Chuck Freadhoff - Free Booze Tonight Read online

  “Hi, Grandma.” She looked up and smiled.

  “Oh, Joseph. It’s good to see you. It’s been so long.”

  “It was last week.”

  “Who are your friends?”

  “Ah, Ethel, this is Jimmy and James Roo.”

  She looked the Roo boys over.

  “My, they look well fed.”

  “Yeah. So what are you doing?”

  “Making placards. We’re gonna picket the Federal Building tomorrow.”

  They take the van, the one with the hoist in the back for wheelchairs, to the protests. They call them field trips. I looked around the room. Placards lined the wall. “Power To The People.” “Impeach The Bastard.” “Stop The Killing.”

  My favorite, though, was the one Ethel was working on. “Don’t Trust Anyone Under 60.” I guess the bloom was off flower power. Maybe when you swap tie dye for Depends you lose a bit of your edge.

  We chatted for about five minutes and Ethel glanced at her watch.

  “Oh shit, I’m late.”

  “For what?”

  “The sing along.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got to scoot, too. Right boys?”

  The Roo brothers didn’t move although for a second I thought I saw Jimmy smile.

  “And Joey, you’ve got to stop having your mail forwarded to me. Why can’t you get your mail where you live?”

  “It’s just a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  “Misunderstanding? There’s three court notices and a very angry letter from some bail bondsman named Hector. That reminds me. If I get busted at the rally, will you bail me out?”

  “You know how to reach me,” I said and walked her to the community room. I kissed her on the cheek and watched as she wound her way through the walkers, wheelchairs, and canes to a front row seat.

  The Roo brothers and I were at the front door when we heard them strike up the first song. Kumbaya. They were awful, off beat and out of tune. What the hell, like I said, in L.A. there’s no shame.

  Chapter 11

  Vincent the Hammer had his iPod going again. This time it was the soundtrack from “The Music Man.” The guy really liked his show tunes. Go figure.

  He pointed to the folding metal chair again. I generally run a year or two behind on most installment payments. This one was different. I wanted to stay current. I sat and tried to smile.

  “So, I hear you met Delilah.”

  “You bet.”

  “You hear her play, sing?”

  “Yes I did.” I’d been trying to forget. It wasn’t easy. Like gobbling a spoonful of horseradish that you thought was mashed potatoes. The surprise lingers awhile.

  “She’s amazing, isn’t she?”

  “No one can argue about her talent.” I didn’t say anything more. I could hear the Roo brothers breathing behind me like two water buffalo in heat. I let my eyes drift to the miniature David I’d seen the other day and looked back at Vincent the Hammer. He was wearing the albino Irish setter jacket again, but this time the silk shirt underneath was black and buttoned at the neck.

  He held up his finger for a moment, closed his eyes and nodded along to the iPod. It was the part where the guy in The Music Man is talking and singing about sloth being “the first big step on the road to deg ra day tion.”

  I watched Vincent the Hammer. He didn’t strike me as big on irony. But my antenna for those kinds of things has been on the fritz for the last couple of decades so I usually just go with the flow.

  When he opened his eyes, he smiled.

  “You got Delilah a gig?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where?”

  “At the bar.”

  The smile went away. I hated his smile. But this was worse. The nostrils on his long, skinny nose flared slightly. Probably how Mt. St. Helens looked from outer space just before it tried to blow half of western Washington to Yokohama.

  “No one comes in that dump. My daughter ain’t going to be playing to an empty house, right?”

  “The place will be packed. Hanging from the rafters.” I wished I hadn’t said that. No point in giving him any ideas.

  “How you gonna do that, Joey?”

  “I got it covered,” I said. It was a lie. I didn’t have any idea how I was going to draw a crowd. I was still trying to put together a band. First things first.

  “When you going to rehearse?”

  “What?”

  “Practice, you idiot. When’s this band going to practice? They’re going to practice, aren’t they?”

