‘Yeah. There was this one day when he beat me with his hand because he couldn’t find the shovel. I’ll never forget it, still brings a lump to my throat.’ I try not to be bitter, but it’s hard.
People are usually embarrassed when I start in on my father, but Brandi has heard a million sob stories in her years on the podium. ‘Jesus, Dan, lighten the hell up. This place is gloomy enough with Connie scaring away all the big tippers.’
Some of the girls are not opposed to getting frisky in a booth if it means an extra few bucks. Most of the guys, too.
‘Come on, Brandi. Guy licked her arse.’
‘You can say ass, Dan. You’re in America now.’
I sigh. ‘Arse is the last piece of Irish I have.’
I decide then and there to give half of Macey Barrett’s wad to Connie. Her kids could probably do with a weekend away; maybe they’d take me along. We could toss a baseball.
I’m clutching at straws now. Never look out the window in a diner.
‘Where is Connie? She in yet?’ I’m already seeing myself making the gesture.
‘No sign,’ says Jason, checking his teeth in a tiny mirror on the back of his phone. ‘She better get here soon, Victor’s due.’
Vic’s favourite pastime is docking the staff. Any excuse he can find. A while back he put a timer on the staff washroom, which lasted about ten minutes before someone set fire to it and took out half the rear wall. Still, gives you an idea of the kind of person he is.
‘Yeah, that Vic, what a prince,’ says Brandi with a sneer.
Everybody’s on the same page on the Victor subject.
Then the man himself stumbles in. Victor Jones, the world’s oldest white rapper, fifty-five, resplendent in a Bulls sweatsuit and cap, wraparound shades and gold ropes up to his chin. More than a stereotype; a cartoon stereotype. Simon Moriarty could spend the rest of his life analysing this guy. I’m surprised Victor doesn’t get beaten up on a daily basis.
Matter of fact, he looks like he got beaten up tonight. There’s a drool pendulum swinging from his chin, and what looks like puke in little triangular pools between the laces of one ruby sneaker.
Ruby sneakers? I mean, come on, man. You’re mid-fifties from Hunterdon Country. Have some self respect.
Brandi is all over the boss, plumping his shoulder with a boob. ‘Hey, Vic, honey. What’s up? What happened to your shoe?’
Hypocrisy is a survival skill in Slotz. Five minutes ago she was spitting on Vic’s name.
Victor bends over, wipes his chin.
‘In the . . . fucking . . . out in the . . . I don’t fucking believe this . . .’
He pukes on the other sneaker.
‘Hurghhh . . . fuck it . . . fuck.’
I am not too upset. To be honest, seeing Victor doubled over is kind of amusing, takes my mind off my own gangster trouble.
‘Get it out, Mister Jones,’ I say, winking at Jason. ‘You’ll feel better.’ And then I add, ‘Bejaysus.’ To let Victor know I’m being Irish and charming.
‘Yeah, get it out, boss,’ adds Jason, smiling so wide I can see the little diamond in his fang. ‘Musta been one of those kebabs.’ He shoots a few seconds of video with his phone.
‘Shut the hell up the both of you,’ gasps Victor, spitting into the puddle between his feet. ‘We got work to do.’
He’s up straight now, wiping the tears from his scheming eyes.
‘Okay, McEvoy, make sure there’s nothing sub-v going on in the club. I mean nothing. You find someone holding, toss ’em. Any of the girls doing side business, tell ’em to zip it up. Jason, I want you to make absolutely sure there’s no disk in the security camera’s recorder. If there is, wipe it. Wipe them all. I want us squeaky clean before the cops get here.’
Brandi is snuggling his elbow again. ‘What can I do, baby?’
Vic shrugs her off like a wet jacket. ‘You, baby? You can clean up the puke.’
Kissing arse doesn’t get you anywhere with this boss.
Then I register what Victor said.
Before the cops get here.
Why would the cops be coming here?
