Merlot Page 14

  “Anthony, what in the world do you need up there that’s so important?” his mother called from the base of the ladder.

  “Ma, I told you, I’m looking for something.”

  “I know that’s what you told me, but what is it? You’re going to be messing up everything, come down now. I’ll find whatever it is you need.”

  Yeah, he thought, you haven’t been up here since the 1990s, hoping he could just stall her for a few more minutes. The heat was beyond oppressive. He had sweated through his shirt. Dark stains formed across his chest and down his back. He was opening boxes of towels, Christmas decorations, photos, old army uniforms, report cards, his sister’s wedding dress.

  “Anthony, get down here, now, I do not want a mess up there.”

  He knew from her tone she was getting pissed. The sweat continued to run down his face, dripping off his chin, large drops splashing onto the contents of every box.

  “Anthony, not a minute more, you get down here now, mister!”

  There it was, in a shoe box from the Golden Rule, a store that had closed years before he was born. The gun, a revolver, wrapped in an oily T-shirt. He unfolded the cloth, even in this heat the revolver felt cold to the touch.

  “I’m coming up there, young man,” and he heard the ladder creak with his mother’s weight.

  “I’m coming down, Mom, relax,” he said stuffing the revolver in his belt, untucking his shirt to hide it, then grabbing a photo album on his way down the ladder.

  “What in the world were you thinking? Look at you, you’re all sweaty, an absolute mess,” she said and brushed grime from his shirt, narrowly missed the revolver jammed in his belt.

  “And what are you going to do with those photos? Don’t you mess those up, I need those.” A half step behind him as he carried the ladder back to the basement.

  “I just want to make a copy of one or two pictures for my office,” he said, holding the album tightly against the revolver.

  “Well, why did it have to be this minute? Did you leave a mess up there? I suppose I won’t be able to find a thing.”

  “Mom, it’s not a mess. Look I gotta run, I’m gonna make a copy or two from this and then I’ll bring it back, okay?”

  “Well see that you do, I don’t like the idea of you traipsing around town and forgetting it somewhere or one of those so called friends of yours setting a bottle of beer on it. The next thing I know the whole thing is ruined.”

  He felt like pointing out the obvious, that the album had been in the attic for the last four decades suffering hundred-and-fifty-degree temperature swings and no one was stupid enough to use it as a coaster for a beer anyway, but figured why bother?

  “I love you, Mom,” he said giving her a kiss on the cheek and quickly retreating to his car.

  * * *

  “He’s gone so it’s safe to come out,” Carol called watching Otto drive away in his pickup. Cindy was sweltering in the bank vault as the digital counting machine, generating additional heat, slapped stacks of twenty dollar bills into bundles of $5000.

  “Thank God, he just gives me the absolute creeps.”

  “Yeah, I don’t blame you. I just feel like I’ve been soaking my hands in lard. Phew!” Carol exclaimed, sniffing her hands.

  * * *

  Merlot was in his office examining the revolver. The oil-soaked T-shirt it had been wrapped in for the past thirty or forty years lay on the corner of his desk. He sat there with the cylinder open, spinning it, listening to the clicking. He worked the hammer back and forth, then carefully pulled the trigger. Everything seemed to be in working order.

  His phone rang, by the tone it was an inside call,

  “Yeah,” he answered, sighting the revolver at a floor lamp.

  “Merlot, Tommy. Hey, someone here to see you, ahh, I’m sorry sir, what did you say your name was?” a momentary pause.

  “Yeah, Merlot, a Mr. Hans Ulmbacher to see you.”

  Merlot sat up straight, fucking Dickie.

  “Give him a beer, and send him back,” he said, quickly wrapping the revolver in the oily T-shirt, and stuffing it in a desk drawer.

  “Hey man,” Dickie said walking in, sipping a mug of beer as if Sunday afternoon had never happened.

  He had completely shaved his head, and he was growing a mustache and goatee that made him look like an overweight version of Lucifer. He wore a dark suit, blue shirt, and a loose tie, all splattered with food stains.

  “So, shine on harvest moon,” Merlot said, sitting back in his chair.

