Chuck Freadhoff - Free Booze Tonight Page 17

  “Rosie, I need a favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “You remember a flugelhorn player named Clyde?”

  She nodded immediately. “Sure. I spent a couple of days with that asshole. He promised to call me later and never did.”

  “He’s married now. Has twins. Sings in the church choir.”

  “It figures. So why are you here?”

  “I need Clyde to help me out.”

  “And you want me to … ?”

  “Help persuade Clyde that the price he’s paying is a bargain.” I explained what I had in mind and Rosie agreed to help.

  I started to turn away but she touched my arm.

  “I think Delilah likes you.”

  “Really,” I said and felt a jolt of excitement. “What makes you say that?”

  “She’s been watching us in the rear-view mirror the whole time we’ve been talking.”

  I paused to collect my thoughts. If my plan worked, I’d be guilty of conspiracy, blackmail, and probably half a dozen other felonies that could send me to jail for a decade. And if my plan didn’t work, I’d be dead. But on the plus side, Delilah had been checking me out in the rearview. I smiled. Life was good.

  “Thanks, Rosie,” I said. “I’ll see you tonight for choir practice.”

  Chapter 57

  Ethel called a few minutes after Delilah dropped me back at the bar. I glanced at Toughie and Ralph. They were on stools facing each other, their knees rubbing. They hadn’t even heard the phone ring. I picked the big, black, plastic receiver off the phone behind the counter

  “Hello.”

  “Already you’ve been back in L.A. for, what? Two days now, and you haven’t come to see me,” Ethel said.

  “I’ve been busy, grandma. But I got your situation with Hector the bail bondsman straightened out, didn’t I?”

  “Hector told me that those other two men, the quiet ones, guaranteed you’d stay in L.A. You know, Joseph, I think you should spend your time with a better class of people.”

  A better class of people? I glanced at Toughie and Ralph. Sure, I could try to hang out with a better class of people, but, unfortunately, Genghis Kahn and Herman Goering had been dead for awhile. I needed to change the subject. “When’s the big rally at the Federal Building?”

  “Saturday. I already told you that.”

  “Oh yeah, sorry. Like I said, I’ve been a little busy.”

  “Too busy planning that big party for Saturday? The big party you didn’t invite me to.”

  “Party? It’s not really a party, grandma. It’s just a show at the bar where I’m working.”

  “Music, friends, drinks. It certainly sounds like a party to me. Too bad I wasn’t invited.”

  I exhaled deeply. Why was I even trying? When it comes to verbal sparring, Ethel could back Daniel Webster into a corner. Still, I’d learned a few things over the years. Like, it really helps to just give her what she wants.

  I glanced at Ralph and Toughie and turned my attention back to Ethel. “I’ll stop by in a couple of hours. I’ll bring my friend Ralph. You remember him, right?”

  “Is he the stupid one?”

  Of course, considering my friends, Ethel’s description didn’t really narrow it down all that much. But I wanted to move on.

  “See you in a couple of hours,” I said and hung up.

  We took Ralph’s van again — Ralph and Toughie riding up front and me kneeling behind Ralph’s seat, trying to breath through my mouth. We were on our way to meet Rosie, but gave ourselves enough time to swing by Ethel’s place.

  We found Ethel in the rec room memorizing Hector the bail bondsman’s number. She was wearing love beads and a tie-dyed T-shirt. The green, orange, and purple colors running together made the shirt look like a fresh fruit basket or an eggplant gone bad.

  “Hi, Grandma, it’s good to see you again.”

  “How come I’ve always got to call you? You never come by to see me?”

  Ethel wasn’t really expecting an answer, but protocol and habit demanded I at least attempt a response. That way she’d have something to criticize. But this time I got lucky. Before I could say anything, she spotted Ralph and Toughie standing in the doorway, holding hands.

  “That’s Ralph, right? I recognize him but I don’t think I’ve met that woman,” Ethel said and turned to me, waiting.

  I called Ralph and Toughie over and introduced Toughie to Ethel.

