Chuck Freadhoff - Free Booze Tonight Read online

  “Show time,” Delilah whispered, took a sip of beer and put the bottle back on the bar. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen her happy. She stepped up to the microphone. She glanced at Biggie and Hakim.

  “Proud Mary?” she said and they both nodded.

  Hakim led off with a great bass riff and Delilah started singing. I closed my eyes and for a few blissful seconds I thought maybe Tina Tuner had dropped by. Delilah got as far as “working for the man …” when Biggie started playing and answered my question.

  Biggie’s eyes were closed and he was grimacing in concentration like someone was standing on his bunions. It didn’t help. He was half-a-beat off, out of tune, and really loud. Delilah stopped singing.

  “From the top,” she said and Hakim led off again. This time Jake started the drum machine early.

  The third time they almost got it, but Biggie decided to add some backup vocals. It sounded like a vulture adding backup to a coyote killing a rabbit, disconcerting and out of place, yet oddly encouraging at the same time. The music ground down like a transmission running out of fluid and the bar fell silent.

  “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Biggie finally said. “Let’s try something from the Beach Boys. How about California Girls? It’ll sound great with a banjo.”

  Biggie grabbed the banjo and started tuning. Delilah looked at him like she was measuring him for a rug. I couldn’t watch. I turned away and scanned the bar.

  The Roo boys, arms crossed over their chests, were watching Biggie. Davie was shoveling something in his mouth from a small plastic bowl on the table and staring straight ahead with zombie eyes. His face had turned a Boggy Creek kind of green. Ken from Kinkos was taking his fingers out of his ears. He was chewing something too. His skin looked a little pasty.

  For a second I thought I heard the rumble of motorcycles, but I didn’t have time to think about it. The unmistakable smell of burning plastic wafted through the bar and I noticed smoke coming from the drum machine.

  It all happened pretty fast then.

  Flames shot out of the drum machine and hit Jake in the privates. He screamed, jumped up, and spun in circle. He tried to douse the flames with beer, but it was too much polyester and not enough beer.

  Jake’s crotch turned into a roman candle, showering the bar with sparks as he spun. He mooned the world, his singed butt looking like a poorly baked Easter ham. Hakim shook his beer and tried to spray Jake but missed and hit Delilah in the face.

  The mike short-circuited emitting a high-pitched wail shrill enough to make an air raid siren sound melodious.

  Dave leaped up from his table and stumbled toward the band. At first I thought he was trying to help. Then I saw a half-eaten pretzel hanging out of his mouth. I glanced at the table. Ken from Kinkos was curled in the fetal position on the floor under it and on top was the pretzel bowl. Now completely empty.

  “Stop him,” I yelled. The Roo boys lumbered forward, but they’re built more for intimidation and stopping bullets than speed. They were way too slow.

  Davey projectile vomited two feet from the band. He hit Jake in the crotch and put out the flames, but splashed Delilah, too. She screamed and jumped to the side. She slammed into Biggie who dropped his banjo and stepped on it, eliciting the first decent sound out of that damned instrument all night.

  A twofer, I thought. Delilah’s outfit and Biggie’s banjo, both ruined. At least we had that going for us.

  That’s when things got really interesting. The skinhead bikers came through the front door. They lumbered into the place all tight fitting black pants, shiny chrome chain belts, jewel encrusted swastika buckles, and purple doorags. Later I remembered the distinctive fragrance of Old Spice (Fresh Scent) flooding the room.

  “Get ‘em” one of them yelled and they surged toward Jake who threw his beer bottle at them. But Jake threw like politicians talk – lots of force and speed but not much accuracy.

  The bottle hit Davey square in the forehead. It spun him around and he launched one last Krakatoa style eruption in the face of the neo-Nazi skinhead bikers.

  The Roo brothers stepped forward, Delilah behind them. The bikers stopped.

  “Why can’t we all … .” Jimmy said.

  “Just get along,” James finished.

  Then they each pulled a piece from under their coats and put a bullet in the ceiling to emphasize their determination to introduce brotherly love to the situation. I popped open the cash register, scooped out the twenty-seven dollars in the drawer, and ran.

