Merlot Read online

  He’d already received a couple of calls from work on his cell, but figured since he was only a few blocks away, it could wait ten more minutes while he swung into the coffee shop for his morning latte and doughnut.

  “Hi Chrissie, I’ll have a double latte and one of those French doughnuts,” he said to the sinful looking blonde behind the counter.

  “The bagel would be better for you, honey, lot less cholesterol”.

  “Two French doughnuts,” he said.

  “Here, maybe stop in and see me tonight or some other night,” he quickly added, handing her his business card, again.

  “I’ll buy and we can see where things go from there.”

  “Gee, thanks Merlot. I don’t know, can you be trusted?”

  “No, that’s part of the deal.”

  “Hmm-mmm sounds fun, we’ll have to see,” she called after him, then tossed his card in the trash as he climbed into his car.

  * * *

  “Merlot? Didn’t you get my calls?” Patti whined at him as soon as he entered the bar.

  “Look, Patti,” he started with a mouthful of French doughnut, washed it down with a swallow of latte to buy time.

  “I don’t know exactly how to tell you this, but your kids…”

  “My kids! Oh God, Merlot, is that why you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder for four damn months? Don’t be stupid. My kids? I don’t want someone like you around my kids. No offense, but they’re really impressionable. No, believe me. Actually, I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and I’m going to have to leave about thirty minutes early. I just wanted to let you know.”

  “No problem. Thanks for the heads up.” Thinking doctor’s, he quickly counted back the time that had passed since their weekend together, concluded no, it couldn’t possibly be him. Could it?

  * * *

  At no surprise Merlot was obsessing about Osborne and his loan. Christ, he’d have to rob a bank…

  He recalled bits of a drunken conversation last night during the card game.

  “Ahh, man, sorry guys, I gotta run,” Dickie had said, raking in his winnings.

  Dickie’s name was really Hans. Hans Ulmbacher, about as German as it gets. Five feet seven inches tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, and close to five feet seven inches wide, weighing in at just about three bills. It was why they called him Dickie, it meant fatty in German.

  Dickie was an IT guy for a bank, complaining about work.

  “Look, fellas, I’m really bushed. I told ya, this is State Fair week. One of our branches handles all the cash from the fairgrounds. I mean this little dinky branch, they do zip the rest of the year. But during the fair they’ve got the cash literally stuffed into trash bags. The courier guys go nuts. We bring in a half dozen extra counting machines just to handle the shit. Then get it processed enough so they can haul it to Central where it’s a hell of a lot safer.”

  “Amazing we’ve never been hit. They literally have the bills stuffed into trash bags. Wheel it out in a shopping cart to the armored car. All this cash, sticky from cotton candy and smelling like pronto pups. God, you’d think you were walking through the Midway.”

  “Should you be telling us this?” Victor asked.

  “Yeah, like you guys would tell anyone.” Dickie snorted.

  * * *

  “Hans Ulmbacher, please,” Merlot said into the phone.

  “Merlot!” Dickie answered two minutes later. “Sorry to make you wait. What can I do for you? Don’t need a loan, do ya?”

  Merlot was quiet for a long moment.

  “Dickey, you got time to stop in on the way home? I got a couple of things I wanted to run past you.”

  “I could. It might be a little late. Maybe eight, everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine, just looking at a couple of different systems here and wanted your input.”

  “Not a problem, my fee is dinner, in advance.”

  “Perfect, we got a great prime rib. We’ll go back into the kitchen, you can pick the one you want. No rush, just ask for me at the bar.”

  “Now you’re talking, man!”

  Step one taken care of. He had enough time to run over and see the physical layout of the bank branch. Maybe begin formulating some sort of basic plan. Look around without being too obvious.

  Note to self he thought pulling out of his parking place. I’ll need a set of disposable, untraceable, wheels for a get away vehicle.

  * * *

  The staccato, synthesized beat blaring across the mirrored stage and the naked redhead on the brass pole were lost on Milton as he helped himself to the early bird breakfast buffet. From 6:30 to 11:00 in the morning, the Beaver Hut served a Brunch and Buns special featuring scrambled eggs, bacon and ten different strippers. Milton took his usual place at the bar and ignored the naked woman stuffing dollar bills into her garter.

