Merlot Page 4

  * * *

  “What do you mean they won’t dance?” Osborne bellowed into the phone. “You tell them to get their collective buns up on stage.”

  It had always been the policy of the Beaver Hut, the dance portion of Osborne’s empire, that the stage temperature be kept somewhere just below arctic. He had set up cold air returns to blow continually across the stage, all day, every day, much to the consternation of his dancers. Despite the potential for enhanced tip revenue, they complained.

  Sassie, one of his headliners, had slipped and fallen near the end of the Brunch and Buns shift. She had slipped on a patch of icy condensation just at the edge of the stage and landed, rather inappropriately, on an ill-placed, long-necked beer bottle. The force of the fall inserted the beer bottle with some unfortunate side affects.

  For her part, Miss Sassie, really pissed off and currently unable to sit down, was pacing back and forth across the stage indignantly rallying the rest of the dancing crew. She had them conducting a work stoppage. They were sitting down, fully clothed, in the middle of the stage. Demanding the heat get turned up and that beer bottles no longer be allowed on the edge of the stage.

  “Milton,” Osborne instructed through clenched teeth after spraying his phone with disinfectant. “Get down there and toss that twat out into the street. Then get the rest of them back to work.”

  Milton returned twenty minutes later, sporting a perfect bloodied imprint of Sassie’s orthodontia on his right hand.

  “They ain’t moving,” he said, holding his throbbing right hand, the individual teeth marks were already beginning to puff, the overall bite area felt as if it was on fire.

  “What do you mean, not moving?” Osborne pushed his chair back and thrust his left arm out as nurse Serpentina wiggled forward with the blood-pressure cuff and delicately rolled up his shirtsleeve.

  “I reached for her, Sassie, I mean. They were all gathered around her and she bit me. Someone else grabbed hold of me, wouldn’t let go and…”

  “What in the hell do you mean grabbed hold of you, for God’s sake. You’re three times their size.”

  Milton glanced downward.

  “Oh, yes, well I see, this won’t do. I can’t have a bunch of my dancers sitting around with their clothes on,” Osborne sprayed a heavy dose of disinfectant in Milton’s direction.

  “Oh dear,” muttered Serpentina, gradually releasing the blood-pressure cuff.

  “What now?” Osborne growled.

  “Nothing to worry about, sir.”

  “Hmm-mmm, wait a minute. Yes of course. You could just get down there and dance for the customers while I think of something here,” he directed.

  “Well, that’s just it. There really aren’t any customers down there. They all sort of left,” Milton replied, not looking at Osborne, examining his hand, caught in the fact that he hadn’t lied but on the other hand hadn’t delivered all the bad news.

  “No cust… what? No customers down there, why it’s, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon and you’re standing here telling me there’s no one downstairs? No one requesting lap dances? No one drinking? You’ve got to be kidding!”

  * * *

  Otto was making his way through the fairgrounds delivering two hundred and fifty pounds of bacon and batter to each of his five stands. He could only hope it wouldn’t be enough.

  The forecast was for high humidity and temperature in the upper 90s, which meant if you were deep-fat-frying bacon or even just walking around the fairgrounds picking up cash, it was bound to be awful.

  * * *

  Merlot glanced quickly from the paper on the passenger seat to the road and back again, reading the ad he had circled. His previous two stops had been completely fruitless. The first was anything but what the ad had described as a good runner, a nondescript old Chevy that wouldn’t start.

  The second vehicle he looked at was a Plymouth wagon that started but had some distinct bearing problems, which made themselves known on the test drive around the block. He was on his way to see about a Honda Civic, “as is”.

  The faded blue-four door vehicle sat in the driveway of the suburban home sporting a rear bumper sticker that stated Plumbers Do it Better. The test drive was acceptable despite the lack of a muffler but the guy shut the whole deal down as soon as Merlot suggested that he would take care of the title transfer.

  “Look, no hard feelings but this belonged to my kid who decided it would be more fun to party than to go to class. I’m just trying to demonstrate to the genius that nothing in this life is free, including this car, which his mother insisted we buy for him.”