  I hit the alley two steps behind Jake and half a block behind Ralph who already had the van fired up. I reached the van, glanced in the back just to make sure there wasn’t a rug waiting in there with my name on it, and jumped into the passenger’s seat

  We were a few blocks away when I shook my head and glanced at Ralph. He was chewing a piece of beef jerky, half of it sticking from his mouth. His Toronto Blue Jays cap tilted back on his head. He drove with his left hand, holding the bag of jerky in his right.

  “Want some? High in fiber, you know.”

  I shook my head and decided not to mention the flame throwing drum machine he’d set up or the poorly wired mike. After all, every minute in Ralph’s van took me farther from the bar.

  “Why the hell did Davey eat those pretzels?” I asked.

  “Probably had the munchies.”

  “The munchies?”

  “Yeah, I gave him and Ken each a brownie loaded with enough pot to stop a rhino. I figured it would put ‘em to sleep. You know, that way they’d miss the rehearsal just like you asked.”

  I remembered the McDonald’s bag that I’d seen on the dashboard before. I guess I should have known they weren’t really leftover quarter pounders. I thought of Uncle Ike. For want of a nail … . Yup, you gotta pay attention to the details.

  “Take me to the bus station,” I said, leaned back, and concentrated on the only detail that really mattered at the moment — how far away from L.A. I could get for twenty-seven bucks.

  Chapter 25

  Twenty-seven bucks, I discovered, will get you as far as Riverside – close enough to share the same smog cloud with L.A. on those really hot summer days. In other words, not far enough.

  Ralph lent me another twenty – I think he was feeling guilty about Davey exploding – and I bought a one-way Greyhound ticket to El Centro which sits about a mile north of the Mexico border and about a million miles from anywhere else, as far as I could tell. As the bus rolled through the desert, skirted the Salton Sea, then came close to the city limits, I saw a billboard: El Centro – It Grows on You. It was probably put there by the local boosters who would tell you El Centro is an agricultural enclave, a place with lots of local color. In other words it’s a farm town with an abundance of dust and vegetables.

  I could have gone to San Diego for the same price. San Diego with beaches, bikinis, and Shamu. It’s close to Mexico, too, but I was thinking that Vincent the Hammer probably had lots of friends in San Diego, and more than a few in Mexico, those of the drug-dealing, psycho variety. El Centro, not so many.

  I stepped off the bus and I figured I was right. Middle of the summer, the town was like the Devil’s waiting room, a place to get you in shape for the flames and spits just past the next sin. I glanced down the street, a ribbon of tar. Not a rumor of a breeze. Even the tumbleweeds were suffering.

  El Centro, yeah, it grows on you, but so does athletes foot. I went looking for a bar. A drinking establishment can offer a man on the run a lot of advantages. Dark, full of strangers, and in El Centro it was guaranteed to be cooler than the sidewalk.

  The first place I saw was called The Eagle. An old sign touted “Cocktails, Excellent Steaks and Chops” and showed, in glowing red and green neon, an Eagle clutching a bleeding pork chop in its claw. A starving wolf would pass it up. I went straight in.

  I got a whiff of the place instantly – a blend of old cigars, stale beer, and body odor. I closed my eyes, soaked up the AC, sucked in a deep breath, an
d thought ‘ah, life is good.’

  I was the only customer. I plopped down on a barstool and before I could order, the bartender, a woman, turned and leaned on the bar directly across from me. She was short, stout, and old enough to have voted for Eisenhower. Her hair was platinum blonde and her lipstick Mary Kay pink. She wore some sort of peasant blouse that showed enough sagging cleavage to make a monk renew his vows.

  “What’ll it be, stranger?” she said and smiled revealing a missing upper incisor. I ordered a Budweiser and swallowed hard.

  She put a bottle in front of me and introduced herself as Gladys. “I own the place,” she said. “Welcome to the Eagle.”

  I nodded and sipped my beer.

  “What brings you to town?”

  “Greyhound.”

  “Looking for work?” she asked with a glint in her eye — Mae West meets Ma Barker.