  Brunch and Buns had been Osborne’s clever idea, skirting the law by offering only non-alcoholic fresh juice drinks before 11:00.

  A naked woman stepped on stage. A large rattle snake tattoo emerged from her backside, coiled seductively around her waist before barred fangs poised to strike a surgically enhanced right breast.

  Mary Alice Mahoney, dancing under the stage name Serpentina, had attempted to create an element of mystique when she got her tattoo two years ago. Unfortunately, her thought process had been somewhat clouded by three days of tequila shots and cocaine at a Las Vegas golf cart convention. Her sponsors, a bunch of sales guys from Coral Gables, were pushing the idea of charging a hundred bucks to chip a plastic golf ball off her breasts. She fled Vegas that night.

  Her post Brunch and Buns duties consisted of getting things for Osborne; the mail, the phone, his chair, a pen, anything and everything he wanted, all the while decked out in a starched white nurse’s uniform and surgical latex gloves. Everything that might come in contact with him was slathered with a liberal dose of hospital disinfectant.

  A promising nursing student until her fondness for Darvon and nitrous oxide had been discovered. When she wasn’t dispensing disinfectant or getting the mail, she monitored Osborne’s pulse, temperature, and blood pressure. She issued various pills throughout the day for his contrived ailments and, in general, helped to feed his neurotic hypochondria.

  She ignored furtive looks from the other girls in the dressing room, kicked off her sliver stiletto heels, pulled the plastic bag off a freshly starched nurses uniform, pinned her hat in place, ready for another germ-free day with Declan Osborne.

  * * *

  “Good morning, come in my dear,” Osborne anxiously beckoned a few minutes later. He sat behind an expansive polished mahogany desk and rolled up his sleeve for the blood-pressure cuff.

  She was forced to take very small steps due to her uniform being two sizes too small. This was probably just as well, since Osborne had her wearing white stiletto heels, and she hadn’t seen her feet since her breast augmentation.

  “Let’s get the day’s preliminaries over with, shall we?” he said, then opened his mouth for the digital thermometer. After taking his blood pressure and checking his pulse with a stopwatch she quickly misted the phone and desk area with disinfectant.

  “And begin,” he instructed, shutting down his computer, signaling the all clear for her to cleanse his keyboard.

  Finished, she quickly reached under his desk and rebooted his computer while he sat in his office chair, arms outstretched, palms upward, not unlike a surgeon awaiting the proper instrument, one eye on the digital clock to ensure she completed her appointed tasks within his prescribed time frame.

  “Excellent, excellent girl,” never once did he ever call her by name. “Now on your way out there are four dozen jelly doughnuts I picked up late yesterday. Please bring them up to the Fat Farm and then return.” He turned back to his computer and began typing frantically.

  The Fat Farm was located up on the third floor of the building and consisted of cubicle upon cubicle of women responding to 900 number calls. Each woman was armed with a
head set, a sexy voice, and all day to keep the caller on the line. Working as independent contractors, they were paid a commission from the $4.95 per minute fee advertised on late night cable. This was different from the Internet sites, located up on the fourth and fifth floor and billed at $14-$39 per minute, depending. Next to the school system, Declan Osborne was the largest female employer in the state.

  * * *

  Note to self, Merlot thought, sitting in traffic having not really moved more than thirty feet in the past ten minutes: when planning the robbery allow for traffic conditions. Eventually he was able see the bank up ahead, a low red brick building sporting weathered cedar trim.

  It took him another ten minutes to inch his way to the bank, park on the street, and wait in line at one of the teller windows. Dickey had been right, the place was jammed. Lines of customers holding two and three business deposit bags stuffed to over flowing. There was one guy with a shopping bag full of cash.

  Looking through the teller area and out the drive-up window he saw two armed guards wheeling a grocery cart piled high with green trash bags to an armored car.

  “Hello.” The nameplate on the window said Erma but her nametag said Cindy.

