In the Drink (2 page)

So while I'm normally a very present and hands-on owner when it comes to running my bar, the recent publicity storm has forced me into hiding either in my office or my apartment much of the time. Fortunately I have a group of capable and dependable employees who can run things just fine without me, though I'm rarely more than one locked door or text message away.

Unfortunately, this need to hide coincided with the grand opening of my new expansion. After Ginny's death, I learned I was the sole beneficiary in her will. I went from counting pennies and barely scraping by, wondering from one day to the next if I was going to be able to keep the bar open, to a degree of financial independence. I bought an empty building that shared a wall with my bar, and doubled the size of my place. It was a risky move, but one I felt I needed to make to stay competitive and keep the bar alive. In an ironic twist, all the publicity helped because it kept a steady stream of curiosity seekers coming in, hoping for a glimpse of the crime-solving, psychic fortune-teller who also happened to own a bar. So while I hated all the media attention focused on me, the weeks since the mediafest began have been the busiest ever at Mack's Bar. I know some of the traffic might be transient, but I hope that once things do finally die down, there will continue to be enough business to maintain a healthy bottom line.

I was hugely relieved that Duncan didn't lose his job, but his return to work didn't help our personal relationship any. He was brought back on duty with the caveat that he wasn't to get any help with his cases from “that woman.” This edict upset Duncan because he genuinely believed my synesthesia was an asset that could help him solve cases. I wanted to think it also upset him because of the strain it put on our relationship, but our last few phone conversations had been blandly polite and benignly social with little to no hint of romance or intimacy. I told myself it was because Duncan was distracted and worried about his job, but I'd harbored a fear from day one that his interest in me was more because of what I could do for him and his career than it was anything he liked about me personally. Not that there wasn't a genuine attraction between us; there was. But I wasn't convinced it was strong enough on his end to keep him interested if I was no longer of any use to him careerwise. Time would tell, I supposed, so I kept reminding myself to be patient.

But now I had this letter to deal with. If it was real—and I had no reason to think it wasn't—it was going to complicate my relationship with Duncan even more. My gut told me to tell him about the letter regardless of the writer's warning. Handling it alone was out of the question, and I had faith in Duncan's ability to help me sort it out while keeping it secret. But before I took that leap, I wanted to run it by a few other people who were among my core group of regulars, people who were the heart and soul of the Capone Club: my makeshift, substitute family.

I peeked out of my office door and did a quick scan of the customers I could see. The place was bustling with business, and most of the tables were full. I didn't see any obvious reporters among the mix, but some of them had been so clever and clandestine in carrying out their business that I couldn't be sure.

I thought back to one of the last lines of the letter:
I will be watching you.
I scanned the unknown faces in the bar, wondering if the letter writer was one of them. Would he or she be brazen enough to patronize my place? I thought about that for a moment and decided that anyone cheeky enough to write such a letter in the first place would have no qualms about coming into the bar to watch me. And if the letter was serious in its threat—meaning the writer would kill someone for what amounted to sport—then anything was possible.

One of my waitresses, Debra Landers, a no-nonsense mother of two teenage boys, saw me and made her way over. I thought about asking her to fetch the people I wanted and bring them to me, but I was feeling claustrophobic and trapped. I needed to get out of the dark recesses of my office and into the open air. I missed my bar, my customers, my life.

“I think you're safe,” Debra said, interpreting part of my hesitation correctly. “I've been watching and listening closely to most of the customers in this section and I don't think any of them are reporters.”

Most of my employees had been doing watch duty for me these past weeks, and Debra, who had an uncanny ability to sniff out people's true motives—a trait that had earned her the nickname Ann Landers—was the best of the bunch.

“I can't be sure about the customers in Missy's or Linda's sections,” she added. “So depending on where you're headed, I'd either avoid the new section or hurry through it.”

“I'm going upstairs to the Capone Club room,” I told her.

“Then just walk fast and avoid eye contact,” Debra said. “If anyone tries to make a move on you, I'll run interference.”

“Thanks.” I stepped out of my office and hurried through the crowd toward the new section of the bar. Here the tables were less full, and a large portion of the area was taken up by a stage that I had yet to use. I hoped to bring in some live music for the weekends, and maybe even a DJ during the week, in which case part of the area around the stage that was currently occupied by tables would become a dance floor.

Despite Debra's advice, I continued scanning the faces of my customers. Most of them appeared oblivious to my presence and very involved with their tablemates, but there were a few people who watched my progress with unmasked curiosity. It was hard to interpret the motives behind those watchers. I became something of a local celebrity thanks to the recent news coverage, and my picture had appeared on the news for the better part of a week. As a result, there were people who now recognized me and called to me by name even though I'd never met them before. The media has a way of creating a false sense of intimacy.

