The Best American Mystery Stories 2004

Patrick Michael Finn Where Beautiful Ladies Dance for You

From Ploughshares

By the time he’d turned twenty, Ray Dwyer looked like a movie gangster’s bodyguard, and was either feared or adored by everyone who knew him. He drove trucks on a local route for Tamco, one of the many quarries in South Joliet, and when he wasn’t working, Ray Dwyer liked to dress up in nice shirts and slacks from Baskin’s on Roosevelt Avenue and take pretty girls to elegant dinners and shows. There was never a shortage of pretty girls who wanted to accompany Ray Dwyer, for not only was he naturally muscular with green eyes and handsome black hair he combed slick with Royal Crown hairdress, but he was always a perfect gentleman who didn’t force or even expect anything beyond a kiss at the end of the date, no matter how much he’d spent on the evening.

And even though this angered the other men who knew Ray Dwyer, an impossible act to follow when it came to pretty girls (most guys tried to hike a girl’s skirt after bowling, burgers, and maybe a beer or two at Stone City or Andy and Sophie’s), who among them had the balls to say anything to him? Everyone knew about the quarry strikes a few years back, when Ray Dwyer, five months out of high school and unarmed, beat the living Christ out of three cops who’d tried to pull him away from the quarry gate he was blocking with the rest of the truckers and heavy machinists. Three cops. With his bare hands. Ten more patrolmen had to eventually bring him down, and Ray Dwyer had a smooth, deep scar from one of their billy clubs hidden under his handsome black hair to prove it, which he never did, since Ray Dwyer was never one to boast about his own strength, no matter how hammered he was.

And everyone also knew Ray Dwyer’s secret when it came to his ease and virtue with the pretty girls: Ray Dwyer was raised in a home where pretty girls outnumbered him four to one. His father, James Dwyer, a quarry machinist who’d loved Camel cigarettes and corned beef hash, died of a heart attack when Ray was still a boy, which left Ray Dwyer the little man of the house surrounded by his mother and three younger sisters: Mary, Katie, and Maureen. Like most men Ray’s age, he still lived at home, and would continue to do so until he fell in love with the right pretty girl whom he would marry and have a family with.

The Dwyer girls were seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years old, and whenever a fellow wanted to take one of them out, he’d usually be intimidated enough to ask her big brother, Ray, for permission beforehand, something Ray Dwyer found incredibly dumb and unmanly.

“Aw, come off it,” Ray would tell the fellow between swigs of Old Style at the Stone City tavern. “You don’t need my okay, but thanks,” Ray would say, then offer a friendly squeeze of the fellow’s trembling, relieved shoulder.

Hell, it was only natural that the guys wanted to take Ray’s sisters out, and he had no problem with it, as long as the guys behaved themselves. And the guys sure as shit did behave when it came to the Dwyer girls; any guy who even thought of getting fast with one of them would have been out of his goddamn gourd.

So Ray Dwyer didn’t think twice when John Lucas, a hillbilly from Georgia or some damn place who’d just started driving for the GAF quarry, took Katie Dwyer to the movies on a Saturday night without asking for Ray’s approval. As a matter of fact, Ray Dwyer was so happy with his own plans for the night that his sister’s date with John Lucas never once crossed his mind. Ray was so happy because he was on his own date with Samantha Baskin, an absolutely beautiful girl with black hair and perfect skin she somehow kept tan even in the middle of winter, whose father owned the very clothing store where Ray had purchased the crisp white shirt and charcoal slacks he wore that night. First they had dinner at a small French restaurant downtown (Ray wasn’t much for that frog food, but Samantha was crazy about it, and if Samantha had wanted Ray to eat dog chow, he would have gladly asked for seconds — thirds, even), and then Ray took Samantha to a Jerry Lewis movie she wanted to see. Ray’s first choice would have been a Western, but he laughed at all the scenes Samantha laughed at even though he found the movie pretty silly, because Ray was deeply in love with Samantha Baskin, and as far as he was concerned, Samantha Baskin was the only girl on Earth he wanted to marry. But there was a problem: Samantha Baskin was Jewish, and Ray Dwyer wasn’t, and though Ray never once even hinted to Samantha that he wanted to marry her (how the hell could he say that?), she’d told him how bent her parents were on making sure she married someone who was Jewish, too. Ray didn’t care what church Samantha went to, and he knew the problem was Samantha’s parents, and not Samantha. Hell, Samantha only went to her church two or three times a year, anyway. But Ray wasn’t thinking about the problem too much that night, since Samantha was sitting right next to him and holding his hand and having a good time — a hell of a good time.

When Ray took Samantha home (this had been their tenth date, and Samantha had agreed to go out with Ray again the following weekend), she invited him into her house, since her parents had driven up to Milwaukee for the weekend to visit relatives. Then Samantha took him into her bedroom, where Ray lost his virginity. They stayed in Samantha’s bed for a couple of hours, kissed and watched each other without saying a word, even though Ray was dying to ask her if she’d consider running away with him someday real soon.