  “Work?” My voice cracked. I glanced at the door, but knew it was still anteroom-to-hell hot out there so I didn’t move.

  Gladys lit up a Marlboro, inhaled, curled her lip and shot the smoke out the hole where her incisor should have been, putting me in mind of a steam train chugging out of a tunnel. A second later, the hole was plugged by the Marlboro.

  “If you’re looking, I need a busboy/bartender. Last one was here for just four days and he got deported. Hasta la vista, baby.”

  “Deported?”

  “Yeah. I had to turn him in. He didn’t fully appreciate the fringe benefits and additional duties that came with the job.” The Marlboro toggled up and down as she spoke. “You ever tend bar?” She smiled when she asked, a spider-and-fly kind of smile.

  Another thing Uncle Ike used to tell me —“Joey, you’re the only one who can define success for yourself.”

  I had seen the wisdom of Ike’s words right away and immediately set my own personal bar as low as possible. It had worked pretty well for me so far, too, especially lately. Those last few days, by my calculations if I was breathing, I was succeeding.

  “I’ve done a little bar tending,” I said.

  “You’re hired.”

  That’s how I ended up the new bartender/busboy at The Eagle in El Centro. When you’re a proven success, there’s no end to the opportunities you’re presented.

  “Your turn,” Gladys said, came around the end of the bar, and pointed to the tap. “I’ll have a Budweiser.” She was on a bar stool a second later.

  I took up a spot behind the bar, pulled her a Bud, and slid it in front of her. She polished off eight Buds faster than a thirsty German at Oktoberfest. Nature finally overcame her thirst and she stumbled off to the bathroom. I took advantage of her absence to use the bar phone and call Hector at Bonds R Us. I figured I was going to be in El Centro for awhile and might need a local referral. If I got popped, I wanted to make sure I was out of jail and long gone before Vincent heard about it.

  A few hours later, I bummed ten bucks from Gladys for dinner and went to a small Mexican restaurant down the street. My eyes were on my chimichanga when a shadow fell across my table and my water glass rattled. I looked up. Jimmy and James Roo towered over me. They wore their usual identical black suits, white shirts and narrow black ties.

  “We gotta talk,” Jimmy said.

  “Sure, right after dinner, okay? You know you can’t rush Mexican food, it’ll give you gas.”

  “Delilah’s missing,” James said.

  “Missing what?”

  “She’s run away,” Jimmy said.

  “To Vegas,” James said.

  “Wait a minute. You said she was missing.”

  “She is. She’s in Vegas,” Jimmy said.

  “How can she be missing if you know where she is?”

  “She ran away.”

  It was like trying to reason with Daffy Duck.

  “And you’re telling me this, why?”

  “Vincent wants her to come home,” James said.

  It took a minute before the clouds parted and I understood. “Wait a minute. He wants me to talk her into coming back to L.A.?”

  Jimmy looked at James and shrugged. “And you said he was stupid.”

  “So sue me,” James said.

  “Wait a minute, guys,” I said. “It’ll never work. I’m the guy that ran out on her.”

  “Let’s go,” James said.

  I glanced from one to the other. They looked like bulked up, pissed off Emperor Penguins.

  “What if I refuse?”

  “We brought a shovel,” Jimmy said.

  I pumped the air with my fist. “Great! Road trip.”

  Moments later, I was in the backseat of the Roo brother’s Continental heading for the Nevada line. I leaned back, wiped my forehead, and counted my blessings. I was heading to Sin City, I was breathing, and I didn’t have the measles.

  Chapter 26

  I sprawled across the back seat of the Roo brothers’ Continental and watched the desert slide past — a few forlorn cacti surrounded by rocks and enough sand to cover Rhode Island. I thought how much easier it would be to dig a hole out here in the sand than amid the rocks off Angeles Crest Highway. It wasn’t a reassuring thought, but I tucked that nugget of information away for possible later use. Uncle Ike would have been proud. I was making my leisure count.

  Finally, I sat up, stretched my arms across the top of the front seat, and leaned forward.

  “So, tell me something,” I said. “How’d you find me?”

  They sat motionless. It was like talking to Chinese porcelain warriors.

