The Barkeep (4 page)

“I like a good cut of meat now and then,” said Birdie Grackle, grease glossing his lips. “Have you ever noticed how a fine piece of strip has the faint taste of pussy in it? Meaty and plump. That’s why men eat steak. And why Marges all love their tuna fish, because ain’t nothing faint about that. But you get a taste of something, it can be hard to get it out your mouth.
Like killing. What’s that green gunk you’re eating?”

“It’s spinach,” said Justin. “Creamed.”

“You don’t take to steak?”

“I don’t eat meat anymore.”

“What, are you a fruit?”

“No.”

“Then you’re like a veterinarian or something.”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Well, that’s a cause of concern right there. I haven’t met too many veterinarians that wasn’t something wrong with they heads. So what is it, you trying to live forever? Or are you forgoing meat out of empathy with the cow? Because if that’s it, I got to tell you from long experience that your basic cow is as dumb an animal as exists on this good earth.”

“I work in a bar, so you’ll be hard-pressed to convince me of that.”

“You might be right at that,” said Grackle with a wink as he sliced off a slab of beef and held it in the air with his fork so that it dripped red onto his plate. “So tell me, doctor. What turned you off to one of the great pleasures in this life?”

“Let’s just say when you come home and find your mother in the hallway, facedown on the floor, her head smashed open and her blood and urine soaking into the rug, the sight and the smell, it steals away your taste for meat.”

Birdie Grackle looked at Justin for a moment, stared right into his eyes, and then, still staring, he shoved the bleeding piece of steak between his false teeth. “That might do it,” he said as he chewed, “for some. But I never let the dead stop me from living. I learned that piece of wisdom in the war along with my technique.”

“Technique? What kind of technique does it take to bash a defenseless woman in the head?”

“You don’t want to go into the details, son, trust me.”

“You’re wrong, Birdie. Into the details is exactly where I want to go.”

“Suit yourself.”

Grackle picked his napkin off the table, wiped his greasy lips, laid the napkin neatly on his lap. Before Justin could react, Birdie’s arms leaped at Justin with the quickness of two cobras. One hand grabbed hold of the right side of Justin’s skull and pulled him close, the other stuck something sharp into the skin behind Justin’s left earlobe.

“What the—”

“Right now I got an ice pick pointed at your brain stem. A quick punch and that will be all she wrote about your pathetic little story.”

As the sharp tip of the pick pressed against his flesh, Justin felt no fear, just a placid stillness and the faint glimmerings of a strange and unreadable hope. “Is that what you claim you did to my mother?” he said calmly.

Grackle pressed the sharp thing deeper into Justin’s flesh and then suddenly let go. Justin caught a glimpse of something dully metallic in the old man’s right hand as his arms dropped beneath the table.

“It’s just a technique of mine is all,” said Grackle. “One of them. I learned me a bunch, all courtesy of Uncle Sam. But the most important was, it don’t matter how many bullets you put in a fellow’s chest, if you want him dead, you better ice-pick his brain. You want to order me another drink?”

Justin raised his arm for the waiter.

“I wasn’t a young man when I found myself in the middle of the killing,” said Birdie Grackle after the liquor came. “A judge in Odessa gave me a choice, prison or the army, and I chose wrong. But one night in the jungle, a fat-faced lieutenant asked
me if I wanted to volunteer for some sort of counterinsurgency unit. He said I’d be sent to Saigon for training and then would work primarily behind our own lines. Fresh sheets at night, hot and cold running bar girls, a chance to shack with a piece of hooch. Counterinsurgency? Count me in. But I’ll tell you this, in a lot of ways it was more than I bargained for.”

“What were you, in an intelligence unit?”

“Don’t be a fool. I ain’t exactly dumb, but no one in his right mind woulda hired me for something to do with intelligence. No, we was only about elimination. We’d get our orders, go out and take care of it. Small villages within our sector, spies working in Saigon itself. When we showed up, they all shit because we never left nothing breathing behind, not even the pigs, that was our way. It was hard at first, coming to grips with what we was doing, but I managed, and it sure as hell beat crawling through the jungles at night, pissing my pants in fear. It’s funny what kind of hell you can get used to. And the things I learned, boy, you couldn’t get them things on your own in a hundred years. When I came back, what I fell into just seemed like a continuation of my war. I was in a slaughterhouse in Texas for a bit, killing those dumb pieces of beef with a bolt gun at that same spot in the head I showed you, pulling out the stinking stomachs full of acid. And then I got an opportunity to raise it up a notch.”