But Ray Dwyer never did ask Samantha that question, since he was afraid of ruining what he considered the greatest moment of his life, a moment that lifted and dizzied him for the rest of the weekend. Until he got to work Monday morning.

Ray Dwyer had actually been whistling to himself as he walked from the clock room to his truck when his friend Bob Placher took him aside. He’d been whistling because he’d never before felt so lucky and swell on a Monday morning. “Listen, Ray,” Bob Placher told him: he was whispering and gently gesturing with both hands. Ray noticed that the other drivers and machinists who walked past didn’t nod hello to him like they usually did, but tossed quick glances his way that were either sympathetic or fearful: they were obviously in on what Bob was about to tell him, and Ray Dwyer was afraid the news had something to do with his job. “Now take it easy, Ray,” Bob Placher said, then went on to tell him about John Lucas — how, on Saturday night, after John Lucas dropped Ray’s sister Katie off, he’d driven over to the Stone City tavern and, as he slammed boilermakers, went on to brag at the top of his hillbilly lungs about how he’d just fucked the sweet singing hell out of Katie Dwyer, and how Katie Dwyer was the tightest piece of ass he’d ever had, and that if he’d known the pussy was this good around here, he would have moved up north ten years ago. “Now take it easy, buddy,” Bob Placher said again, and that’s exactly what Ray Dwyer did; he simply nodded, thanked Bob for keeping him informed, then climbed into his truck, which was loaded for delivery to Collins Headstone up in Lockport.

Only as Ray Dwyer sat in his cab waiting behind the other trucks to pass through the gate did he realize the significance of how quiet and strange his sister Katie had been acting the day before, how she hadn’t gone to Mass because she felt sick, how she’d stayed in her room all day. Ray Dwyer hadn’t thought twice about it, since everyone gets sick sometimes.

Ray Dwyer was about to turn left onto Patterson Road, since that was the route he’d follow to Lockport, but he turned right instead. Then Ray Dwyer drove half a mile to the GAF quarry, left his truck on the side of Patterson Road, marched through the gate, and found John Lucas leaning against his own truck, sipping coffee and smoking.

“What,” John Lucas said, a tired, empty drawl that didn’t sound like a question.

And then Ray Dwyer murdered John Lucas — grabbed his head and slammed it into the side of his truck over and again, until it came apart in his huge, bare hands.

By the time Ray Dwyer got out of prison, his mother had died, the quarries had closed, and all three of his sisters had married and moved far away — Mary to Texas, Katie to southern California, and Maureen to Florida. Who knew what became of Samantha Baskin? She’d never visited Ray, never written, and Ray couldn’t blame her. Ray’s sisters, on the other hand, had always been great about keeping in touch with him through phone calls and letters, but Ray was shamefully thankful none of them were close enough to see him now — gray, inmate pale, living like a bum in a rooming house thirty miles from the neighborhood where he’d been raised, looking for any kind of work he could find. Sure. Ray could have moved back to his old stomping grounds, and sure. Ray could have probably found some kind of work there with ease, but he was terrified of running into anyone he knew, ashamed of shuffling back with his empty hands outstretched, begging for a chance to sweep floors.

Ray had been looking for a job for over a month without even a hint of luck; he’d filled out applications until his fingers hurt, forced phony smiles at interviews to show how happy and eager he was, walked and walked and walked from bus stop to bus stop to bus stop until his legs and feet swelled with a strange, new half-numb kind of pain. He’d covered Blue Island, Midlothian, Harvey, Calumet City. Robbins, Marionette Park, Alsip, Homewood-Flossmoor, South Holland, and nothing had turned up. But Ray didn’t blame anyone for not wanting to give him work. How could he? Why would anyone want to give him a job? During interviews he’d learned to tell when the person on the other side of the desk had gotten to the part of the application that asked: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? At that point, the person’s eyes would blink, and the concentration would immediately shift, rising for one second from the application to the big, dumb criminal sitting right there who’d filled it out.

“Thank you. Thank you for your time,” Ray Dwyer would say, shaking their apprehensive and weak and reluctant hands before he walked back onto the street, sometimes holding back tears that came from nowhere, but never, ever blaming them for sending him away.

To make matters worse, there was an awful recession, and times were tough all over. Business had been especially bad for George Kariotis, who had immigrated to Chicago from Greece ten years before and opened his own restaurant in Tinley Park. The restaurant was simply called Kariotis’s, and was renowned for an authentic cuisine of lamb served fifteen different ways with vegetables most people hadn’t ever heard of, on special blue and white china that had belonged to his family for three generations, George always said, though he’d actually gotten the plates wholesale at the Merchandise Mart downtown. And though the menu wasn’t cheap, George Kariotis always made sure there were some reasonably priced plates so that even young men could impress dates with a dimly lit amber privacy where scratchy antique records of Rembetica baglamas ballads played from hidden speakers George Kariotis had installed himself.