  “Are you Erma or Cindy?” he asked.

  “Right now, I’m crazy,” she said.

  “Pretty busy I guess, what with the fair and all?”

  “Been like this all day. It will get absolutely insane the last hour before we close. It’s like a sauna behind this glass.”

  “We’ve got a half dozen extra people and equipment just to try and keep up. Six o’clock can’t get here fast enough. There might be a wine cooler or two in my future tonight. What can I do for you?”

  “Yeah, well, I’d like to get two fives for this ten if I could?” sliding a ten-dollar bill under the thick glass.

  “Long wait for two fives. Will there be anything else, sir?”

  “No, thanks. Well, actually,” he said, folding the fives into his wallet and pulling out a business card, “if you’re serious about that wine cooler, stop in and see us tonight, DiMento’s, we’re up on Snelling, corner of Selby. Address is on the card, prime rib tonight, I’ll spring for your dinner, and…”

  “Ahem,” a woman behind him cleared her throat in an agitated manner.

  “Hope I see you there,” he winked.

  “Thank you, Anthony,” she said reading his card.

  “We’ve all been waiting,” the women said as she stepped to the counter.

  * * *

  “Will you look at all this shit,” Mendel complained.

  Lucerne drove them past a crowded little bank. Elvis snored in the backseat of the Fleetwood. A ’94 and originally “Dark Adriatic Blue”, it had been two toned with the help of white spray paint and Elvis’s lousy aim. A poor attempt to disguise the car. In point of fact, it only served to draw attention.

  “Mercy, hello there city gal,” Lucerne leered. A young mother gathered her two children closer. The Fleetwood engulfed them in a noxious blue cloud of exhaust that seemed to hang in the humid air.

  “Go round the block here and let’s just see what all the fuss is back there. I just might be gettin me an idea or two, make up for that damn Henderson banker pulling the plug on us too soon,” Mendel said.

  * * *

  “Umm, thanks,” Dickie said, then swallowed the half pound of prime rib he had been chewing and chased it down with a large swallow of beer.

  “No, Merlot, your situation is nothing like that, no matter how busy you are on a Friday or Saturday night. That branch I was telling you guys about last night, they’re bringing in millions, literally millions a day. All of it cash. You’d blow your brains out if you were there, man.”

  He paused to swirl a doughnut sized onion ring through a puddle of catsup, then stuffed the entire thing into his mouth.

  “We actually went up to the Indian casinos, saw how they did it, got some general ideas there. Although we’re about a thousand times busier than those folks.”

  “So what, you guys put a machine gun on the roof or something?”

  “Naw, I mean the cops could be there in about two minutes. That’s probably the best defense we’ve got, right there. You know, keep a low profile. The couriers are in there on an hourly basis hauling away as much as they can.”

  “To tell you the truth, we’re more concerned with electronic theft. Transfers, passwords, identity theft, hackers. Hell, that shit you hear on the news, whenever some bank gets knocked off, those punks only get away with a grand maybe two if they’re lucky. And, if they’re stupid enough to be repeat guys, that’s when they get nailed.”

  “I mean, the real dirty little secret is that just about any fool can rob a bank and get away with it. But the dumb shits never do that. They rob a second and a third because it seems so damn easy, that’s when they get nailed.”

  “Now the electronic stuff, the shit I’m involved with, you don’t have to be at the bank to attempt to pull that off. Hell, you don’t even have to be in the country. That shit gets really spooky. You’d be amazed, Merlot, absolutely amazed. Course your deposits are safe with us. Ahh, I think I’ll have the cheese cake,” he said looking up at the waitress, fingers grasping the last onion ring.

  “And, well, since Merlot’s buying, maybe just one more beer.”

  They chatted on about vague things, Merlot feeling relatively upbeat after gaining the initial intelligence from Dickie. Upbeat at least until Dickie mentioned Merlot’s own personal slump the night before at cards, he’d bet three of a kind against Dickie’s flush.

  “Yeah, well I felt I had a string of luck coming my way, and I did, actually. I just never thought it would be bad luck,” he said walking Dickie to the door.