  “Hey man, how’s it going?” Dickie asked taking another sip from his beer before setting the dripping beer mug on the photo album.

  “Don’t set that there, you dumb shit,” Merlot said.

  “Oops,” Dickie reached up to catch the mug in mid spill, sloshing beer across the cover of the album.

  “It’s my mom’s album, man.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Where in the hell have you been, Dickie?” Merlot asked shaking the puddle of beer off the faded album cover and onto the floor. “Christ we’ve all been worried about you. And what’s with the suit? I haven’t seen you in one since high school graduation?”

  “Tell me about it,” he said rubbing his newly shaved head. “Can you believe what a federal case they’re making out of Sunday? I’ve had to do this disguise deal so no one would recognize me. Hey, do you dig the beard?”

  “Yeah, great, man. You look like a demented devil. Where have you been, Dickie? Still got your job?”

  “Barely, that’s the reason for the threads. I’m on like, double secret probation and a whole bunch of other shit.” He tilted his head back and stretched his three chins into one long fat chin.

  “I can’t even eat with the other employees in the cafeteria. I’ve been laying low in case someone recognizes me. Fortunately, we’re so damn busy they can’t afford to fire my ass right now. We’re in the midst of switching over some systems, and they really can’t do it without me, well, unless they want to start over from scratch. Course, the bastards banned me from ever attending another Vikings game as a condition of continued employment.”

  “My mom told me she was going to have to leave town.”

  “God, I only wish my mom would leave town. I catch hell at work all day, then I get home and while I’m listening to messages from her bitching she calls up to bitch at me some more. She’s still really major league pissed off!”

  “Dickie, can you blame her? Jesus! You, we, were on national news, man, all fifty states. My mom was bitching about Good Morning America for Christ sake. Shit, Little Stevie called me from somewhere in South Dakota, Victor’s brother called him from Atlanta. Victor and Andrew are banned from ever getting their firm’s tickets again.”

  “No shit, they’re such great seats,” not quite grasping the point. “Well look, I’m sorry, man, I really am. I mean I’m sure its been a little tough on you guys…”

  “A little tough! I gotta tell you, Dickie, I don’t need this kind of publicity. I got a business to run here, I gotta deal with the public every day.”

  “Hey look, I know, man. Look, I’m going around apologizing to everyone, I’ll go to your mom’s if you want.”

  “No, not that, please don’t.”

  “Well anyway, I’ve seen Victor and Andrew, course Wiener, you know how he is. Guess what? This is kinda cool, he’s got some hot affair going on with some kinky chick who got turned on by the whole deal.”

  Merlot pondered that last statement and decided not to learn any more.

  “Look I know it’s been tough, the news, national news, talk radio, the local papers, USA Today. I hadn’t heard about Good Morning America. It’s sort of off the Internet, for the moment. Maybe Time or Newsweek. They’ll be on the shelves tomorrow and we’ll see, but it hasn’t been a picnic for me, either,” he said looking up at Merlot, sincere in his apology.

  “It started Sunday night, by the time I got home I had about a half dozen messages from my mom. Not a happy bunny.
By then the local news organizations had already called, channel four, five, nine and eleven, bunch of radio stations. Did I leave anyone out?”

  Merlot groaned.

  “I mean how in the hell? That was Sunday night, when I went out the door Monday morning at six there were three live cameras waiting for me. So much for trying to keep a low profile.”

  “How’d they find out it was you?”

  “Well, I figure so many folks know me, man just about anyone could have talked. Course one of the rock stations had a contest to identify me. Guess their switchboards got flooded in the first few minutes.”

  “Hey, some guy left a message, wants to write a book about me. That was kinda cool, he seemed a little screwy, though. Another dude called and wanted to include me in a bunch of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not deals he was submitting but you gotta pay him so I said no. And another guy wanted to put my name into the Guinness Book of World Records. That could be kind of cool, but I took a pass on that one, too. What with them going ballistic at the office and all, I figured the timing might not be the greatest.”

  “Did Victor tell you we were trying to call you? We were worried about you.”