There were two cooks and three busboys employed at Kariotis’s, all of whom were Greek like George and, like George, could speak perfect English accompanied by a strong, yet unobtrusive accent. But George never allowed his cooks and busboys to speak English at work; instead, he told them to speak their native Greek in the kitchen as loud as they could so the patrons could actually hear how good and authentic their food was going to taste when it arrived, steaming, to their tables. When times were better, these particulars paid of f. Customers would often wait for over an hour to get a table, even on weeknights. Both the Tribune and the Sun-Times food sections had written glowing articles about Kariotis’s, the “Little Tinley Park Gem with Old World Flavor and Style,” this “Delicious Hellenic Dining Experience.” George Kariotis had proudly and carefully clipped these articles from the papers and framed them on the wall above the cash register, right between the travel poster of the Parthenon and the stoic, yellowed photograph of his great-grandfather Yiorgios.

But the recession was on, and few could afford even this simple elegance anymore. Some nights, even on the weekends, the restaurant was completely empty, and on most weeknights, Kariotis’s was closed by eight. George Kariotis eventually had to fire one of the cooks and all three busboys. The fired cook, whose name was Teddy Dendrinos, got drunk on wine and tried to start a fight with George in the kitchen, yelling awful, hurtful things and cursing in the native Greek George had encouraged him to speak for all those years. Then Teddy wept and, in accented English, apologized for being so disrespectful.

“What do I do now?” he said.

George had his arm around him. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know, Teddy.”

Teddy Dendrinos moved back to Greece and luckily got a high-paying position in a five-star Athens hotel. He sent postcards with this good news, postcards George Kariotis tacked on the wall above the cash register, right below the framed newspaper articles that made George sad to think how quickly success and prosperous times could be taken away.

In his final attempt to save his business, George Kariotis emptied his savings account — all of it. And with this money he hired two belly dancers, put an employment advertisement in the papers for “Lot Security,” since “Bouncer” might have scared off what few patrons he had left, and ordered a big expensive sign surrounded with blue and white lights that he hung on the front of his restaurant. The sign read: Where Beautiful I Julies Dance for You, and this was the first thing Ray Dwyer noticed when he got off the bus that Monday afternoon to apply for the security position he read about in the paper, a job he was sure he wouldn’t get.

But this fellow who owned the restaurant, George Kariotis, this expressive, tough-looking little man with peppery hair who shook Ray Dwyer’s hand and looked him in the eyes when he spoke, took one look at him and hired him on the spot.

“Isn’t there an application?” Ray Dwyer asked: he thought this good luck might be some kind of mean trick.

“You want an application? Okay. Make a muscle.”

Ray Dwyer flexed his biceps; George Kariotis couldn’t even fit both hands around it. He whistled once and laughed. “Holy moly! You passed the application. What is it. Ray? You been to prison or something?” George laughed again and winked, and when Ray Dwyer paused, swallowed, then admitted that he actually had been to prison, George’s smile slipped away behind a wisp of cigar smoke, and he offered a sincere apology. “I’m sorry, Ray,” he said. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to make a joke. That’s not my business. But this is,” George Kariotis said and, with his cigar, motioned toward the darkened restaurant, the empty tables and chairs. “This is my business,” he said.

And then George Kariotis gave Ray Dwyer a cigar and, over the course of two hours, told him everything there was to tell about his restaurant, his business, the many things big and small he’d done to make it the place it once was. He showed Ray Dwyer the speakers, the records, the plates he’d bought downtown, the kitchen where the cooks and busboys argued in Greek, the newspaper articles, and the postcards from Teddy Dendrinos.

“You know it made me sick to have to fire that man,” George explained. “It even made me sick to let the busboys go.” Then George Kariotis got quiet for the first time since Ray had accepted his handshake; he got quiet and stared at the empty tables and chairs. And then he looked at Ray and said:

“I can’t make any promises, Ray. My new idea, these dancers. Well, it might work, and it might not work. I may have to let you go, too. Maybe next week, next month, I don’t know. Or maybe you’ll work here forever. Okay?”

“Yes,” Ray said. “I understand.”

The two men shook hands on it, and Ray Dwyer agreed to start that night.

It was hard for Ray to believe he was actually getting paid to do what he did: stand around with his arms crossed and make sure none of the men tried to touch the beautiful ladies, the belly dancers, as men sometimes did, especially when they had too much to drink.

And it was hard for George Kariotis to believe he hadn’t thought of bringing in these dancers six months earlier. Within a week of hanging up his new sign, George’s restaurant had a steady, nightly stream of men who came to see the dancers, and who, more importantly, came to spend money on appetizers and drinks — lots and lots of drinks. Some men came in small groups, but most came by themselves, and the reason they kept coming was because there was no other place in Tinley Park, Orland Park, or anywhere else nearby where men could sit and eat and drink and watch beautiful ladies dance — no other place.