  Shit. I hadn’t thought about that. I’d been too busy just thinking about getting a band together to worry about practice. Plus, I didn’t know if letting the others get a glimpse of Delilah’s “talent” before the gig was a good idea. They might not come back. That’d turn Delilah into a solo act and me into history.

  “Of course they’re going to practice. I’m juggling their schedules. I’ll let Delilah know tomorrow.”

  “Good. I’ve got a few ideas of my own. Maybe help things along, make a bigger impact.”

  Great, now the Godfather wanted to play music producer. Well why not? Somebody dreamed up The New Kids on the Block and they sold out baseball stadiums.

  “Glad to hear your ideas,” I said. Knowing that the water buffalo behind me were packing heat made me very agreeable.

  Vincent the Hammer nodded once. “I’ll talk to Delilah about it,” he said.

  He seemed to be listening to the music again. Now the guy was singing about trouble with a capital T. I think that’s the moment I really started to hate Broadway musicals.

  “Take him back to the bar,” Vincent said to the Roo boys. I stood and headed for the door. I almost made it too.

  “Hey, Joey,” Vincent the Hammer called. I turned. I’d been a used car salesman for a brief time in my past. I tried for my honest and earnest look. I’d never sold a car with it, but it was the best I could do on short notice. Vincent didn’t seem to care.

  “You’ll keep in touch, right?” he said.

  “You bet.”

  He smiled, making me think I’d been wrong. Maybe it was better when he didn’t smile.

  Chapter 12

  Maybe being in the San Fernando Valley inspired me. I settled into the back seat, inhaled the scent of the Roo brothers’ formaldehyde cologne and told them to take me to a high school a few blocks away. I knew a guy named Fred who worked there.

  When they pulled to the curb out front, I told them they had to wait for me. They don’t like strangers just wandering the halls of high schools these days. And I needed to be unobtrusive, just slip in and out. Act like I owned the place. Jimmy and James were bound to catch someone’s eye. That’d get someone calling someone else, probably the SWAT team, or the football coach. Either way, I didn’t need the attention.

  “Boss told us to stick with you,” Jimmy said.

  “Look, I’m just going to the music room. What am I going to do, hot wire a tuba and escape?”

  “How long you gonna be gone?” James said.

  “Twenty minutes tops.”

  “We’ll be right here.”

  The first thing to know about Fred is that he’s really a miniature man. He’s not a dwarf or an official little person. He’s just small. It’s sort of soured his disposition. Going through life shorter than most freshman girls will do that to you. Especially if you teach high school.

  I followed the music. Fred must have been teaching a beginning class. From the sound of it, someone was in there torturing the woodwinds and horns until they confessed. To something. Anything. Actually, the whole thing sounded like one big mea culpa.

  I stuck my head in the door and waited for Fred to notice. He was up front, waving a baton, counting time, probably wishing he’d gone to jockey school. He peered over the top of a music stand and saw me. He waved his arms. The notes died away like air wooshing out of a punctured tire. He came outside.

  The second thing to know about Fred is that he’s fastidious. Frenc
h cuffs, bow tie, braces.

  “You owe me a hundred bucks,” he said. He has a good memory, too.

  “Yeah but …” I didn’t get to finish. Fred stepped back and looked me up and down.

  “Obviously you’re free so you don’t need me to post bail. Why are you here?”

  “I need a bass player. I thought …”

  He shook his head, crossed his arms over his chest. “No. No way. You remember what happened the last time I recommended a musician to you?”

  I had to think for a minute, but it came back to me. I smiled. “Oh yeah, I remember the guy. Clyde, right? I introduced him to Rosie and they took off for a couple of days. Clyde came back a happy man.”

  “Rosie was a hooker.”

  “Well, yeah.” Fred could be a little sanctimonious at times. He had an affinity for the obvious, too.

  “Clyde’s the principal here, you idiot.”

  I guess I’d overlooked that part but I wouldn’t forget it now.

