5
I
t was past eight. He’d been there for more than an hour now, sitting by himself, working on a plate of prime rib and a bottle of red wine and watching the snow fly outside. He still had almost seven hours to go before the meeting with Vic, and no idea what to do or where to go once he’d given Renata the negative. It was too early to go home.
“Charlie?” a voice asked at his side. His reverie broken, he turned from the window and squinted upward at a very tall, very obese man in a nicely tailored suit. “Peter van Heuten’s your brother-in-law, isn’t he?”
“Uh-huh. Used to be, anyway.”
“I was wondering if you could give him a ride home. I’d hate to see him trying to drive home in the state he’s in. Particularly on Christmas Eve.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s at the bar. Maybe you’d care to join him. . . .”
“Okay.” He’d finished his prime rib, anyway. He felt great now, ready to tame lions. Tricking Pete into a ride home would be a breeze.
“Thanks a lot, Charlie. Your bottle’s taken care of, by the way. Merry Christmas.”
They love me here. I’m practically a celebrity. How can I leave? He stood and winced at the nearly forgotten pain in his hip and limped back toward the bar.
The bar was jammed. Among the throng Charlie recognized a county commissioner he had paid off copiously over the last six or seven years, a married local news anchor, and the conductor of the local symphony. Like everyone else in the room they were trying desperately to get laid; Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without fucking somebody you’d just met.
Standing unsteadily against the bar, Pete van Heuten cackled maniacally at the sight of him. “Charlie Arglist, come here, you no-good motherfucker.” The bar was very loud, and he was by far the loudest man in it, braying hoarse greetings across the room to strangers and friends alike. His tweed sport coat was several degrees beyond rumpled, its side pocket ripped at the corner, his reddish blond hair looked like it had been combed with a weed whacker, and still a certain loud, drunken kind of dignity clung to him. Despite the crush there was a distinct empty space on either side of him as he swiveled back and forth, zeroing in on anyone who innocently tried to occupy the adjacent spot. “Chrissakes, Charlie, we used to be family! What a fucking great coincidence, running into you on Christmas Eve! What are you drinking?”
“Red wine.”
“Fuck that, Charlie, drink some Scotch. Barkeep, give my brother-in-law some more of the same poison you been giving me.”
The young woman behind the bar made Charlie a drink and handed it to him, expressionless. She had not yet been ordered to cut Pete off, but she was dying to.
“Look at these pathetic cocksuckers. Piña coladas and ultrasuede three-piece suits, for fuck’s sake.” He gestured at a stylish young attorney Charlie knew by sight, huddled in deep conversation with a female of his kind. “The civilization is on an irreversible downward slide when a guy can get his ashes hauled dressed like that.”
“What you been up to, Pete?”
“Just drawing buildings. Making a fucking mint. I’m serious. I am making a fucking mint. How you doing?”
“About like always.”
“Still a mobster?” Pete yelled, and Charlie winced. “Aw, shit, man, you know perfectly well I’m yanking your fucking chain.”
“How are the kids?” Charlie asked.
Pete was stumped for a moment. “Ah, great, I think. Lessee, Melissa’s in swim club, or maybe that’s Spencer. . . .”
“Not my kids, I’m talking about your kids.”
“Oh, my kids. Uh, they’re fine. You know, pretty much.”
“Where’s Betsy tonight?”
“Her folks’ house, man, it’s Christmas Eve. Oh, my goodness gracious . . .” He looked at his watch in mock horror. “I’m three hours late. . . .” He laughed until his knees bent under him, and he slid his back down the front of the bar until he was leaning back against it in a full crouch, wheezing, clutching his belly with his right hand, tears rolling down his face, rocking with silent mirth. The owner appeared behind the bar and, eyes on Charlie, pointed at Pete and then at the front door. Charlie sensed that Pete wouldn’t be all that receptive to the suggestion that Charlie take him home or, worse, to his in-laws’ house.
“Listen, Pete, I gotta go over to the Sweet Cage; you want to come along?”
Pete looked up, still laughing. “Check out some puss? Oh, yeah!” Charlie pulled him to his feet.
The Lincoln had a drift on the hood as deep as a mattress, and the snow was coming down quietly, slow and thick. Pete was playing with the heater controls on the dash, trying to turn it up higher. “Christ, I wish I had the balls to do what you did,” he said, considerably less animated away from the crowd and the noise of the restaurant.
“What’s that?”
“Get out of that fucking family.”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
“Well, Betsy isn’t about to let me out without a royal reaming. Wants to be a fucking society matron.”
“Yeah, Sarabeth was the same way.”
“Sarabeth, now there’s a scary woman. Scarier than Betsy. Not as scary as their mother.”
“Formidable women, all three,” Charlie said.