“I can’t believe it,” George said to Ray one night, beaming. “So they can’t afford to take their wives and children to dinner, but they can afford to look at her,” he said, and nodded toward Rita, the older, larger dancer who wore dangerously revealing purple silks and captivated her audience with a series of slow, flowing movements, an arrogant, hesitant half smile, and a stare that would linger only for a moment’s contact before vanishing in a betrayal of suggestion.

Karima, on the other hand, was much younger, and moved quickly with a wide, teasing smile she shared with each man for longer than he probably deserved. Ray always had to be on his toes when it was Karima’s turn to dance, once every hour for fifteen to twenty minutes. The men seemed to believe Karima truly wanted them, and this often provoked them to stand when she came by, to grab her when she came by, to offer catcalls and whistles and large tips when she came by. And when a man did grab Karima, Ray only needed to appear from a corner of darkness, shake his finger, and the man would sit back down and behave himself for the rest of the night.

Ray didn’t know too much about the dancers. They were foreign and dark like George, but Ray had no idea what countries they came from. They might have been Greek, but since they always spoke to George in English, Ray decided that didn’t make too much sense. He’d tried briefly to talk to the dancers, and, for some reason, they’d ignored him.

“Hey, that was real good,” he’d said to Rita after the first time he’d watched her dance, but she only blinked and walked right past him and into the kitchen, where she stayed between sets.

And when Ray had complimented Karima’s silver-sequined outfit as she left the floor followed by whistles and claps, and holding a fistful of bills. Karima only glanced at him with a look of disgust and marched into the ladies’ room, where she usually stayed between sets.

Sometimes the two dancers seemed to hate each other, and sometimes they talked and laughed like sisters. Ray decided they were impossible to figure out, and that he wouldn’t waste any time trying. Who cared? He had a good job, a good boss, and had been able to buy some fancy new clothes that he wrote about in letters to his three sisters, all of whom had invited Ray to live with them when he first got out of prison.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciated your invitation to come and stay with your family, Ray wrote to each of them. But I wanted to prove to myself and to all of you, that I could get hack on my feet by myself And that’s what I’m starting to do. My boss treats me real good, and I get to dress up in a tie when I go to work. Imagine that. Me working at a tie job!

Ray didn’t tell his sisters about the rat droppings he’d often find in his room, or the roaches, or his crazy old woman neighbor who pissed in the hallway. He didn’t tell anyone about these things, and nobody knew Ray Dwyer was living in such a shithole, until George gave Ray a ride home one night about a month after he’d started working for him.

“Oh, Ray.” George squinted through the windshield. “You can’t live here. This place is a dump.”

Ray wanted to say that he couldn’t afford anything better, and this was true, but he was so grateful and happy with his job that he didn’t want George to think he had to pay him any more. So Ray shrugged and lied. “It’s fine, George. I don’t mind it at all.”

“Hell,” George told him. “You shouldn’t be living in a goddamn dump like this. Tomorrow, I’m coming by in the morning. I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock. Pack your things tonight. You can live at my place.”

“No, no, no,” Ray said. “I couldn’t. George.”

“I have an extra bedroom, and I live by myself, one block from the restaurant, and there’s no reason why you should live in a dump like this when I have so much room.”

Ray continued to protest, and George finally said, “Look, Ray. I know how proud you are. You’re a proud, proud man, and I respect your pride. I’m not trying to give you something for free. You can pay me rent. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Ray finally said. “Tomorrow.”

The two men shook hands on this arrangement as well, and Ray Dwyer agreed to move in the next day.

For a few months it seemed as though business at Kariotis’s couldn’t possibly get any better. The place was busy seven nights a week, usually from eight until midnight, with men who came to watch Rita’s waving silks and sly, fleeting smiles, to see Karima’s young, attentive eyes that nurtured a most impossible wanting.

Most nights after closing, Ray and George would go home and, at the small kitchen table, look over the total sheets that made George whistle and say, “Holy moly!” Then they’d drink wine and smoke and tell stories until the sun was about to come up. George, who always did most of the talking, would often talk about women, especially the dancers.

“Rita, my God!” he’d say. “Sometimes, Ray, I have to leave the floor because I know I can’t have her. I have to go to the kitchen and stand in the freezer to forget about trying to have this woman.”

George had explained why having these dancers was impossible: “No man can ever truly have a woman like that, Ray. How can any man impress a woman who lives on the power of dismissing every other man who looks at her? How?”

“They don’t pay any attention to me,” Ray said. “They ignore me.”

“So you see what I mean. The hell with them!”

Other nights. George and Ray would look at the big map of the world that hung on the kitchen wall, and George would point to all the different cities and countries he’d visited before moving to the States. George had been on many adventures all over the world, and even though he sometimes drank too much wine and repeated stories Ray had already heard, Ray always listened attentively and acted surprised and amazed, as if hearing the tale for the first time.