Connie generally parks her old Saturn out back and slips in through the delivery entrance. She’s not ashamed of herself, just her job, and she doesn’t want any of the cling-ons to doorstop her at the front sidewalk. The police eventually cordoned off a ten-metre square around the Saturn with yellow crime-scene tape. But not before I ignored Victor’s instructions and rushed outside.
Connie lay dead beside her car. One shot through the head it looked like, between her arched eyebrows. She’d struggled some; her blouse was ripped and her right shoe lay apart from the body.
I felt numb; it was too much. Sensory overload. My brain steamed as though it was packed in ice.
I’ll feel this later, I thought.
I was right.
Generally I’m not much for scenery. I don’t slow down to gaze at the stars, never rise early to watch the sun pulse over the skyline, but sometimes a picture gets etched on to your brain and you know it’s there for good. Always the violence, shit and misery. I barely remember my own baby brother’s face, but every night dear old Dad haunts my dreams. Three-quarter profile, hooded eyes, tacks of grey stubble, and me falling away from his fist, left eye filling up with blood.
I will remember this night too. Connie lying beside the Saturn, slightly on her side, as though turning in her sleep. One cheek scuffed like a boy’s shoe, limbs brown, elbows sharply pointed. Car door open, cab light casting a yellow glow on her face. Cracked and buckled asphalt with cigarette butts in the grooves. Blue shift dress with some kind of sparkly material, sequins or metallic thread, I don’t know. Hip curved. Hair frizzed on the wet road.
And a hole in the head.
I stumbled back inside, gasping for air.
Did I have something to do with this? Is it connected?
The cops assemble us in the bar and announce that we are shut down for the foreseeable. Vic goes ape.
‘What the hell?’ he rants, going nose to nose with a detective, who’s got that look in her eyes that should tell Vic that there’s a shit-limit and he’s fast approaching it. ‘Shooting didn’t even happen on the premises. This is victimisation, fucking police brutality. Something.’
Vic never could see the line between saving face and talking stupid.
‘There’s a bakery on the other side of the lot. You pricks better shut that place down too or I’m suing somebody.’
‘I’m a cop, sir,’ says the detective, black, thirties, strong features like you’d get on a woo
d carving. ‘We don’t shut down bakeries.’
Vic almost has an aneurysm. ‘Fucking funny, lady. If I wanted to take shit from a bitch, I coulda stayed at home.’
The cop has a comeback for that too. ‘Yeah? Well maybe if you click the heels of those ruby slippers together, you could do us all a favour and magic yourself off to whatever dream world manufactures culture-raping assholes like yourself . . . sir.’
These are strong words, but Vic started in with the B word, so the cop is probably on safe ground complaints wise. I decide not to get on her bad side.
The blue puts up with five more minutes of Vic’s obstruction, then gets tired of making the effort and sends him up to the plaza for a night in the cells.
Brandi objects loudly until the door closes behind her boss, then she sparks a cigarette and says, ‘Thank heaven. That boy was about to feel the sting of my boot on his behind.’
I am surprised. Behind is a delicate word to be coming out of Brandi’s mouth.
So for two hours we sit around in the bar, waiting for a crime lab crew that has to come all the way from Hamilton in their paper suits. Then another ninety minutes while they scrutinise the area for trace. Good luck to them. That back lot has seen more pot deals and blow jobs than the Amsterdam red-light district. I bet they get semen samples going back to the nineteen fifties.
I keep an eye on the scene through the high window. All I can see of Connie is her foot, but it’s enough to make me want to cry for every sadness I’ve ever known. I don’t break down, though. Tears from a big man are as good as an admission of guilt to a zealous cop.
A couple of the CSIs are not as processional as they might be, pulling down their masks to smoke cigarettes and bobbing along to whatever’s on their headphones. Maybe that’s how they deal, or maybe they genuinely do not give shit one.
And all the time, while the trail is growing cold, the staff is sitting jittery around the casino’s poker table; that is until Brandi hits upon the notion of getting hammered on the boss’s dime. Victor’s locked up, Connie’s shot dead. So, screw it, we all need a drink.