Pete snorted. “That’s for fucking sure. I bet ol’ Ma Henneston really thought she’d scored a coup when her girls snagged the likes of us, a lawyer and a fucking architect.”
“We’re a couple of real catches, all right.”
“Christ, I haven’t had a piece of Betsy in six months. Last couple of years she gets this lie-back-and-do-it-for-America look on her face, acts like I’m some kind of sex maniac ’cause I want to keep screwing her even though we already got our biblical allotment of three kids.”
“You have three now?”
Pete frowned for a second, calculating. “Yeah. Third one’s a girl, three and a half. You been out of the family a long time, Charlie.” He stretched, yawning. “So what’s going on at the Sweet Cage? That one of yours?”
“No. I just gotta go talk to the owner about something.”
“All right! Mafia business! What is it, some kind of coke deal?”
“Watch your mouth, okay?”
“Hey, did Vic Cavanaugh really slice some guy’s hand off?”
“Where’d you hear that?”
Pete took this as an affirmative. “I knew it!”
“Where’d you hear it?”
“Guy I know, this cement contractor. Told him my ex-brother-in-law was Vic Cavanaugh’s right-hand man; he said he heard some guy’d stuck his finger up some stripper’s twat onstage at the Tease-O-Rama, and Vic took the poor fucker out back of the club and cut off both his hands.”
“Oh, sure, that’s true.” If that had in fact been the punishment for that particular offense, it would have been administered four or five times a week and the city would be full of men wearing hooks.
“That girl who disappeared, she worked for you, didn’t she?”
“Not for me personally, but yeah, she danced at the Tease-O-Rama.”
“So you knew her, right?”
“Yeah, I knew her,” he said. “Barely.”
“Well, what do you think happened? Think somebody killed her?”
“Probably took off with some guy. It happens sometimes.”
“Paper said she left a couple of kids behind.”
“Uh-huh. So?”
“So you think she was the kind of woman who’d abandon her kids like that?”
“How should I know? Jesus.”
“Paper sure made it sound like she was dead.”
“Yeah, and it also made her out to be a goddamn nun. Shit. I came in one afternoon, about a month after Desiray split, and here’s this woman sitting on a bar stool talking to the bartender. I thought she was applying for a job; turns out she’s interviewing him for the fucking newspaper. I threw her ass right back onto the pavement, but she’d already talked to Francie and Cupcake.”
Pete laughed. “Francie and Cupcake. Sounds like a couple of poodles.”
“Anyway, Cupcake got it into this sob sister’s head that Desiray must be dead ’cause why else would she have left her kids like that?”
“Well, why would she?”
“Women leave their kids sometimes. That reporter made her sound like Judge Crater and Eleanor goddamn Roosevelt rolled into one.” The articles in the paper had caused Charlie a lot of grief, with the cops and with the county and with Vic. The woman hadn’t made the Tease-O-Rama sound like a very wholesome environment for a young mother of two to be working in.
“Hey, Charlie, you ever get to top any of those strippers?”
“Once in a while, if I’m desperately horny or completely shitfaced or just generally have my head up my ass.”
“I’m all three of those most of the time. Hey, speaking of coke, you’re not holding, are you?”
“No,” he said. “And watch that kind of talk; you’re going to get us both in trouble.”
The Sweet Cage was empty except for Sidney, who was screaming at someone on the phone when they walked in. Without looking up or interrupting his screaming he opened two beers and set them down on the bar. His face was bright red and spit was flying.
“Well, if this ain’t the ratfuck of the century I don’t know what is! As far as I’m concerned you can grease up that Yule log of yours and ram it up your shithole!”
Charlie discreetly wiped a tiny fleck of spit from his cheek. Pete leaned over to whisper into Charlie’s ear.
“If this is who you got business with, maybe you oughtta wait for a better time.”
Charlie pulled out the flask and took a swig, and took a pull of his beer. He handed the flask to Pete, who drank with one wary eye trained on Sidney.
“You’ll rue the day you decided you could pull this kind of shit on me, you toothless old whore. I promise you will regret the day you were fucking born.” He slammed the receiver down, then picked it back up and screamed into it at the top of his lungs, then slammed it down into its cradle again and again until finally, breathing hard, he looked up at Charlie and Pete. “Sorry. That was my mom; she wants me to pick up my kids tonight instead of tomorrow. She and her shitbag husband decided they wanna head for Garden of the fucking Gods at six
A.M.
on Christmas morning.” He shook his head as if to clear it.
“Renata around? I got something for her,” Charlie said. He had the envelope in his hand. Holding it made him uncomfortable, almost as though he expected it to jump out of his hand and scurry away across the floor.
“She’ll be back about midnight. You could leave it with me.”
“I better give it to her in person.”
Sidney shrugged. “Okay.”
“Where are the dancers?” Pete whined.