“Here, right here, this is Albania,” George said. “I sold American cigarettes and chocolate on the black market there, like a pirate.”

“And this is Istanbul,” George said. “I got arrested for trying to smuggle hashish across the border. But the goddamn Turks had sold me dirt wrapped in plastic! Dirt! The police had to let me go because there is no law against smuggling dirt. I was goddamn lucky to get ripped off in Istanbul. Ray!”

“And this is Rome,” George said. “Where my heart was broken.”

No matter what places George pointed to on the map. Morocco. Egypt, France. Russia, or Corsica, he always ended on Rome with the same quiet words, “Where my heart was broken,” without ever elaborating on what exactly had happened there. He’d just end his story, get more wine, change the subject, or simply say good night and go to bed. Of course Ray was curious to hear the details, but knew it was rude to pry. He imagined this incident in Rome was the reason George had never married, even though George had explained why he was single:

“A family is too difficult for men in my business, Ray. Too many hours of work, and not enough time to spend with the wife and babies. They get lonely, see? No, my restaurant is my wife, and the people I employ are my children.”

George did have lovers; Ray was sure of this. Some nights after closing George would shower and change and splash on nice cologne, and then tell Ray, “I’m going out for a while.” Those nights were, for Ray, difficult to get through. He couldn’t stand being by himself in such a quiet house with all that room to roam, and since he and George had been up so late the night before, he could never simply go to sleep. For some reason, it had been much easier for Ray to be by himself in the rooming house, where he’d only had a bed, a dresser, four walls, and a window. But alone at George’s house, Ray found himself moving from room to room, smoking too much, pacing. He’d turn on the kitchen radio, shut it off, then turn it on again; he’d drink a glass of George’s wine, another, and another, trying to wear himself down into drunken slumber, which, alone in that house with all that room, seemed impossible. Television only made things worse, with its pictures and music and awful noise. Ray had never liked looking at television anyhow.

Eventually, usually at dawn, George would come home. “You still up?” he’d ask, and Ray, relieved, would casually yawn and say, “Yeah, George. I was just about to turn in.”

But thankfully George only went out once or twice a week. Most of the time Ray enjoyed living at George’s house. Like on Greek Easter Sunday, which, for whatever reason, was a week later than the regular one. George closed the restaurant and had a party at the house with friends and relatives, all of whom treated Ray like they’d known him for a lifetime. Everyone was happy for George since his business was doing so well, and George, after having lots of wine, kept telling everyone the belly dancers had been Ray’s idea: “He’s the brains in my business!” George announced, and everyone applauded and toasted Ray, who blushed and laughed and shook his head, since he knew in his heart that he was just a dumb bouncer who wouldn’t have come up with an idea like that in a million years.

Summer brought even more business to the restaurant, so much more that George had to order more tables and chairs and glasses and ashtrays. There was a new cook named Alex, too, and two new busboys. George even had a new informal slogan for his place: Kariotis’s is Greek for standing room only. This was true; George had to start turning people away because the dancers were running out of room to perform.

“Holy moly!” George said. “We’re going to have to knock down that wall. And that one, too. We’ll sell tickets, Ray. Then we’ll be outside, like a goddamn carnival!”

The place was jammed on weeknights, on weekends, and the place was jammed the night Ray Dwyer actually had to throw somebody out.

Ray hadn’t noticed the fellow when he first came in because, quite simply, the fellow wasn’t remarkable. He wasn’t big, small, ugly, or anything. He didn’t even order booze, but nursed a few Cokes over the course of an hour. And when Karima came out for her number, this fellow, this sober, unremarkable fellow who’d shown up by himself, started grabbing Karima’s ass. For some reason, Ray decided wagging his finger wouldn’t be enough to calm the man, so he walked right up to the table and said, “You’re going to have to stop that, sir,” and the fellow smiled and said, “Sure, okay. Sorry about that.”

But the fellow obviously wasn’t sorry about that or anything else, because as soon as Ray turned his back, the man started grabbing Karima even more — not only her ass, but her belly and hips. Some of the other patrons laughed, and a couple of them started grabbing Karima as well.

“Throw him out,” George said. “Throw this son of a bitch out, Ray.”

So Ray grabbed the guy’s collar, lifted him from his seat, then dragged him right out the front door. George was right behind them.

“Don’t ever come back here to my place,” George told the man, who stood in the parking lot glaring back at them, staggering a bit as if Ray’s hands had shaken something loose.

“You fuckers are through,” the man said, and since he wasn’t drunk, the words had a strange, serious weight behind them. “You hear me? Through.”

“Go home,” George told him. “Go on!”

Then the fellow cleared his throat and spat right on the blue-and-white-lit sign that George had ordered when he hired the dancers. George made a bolt to charge the guy, his fist cocked, and Ray grabbed him and held him back. “Forget it, George,” Ray told him, and then they watched the man get in his car and speed away.