  “Yeah, I know, thanks. I just let the message box get full at work and haven’t answered them. Probably a good number of them are from my mom anyway, you know, bitching. I’m using the guy’s extension next to me. He’s on vacation so if you guys need to reach me for the next week and a half just call 1-1-4.”

  “God.”

  “I talked to my attorney. He said I don’t have to appear in court, just pay the fine and don’t do anything like this again. Like that’s gonna be a problem, no worry there.”

  Merlot nodded.

  “Hell, even Jerry Cardy got my phone number from somewhere. Probably his old man. He called from the hospital, right after the Vikings cut him loose. Left a message saying it was all my fault. Yeah, right, like I did something wrong. Well, I mean yeah, okay. But, I wasn’t the one who ran the wrong way in the game. Wild Card, my fat ass.”

  “Dickie, anything I can do for you?”

  “Naw, but thanks, man, I appreciate it. Sorry about your mom. Look, I know you’re getting into the busy time of day here, just wanted to stop in, make sure we were still pals, you know.”

  “Hey, Dickie, we’ll always be pals. You’re going to be at Wiener’s tomorrow night, right?”

  “Well, yeah, if it’s still on? Hey, that’s something positive, man! Did I mention Wiener says this chick named Lindsey or Ashley or something has been on him the last two nights, just wearing him out? She really got off once she found out he was famous and all.”

  “So there you go, it wasn’t a complete waste of your talent. At least he got some benefit. Let’s just aim for something a little more subtle next time, okay?”

  “Subtle, yeah, that’s me from now on man, subtle!” Dickie half shouted.

  “Calmly, Dickie, calmly,” Merlot cautioned.

  “Oh yeah, sorry, dude. Look gotta go, let you get back to work here. See you tomorrow night, man.” He drained his beer, then set the empty down on the photo album.

  “Tomorrow night, Dickie, remember, stay calm,” Merlot sighed, shaking his head.

  * * *

  “What are you talking about, Tracey? Calm down, I can hardly understand you, you’re talking so damn fast.” Lucerne was seated on the bathroom floor in the motel room, half whispering so Mendel and Elvis wouldn’t hear him on the phone.

  “What do you mean you’re on strike, Tracey? Didn’t ya tell me you were a vice president in a company? I thought vice presidents couldn’t go on strike?”

  Oh brother, Daphne said to herself, still, there was something weirdly solid about this Lucerne guy. She could tell from his voice, the way he phoned her at least three times a day for the past two weeks. She’d come to like his simple manner, the forceful tone in his voice, perhaps suggesting a more sterling quality then the usual phone sex clientele she dealt with.

  “Look, Lucerne, things are so crazy around here I just don’t know how much more I can take. They had us dancing downstairs yesterday. That was a complete disaster. Then we organized our picket line late yesterday afternoon and some folks from the news came around filming. Maybe you caught it on TV?” she paused, ready to explain why she looked a hundred and forty pounds heavier than the woman on the late night television ad. Or if they really got into it, why her name was Daphne and not Tracey.

  Lucerne wondered why in the hell he would watch the news?

  She waited a moment or two longer.

  “Some of the girls are picketing right now. We’re all taking turns. I’ll be down there this evening after my shift,” she confided.

  None of what she said was making any sense so he asked,

  “Well, why would they want you to dance? That part there, it ain’t makin a lick of sense.”

  He envisioned a ballroom, with a mirrored sphere spinning in the center of the ceiling. Tracey wore white gloves up to her elbows and a long sparkly gown down to her high heels. She ran down a curving staircase from her vice president’s job to dance with some old boss. Probably a fat, white-haired guy with a white mustache, wearing a black tuxedo, a monocle, maybe a top hat and carrying a gold handled cane. Once her dance was finished she would run back up the staircase to do whatever it was vice presidents do.

  She cringed at the memory of climbing on the stage wearing lingerie made for someone half her size.

  “So, anyway Lucerne, like I was saying, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to talk to you.”

  He gulped audibly, “Tracey, I thought we had something here. I was thinking wouldn’t it be nice to finally meet? We been talking everyday for weeks. Seems to me it’s sorta just like courtin’, don’t ya think?”

