Tales From Gavagan's Bar (11 page)

             
Murdoch choked on the last mouthful, set down his glass and looked at Mr. Gross with pain. "If it only was my dragon, I wouldn't care," he said, "but it was borrowed."

             
"That's right, and I misspoke meself," said Mr. Cohan, heartily. "I remember it was right here at this bar that you loaned it off that magician felly, and him drinking his own special drink."

             
Murdoch reached for another swallow. He drizzled some of it on his chin as the door opened, then gave a sigh of relief at the sight of a stranger.

             
Witherwax returned his gaze to the drunken owl, which stared back glassily. "I haven't never seen a dragon, and I don't expect to," he said. "Didn't St. George or somebody get rid of the last one?"

             
"He did not," said Mr. Cohan, having supplied the new arrival with beer. "This here, now, animal we're talking about I seen it with me own eyes; and it was as dragon as could be; and it belonged to that magician felly Abaris."

             
"Still does," said Murdoch in a rueful tone. "That is—well, I don't know why I let myself get mixed up—I didn't
like
him—oh, what the hell!" He took a long pull at his double Zombie.

             
Witherwax turned his gaze to Mr. Cohan. "Who is this guy that owns a dragon? One of them scientists?"

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A magician, I'm telling you [said the bartender]. He gave me his card once; maybe I got it here. Theophrastus V. Abaris [he lined the syllables out slowly] ; you would have seen him yourself, Mr. Gross. He used to come in on Thursday nights when you
did. A big, greasy tub of lard, not honest fat from the wife's cooking like myself. Pale as a corp he was, with his hair hanging down over his coat collar and a little squeaky voice like a choirboy. It's not easy you could miss him if you seen him once.

             
One of them real solitary drinkers he was [Cohan continued], that never buy one for the bartender nor get one on the house, neither. Not that he wasn't friendly; he could talk the tail off a brass monkey, only you couldn't understand half of what he said. I ast him once what he done for a living, and all he said was something that sounded like some kind of religion—I misremember the name.

             
["Pythagorean," said Murdoch, gloomily, and took another drink.]

             
That could be it, and thanks, Mr. Murdoch. I never heard of it before, but I ast me brother Julius that's on the force about it, and he said it didn't look good, but there's no law against it as long as they don't tell fortunes. It has something to do with books. There's some of them old books that are worth all kinds of money.

             
That's what he went away for, he said, since the last time I seen him, to get some book, he said, a book by somebody named Nebulous or something like that.

             
["Zebulon," said Murdoch.]

             
You should of heard him talk about it. He says it's hundreds of years he's been after the book, which is always the way he talks, so that when you can understand what he's saying, you can't believe a word of it. It seems he had the book once; he says he found it on an island in the pink Arabian Sea, just as though I didn't know seawater ain't pink.

             
Then he says the holy Saint Peter stole the book off him;
and besides being a lot of malarkey, he shouldn't be putting his tongue to the names of the holy saints that way; and I told him so. But now he's going to get it back, he says, because there's going to be a convention of fellies in the same line of business over in Brooklyn, I think he said. ["Brocken," corrected Murdoch.]

             
Okay, in Brocken. I remember on account of the date being the first of May, and I thought maybe it was some gang of Commies or something like that, but me brother Julius, that's on the force, says no.

             
Still and all, it's good for business having him in here once in a while, with the tricks he plays, moving his fingers all the time like he's playing a piano that ain't there. Did I ever show you the bottle of private stock he drinks out of, Mr. Gross?

             
[Cohan ducked down to produce it.
"Vin sable,"
read Witherwax from the label. "I know what that means; that's French, and it means 'sand wine.' Have something yourself on this round, will you Mr.
Co-han?"]

             
Don't mind if I do; the first today but not the last, and thank you. Well, I guess they must use black sand with it or something, because you can see for yourself how dark it is, like it was mixed with ink. Gavagan gets it for him from Costello's the importer. No, I wouldn't be selling you a drink of it, Mr. Gross; it would be as much as my job was worth. This here Abaris is that particular; and he is a man I wouldn't want to have take a dislike to me, because of the funny things he can do.

             
[A sound vaguely imitating a rusty hinge emanated from Murdoch.]

             
Why, you wouldn't believe it yourself sometimes, and I wouldn't either, only I seen them with my own two eyes. You know Mr. Jeffers, don't you, Mr. Witherwax? Well, it's a different man he is today than he was, and all because of this Abaris. A fine young man and a fine young felly he always was, except that in the old days, before you began coming in here, Mr. Witherwax, he maybe had too much money and spent too much of it on girls. Take them alone, either one; the money without the women, or a good girl without the
money that can be a help to a young felly, and he's fixed for life. But put them together; and often as not, the young felly goes on the booze.

             
No, you needn't laugh, Mr. Gross. I'm not the man to say anything against good liquor, but I wouldn't want anyone to walk out this door that couldn't go on home on his own two feet. Good liquor helps a man to see that after all it's a small thing that disturbs him; but when you take liquor without the trouble, then the liquor becomes the trouble itself, and that's bad.