The fellow never returned. But long after this incident, George and Ray would wonder about him, who he was and whom he knew, because a few days after they kicked him out, his departing words came true when two men in suits from the city showed up to inquire about the dancers. They came at noon when the restaurant was closed; Ray was helping George unload the new tables and chairs his cousin had delivered in a big truck.

“Where beautiful ladies dance for you?” the first suited man asked. “You have strippers here?”

“Strippers? No, no,” George explained, laughing as if this was a huge misunderstanding that would get cleared up as soon as he said, “Dancers. We have belly dancers every night. You know, for the men to see.”

“Strippers,” the second man said. “According to the zoning agreement, and as far as the city’s concerned, you have strippers.”

“But they don’t strip,” George said. “They keep their clothes on.”

“So men come here to watch fully clothed women dance?”

“Well, the dancers have outfits, you know? Like bathing suits, I suppose.”

“Look,” the first man said. “I don’t care if they’re wearing bathing suits or holy black habits. You can’t have dancing girls in Tinley Park, and that’s that.”

The second man handed George a fine for five hundred dollars. “Next time it’s a grand,” he told George.

“Then two grand,” the first man said. “And then you’ll lose your business license. You hear me? You’re going to get shut down if this keeps up.”

Before they left, they made George and Ray take down the big sign; and when the city men did leave. George and Ray put it right back up.

“Are you sure we should do this, George?”

“Fuck them!” he barked. “Fucking animals. This is my business,” he said. “And if I want to have dancers in my business, I’ll goddamn well have them!”

Any way he looked at it. Ray Dwyer was in danger of losing his job. He knew the city meant business when the suited men had warned George about closing him down, and even if George had listened and fired the dancers, there’d be no reason to have a bouncer, and no more packed, busy nights to bring in the kind of money George needed to stay on top; he’d have to get rid of the busboys, he’d have to get rid of the cooks, and even if George kept Ray Dwyer on to clean the parking lot, he’d have to get rid of him, too.

But George hadn’t listened to the suited city men: he kept the dancers and refused to pay the fines that had increased to the two-grand maximum within a few weeks. “Fuck them!” he’d say, then rip the fines into shreds and toss them in the trash.

There was no reasoning with George; Ray had tried to offer suggestions, possible solutions: “Why don’t you write a letter to the alderman? Or go to the city council and try to make some kind of deal. You’re smart, George. I’m sure you can come up with something.”

“No, no, no,” George said. “Why should I crawl to them like a goddamn beggar?”

“Then how about if you get all the customers to sign a petition?”

“No,” George said. “I won’t do it. The city’s just a bunch of fucking criminal animals. They won’t listen.”

So Ray made a petition himself on a yellow legal pad he’d found in George’s office, and that night he went around the restaurant and explained the situation to the patrons, all of whom were eager to sign. He’d gotten thirty names when George marched up and snatched the pad from his hands. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

“A petition!” Ray announced. He was smiling, and sure George would be at least thankful that he cared. “Look at all the names.”

“Who the hell put you in charge?” George said. “I said no petitions, and I mean no petitions. This is my goddamn place! Now quit this nonsense and do your job,” George said, then threw the pad in the trash and locked himself in his office. He didn’t speak to Ray for three days.

There were no more late nights at the house with George’s wine and stories, since George never wanted to leave the restaurant, even after closing. He’d stay up most nights pacing the empty floor, staring out the windows, blaring the Rembetica albums while he drank heavily and made mumbled proclamations to Ray or to himself or to some invisible jury he might have imagined sitting at the empty tables, slurring his words in both English and Greek. Ray could hardly stand to listen to him anymore.

One night after closing, Karima asked George if he could give her a ride home, since her car was in the shop. George, who was already drunk and angry, told Ray to borrow his car and take her home.

“I can’t leave,” George told him. “Who knows when the bastards will come to burn me down.”

Karima lived in Midlothian, twenty minutes away. She didn’t seem to like the fact that Ray was driving, because for most of the trip she kept her arms crossed and didn’t say anything beyond ordered directions. “Turn here,” she said. “Go left on the next street,” she said.

Sometimes, because of her accent, Ray couldn’t understand what she said. “Pardon me?” he asked, and each time he did. Karima was visibly annoyed with both sound and movement:

“I said two more blocks!”

“I’m sorry,” Ray said. “Sorry.”

Karima didn’t even look at Ray until he pulled up to her apartment and parked the car. “Here you go,” Ray said, but Karima didn’t get out of the car.

“Have you always been the bouncer?” she asked.

“No,” Ray told her; he was suddenly uncomfortable with himself, as if probed by a board of strange enemies, since this was the first time he’d been completely alone with a woman in well over thirty years. “I used to drive trucks,” he said.

“Trucks,” Karima repeated. Then she was staring at him, silent.