  “It’s nice to meet you. Joey’s told me a lot about you,” Toughie lied.

  “He’s a good boy,” Ethel said. “He just needs to visit his old, dying grandmother more often before she goes to that final peace rally in the sky.”

  Neither Ralph nor Toughie responded. They were too busy making eyes at each other to pay attention to a word Ethel said. They just nodded politely and wandered back out to the hallway to wait for me.

  “See,” Ethel said, “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “A better class of people?”

  “What?”

  “Do you mean Ralph and Toughie are a better class of people than Jimmy and James?”

  “No.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant at all,” she said and shook her head in disgust. She started to speak, stopped, and cocked her heard. “Jimmy and James? Are they the ones who look like bridge abutments in suits?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about them.” She waved to Ralph and Toughie in the hallway.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Love, you idiot. I’m talking about love. I’ve been marching and chanting for fifty years saying love is the answer. If the rest of the world could just be like those two, think how much better off we’d all be.”

  Just like those two? I thought of Ralph helping me dump Mickey’s body in the grave up off of Angeles Crest Highway and Toughie tossing Royal Rob off the balcony. I shrugged.

  “Sort of like the dawn of the Age of Aquarius,” I said.

  “Exactly. The Love Train is about to leave the station, Joseph. You should get on it.”

  Love Train? What the hell, who was I to argue? Stranger things have happened, like that river in Cleveland catching on fire. Sure, it only happened once, but that’s pretty often for water. I turned back to Ethel.

  “Got any extra love beads?”

  Chapter 58

  We met Rosie in the parking lot in front of Paula’s Pins and Poles. I hopped into her old, red Corolla and we headed out, Ralph and Toughie in the van right behind us.

  “I see that pole dancing is paying off,” I said. Rosie’s legs were well toned and, I have to admit, shown to their best and fullest advantage. Her bright pink hot pants were shorter than a teenager boy’s attention span. Although, truth be told, with those shorts and her lime-green halter top, Rosie was ready to attract and keep any man’s attention. In other words, she’d dressed just the way I’d asked her to.

  I gave Rosie the address and ran the game plan past her. “I figure the conversation to last two, three minutes tops,” I said.

  She chuckled and nodded. “Oh yeah, Clyde will act tough, but he’ll fold in a heartbeat. I got to know him pretty well those few days we spent together.”

  My buddy Fred, the diminutive high school band teacher, had recommended Clyde to me a few years before when I needed a horn player for a couple of gigs I’d arranged. I was in between jobs at the time and trying to make a living as a promoter. This was before I met Grassman.

  Clyde was still teaching high school and, I have to admit, was a pretty fair horn player. He needed the extra dough I’d promised so, on Fred’s recommendation, he’d shown up and played.

  Rosie dropped by that night because she was a friend and wanted to show her support. That and it was raining, which greatly reduced the traffic on her favorite stretch of street. The moment she walked in, Clyde’s flugelhorn picked up an octave or two. After t
he last set, they’d disappeared for a few days. That was during the Christmas break and Clyde didn’t have to rush home and prepare lesson plans. He hadn’t gone into administration yet. He hadn’t gotten married yet, either.

  I turned to Rosie who was driving with one hand hanging out the window.

  “So if I scratch the back of my head, you get out of the car and wave, right?”

  “Got it.”

  “And —”

  “If you rest your hand on your hip, I start toward you guys like I’m just dying to see Clyde. I got it, Joey. My former profession involved a certain amount of acting, you know.”

  “I knew I could count on you. Let’s take the freeway. It’s faster.”

  Clyde belonged to a fundamentalist church that met in a bankrupt bowling alley in the San Fernando Valley. The minister, the Reverend Harry Hallelujah, specialized in fire and brimstone sermons and big collection plates. Clyde led the tenor section of the choir.

  Finding the place was pretty easy. It was the only church on the block with a giant bowling pin on the roof. We parked at the far end of the bowling alley/church parking lot and Ralph put the van in an empty slot a few yards away. About ten minutes after we arrived, people started streaming out of the church and I got out of the car. Clyde was one of the last ones through the door and I waved and started across the asphalt toward him.