  “Merlot to the Lounge, Merlot to the Lounge bar,” the overhead page interrupted whatever remained of their conversation.

  “Gotta run, Dickie. Thanks for the advice, good seeing you.”

  “See you Sunday, Merlot, pre-season Vikings, man, don’t forget.”

  * * *

  “Yeah Tommy, what is it?” he asked his Lounge room bartender.

  Tommy inclined his head toward six figures clustered at the far end of the bar, “I don’t know, some bullshit about the dinner. The band for tonight, bunch of assholes if you ask me. Anyway, figured you’d want to deal with it. That dildo in the black jacket with all the silver studs and the golf tee thru his nose, he’s doing the talking.”

  Collectively they looked to weigh about eighty pounds soaking wet, after you removed all the metal piercings. He wondered for half a second if they ever had to pass through airport security. The four with hair had it dyed a variety of different colors, none found in nature. They had an odor about them, not necessarily unpleasant, but definitely not aftershave, more like incense. He wouldn’t have given a dollar for all their clothes.

  “Kiss of Death, right, the band?”

  “It’s about the dinner.”

  “We got the best prime rib in town.”

  “Yeah man, that’s the bummer, see dude we’re all vegans. So, like, the prime rib thing is, well, it’s just totally bogus.”

  To Merlot’s way of thinking the only thing worse than a soft-spoken California accent was some jerk from Minnesota affecting a soft spoken California accent. He reminded himself the band was supposed to pack them in all weekend.

  “Sorry about the mix-up, look, I’ll have the kitchen rustle some things up for you. We’ll bring it into the green room off the stage, if that’s okay? And I’ll make sure the word gets passed around for the next two nights. Okay?” It wasn’t worth asking why they agreed to play a steak and prime-rib place if they were so opposed to red meat.

  For one long moment they stood as one stupid block of pierced anatomy.

  “Well, yeah, dude, that would be screaming,” Dildo said.

  “Good, then screaming it is,” Merlot said, wishing he could.

  “I’ll go take care of it personally, get things delivered and you guys can go th
rough your sound check, okay?”

  Dildo nodded and Merlot retreated to the kitchen before he strangled the entertainment.

  “Bonnie, Caesar salads, six of them to the green room and mix a little bacon fat into the dressing,” he yelled, standing in the middle of the kitchen.

  “Hunh?”

  “Bacon fat, you heard me, mix it in with the dressing, but not too much.”

  * * *

  He was back in the Lounge area a little after eleven. Kiss of Death was packing them into the back bar area as promised. A strange looking crowd but their money was just as green. He was chatting with Tommy the bartender, the Lounge area more of the meat market for the older set.

  Tommy’s eyes looked over Merlot’s right shoulder and remained fixed, causing Merlot to turn.

  “Hi, Anthony.”

  It took him a beat or two to realize she was talking to him. An attractive woman, with blond hair pulled back, brown eyes, jeans that looked as if they were spray-painted on, and a well-fitting top that must have been held in place with industrial strength adhesive. She looked vaguely familiar.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said hi, Anthony. You don’t remember me, do you?” she laughed.

  “It’s just that it’s sort of out of context here,” he groveled.

  “I’m Cindy, remember, from the bank? You were in this afternoon and gave me your card. Changed a ten for two fives? Ring any bells?”

  Yes, it did, alarm bells, which he promptly ignored.

  “Oh yeah, Cindy, nice to see you, wow, thanks for coming in. Like I said, just a little out of context in here. You know, the lights and you not on the other side of bullet proof glass. Been here long?”

  “No, no we just got here, Anthony, this is my friend, Karen.” Cindy said moving back half a step as a way of further introduction.

  Karen seemed like a nice woman, attractive enough but Merlot knew from bitter past experience that she had but one function. She was the third wheel. There to make sure Cindy didn’t end up in bed with Merlot. For some reason certain women felt they had to make sure their friends weren’t tumbling in and out of bed with Merlot and his ilk, and so they always accompanied their girlfriends. Ready at the first sign of a loud laugh or slurred word to apply the brakes to an evening’s fun.