“Turn off the car,” she finally said, and with his moist, trembling fingers, Ray reached for the key and cut the engine. Something warm and numb had taken over his body, controlled his breath, his movement, his speech.

“And then what?” Karima asked, and Ray answered, “Prison. I was in prison for a long time.”

“Prison! Oh, my, what for?” Karima asked. “What did you do to get sent to prison?”

“I got sent to prison because I killed a man.”

Karima gasped, covered her mouth, then let out a sickeningly childish laugh that bothered Ray, since he didn’t find anything funny about prison or murder. “A killer,” she said. “A killer drove me home tonight.”

Ray should have despised being called a killer, and part of him did, but for some reason he only smiled and said, “Yeah. I guess so,” and waited for Karima to leave.

But Karima stayed right where she was, then reached up and ran her fingernails along the back of Ray’s neck. Ray involuntarily closed his eyes and sighed, because he’d never truly forgotten what it was like to be touched by a beautiful girl, and though not a single day had passed without his thinking about her at least once, Ray Dwyer was strongly and sadly reminded of Samantha Baskin, the only beautiful girl he’d ever loved. And, as if reading his mind, Karima asked, “Do you love a special girl?”

Ray, his eyes still closed, said, “Yes. Samantha Baskin.” He hadn’t wanted to say this or anything else, since he knew in his heart that Karima, this dancer who usually ignored him, didn’t really deserve to know whom he loved; she was toying with him, but the words had still fallen from his lips, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Samantha Baskin,” Karima said. “And if I let you make love to me, Mister Killer, would you call me Samantha Baskin?”

With this, Ray opened his eyes, closed his lips, and glared across the seat at Karima, who was not, he realized, a beautiful, pretty, or even nice girl; she was none of these things, and Ray regretted telling her so much. “No,” he said; her game had made him almost furious, and empty of little else hut sadness. “I wouldn’t call you anything,” he said. “Now please get out.”

Karima called Ray a faggot, told him to go fuck himself, then got out of the car and slammed the door behind her. Ray drove away, hut he had to pull over when tears came to his eyes, tears he tried to push back into his head by squeezing the bridge of his nose.

The next morning. Ray woke up when he sensed someone standing over his bed. He opened his eyes and saw George — bloodshot, puffy, bearded George — brandishing a brand-new pair of industrial-strength bolt cutters.

“Wake up,” George hissed. “Come on, wake up! I need your help.”

The city had finally pulled George’s business license and closed him down for good. There was an order posted on the restaurant’s front door, right above the thick chains that were wrapped and locked around the handles.

“I can’t do this,” Ray said, holding the bolt cutters George had shoved in his hands. “Read that. I’ll get put in jail if I monkey with the lock.”

“Hell!” George said. “Nobody’s looking. And if anyone asks, I’ll say I did it!”

Ray looked over both shoulders before he fastened the cutters around the thick lock. He closed his eyes and squeezed the handles until he felt the metallic burst of the lock as it snapped in two. George pushed Ray out of the way, pulled the chains off the door, then unlocked it and hurried inside.

Ray didn’t want to follow George, but he watched him from the open doorway and thought he should try to at least talk him back outside. He watched George scurry around the empty restaurant, muttering to himself as he counted the empty tables and chains. And though Ray knew there was little he could do, he quietly stepped inside and said, “George, please come back out. It’s over. This has gone too far.”

“We are still open, goddammit,” George said.

“Please,” Ray told him. “We’ll wait until things simmer down. Let’s just go home.”

George dismissed the idea with a quick, backhanded wave as he continued pacing the floor, taking this unnecessary inventory of what he still believed was his. Ray, unable to feel pity for George, left the bolt cutters by the door and turned to leave George by himself.

“Ray,” George said, and Ray stopped. “You will be here tonight. You will be here to work.”

And Ray, knowing he had no other choice, said, “Sure, George. I’ll be here.”

That night, Ray Dwyer put on a crisp white shirt and charcoal slacks, and carefully groomed his hair with two fingertips of Royal Crown pomade. And though he’d just polished his black leather shoes the day before, he decided to polish them again. He stood before the bathroom mirror and admired how handsome he still looked after all these years. Sure, his hair was gray and his green eyes, though still clear and strong, had bags under them, but for a fifty-year-old man. Ray knew he could do a lot worse Ray Dwyer also knew he didn’t have much, and that he was probably only hours away from having less than that, which is why he didn’t fed too proud or full of himself for enjoying the few simple things that still belonged to him: his fancy clothes, his muscles, and his good looks.

The many regulars who showed up to see the dancers that night didn’t know they were trespassing, and, actually, neither did the dancers. Still, the patrons were a little rowdier than usual when Karima danced: occasionally, one of the men pinched her, and lots of the men whistled and cheered like a hunch of bachelor party drunks. Ray, on his toes as usual, wagged his finger to calm them down.