             
This was the way it used to be with Mr. Jeffers. He got to taking the liquor with the women, and then without them; and he could be a nasty drunk, too. When I would try to hold him back, he'd go around the corner there to that flashy place, where they don't care what they sell you, and get himself a skinful. Many's the time my brother Julius had to take him home, blind drunk. This evening I'm telling you about, Mr. Jeffers was in here, and so was this Abaris—he used to call himself Doctor Abaris, did I tell you? But when I ast him could he take a wart off her finger for the wife, he said no, so I'll not be giving him the name.

             
So I said to Abaris, was there any trick he could do to make Mr. Jeffers stop drinking, like maybe the time he borrowed the bottle and poured three different things out of it? So he says: "Yes, my dear Cohan; of course, my dear Cohan. Fill up his glass," in that nancy voice of his, and he begins to make those motions like playing the piano.

             
I filled up Mr. Jeffers's glass with brandy like he ordered; and he puts his hand to it; but before he can get the glass to his lips, the brandy is back in the bottle, by God. So after we tried it three times, Mr. Jeffers lets the glass alone; and a funny look comes over his face and he walks out. I thought maybe at the time he was headed for the flashy place again; but he comes back the next night; and you can call me an Orangeman if the same thing don't happen with the first drink Mr. Jeffers orders, while he is cold sober. I don't know how it would be if he come in tonight, but Mr. Jeffers hasn't touched a drop of anything stronger than beer since the day,
and you all know it as well as I do. Abaris himself says the trick is simple; it's nothing but a continuing appropriation, he says.

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"Apportation," said Murdoch.

             
"I thank you, Mr. Murdoch. Excuse it, I must see what this gentleman will be having."

             
"A cousin of mine in Milwaukee once—" began Gross, but Witherwax hastily addressed Murdoch: "What's this business about a dragon? D
id he make you think you'd seen one coming out of your drink?"

             
The young man sipped his Zombie.

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No, nothing like that [he said reflectively]. In fact, I thought it was all part of a stock joke, you know, like kidding someone over his luck with t
he dice or his long ears. I've seen plenty of magicians, like everybody else, at clubs and on the stage; and this Abaris didn't strike me as a particularly prepossessing specimen. In fact, I used to wonder how he made a go of it, because just as Mr. Cohan says, he looked rather greasy and was never well dressed. People like to be fooled; but they want to have it done in the grand manner, by a man with a waxed mustache, wearing a white tie and tails at high noon.

             
So I was just joking myself when I asked him if he were really a magician. [Murdoch shuddered slightly and took another sip.] He has black eyes, with pupils that have a kind of vertical look that I can't describe; he looked at me out of them and said yes, he was, did I have any objections; and from the way he said it, I knew right off that I'd made a mistake. But there didn't seem anything to do but pretend that I hadn't noticed, so I laughed and said he was just the man I wanted; I needed a magician or a Pied Piper at least, to get the mice out of my apartment.

             
[Witherwax laid a bill on the counter and made a circular motion over the glasses, Mr. Cohan bent to the task of making refills.]

             
I have an apartment on Fifth Street [continued Murdoch],
on the third floor over one of those Fairfield restaurants. The only thing wrong with it is that it is—or was—simply overrun with mice. I had to keep all my food in metal or glass containers; they chewed the bindings of my books—really an infliction. You haven't any idea of what pests they can be when they get out of hand.

             
Now, wait a minute [he held up a hand toward Witherwax, whose attitude indicated speech]. I know what you're going to say. You're going to ask why I didn't get an exterminator or a cat. Well, I live alone and do a good deal of traveling, so it would be no use trying to keep a cat. As for the exterminator, I did get one; I got half a dozen, in relays. They came around once a week with traps and mouse seed, which they scattered over the floor until it crunched underfoot, and I suppose they did kill a lot of mice. At least the place smelt like it. But the mice kept coming back.

             
The trouble was that Fairfield restaurant; it was a regular breeding-ground for them. You know the chain is owned by an old girl named Conybeare, Miss Gwen Conybeare. Like a good many other maiden ladies who have all the money they need and more time than they know what to do with, she fell for one of those Indian sects. You know, with meetings in dimly lighted rooms and a prophet with a towel around his head. I suppose it's her business how she wants to spend her time and money; but this particular religion had a feature that made it my business, too. Her teacher convinced her that it was wrong to take life—not human life, but life of any kind, just as in India, where a man will get rid of a louse by picking it off himself and putting it on someone else.

             
She gave absolute orders that no death was to occur in a Fairfield restaurant and wouldn't allow an exterminator on the premises. So you see that as fast as I got rid of the mice in my apartment, a new supply came up from below; and I had a real problem.

             
This Abaris person naturally couldn't know that. When I said I needed a magician to get the mice out of my place, he looked at me with those vertical-appearing pupils and made a kind of noise in his throat that I swear gave me the shivers all
through. [Murdoch shivered again and gulped from his Zombie.] I felt as though he were going to hypnotize me, or make my drink jump back into the bottle, like Jeffers's, and so before anything like that could happen, I began to explain that it wasn't a joke. As soon as I got to the part about Miss Conybeare, he smiled all across his face—he has very full, red lips—and made me a kind of bow.