“Where are the customers?” Sidney whined back. “Rusti took off with that kid who tried to paste Culligan. Amy Sue’s sitting in the office waiting for some paying customers to show. Anita’s supposed to be here but she hasn’t shown up yet. Christ, I wish Renata’d let me close the place up. You shut the Tease-O-Rama?”
“No, it’s open.”
“Ah, maybe things’ll pick up after the late-night church services let out.”
“Probably will,” Charlie said, slugging down the beer. “What do we owe you here?”
“You’re still drinking on Renata. I’ll tell her you came by.”
“I’ll be back by midnight.”
“Christ, I may already be gone to pick up my kids. If Renata has to tend bar tonight she will not be in a good mood.”
“She will be when she sees what I got for her,” Charlie said, slapping the envelope against his hand as he and Pete left.
Charlie put the envelope into the glove compartment. “Where to now?”
6
T
he Snifter Club was nestled in the corner of an L-shaped strip mall, between a dry cleaner’s and a greeting card store. It was open from four in the afternoon until two in the morning 365 days a year. There were dim lights hidden from direct view along its red velvetflocked walls and behind the bar, but most of the feeble light came from small candles set in round red pebbled-glass holders on the tables. The menu was expensive and conservative: steak, lobster, pan-fried trout. Charlie had been a member since he was old enough to drink; during his marriage the Snifter had been his second home, particularly toward the end of it, by which time it had also become his primary source of sex. Half a dozen or so more or less attractive, more or less alcoholic women took him on afternoons in approximately biweekly rotation. It had been a good time until one of the women called him aside at the bar and announced to him in a grave and excited tone that her husband had hired a detective and purchased a revolver. Charlie assumed this was melodramatic bullshit, but it unnerved him enough to stop seeing her and to change his drinking patterns. He didn’t stop coming in altogether, but the divorce brought with it new habits and an urge to expand his social horizons, and for the last few years he’d been coming in once or twice a week at the most. Tonight there were a half dozen tables occupied, and only one waiter working the floor.
Pete had hit another talkative stage, although his tone was considerably lower now. “I figure it’s what, about nine-fifteen, they’re just getting done unwrapping presents, they’ll start eating about nine-thirty. I’ll show up around dessert and pick a fight.”
“Sounds delightful,” Charlie said. “I can’t imagine why Betsy cut you off.”
“You should come in, too. Man, it would fucking ruin Sarabeth’s Christmas. That alone oughta make it worth your while. Plus you’ll get to see her new husband. He doesn’t like you at all. And when’s the last time you saw your kids?”
“Not too long.” In fact it had been several months. As his departure date approached his usual negligence had evolved into full-fledged, deliberate avoidance, ostensibly to make it easier on the kids. He had no plans to see them before leaving town.
“We’ll sit here for a few minutes and you think about it. Maybe a little more sauce’ll get you into the Christmas spirit.”
“Maybe,” Charlie said. He felt bad about not seeing the kids, but he couldn’t imagine any way to face them. He suspected that once he was gone the kids wouldn’t care much anyway.
“Could I get another one of these, Kelly?”
“Me, too,” Pete said, draining his half-full highball glass. Kelly, a tall young woman with a black ponytail and eyes so close together they looked slightly crossed, smiled and took both glasses. “You gentlemen are drinking on Trina tonight.”
Charlie spun on his bar stool, squinting in the candlelight. Sitting at a table by herself was the very woman whose husband had supposedly hired the detective and bought the revolver. She raised her glass and nodded almost imperceptibly at Charlie, just a trace of a smile crossing her face. He got down from the stool and limped across the dining room to her table.
“Trina. Nice to see you.”
“Merry Christmas, Charlie. You’re gimpy tonight.”
“It’s my war wound. Chateau Thierry.”
“I didn’t realize you went to Korea,” she said without much interest. She was in her late forties, Charlie guessed, a good-looking woman who worked hard to keep herself that way, then spent lots of time in the sun and drinking heavily. Her ears, throat, and arms were weighed down with gold, silver, and turquoise, and a few strands of her hair, frosted blond and pulled back into a tight knot behind her head, had started to stray loose, drooping along the sides of her temples.
“Where’s that pretty little nurse you’re always with?”
“Respiratory therapist. I don’t see her anymore. Where are all your friends tonight?” He made no move to sit.
“They all crapped out on me, one by one. Everybody thinks they have to see their goddamn families at Christmas.”
“Not me.”
“Not me either. Alex and his ski-bunny whore took the kids to Vail. I said fine, that means I can get laid on Christmas. What are you up to tonight, Charlie? Who’s your interesting-looking friend?” Pete was moving toward the table with their fresh drinks.
“Sarabeth’s sister’s husband. Pete.”
“Hanging around with your ex’s family on Christmas. That’s kind of . . . poignant, Charlie.” She gave a dry little croak of a laugh. “Hi, Pete.”