George seemed to be encouraging this disorder by whistling at Karima as well. At one point he even pinched her hip, then held out a bill she took in her teeth. Before that. George had marched around the restaurant, shaking the patrons’ hands and bellowing, “Welcome to my place! You can come here to see these beautiful dancers every goddamn night of the week, and you’ll always be welcome!”

Ray could see that even the patrons found George’s behavior more than strange; many gave one another sidelong glances once George left their tables, yet they still ordered their drinks and cheered when Karima sauntered onto the floor.

Everyone, however, seemed to settle once Rita was well into her number, as everyone usually did while she was on. The audience didn’t cheer, whistle, or grab at her, but only stared with a marked and sluggish attention common to those under the influence of narcotics. Her watery movement even relaxed Ray, who leaned against the wall by the men’s room and closed his eyes, slightly happy and thankful he’d at least had a chance to work in such a special place, even if it had only been for a handful of months. And then something happened.

First a bunch of men said, “Hey!” and “What the hell?” and when Ray opened his eyes, he saw nothing but darkness, and realized Rita’s music had stopped; the power had been shut off. He heard George call his name, but couldn’t move from the spot where he leaned. Before Ray knew it, the lights were back on, the music was playing again, and the front door was pushed open by an army of what looked like twenty-five Tinley Park cops.

“Show’s over!” one of the cops said. “Everyone out!”

Then someone threw a glass, another yelled, “Fuck you!” and that’s when all hell broke loose. The cops charged in with their flashlights and nightsticks, swinging at men who’d overturned tables, tossed chairs, and they even swung at the men who weren’t too drunk and only trying to leave. Ray was frozen, petrified beyond movement, and when he heard George yelling for him, calling his name over and over, Ray only became more frightened, and he slid into the bathroom and closed the door.

The first two cops who burst in would have probably only slugged Ray Dwyer a few times if he’d simply listened when they said, “Come on, fucko. Let’s go. Come on,” but he didn’t really hear what the cops said; he only stood there, petrified, hearing threats, and not orders, shooting from their mouths.

The last time he’d had a run-in with the police — when Ray Dwyer had fought them, that is — was when he was a proud, fresh, eighteen-year-old union quarry trucker who was blocking the Tamco entrance gate, on strike with the other drivers and machinists who were up against a greedy, no-good management staff that was trying to yank the food right out of their goddamn mouths; he’d fought the cops who’d tried to pull them away so the dirty goddamn scabs could get through, and had been a hero. He’d been bailed out of jail by the president of the local, who bought him a drink that afternoon at the Stone City tavern, right there on Patterson Road. Loads of guys bought Ray drinks that afternoon, so many drinks that they eventually had to carry him home to his mother and three younger sisters. And for weeks after that, loads of guys slapped his back and told him how proud his old man would have been, seeing his boy, Ray, stand up to them cops like that. A real Dwyer, they’d called him. An honest-to-God fucking Dwyer.

But this time. Ray Dwyer wasn’t on strike against anyone; he was simply confused and scared, as were the five, ten, then fifteen cops who beat and dragged him out of the bathroom when he wouldn’t come out on his own. Later, these cops would say Ray Dwyer swung at them, but he honestly couldn’t remember.

And once they had Ray Dwyer on the floor, the very same floor where Rita, only moments earlier, had relaxed a roomful of drunken men with mature, calculated beauty, the police officers swung their nightsticks and flashlights high above their heads, and beat Ray Dwyer within a stifled breath of his life.

Ray’s body didn’t take the beating as well as it had thirty years earlier. This time, the cops left much more than a smooth scar under his hair. One of his lungs was collapsed, one of his arms broken, and the doctors were quite sure Ray Dwyer would never see out of his left eye again.

But when Ray Dwyer came to in the hospital, his good eye saw George, who was kneeling next to the bed, his eyes red from crying.

“My friend,” George said. “Lord Christ, I’m sorry. This is all my fault.”

And though Ray Dwyer couldn’t speak because his lips were too busted up and sore to even smile, he forgave his boss, George, since he certainly knew what it was to make a mistake, to live with regret over doing something remarkably stupid. He winked with his good eye, stuck his thumb up, and these gestures made George Kariotis smile.

Ray really wished he could talk, and he wished that he and George were in the kitchen drinking wine, smoking, telling stories. Because if they had been, Ray would have assured George that everything was going to be all right, even if the city did close his place down. He imagined taking George by the arm and showing him the big map of the world, then pointing to three places on it, the places where his three sisters lived: Mary in Texas, Katie in southern California, and Maureen in Florida. “See?” Ray imagined telling him. “We can leave this old dump and open a new place. Down here, or here. Or hell, even here. I’ve never been there, but my sisters tell me it’s warm. So what do you say, George?”

And though George Kariotis didn’t yet know the reason for the occasion, Ray Dwyer raised his good arm, and the two men shook hands on this, one hell of a good idea, and Ray Dwyer promised himself to tell George all about it as soon as he was well enough to speak.