  “Look, Fred, it’s a paying gig. I need a bass player. One rehearsal and two sets the night of the gig. I’ll pay the kid two hundred bucks. Cash.” I didn’t have two hundred bucks, but that was one of those details I’d get to later. Hell, I’d rob the register, dig coins out of the pool table if I had to. Assuming there was any money there to steal.

  “And you’ll pay me the hundred you owe me?” Fred said.

  That register had never seen three hundred dollars. Ever. Even adding in the quarters from the pool table, you’d come up way short.

  I agreed immediately. I figured I was essentially living on time borrowed from Vincent the Hammer. Sort of like having his personal credit card. Why not max it out?

  “Okay. I got a kid for you,” Fred said.

  “Where is he?”

  “I sent him to the dean’s office, he’s serving detention.” Fred waited. Maybe he wanted me to ask why. But like I said, I’m not a detail person. I gave Fred the phone number at the bar and told him to have the kid call me.

  Jimmy and James were still in the Continental, staring straight ahead, as immobile as sumo lawn jockeys. I settled into the back seat of the Continental again and stared at the greased-back hair on Jimmy’s head. And I thought Ducktails were out of style. I need to read GQ more often, I guess.

  “So where’s this bass player?” James said.

  “He’ll be there,” I said. I couldn’t tell them that the kid had been sent to the dean’s office. They might relay the information to Vincent the Hammer and I’d be joining Mickey in permanent detention.

  Chapter 13

  After the Roo brothers dropped me off, I decided to take stock. I had a lead singer who couldn’t sing or play the guitar. My drummer was the son of a notorious pot dealer. The base player was picking his zits in the principal’s office. The gig was Saturday night.

  Not a bad day’s work. I allowed myself to bask in the glow of the neon beer sign that reflected off the mirror behind the bar.

  The phone rang a few minutes later.

  “Is this Joey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, it’s Hakim?”

  “Hakim?”

  “I’m the bass player.”

  “Oh, yeah. That was fast.”

  “Well, I got lots of time on my hands now. I got expelled.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “I’m good with computers.”

  “I didn’t know expulsion required a skill.”

  “I hacked the school’s main frame last week and sent out press releases, notified the radio stations that school was cancelled. Twice. For inclement weather.”

  I thought about the beautiful spring we were having. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “Topeka. How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess. So you can play Saturday night? Rehearse once?”

  “Sure.”

  I took Hakim’s number and told him I’d call.

  Things were getting better by the minute. But I still needed a couple of things. I called Ralph.

  About twenty minutes later, the Econoline wheezed up to the curb. I locked up the bar and got in. Ralph was chewing a piece of green beef jerky. He held it up like a conductor getting ready to kick off a concert.

  “Hey, I found a bag of this under the seat. You want some?”

  It was covered with dust and smelled like petroleum byproduct. I’d already peeked into a McDonald’s bag on the dash and saw what looked like week-old quarter pounders or hockey pucks. It was hard to tell.

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Okay, your loss. Where we going?” Ralph said.

  “I need to see Jake from Jericho. He owes me a favor and it’s time to collect.”

  I get through life collecting and trading favors. And I know the exact value of every favor everybody owes me and the favors I owe them. I don’t use a calculator or even count on my fingers. I keep it all in my head and somehow it always seems to work out in the end.

  Jake was filming another commercial in front of his huge retail electronics outlet when we got there. Ralph parked on the other side of the parking lot and we watched.

  Jake was wearing a black suit, a black fedora with a rim wide enough for pigeons to roost, and had a full beard. Still, he didn’t really look Orthodox, more like an ethnically confused undertaker.

  “I won’t be undersold by anybody,” Jake shouted at the camera, leaning forward shaking his finger and accentuating anybody. His store loomed behind him like a Walmart on steroids, a semi-flaccid inflatable J sagged atop the store.

  Ralph looked at me. “He Jewish?”

  “No. I knew Jake back in high school. His real first name’s Gerald and his last name is Hoffenmeisterheim. He’s a Presbyterian from Pacoima.”