“Hi, Trina. Wasn’t sure if you remembered me.” He sat down, hanging his free arm down over the back of the chair.
“Sure I do. Refresh my memory, though.”
“About two years ago at the Brass Candle. You were mad at your husband.”
This stirred something. Trina leaned forward to get a good look at Pete, trying to attach his face to a memory.
“He had his hand on some little slut’s ass? And I left with you while he wasn’t looking?”
“That’s it. Christ, he was mad. All our friends were there. Everybody from his firm, everybody we fucking knew. . . . That was you?”
“We were necking at the bar, as I recall.” Except for a mild slur, very slight next to Trina’s, Pete sounded almost completely sober now. “Had my hand all the way up your dress and into your panties. You were pushing into it hard. The whole goddamn bar was watching.”
“Except Alex,” she said. There was new color in her face and a slightly strangled quality to her voice. “I was pretty drunk.”
“We went over to the downtown Holiday Inn and you called and left a message for your husband on his brand-new answering machine while I was doing you from behind.”
She was genuinely flushed now. Charlie couldn’t tell if it was anger or arousal. “That was you?”
“That was me, all right.” Pete was beaming.
Trina motioned for Kelly to come over. “Kelly, Pete and I have something to discuss outside. Will you give Charlie whatever he wants on my tab till we get back?” She was already out of her chair and yanking Pete out of his by the hand. She pulled him to the front door, surprisingly steady on her high heels given how drunk she seemed. She looked good from behind, Charlie thought. Pete looked back and grinned. Charlie felt the urge again and headed back to the men’s room.
It was a few rungs up the hygiene ladder from the Tease-O-Rama men’s room, and instead of a rubber novelty machine, a framed girlie calendar from the 1940s hung over each of the three urinals. The soap in the dispensers was liquid, not grit, and the water was hot. He dried his hands as best he could under the warm air dispensed from the dryer vent and headed back to collect his drink.
“I think she’s sad.” Charlie sat at the bar, bored, listening to Kelly psychoanalyze Trina. “I mean, she’s a good-looking woman, she’s got money, why does she want to hang around a place like this all the time?”
“No place else to go,” Charlie offered.
“I just think she ought to join a club or something to keep her occupied.”
“This is a club right here, honey.”
“Don’t call me honey, Charlie. I mean a club like a garden club or a stamp club.”
“Yeah, I can see Trina getting heavily into stamp collecting; that’d be a real satisfying substitute for boozing and promiscuity.”
“I was just using that as an example!” Kelly was in her early twenties, and she had an unswerving faith in human potential. “If she’d just take some interest in something I think she’d get more out of life.”
The front door opened and Trina walked back in, Pete pressed close to her side. Her makeup was immaculate. Pete looked ready to drop into blissful sleep. They had been gone about fifteen minutes.
Pete sat next to Charlie and they both watched Trina saunter back to the ladies’ room. “I am definitely going to be coming back here.” The slur was back, stronger than before. “I didn’t think I was gonna be able to get it up at this stage. Christ, I’ve been drunk since three this afternoon. Must be a Christmas miracle.”
Kelly looked at Pete with compassionate disapproval. Here was another soul to be reached. “I hope you will come back, Pete.”
He eyed her appraisingly. “I will. Definitely. Um, Charlie, I think I’m about to start hitting a big fade here. We should head for the in-laws’.”
“I’ll wait for you in the car while you say good-bye to Trina.”
Pete came out five minutes later and got into the Lincoln.
“I thought that was Andy Sandoval who left with her that night she called and left the message on Alex’s answering machine,” Charlie said as he pulled out of the space.
“Yeah, it was. But he told me he’d seen her four or five times since and she didn’t seem to remember it was him.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to forget.”
“Yeah, isn’t it? She just seemed so drunk and horny I thought I’d take a shot in the dark. This is the life, Charlie, going over to the in-laws’ for Christmas dinner with that good Trina smell all over old Dingus.”
“Maybe we should stop somewhere so you can wash your dick.”
“No. Not a chance.” He grabbed his shirt and held it to his face, taking in a long, loud breath through his nose. “Stinky cologne, too. You gotta come in with me, Charlie. This’ll be a holiday memory you’ll treasure forever.”
“You sure are animated for someone who was about to hit the fade a second ago.”
“Oh, yeah,” Pete said, “look what she gave me while you were out here.” He produced a tiny square of aluminum foil. “We did a couple lines in the ladies’ room and she gave me this as a little Christmas present. You want to do a line?”
“Not while I’m at the wheel, no.”
“All right. We’ll wait and offer some to Dottie. She could probably use a little lift.”
Charlie turned to the right out of the parking lot heading south, in the direction of his former in-laws’ house. If I leave town without seeing the kids one last time I’ll probably regret it, he thought. I’ll make it quick.