I had almost reached the stairs on the far wall when I was waylaid. But it wasn't a reporter or a curiosity seeker who nabbed me; it was another one of my waitresses, Missy Channing. With her silky blond hair, milky skin, big blue eyes, and curvaceous body, Missy was an attraction for many of my male customers. She was also a hard and dependable worker with an uncanny ability to associate a face with a drink. If you ordered something once, Missy would remember it the next time she saw you. Unfortunately, Missy's cerebral attributes ended there. She wasn't very bright when it came to general knowledge or simple, everyday common sense, which is why, at the age of twenty-two, she was a single mother of two kids and living with her parents.

Missy grabbed me by the arm just as I was about to start up the stairs to the second level. Her face was flushed red and her hairline was damp with sweat. “Mack, we need to do something about that new girl, Linda. She's slow as molasses! Debra put her in this new section because it has fewer tables and customers, but even with the smaller crowd she can't keep up. I'm having to carry half of her section along with my own. And running up and down these stairs is killing me.”

“Okay,” I told her. “I'll talk to Debra and see if we can expand Linda's training time. In the meantime, do the best you can for tonight because I don't think we have anyone extra we can bring in on such short notice.”

Missy's shoulders sagged and she looked like she wanted to cry.

“I know this transition hasn't been easy,” I told her, reaching up and giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “And I appreciate everything you do. Just get through tonight and I promise you I'll make it better.”

“I'll do what I can,” Missy said with a sigh, swiping the back of her hand over the beads of sweat on her forehead.

“I know you will. I'll ask Debra to help Linda out as much as she can, too. And to make it up to you, I'll pay you time and a half for tonight to compensate you for all the extra work you have to do.”

That brought a smile to Missy's face. Her current goal in life was to be able to afford to move out of her parents' house, and that meant money talked. She was a good employee so I considered the time and a half a wise investment to keep her happy. With Missy placated, I headed upstairs, making a mental note to tell Debra to pair Linda up with another waitress for more training after tonight.

Linda Manko was one of several new hires I had brought on to help staff the expanded bar areas. She was twenty-one, single, and starting school in the spring with hopes of becoming a dental hygienist. I almost didn't hire her because of her quiet, shy demeanor and mousy, bespectacled appearance. She also had no previous experience, and while waiting tables isn't exactly rocket science, it does require some social and organizational skills, skills I wasn't sure Linda possessed. But there was something about her, an underlying sadness or pensiveness that pulled at me and made me want to give her a chance. My father had always told me not to let my emotions rule my decisions when it came to hiring or firing staff, but that was a lesson I never quite learned. I didn't know if Linda was going to work out, but I was willing to give her a little more time to prove herself.

I climbed the stairs two at a time, eager to move on. The second floor in the original portion of the building above the bar was my apartment, but I decided to use the second floor in the new section for some special rooms. The first one I came to was the game room, or what many of my customers had dubbed the Man Cave. It was equipped with a pool table, two large-screen TVs, a foosball table, a dartboard, a putting green, computers with gaming systems, and some comfy recliner chairs. Not surprisingly, this room had been a big hit so far. What did surprise me was how many women used it. At first I thought the women were in there because they were single and looking, and figured that's where they could find the men. But at least half the women in the room on any given day or night were married or playing games with other women, simply enjoying a girls' night out.

Just past the game room was the room that had been taken over by the Capone Club. There was a third room, as well, but at the moment it was closed off. I intended to use it for extra-busy nights as simple overflow seating, and for special group functions. There was also a second bar on this level, one that could be locked behind a drop-down, garage door when I didn't need to use it. I had opened it a handful of times in the preceding weeks, mostly on Thursday nights and weekends—my busiest times—and twice when the third room was being used for some specialty events: a retirement party for an employee of a local company and a bridal shower. My original intent was to keep the second bar closed the rest of the time, but both the Capone Club room and the Man Cave were being used steadily, and my staff started to complain about having to climb the stairs to serve people on the second level. So I made the decision last night to staff both bars for now and provide dedicated waitstaff for the second floor to see how it played out. It wasn't a perfect solution because the kitchen was on the first floor and that meant there was still plenty of stair climbing involved whenever there were food orders. Tonight the second-floor bar was manned by Curtis Donovan, a new bartender I'd recently hired. Curtis was in his mid-thirties and came with several years of experience. He was a big guy with a big personality, soulful brown eyes, and a dimpled chin. He was also refreshingly and unapologetically gay. There was a group of women crowded around his bar, watching as Curtis entertained them with a mixing show worthy of Tom Cruise in
Cocktail
. He winked at me as I walked by and headed for the Capone Club room.