  “Hey Clyde, good to see you again,” I shouted. A couple of the other choir members looked at me and scurried toward their cars anxious to put a few extra yards of blacktop between us. They probably figured I had cooties.

  Panic filled Clyde’s eyes the moment he recognized me. A few seconds later, a woman came out of the bowling alley and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was Clyde’s wife. My first clue was the two babies – twins in matching bib overalls – that she carried, one in each arm. My second clue was the way her eyes flicked from me to Clyde and back. She didn’t look happy — I’d seen that look a lot during my days selling Fuller Brush — and she hadn’t even focused on Rosie yet.

  I couldn’t help myself. I actually chuckled. I hadn’t expected Clyde’s wife to be here. This was going to be easier than I’d imagined.

  “Clyde, I need to chat with you. I need a favor,” I said and stopped a few feet away but still close enough to see the sweat forming at the edge of his closely cropped black hair.

  Clyde was about five seven and skinny with soft, pale skin and a little wispy moustache.

  “Ah, what are you doing here? What do you want?”

  “I need to talk to you about a student. Hakim. I’m sure you remember him. Really good with computers.”

  “He’s been suspended. He’s not in school any more.”

  “See that’s the thing, Clyde. Hakim’s decided he wants to go to college and I told him that you could help him out.”

  “Help him?” Clyde bleated. The words came out like a cross between a squeak and sneeze. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s out of my hands.”

  “Oh, Clyde, I’m sure we can work something out.” I scratched the back of my head. The Corolla’s door groaned. I didn’t look but I knew Rosie had gotten out. Clyde’s gaze shifted past me to her and back. That’s probably when it really dawned on him what he was up against.

  “Oh, no, please, my wife,” he said.

  “Oh yeah, I understand. I’d be worried, too,” I said and nodded to Clyde’s wife advancing quickly toward us like a hawk spotting an oblivious bunny. She was mildly attractive in an apple cheeked storm trooper sort of way. She wore steel-rimmed glasses, had her thick blond hair in braids, and her skirt almost touched the ground but didn’t quite cover her thick ankles. She probably outweighed Clyde by twenty pounds.

  “Clyde?” she said, a mixture of curiosity and anger in her voice.

  “Good looking kids, though,” I said.

  “You can’t do this,” Clyde said.

  “Do what? I’m just stopping by to ask you to help a deserving young man get into college.”

  “But his suspensions, his grades … .”

  I smiled and glanced over my shoulder at Rosie. She was wiggling her fingers in our direction. A simple enough gesture, but somehow still sexy enough to stop the space shuttle in midflight. I almost ran across the parking lot to her myself, but then I remembered Vincent the Hammer’s wood chipper with the electric starter.

  Clyde’s wife stopped at this side. “Clyde, aren’t you going to introduce me to this, to this ahhh … .” I could tell she’d just gotten a glimpse of Rosie’s finger wave. Her eyes widened like a teetotaler who’d just spotted a fifth of bourbon hidden in her husband’s underwear drawer. “Introduce me to this, … this man,” she finally managed.

  “Hi, I’m Joey.” I held out my hand which she studied and shrugged, her arms full of twin babies. “Clyde and I were just discussing college.”

  Her gaze shifted from Rosie to Clyde. “College?”

  “Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for a friend of mine.”

  “Her? That ahh … .”

  “Oh no, not her. A kid named Hakim. He’s thinking Stanford or maybe Harvard. Clyde’s going to help him get in.”

  “Clyde?” his wife said. I glanced at Clyde. His eyes were fixed on a spot over my shoulder like a man staring at a pile of gold bullion covered with rattlers. Rosie has that affect on people. The shorts and halter top didn’t hurt, I’m sure.

  “Clyde,” his wife said again and, despite holding an infant, sent a forearm into his side. Hard. “That woman acts like she knows you. Who is she?”

  “That’s Rosie,” I said. “She’s with me.”