  “Come on guys at least give me a hint.”

  “Ethel,” James said.

  “My grandmother sold me out?” Half a second later, it hit me. “Wait a minute, she didn’t know where I was.”

  “We went to see her. She gave us Hector’s name,” Jimmy said.

  I remembered visiting her with the Roo boys in tow. She’d mentioned then that Hector was looking for me. For a second I was surprised she’d given Hector’s name to bulked-up mobsters big enough to bench press a lunch truck. Couldn’t she tell these weren’t nice people? No, actually she probably couldn’t. The only evil people in Ethel’s world were capitalist oppressors and Republicans, which, to her way of thinking, is pretty much a repetition of terms.

  I glanced at Jimmy and James. Nope, despite the blank faces, there was no way she’d mistake them for Republicans or even capitalists. She’s a little naïve, but she’s not blind.

  “I can’t believe Hector gave me up,” I said. “I’ve been a loyal customer for years. One more punch on my card and the next one’s free.”

  “We asked him nicely,” James said.

  “Yeah, politely,” Jimmy added.

  What could I say? Jimmy and James could be very persuasive when they wanted to be. I was in their car heading to Vegas, wasn’t I?

  I sat back and tried to figure out how I’d talk Delilah into coming back to L.A. I’d pretty much settled on begging when we got to Vegas. I glanced at all the lights and casinos, saw the Eiffel Tower and Caesar’s Palace slip past, and took in the one with the pirate ship firing cannons while it sank. The whole town looked vaguely like Disneyland on LSD. Still, I felt an adrenaline rush. Maybe my luck was going to change here in Sin City. Maybe I’d finally hit it big on the roulette wheel of life. Maybe I’d roll the dice and land sevens on my own personal highway to the future. Someone’s got to win in Vegas, right?

  “So where’s Delilah?” I asked.

  “She’s in Vegas,” Jimmy said.

  “But where in Vegas?”

  “She’s missing,” James said.

  “She ran away,” Jimmy said.

  Or maybe I was destined for a seat at life’s penny slots.

  They turned off the strip into a long, circular driveway that led past the front of the newest casino in Vegas – the Royal Alcatraz. It was an eighteen-story cement block building with the elegance of a Soviet era brick factory. All the windows had bars, and searchlights swept the façade every few seconds.

  “We’r
e staying here?” I asked. I had visions of metal toilets and restaurants that specialized in gruel.

  “No,” James said. “We gotta talk to someone.”

  I followed the Roo boys into the casino. The desk clerks’ and bell hops’ outfits had black and white horizontal stripes. The dealers were dressed like guards and two stories above the gaming floor, men with deer rifles and scopes paced along a metal catwalk. A few moments after we strolled in, a siren sounded and search lights swept the lobby.

  The place was packed. A sign at the check in desk said: Don’t bother asking. We’re booked. James waddled past a line of people waiting there and spoke to a clerk. He was back a moment later.

  “Mr. Rob said to come up,” he said.

  “Mr. Rob?” I asked.

  “The owner,” Jimmy said.

  “So Mr. Rob owns the Royal Alcatraz?”

  “Royal’s his first name,” James said.

  I was still turning Royal Rob’s name over in my head when James turned and started across the lobby. I fell in one step back, Jimmy just behind me. The elevator took us to the eighteenth floor and we went down a long narrow hallway of bare cement. James stopped at the last door and turned to me. I couldn’t see his eyes through his sunglasses, but I guessed they weren’t smiling.

  “Whatever you do, don’t stare.”

  “Stare at what?”

  “You like winter sports?”

  He turned and knocked on the door.

  Chapter 27

  I stared. I couldn’t help it. One glance at Royal Rob’s huge nose and I wanted to call Austria to see if someone was missing a ski jump or maybe send a message to Buffalo and ask if they’d misplaced a snow plow.

  Jimmy bumped me. I dropped my eyes but they bounced up again like a pogo stick. The thing was, Royal was a pretty big guy, with a huge chest, big arms, and broad shoulders. But it didn’t seem to matter. It was like Hulk Hogan wearing a watermelon on his face.