  “But when you flunk out of school it’s time for some rule changes and one of the things that’s going to change is this ride. So, no offense but it’s a fifteen hundred dollar car that’s given me too many problems already.

  “If you don’t want to go down and do the title transfer with me then I can’t sell to you. It’s just that simple.” He took a sip of his coffee that basically told Merlot to hit the road.

  Merlot hit the road to the next ad on his list, a Saab. It turned out to be a perfectly nondescript olive drab vehicle that started, seemed to drive well and the seller, Bernice, was more than willing to let Merlot do the title transfer for an additional hundred dollars.

  “Like I told you,” Bernice said talking through the cloud of cat hair that swirled around her while she scratched the stomach of the feline on her lap. “Terry’s in the Marines, on his third tour, just loves the Corp. I just figured he wouldn’t want to deal with this by the time he returns. I’ll put the money in a savings account for him. I looked all over, but couldn’t find that title anywhere, checked the kitchen drawer, Terry’s room, even the garage.” She said, dropping the cat off her lap to make room for the one at her feet.

  He could feel his allergies kicking in. Cat hair seemed to be everywhere, drifting across the room, settling on him, clinging to his socks and trousers. He figured he had enough on him to knit a small sweater and he was hoping the verbal house tour wouldn’t last too much longer.

  “I even checked the damn bathroom, but didn’t find anything there, either. Well, I’m gonna have another,” Bernice half cackled.

  She was a large woman, squarely built. He guessed she hadn’t been out of the house since 9/11. Her tightly permed blue hair had an unkempt look to it. She wore a stained house dress, like she had been cleaning, although tell where. She ambled toward the kitchen counter and her vodka bottle, more of a field gait then a walk.

  “You want a drink?”

  “No, no thank you. Look, let me get you paid so I don’t interrupt anymore of your day. I can have my niece come and pick the car up this afternoon. I’ll get the title changed and I want to make sure the insurance is on there too, you know, before she drives it.”

  “Sure you don’t want a little something,” she asked pouring a good three inches of vodka into her glass, adding barely enough orange juice to suggest color.

  “Time was I wouldn’t have to offer a drink to get a nice young man to spend some time with me,” she said touching her hair. Her glassy eyes drifted off in the direction of the Nixon administration.

  “I’ll throw in an extra hundred dollars, just to give you something to maybe get a present for Terry.”

  “Oh, heavens, you don’t have to do that,” she said, then quickly scooped up the cash a nanosecond after he had counted it out. She folded the money, stuffed it inside her bra, then took a long swallow from her drink.

  He grabbed the keys from the counter and made a hasty retreat toward the door, gently prodded cats away with his foot. He was eager to get to his car and pop a Benadryl.

  “Bernice, I can’t thank you enough. My cousin will be very happy. Now she can get to school without worrying about where her next ride is going to come from,” he said, shooing cats away with his foot, a little more forcefully this time.

  “I thought you said it was your niece?” she said, swirling her glass and casting a sharp eye at Merlot.’
>
  “Well, she is my niece, and my cousin, too, it’s sort of an involved family situation, you know,” he stammered.

  “Believe me, I do know!” she exclaimed, then drained her glass.

  * * *

  By the time Merlot returned to his office, his eyes were glazed, the lids puffy, and his nose was plugged. He was wrapping lengths of tape, sticky side out, around his hand in an unsuccessful attempt to remove cat hair from his slacks and shirt. The problem was there was just too much cat hair. He didn’t have a lot of time to fool with it since getting the vehicle had taken hours longer than he had expected. He could feel a rash developing on his arms and legs, down his back and he finally just gave up and took off his clothes, dumped them in the waist basket and changed into his softball uniform.

  “There a game today?” Buddy asked as Merlot strolled past on the way to tossing his clothes in the Dumpster. Aged somewhere beyond one hundred, Buddy had tended bar as long as Merlot could remember. Currently he was the eleven-to-three bartender in the front bar. He didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Damn it, the schedule they gave me is all screwed up. I didn’t know there was a game or I would have gotten someone to cover for me.” Buddy served as the unofficial manager and believed he didn’t have a lot of games left in him, so to miss one was a big deal.