  A few years before, when Jake was still Gerald, he spent a couple months in jail and got crosswise with some neo-Nazi skinheads. Despite his Teutonic last name, they wanted him dead. He had other plans.

  When he got out, I let him hide out in the bar while things cooled down. He had a lot of time to watch daytime TV. That’s when he hatched the scheme to hide from his neo Nazis pursuers in plain sight. He’d pretend to be an Israeli electronics merchant, Jacob - Jake for short - from Jericho.

  Personally, I thought the plan had a few flaws. But it had worked so far. Even with the commercials. Maybe the skinheads don’t watch much late night cable. Of course, Jake never ran his commercials during tractor pulls or Chuck Norris movies. Jake was pretty good at those basic life skills.

  He saw me coming across the parking lot and unclipped the mike from his lapel and started toward me. Fast.

  “Back in the van,” he said and walked straight to the Econoline, slid open the side door, and closed it behind him. I climbed in the front seat and turned to look at him.

  He was searching for something to sit on. The only things back there were a pick and two shovels.

  “I’m not going to ask,” he said.

  “Good idea,” I said.

  Finally he just squatted on his haunches, pushed his fedora back on his head, nodded to Ralph, and glared at me.

  “Are you crazy? The skinheads could be following you.”

  He had a point. But he was afraid of possible assassins. I was spending my days with Jimmy and James Roo. When it comes to bodily harm, I’m a bird-in-the-hand kind of guy. I ignored his remark.

  “I need a favor,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I need to borrow some equipment.”

  “Borrow? Let me see, the last time you borrowed something from me, Joey, it was my girlfriend’s car and she was in it.”

  “Hey, I brought the car back.” Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. I tried again. “It’s for one night. For a gig at the bar. You can come and watch the equipment. It’ll never leave your sight.”

  “A gig at that dump? Are you kidding me?”

  “I’ve spruced the place up a bit since you were living there.”

  “You talking about Pablo’s mur
als?”

  “Yeah, I think they add a touch of class to the place.”

  “Joey, the bar looks like it was painted by Grandma Moses during her Alzheimer’s period.”

  “Yeah, like I said, a touch of class.”

  He half stood and shoved the door open. “Get me a list of what you need and then we’re even, Joey.”

  “Hey, Jake, you going to come to the show?”

  “Joey, I don’t have any idea what’s behind all this.” He glanced at Ralph, looked at the shovels and pick ax on the floor and back at me again. “But I’ll be there because I can’t wait to see how it all comes out.”

  Like I’ve said. It’s all marketing.

  Chapter 14

  I watched Jake cross the parking lot again as the van’s engine sputtered and hacked its way back to life. Ralph dropped the transmission into gear and we headed for the street.

  I was on a roll. Things were coming together. But I still needed one more thing. Every megagroup, the ones that sell out the football stadiums, has a killer lead guitar player. I needed to see Biggie Bruce. He couldn’t play worth a damn, but I had something else in mind.

  I looked at Ralph. “I’ll buy you lunch,” I said.

  He was still watching Jake from Jericho out the window. At the mention of free food he turned around. Calories are the key to Ralph’s attention. He’s like a Labrador in that way. He smiled.

  “Cool. There’s a Denny’s not far from here. They have this chilly-cheeseburger. It comes with sour cream and extra napkins.”

  “We’re going to Swen’s.”

  “I hate sushi.”

  “So have the spaghetti.”

  “Maybe I’ll stick with ice water.”

  “Probably not a bad idea.”

  Fifteen minutes later Ralph parked the van in the lot of Swen’s Sushi and Spaghetti Full Service Drive-Through Restaurant. It was a small lot. We parked and waited while the engine wound down, knocking and kicking. The van shook like a wet dog, sighed and stopped. We headed for the front door. We were walking past the drive-through window when I smelled the canola oil. Very old canola oil and very hot. Denny’s was looking better.