  She shook her head in disbelief and reached for another caramel.

  “Boy, that would be fun Lucerne, but I just don’t know how that’s going to happen. Osborne’s likely to fire the whole bunch of us the way things are going and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure I even care. Maybe I’ll just sit back and collect unemployment for a while and look at all my options.”

  “Don’t you think we better meet, then, pretty quick, before that happens? Who’s this Osborne anyway? He the old boss man?” he asked, conjuring up the image of the white-haired, tuxedoed guy.

  “Maybe I could help straighten things out. Maybe talk to the guy, nice like,” he added.

  “Lucerne, damn it! Lucerne?” Mendel yelled, banging on the bathroom door. “What the hell you doing in there, boy, Christ. We can hear ya moaning and groaning all the ways out here, you moron. Get your worthless ass out here. I gotta piss like a race horse.” Mendel pounded on the bathroom door a half dozen more times.

  “What’s all that?” she asked, tossing another caramel into her mouth.

  “Oh, just my brother, Mendel, gotta piss is all.”

  “Hunh?”

  “Look, Tracey, I better let you go and get back to your vice persidentin’, there. I’m kinda busy here, ya know.”

  “Sure, Lucerne, whatever, talk to you later, I hope.”

  “God damn it, Mendel, can’t a man even talk for a few minutes to his woman without having to be interrupted by the likes of you needing to take a damn piss?”

  “Your woman?” Mendel asked, unzipping his jeans, ignoring his aim.

  “Your woman? Hell you never even seen her, you big dummy. You ain’t got the slightest idea what in the hell she even looks like.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Mendel, you are so damned wrong. Thinking you know every damn little thing. Shit, I happen to know Tracey is shy, has brown hair, a white phone, wears a black bra, drinks wine outa a fancy glass, is a vice president, and dances.”

  Mendel strode out of the bathroom zipping his fly, not thinking to flush or wash his hands.

  “All’s I know is your damn delusional. Now help us get these damn weapons ready.”

  “You’ll see,” said Lucerne, thinking he
had better begin planning to rescue Tracey from that Osborne fella while there was still time.

  * * *

  Otto settled into his recliner, carefully placed his feet into the large pan of Epsom salts. He exhaled deeply and felt himself begin to relax. He took a long swallow of beer, rested the can on the duct taped arm of the recliner.

  He looked around his living room at the growing piles of laundry. He had a plan for that. One more day and he’d ask the bank teller out. Give her a ticket into the fair, maybe some sort of a half-price-off deal at his stands.

  He had to be careful, just get her over here with the idea that she could take her time doing the laundry and the cleaning. Maybe after she got him a beer he could sit around in his recliner and nicely point things out. Maybe, he thought, if he sorted the laundry, whites and darks.

  Thursday

  “Have you even the foggiest idea what you are doing?” Osborne asked Milton, wrenching the blood pressure sleeve from Milton’s left hand.

  Milton’s swollen and discolored right arm hung limp and useless, unable to do anything but throb painfully at his side. It had taken on a greenish tint, leaking puss as well as beginning to carry a bit of an odor. He had earlier attempted to sterilize the wound by pouring a liberal amount of gin over his hand. Osborne had accused him of reeking like a distillery, and that had been the end of that.

  “For God’s sake, Milton, what do you think you’re doing?” Osborne wrenched the blood pressure cuff off his elbow.

  Milton hadn’t the foggiest idea what he was doing. The infection that yesterday made him light headed, was now making him dizzy.

  “Keep that wretched thing away from me, I’m liable to catch something. And let’s do something about that smell. Your rotting is beginning to affect my concentration.” Osborne lifted the blinds from his office window and glanced down on the thong clad protestors.

  “I can’t believe those ungrateful wenches have continued this ridiculous strike. It’s been three days and the only thing that’s improved in this situation is their suntan. Suntan. Milton? Say I offered a rather attractive purse of maybe $500. We’ll advertise it on the marquee, hold a suntan contest tomorrow. Yes, not only a suntan contest but an amateur night as well. Excellent way to replace them all,” he dropped the blinds and walked back behind his desk.