  I bunched my fist up and put it on my hip. I didn’t bother looking back. I knew Rosie would start strolling across the lot toward us, an exaggerated sway in her movements. Just the way we’d planned it. Her high heels were clicking on the asphalt like a finely tuned regulator clock.

  “Ah, ah,” Clyde said and cleared his throat. “Put the kids in the car, I’ll be right there.”

  The wife didn’t move. Alarm grew in Clyde’s eyes. Probably the way Custer looked when he realized that every Indian in North America was coming over the rise.

  Tick, tock, the sound of Rosie’s heels grew louder. Clyde turned to the wife.

  “I’ll be right there. I have to find out exactly what Joey needs,” he said.

  “But —”

  “Gertrude, just do what I tell you this one time,” Clyde roared.

  Gertrude harrumphed, turned on her toe, and headed for a Subaru station wagon on the far edge of the parking lot. Rosie arrived at my side a moment later and slipped her arm into mine.

  “Hi, Clyde, how’s married life treating you?”

  Clyde licked his lips, swallowed hard, and spoke to me without taking his eyes from Rosie.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Nothing much. Change all of Hakim’s records to straight As, wipe away any mention of his suspensions and ah … oh yeah, a couple of great letters of recommendation would be nice, too.”

  “But —”

  Rosie touched his arm. “Tell me, Clyde, does Gertrude know about your special affection for Cool Whip?”

  Clyde exhaled deeply and finally managed to shift his eyes from Rosie to me. “Okay, I’ll do it. How much time do I have?”

  “You’ve got until Saturday,” I said. “If Hakim’s records don’t show he’s a world-class student by then Rosie’s going to show up at your house with a tub of frozen desert topping and a jar of maraschino cherries.”

  Clyde nodded and shuffled toward the Subaru, his shoulders slumped.

  Rosie and I walked back to the Corolla arm-in-arm while I said a silent prayer that Hakim would keep his end of the bargain.

  Chapter 59

  The next evening my spirit was soaring. Life was grand. Hakim had delivered a band, Irving the ink-stained wretch was going to show up any minute to help me out, I hadn’t seen Vincent the Hammer in two days, and Delilah seemed happy. The show was the next night, rehearsal was goin
g well, and the band, although a bit of an odd collection, was smoking hot.

  That’s when I had my Preparation H moment.

  Years before I’d had a friend named Glasses Gilmore. Glasses was known for two things – being very horny and being very unlucky with women. He also couldn’t see worth a damn without his specs, which were as thick as a politician’s head.

  After a romantically unlucky streak that lasted longer than most presidential administrations, Glasses finally hooked up. Back in his apartment, his new friend waiting and anxious, Glasses slipped into the bathroom to brush his teeth. In haste, and in the dark without his specs, he grabbed the tube of Preparation H instead of the Crest.

  Just when you learn you’ve won the lottery, you step off the curb and get hit by a crosstown bus doing eighty in a school zone. Go figure.

  I thought of Glasses and Preparation H when Grassman Guzman walked in, sat on a stool at the far end of the bar, nodded to Ralph and, then turned to me and shook his head.

  “No,” he said.

  I moved down a couple of yards until I was opposite him. “No what?”

  “No. You can’t have the show here tomorrow night. I’m converting the bar into a wine storage locker. I talked to my lawyer. A wine cellar is a better tax dodge.”

  “But the place is going to be packed tomorrow. The IRS will see it’s a legit business and be off your back forever.”

  “Packed? Come on, Joey, I heard about the rehearsal. Those morons couldn’t play the stereo.”

  “This band is different.”

  Grassman glanced at Hakim and the others he’d brought – a mix that looked like it came out of the odds and ends bin at the musicians’ union hall. The lead guitar player was a Sikh of indeterminate age with a saffron-colored turban and a beard. The drummer was a bald, toothless guy who looked like a founding father of AARP, and on rhythm guitar was a dude dressed like a stockbroker in a dark three-piece suit and narrow tie with rimless glasses. Hakim had even drafted his younger sister, a sixteen-year-old violin player who wore some kind of school uniform – a plaid skirt and white blouse.