  “No, there’s no game today, Buddy,” Merlot replied, attempting to scratch his back without seeming too obvious.

  “Man, you look like shit, Merlot,” Buddy continued, having decided as long as his day wasn’t going to be ruined the least he could do would be to make the boss feel lousy.

  “How come you got your softball uniform on if there’s no game?”

  “Long story, Buddy,” Merlot was now against the door frame, rubbing back and forth against the corner, scratching it.

  “You sure you’re okay? I mean if you don’t mind my saying so, you really look like shit.”

  “Yeah, you already mentioned that, but thanks all the same. No, no big deal, just an allergic reaction so I thought it was best to just ditch these clothes,” he nodded at the waste basket he was carrying.

  “I’ll run home to shower and change in a bit. I took a couple of Benadryl so I should be okay in the next hour, but I don’t want to drive for that period. You know, just playing it safe is all.”

  “Yeah, well, just thought you’d want to know you were looking like shit. You sure there’s no game?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure, there’s no game, honest. Thanks for the input,” he added.

  * * *

  “Okay, tell all!” Karen said, not for the first time. She was lying on the couch, taking a quick break, watching out the window as her nephews ran in and out of the wading pool.

  “So tell me again, you called him, after I dropped you off?”

  “Yeah, unfortunately. I’m sure he thinks I’m just a tramp. I had three or four glasses of wine last night, another one at home. Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Cindy said.

  She was finally home from the bank after being jammed all morning long without a break. Huge overnight cash deposits, and a nonstop line of customers almost out the door until they closed. And this was just the warm up. They would have Saturday night and all of Sunday’s deposits to count Monday morning. She was scheduled to be in at 5:30 Monday morning just to get a jump on things. The perfect kick off to the week from hell.

  “So what did he say? He must have known you were feeling no pain, I mean the guy is in the bar business.”

  “He was really nice, I think,” Cindy said. She was on her back attempting to squeeze into a pair of jeans using one hand, kicking her legs up and down.

  “What do you mean, you think? Don’t you remember the conversation? I mean did he say, never call me here again or don’t come into my bar ever again or anything like that?”

  “No, he didn’t say anything like that, in fact we’re having dinner tonight, at…”

  “Dinner! He’s taking you to dinner! I’d say that’s something. Quit playing it so cool. Give me more details. Thomas!” over the phone Cindy could hear Karen rapping on the window at the kids,

  “Thomas, don’t you do that to your brother. You share, do you hear me?” then a pause, “Okay, play nicely.”

  “So give me the details girl, come on, and don’t hold anything back.”

  “Karen, you’ve got all the details, I’m just having dinner with him, at his place.”

  “You’re going to his house, that’s…”

  “No, his bar, DiMento’s. He’s working. So I’m going to stop in and have dinner with him. He had promised me dinner for helping him out the other day, that’s all. I’ll probably never hear from him again after that.”

  “So, you’re having dinner with this guy tonight. You met him last night, I don’t know, it… Thomas, I’m warning you, let your brother up, he can’t breathe underwater. Thomas, if I, hey sorry, I gotta run here Cin, they’re trying to murder each other out there. Thomas!” she shrieked hanging up the phone.

  * * *

  For twenty-five bucks and a twelve pack Merlot had convinced his two burned out dishwashers, La Tondra and Celeste, to drive to Blaine and pick up the Saab from Bernice.

  “Look, girls it’s all paid for, you don’t even have to talk to her. Here are the keys and the directions. It’s an olive drab Saab parked in the driveway. You can’t miss it. Get it and come back here, okay? I’ll pay you each twenty-five bucks, you can grab a twelve pack from the cooler. We got a deal?” he asked. Then reached into his pocket and fanned out a wad of bills.

  The girls nodded and he left, hoping there wouldn’t be any problems.

