Village section of Boston. The neighborhood was restored red-brick three-story town houses with neat front steps and an occasional pane of stained glass in the windows. The bar itself had a big fake lantern with Schlitz written on it hanging over the entrance and the name The Odds’ End in nineteenth-century lettering across the big glass front.

I got a crumpled-up white poplin rain hat with a red and white band out of the glove compartment and put it on. I put on my sunglasses and tipped the rain hat forward over my eyes. Harroway had seen me only once, and then briefly; I didn’t think he’d recognize me. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror and adjusted the hat down a little. Rakish. I turned up the collar on my tweed jacket. Irresistible. I got out of the car and went into The Odds’ End.

It was dark inside, and it seemed darker with sunglasses. There was a bar along the left wall, tables in the middle, a juke box, high-backed booths along the right wall, and an assortment of what looked like Aubrey Beardsley drawings framed above the booths and on either side of the juke box.

A thin black man in pointed patent leather shoes and a green corduroy dungaree suit was nursing a brandy glass at the near end of the bar. His hair was patterned in dozens of small braids tight against his scalp. He looked at me as I came in, then went back to his brandy. On the bar in front of him was an open package of Eve cigarettes.

I sat at the far end of the bar, and the bartender moved down toward me. He was middle-sized and square with curly black hair cut close and a long strong nose. There were acne scars on his cheeks. He had on a blue oxford button-down shirt with the collar open and the cuffs rolled back. His hands were square and strong-looking. The nails were clean.

“Yes, sir,” he said, looking at a point about two inches left of my face.

“Got draft beer?” I said.

“Miller’s and Lowenbrau.”

“Miller’s is okay.”

He put a cardboard coaster on the bar in front of me and a half-pint schooner on the coaster.

“I might be here awhile,” I said. “Want to run a tab on me?”

“On the house,” he said.

I widened my eyes and raised my eyebrows.

“I haven’t seen you before, and I know most of the guys from Station Four. You from Vice?”

“Oh,” I said, “that’s why it’s free.”

“Sure, I spotted you the minute you walked in,” he said.

Spenser, man of a thousand faces, master of disguise. “I’m not a cop,” I said. “I just came in to kill a rainy afternoon. Honest.”

The bartender put a tray of crackers and a crock of orange cheese in front of me.

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say, man,” he said. “I’ll run a tab on you if you want.”

“Please,” I said. “Actually, I’m kind of flattered that you thought I was a cop. Do I look tough to you?”

“Sure,” he said, “tough,” and moved down the bar to wait on a new customer. Maybe I should have worn my jade earrings.

The new customer probably wasn’t a cop. He did have earrings. But they weren’t jade. They were big gold rings. He was a middle-aged white man with gray hair pulled up into a topknot. He had on a red and gold figured dashiki that was too big for him and woven leather sandals. His fingernails were an inch beyond the ends of his fingers. He had come in at a sort of shuffling quickstep, his head still, his eyes looking left and right, like a kid about to soap a window. He was at the bar about halfway between the black guy at one end and me at the other.

“I’ll have a glass of port, Tom,” he said to the bartender in a soft raspy mumble.

“Got the bread, Ahmed?”

Ahmed reached inside the dashiki and came out with a handful of silver. It clattered loudly on the bar.

The bartender put a pony of wine on the bar in front of him and slid ninety cents out of the small pile of change. Ahmed chugalugged it and put the glass down on the bar. Tom filled it again, took the rest of the change, and moved away. Ahmed nursed the second one. He looked from me to the black guy in the green corduroy. Then he moved down near me.

“Hi,” he whispered. He sounded like Rod McKuen doing the Godfather.

“Where’d you leave your spear?” I said.

“My spear?”

Close up Ahmed smelled stale, and the long fingernails were dirty.

“My, you’re a big one,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Bulldog Turner,” I said.

“Hey, that’s kind of a cute name, Bulldog.” He squeezed my left bicep. “I bet you’re awfully strong.”

The bartender stood polishing shot glasses, watching us with no expression of any kind.

“But oh so gentle,” I said.

“You gotta quarter for the juke box?” He was rubbing his flat hand up and down the back of my arm. Close up there was a gray stubble of beard showing, maybe two days’ worth. I gave him a quarter. “I’ll be right back,” he said and scuttled across to the juke box. He played an old Platters record, “My Prayer,” and hurried back to his stool beside me. He never straightened fully up. There was a hunched quality to him, like a dog that’s just wet on the rug. He drank the rest of his wine.

“Wanna buy me a drink?” he asked. His breath was sour.

“Ahmed,” I said, “I’ll buy you two drinks if you’ll take them down the other end of the bar. I think you’re a fantastic looker, but I’m spoken for.”

Ahmed hissed at me, “Mother sucker,” and scooted down the bar.

I motioned the bartender “Give him two drinks, on me,” I said.