The Capone Club room was by far my favorite part of the additional space. The walls were wood paneled like an old-fashioned library or den, and there were bookshelves where I had placed a sampling of both novels and nonfiction books that could be swapped out using an honor system. It had taken less than a week for those shelves to be filled in by my customers with all manner of mystery novels and crime-related texts: forensic books, true crime novels, reference books on poisons, guns, crime scene analysis, and police procedures, and the requisite smattering of Sherlock Holmes tales. Scattered about the room were a dozen small round tables and an assortment of cozy chairs that could be pulled into a conversation circle, or hauled into a corner if someone wanted some privacy. A combination of recessed lighting and table lamps gave the room a warm feel while still providing enough light to read by. The star feature of the room at the time, given that it was mid-December, was the gas fireplace. Its heat and ambience made it a magnet for anyone who came into the room, so it wasn't too surprising to see that most of the Capone Club group was gathered around it. I did a quick scan, looking for any new or suspicious faces that might be reporters or crazed murderers in disguise, but everyone in the room at that moment was someone I knew.

Cora Kingsley was the first to see and greet me. “Mack!” she hollered, waving me into the room. “It's about time you ventured out of that cave you call an office.” Cora was forty-something, single, and an incurable flirt. She had a saucy personality, hair almost the same flaming color as mine—although hers came from a bottle—and a bosom that most men couldn't resist staring at. Cora didn't discourage such leers or ogles; in fact she seemed to invite and enjoy them. Her voluptuous build and flirty personality were mere window dressing for a very sharp mind and business acumen. The temptation to label Cora as a femme fatale was a big one, but the fact that she was a computer geek didn't quite fit into this mold. She owned her own company, which offered development and troubleshooting services for both computer hardware and software. One of her pet projects of late was a program she and one of her employees were working on that would help solve crimes. It operated much like the game Clue, and while it had so far proven to be too flawed to be of any real use, the Capone Club group enjoyed using it to come up with crime riddles they would then try to solve.

Back when we were investigating Ginny's murder, and I was trying to understand and interpret my synesthetic reactions to help solve it, Cora offered to be in charge of cataloging my reactions. They tend to be consistent and repeatable, but there are so many of them, and I've spent so many years trying to ignore them, that it was hard at times for me to accurately interpret them. Cora has built and maintained a searchable database of my cross-wired reactions to things. It has helped immensely because I can tell her what type of reaction I have to something and often as not she can look it up and tell me what it means if I don't already know. Though now, with the kibosh put on my services by the police department, the database might not serve much of a purpose.

Tad Amundsen followed up Cora's chastising greeting with “Given the way the press has been hounding Mack, can you blame her for hiding?”

Tad, like Cora, was a long-standing patron and member of the Capone Club. He was a financial advisor who owned his own company, though most of his revenue these days came from the friends of his very wealthy wife. Tad was a trophy husband and his ambivalence about it—he wasn't happy in his marriage, but was unwilling to give up the money—had him frequenting my bar often under the pretense of working late.

“I'm hoping my hiding days are almost over,” I told the group. “Sooner or later the press will find a new story to move on to.”

“I'm truly sorry about all dat,” said Tiny Gruber, an ironically nicknamed, huge hulk of a man whose real first name was Jürgen. Tiny was a construction worker and Cora's latest beau. He was new to both the group and my bar a few weeks ago when the publicity firestorm started. In fact, it was Tiny who started it. His younger sister Lori and her best friend, Anna Hermann, had disappeared and been found murdered twelve years ago when they were both fourteen years old. The crime had never been solved, and when Tiny saw what I was doing for the police, and the involvement and success the Capone Club had in helping to solve both real and made-up crimes, he went to the press and told them about it, not knowing the complications it would cause. He didn't do it maliciously; he merely wanted to generate some interest in his sister's long-cold case. It was a sentiment I understood all too well given that my father's murder went unsolved for many months, so I couldn't begrudge him his actions.

“It's okay, Tiny,” I assured him. “I think the press is starting to lose interest in me.”

“Oh, good,” he said. “It made me mad because dat dere woman I talked to told me she would highlight Lori's case and she never did.” Despite Tiny's towering size and his age, which I guessed to be in his mid- to late thirties, he seemed childlike with his ponytailed blond hair, big blue eyes, and cherubic cheeks. And when he pouted, like he was doing now, he looked even younger.