  * * *

  Otto sat in the air conditioned comfort of his pickup truck, and let the cold air frost the outside of his body. It was a humid 96 degrees in the shade, and he hadn’t seen very much shade. He sipped a Gatorade, with the doors locked, the windows rolled up, and the AC blowing full blast. His briefcase was stuffed with the past hour’s receipts and he had his forty-five tucked in his belt.

  He relaxed for a moment, let the cold air envelop him, cool his sunburned skin, as Johnny Cash sang about Folsom Prison.

  He gave a little two fingered wave to the kid watching the gate. The kid waved back and winked, grinning like an idiot, holding one of the sticks of Deep-Fat-Fried Cajun Bar-B-Que Bacon Otto had given him. They were pals now, just old buddies looking out for one another and he reminded himself to bring the kid some more of whatever they couldn’t sell.

  He parked in the bank lot, climbed out of the truck, and strolled to the night deposit drop, a heavy-metal plated affair that he had to unlock with a key before he could drop his deposit down the chute.

  It was when he walked back to his truck that he noticed the car. He’d seen them before, three guys all crammed in the front seat of a battered two-toned Fleetwood. Even in the half light of the evening he could tell they needed shaves and haircuts. He deftly touched the butt of the forty-five tucked into his belt.

  Come and get it, trash, he thought as he drifted back to his days in Saigon, buying drinks for bar girls. And the heat, hot, like today only worse, the strange smells, not knowing the language, the smell of burning shit and people shooting at you and, and… Otto took a deep breath, reminded himself to just worry about Deep-Fat-Fried-Bacon-on-a-stick.

  * * *

  “You see that goofy clown,” Elvis laughed. “He was looking at you, Lucerne. Bet he was thinking I’d like to waste that guy. That’s what he was thinking.”

  “Guy looked like Porky Pig. You see him, all sort of pink and whatnot.”

  “Pull over,” Mendel commanded, hopping out before Lucerne had come to a complete stop along the curb. “I want to walk around here, get a feel for this place.”

  “You think that’s such a good idea? They might be taking our pictures right now, man.” Elvis called, scanning his good eye around a little nervously, searching the outside of the bank to see if he could spot any cameras.

  “Naw, them camer
as might be if you was making a deposit, maybe use that ATM. Sides, all I’m doing is walking past, ain’t against the law just to walk past now is it? Public sidewalk after all.”

  Mendel circled the building, cut across the parking lot where Otto had parked just a few minutes before. Then spun around, walking backward, facing the redbrick bank building, thinking about how he might approach it, wondering what it was like during the day.

  “I think on Monday we’ll come back here.”

  “Monday!” Elvis exclaimed, alarmed.

  “Just to look, get a feel for it when she’s open, that’s all. Go in there, look around, see how they work when it’s crowded. Take it easy, it ain’t like we’re coming to rob the place. Yet.”

  * * *

  Once he got home Merlot dropped his softball uniform on the floor, stepped into the shower and in just a few moments felt better, the combination of the Benadryl and shower working their magic.

  He put on a pair of blue slacks and a starched, long-sleeved white shirt, his standard Saturday-night uniform. It was after five, and Saturdays were always busy. He’d be doing everything from bussing tables to kicking ass, making sure it all went right.

  * * *

  “Nothing seems to be going right,” Osborne hissed to no one in particular. He was furious at the spreading stripper’s revolt he had on his hands. That heavily uddered Sassie had somehow managed to spread the word and a majority of the girls had phoned in feigning illness.

  All right, thought Osborne, we’ll see about this. “Nursey, Milton, you shall join me at dinner.”

  “I’ll just change,” offered Serpentina.

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort. Bring the disinfectant spray and let’s be off.” Then strode to the door, and waited impatiently for Milton to catch up.

  * * *

  At 8:30, Merlot found all six, scrawny, pierced, Kiss of Death members doing their final sound checks on stage.

  “Just checking, everything going okay tonight? You need anything?”

  “Totally awesome, man. Those were the best Caesar salads last night, really inspired, Dude, tres cool.”