“By becoming a contract killer, Birdie? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I was what I was, is all. Was a man named Preacher who gave me my running orders. Never knew who was running him and never cared. He gave me a name, an address, any sundry instructions for the job, and a do-by date. That was all I needed. It doesn’t take long to shadow a name enough to figure all the angles, as long as you know how to finish it off.”

“And you were hired to kill my mother.”

“It wasn’t much of a job, truth be told. She was too nice a lady to make it hard. I put on a brown uniform, told her through the door I had a package to deliver. At one point she turned her back to me, and that was it.”

“Who hired you?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? But Preacher, he never told me that. Ever. It was just a name, an address, special instructions and a do-by date.”

“That’s a hell of a story.”

“You don’t believe me,” said Grackle. “I can tell. But it don’t much matter either way. Was a whore in Lubbock named Stella who used to scream out like a gut-shot bear in the middle of the action. I never believed a bit of it, but it still felt good. You’ll carry this with you a long time. And I want you to know, I did a clean job before I messed it up for them police. Your momma, she didn’t feel nothing. She went peaceful as a piece of veal.”

“Fuck you,” blurted out Justin, surprising himself at the vehemence of his words.

“Maybe, yeah. But in time you’ll be thanking me. It just needs some curing is all.”

Justin stared for a moment and tried to gauge his own emotions. They were pretty damn raw, as raw as if he actually were face-to-face with his mother’s killer. Something in the old man was drawing the worst out of Justin, had been drawing it out from the first, and he couldn’t quite figure out what. It was more than just his false claim about Justin’s mother, it was something in the old man’s smell, maybe, or in the old man’s very being. Justin took a moment to let his emotions rise within him, rise and burn and wash through him until he was left with nothing but the placid stillness.

“Okay,” said Justin. “I think I’ve heard enough of your story, and seen you chew enough burnt muscle to keep me nauseous for a week. So what is it you want here, Birdie? What’s your angle?”

“No angle. This is my farewell tour, like I said. A chance to offer a confession and to ease my soul. An opportunity to meet face-to-face the son of one of my victims and see that my life hasn’t been all that ruinous. And a chance, maybe, to make some sort of amends.”

Justin stared at the old man, saw the devious glint in his wet eyes, tried to fight a smile and lost.

“Amends?”

“Well, most of my jobs you could see the reason behind. Miserable sons of bitches, fat slobs and corporate types. You know, nothing to get all misty about. I even laughed when I drowned a banker in his own marble tub. But your momma, that was something different. Couldn’t see no reason why she got what she got. And she was nice enough to let me use her bathroom.”

“You crapped in our bathroom?”

“I pinched a loaf there, yes I did. A two-flusher for sure. That was why I always felt a bit bad about that job there.”

“You have a kind and gentle heart.”

“So I thought, maybe, as a final gesture, I’d do one more piece of work, just for your mom. I’d take care of whoever it was what set her up in the first place.”

“But you don’t know who it is. You said so yourself.”

“Well, maybe I have myself some clues.”

“Maybe I do too,” said Justin. “And since the killer is already in jail for the rest of his miserable life, maybe I don’t need your amends.”

“If he’s the right one.”

There was something in Birdie Grackle’s smile that hooked Justin’s gaze like a barb hooking skin. “Oh, he’s the right one, all right.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Birdie. “’Cause Preacher, when he hired me, he let slip with something that says he ain’t.”

“And you can’t wait to tell me.”

“For a price.”

And in that moment a knot in Justin’s gut loosened. He wasn’t facing the fiend who had murdered his mother. All he was facing was a pathetic old man lying through his false teeth. He had figured the old man was lying about the killing from the start, but Justin couldn’t quite figure out why. All the lies ever told in a bar could be distilled into three: I’m not a drunk; I’m not trying to pick your pocket; I’m not looking for meaningless impersonal sex. Justin already knew the old man was a stew, and he hoped to God he wasn’t after sex. Which left Birdie Grackle trying to pick Justin’s pocket, and Justin was curious as hell as to how the old man intended to use his mother’s murder to do that. Maybe he had done it already, what with the drinks and the meal, but Justin sensed someone like Birdie was after more than a meal. And now here it came.

“You want me to hire you to tell me who hired you to kill my mom.”

“That’s part of it.”

“And the other part?”

“To take care of it, like I said.”

“By take care of it you mean…”

“That’s right.”

“And how much will this cost me?”

“Being as I’m half-dead and feeling sentimental, I’m going to give you a discount. Ten thousand flat, plus expenses.”

“Up front?”

“Half now, half on completion.”

“That all?”

“A bargain.”

“I mean you did all this, learned all you had to learn, sought me out for a mere five thousand dollars. It hardly seems worth it, Birdie.”

“Ten thousand.”

“Let’s just talk about the half you want now.”

“Even half ain’t no chicken feed.”

“But still.”

“Well, you know, it’s more the spirit of the thing than the money.”

And that’s when Justin burst out laughing. This whole hit-man act, played by a soused Texas con man with an old-time baseball name, was comical enough. But then to top it off with his self-satisfied mien as he tried to pawn off his moneygrubbing as charity was just too damn rich. The whole show had been worth the price of dinner, and Justin was almost sorry to have to piss on the old man’s well-laid plans.

“What’s so funny?” said Grackle.

“You, Birdie. You’ve worked this up pretty well, I must say, this whole I-killed-your-momma thing. You’ve been digging through the old newspaper accounts, no doubt. But there were a couple of parts you didn’t think out. First, I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“Even the person who killed your mom?”

“Based on what you said, that would be you.”

“I’m just the instrument, like a gun. And you know what they say about guns.”

“Whatever you might be, I’m not a killer. It’s hard enough to live with myself as it is. The karma would be all wrong. And
besides, I don’t have any money. I don’t sling drinks for my health. End of the month I’m strapped like everyone else. There’s nothing to tap, here, Birdie. Sorry.”

“You could raise it if you wanted.”

“No I couldn’t.”

“What about your daddy? He sure got it somewheres. You could ask him.”

With the swiftness of an arctic wind, Birdie Grackle became suddenly less amusing. “I don’t talk to my father,” said Justin.

“Maybe it’s time to start.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to go to hell.”

“Don’t you worry, boy. At the rate things is closing down on me, that won’t be too long.”

“And the third reason your little scheme isn’t going to work is that I know very well who killed my mom. And he is currently in jail for the rest of his natural-born life. So I have no need for your services. We’re done. Your scam isn’t going to work, but I have to admit it is a first.”

“Is that how it’s going to be?”

“That’s how it’s going to be.”

“Suit yourself,” said Birdie. He picked up his drink, slurped the rest of it down, pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket with a number scrawled on it. “You reconsider, you give me a call. I’ll be in town for a few days, catch a ball game maybe, but then I’m gone.” He stood and looked down. “Don’t take too long.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

Grackle smiled at Justin as if he knew something that Justin didn’t, before turning, hitching up his pants, and heading out of the restaurant. Then he stopped, like he had suddenly remembered he left his teeth beneath the napkin, and came back to the table.

“You know, that job, the instructions Preacher gave me, it was supposed to look like a robbery. And whatever I took, I was supposed to hand over to Preacher for him to give the client as proof. But I didn’t hand over everything. I used to take souvenirs from my jobs. Little things, knickknacks to remind me of what I was. But I don’t need them trophies no more, so I thought you might like this.” He pulled from his jacket pocket an old, worn envelope and tossed it onto the table. It landed with a thunk.

Justin picked up the envelope. There was something small inside, small but heavy. He tore the end of the envelope off and dumped the object onto the tablecloth.

A turtle.

He looked up to see Birdie Grackle’s back retreating from him, looked down again at the turtle. Not a real one, a pin, a women’s brooch, made of green enamel with rhinestone eyes. It was a cute little thing, something that would appeal to a kid’s sensibilities. Justin knew this because he had bought the enamel turtle for his mother for Mother’s Day when he was the tender age of twelve.