The Barkeep (11 page)

“Frank says you’re pouring drinks in some lowlife bar,” said his father.

“It’s actually a high-life bar, since we serve Miller.”

“Is this why I sent you to law school, to serve liquor to weak-mouthed drunks?”

“It’s against the law to serve them if they’re drunk.”

“I remember when I tried to convince you to spend a summer clerking at Talbott, Kittredge, the firm your great-grandfather started, and you went to the public defender instead. You said you wanted to be Clarence Darrow, Thurgood Marshall. I don’t remember Thurgood Marshall making Margaritas.”

“How do you think he won
Brown
?”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Someone killed my mother,” said Justin, with a dose of bitterness that surprised him, “and my priorities changed.”

“So you ended up in a bar. She would have been so proud.”

“I ended up where I ended up. It’s a job, it pays the rent. It has nothing to do with who I am, and that’s the way I like it.”

“That’s what failures always try to tell themselves, but it is self-deception. You are what you do in this world, and what you do, Justin, is crap.”

“What about you, Dad? What do you do now?”

“I seethe.”

And Justin could see it, in the hunch of his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw. His father’s fists clenched so stiffly the knuckles were white. Justin’s throat tightened at the sight of it, as if his father’s anger were reaching across the table to throttle him. For a moment, Justin had to look away to catch his breath.

“Frank told me about Uncle Timmy,” said Justin.

“It was inevitable.”

“I’m sorry. I know you were close.”

“Timmy was always troubled. Even when we were boys, you could see it. He couldn’t control his weakness, so he decided to feed it instead. He thought the junk would keep it at bay, but all it did was make the weakness stronger. It is no surprise that it overwhelmed him in the end.”

“Frank said you asked him to pay for the funeral.”

“It seemed the thing to do.”

“I was surprised you would do that for him even after he testified against you.”

“Timmy had an excuse,” said Justin’s father, a note of accusation ringing in his bitter voice before he looked away from Justin, as if for the moment he couldn’t bear the sight of his own spawn. “The police used his weakness to twist him around. I understood. In the end, weakness was all he had left. Without it, he would have been nothing but bones.”

“The funeral was this morning.”

“Did you attend?”

“No.”

“Came to visit me instead. Penance?”

“Not penance,” said Justin. “In fact, I actually wasn’t sure why I was coming, until I saw you walk in the door.”

“And the grand revelation?”

“You’re my father, it’s as simple as that.”

Mackenzie Chase stared at his son, and for the briefest moment something soft slipped through his expression, like a darting fish. What was it Justin saw there in that instant? Regret? About what? About their failed relationship? About Justin’s dead mother? About all they had lost together? It was there and then it was gone and his father had changed the subject, but the effect lingered, like a hope.

“I heard about your motion,” said Justin.

“I’ll never stop fighting to clear my name.”

“Is that what it’s all about, your name?”

“It’s your name, too.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“You came to me, Justin. Obviously you’re looking for something.”

“I think I want you to admit what happened. I think I want you to tell me the truth for once. No transcript, no tapes, nothing to prejudice your precious motion. I just want to hear the truth.”

“You don’t want the truth, you just want some pabulum to fill your tummy.”

“Try me.”

“The truth is I didn’t kill her.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“And there we are.” Justin’s father took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill her, Justin. I loved her. I’ve been trying to prove that from the first. I still am. And I was close to proving it, because Timmy was going to come clean and tell the truth for once.”

“Why did Timmy change his story?”

“Maybe the guilt had been wearing on him. It can do that, you know. It can corrode like an acid until it turns your insides to mush. But for whatever reason, he came to me, out of the blue, and he apologized for the lie. And it was a lie. The very idea that I would say to him what he said I said. I mean, who knew better than me how unreliable he was? In this visit he said he would do anything to make it right. I had met a lawyer while in here who offered to take up my case. I sent Timmy to the lawyer and we filed our motion for a new trial.”

“And then he died.”

“He was chasing death his whole life, like a dog chasing the same car day after day. Finally, he caught the bumper in his teeth. Damn inconvenient—the timing, I mean. But accidents are always damn inconvenient.”

“Except the cops think it wasn’t an accident.”

“What else could it be?”

“They think it might have been murder. And they think I did it.”

“You?” His father smiled—or was it a smirk—to think Justin capable of something so hard as that.

“They suspect I killed Uncle Timmy because he had changed his story and was trying to get you out.”

“Aren’t they clever. Always trying to pin the tail on whatever donkey they see in front of them.”

“I was hauled into Mia Dalton’s office and told to watch my step.”

“Sweet girl, that, like a lemon drop without the sugar. Watch out for her, before she does to you what she did to me.”

“So who would want to kill him? Who would still care enough?”

“Other than you?”

“It’s not funny.”

“Don’t tell me, tell that Dalton woman. I don’t know who would have wanted Timmy dead. You make a lot of enemies in that life. Are they sure it was murder?”

“They seem to be.”

“Maybe it was a dealer he owed money to. Or maybe it was someone who wants to keep me in here to protect himself. I don’t know. Maybe the real killer is afraid I’ll get out and find the son of a bitch.”

“Just like O. J.”

“That’s who you see when you see me?”

“What else should I see?”

The old man leaned forward, lowered his voice. “Look around. I’m not sitting on a beach somewhere, I’m not pounding Piña Coladas and dating models. I’m in this hellhole with a life sentence around my neck. And unless something dramatic happens, I’ll be stuck in this pit for the rest my life. You don’t need to keep punishing me. Mia Dalton did a good enough job of that herself.”

“What kind of relationship can we have if you won’t admit what I know to be the truth?”

“I envy you.”

“Why?”

“With all the world’s uncertainties and injustices, with all the doubt that piles around us like dead leaves in an autumn storm, you remain so sure of your truths. It must be comforting to be so sure.” Justin’s father tapped a couple of times on the table and then rose from his chair.

He stood there a moment and stared at Justin as if expecting something. Justin stayed seated and watched as his father’s expression veered from sour amusement to something pained. And he looked old suddenly, stooped and beaten, far older than he had seemed before.

“It’s nice to have something to hold on to,” said Justin’s father, “even if it is just your hate. No one knows that better than I.”

Justin watched as the bent old man shuffled toward the inmate door. His father had aged three decades in the course of the visit. And as his father was let out of the room, Justin felt a strange longing. Not a longing for this man, who Justin still firmly believed was a murderous son of a bitch, but a longing for that generic emotion he had felt a hint of before, the generic caring of a generic son for his generic father. He wanted a father who hadn’t killed his mother, a father who meant the things he said, a father who truly sought a relationship with his son. It was gone, that possibility, gone forever, for Mackenzie Chase hadn’t just taken away Justin’s mother, he had taken away Justin’s father too. And for a moment he felt the longing and the loss so strongly that it cracked his heart.

Right in that room he did what he had to do to banish the emotion. He closed his eyes and concentrated, let the longing rise like a dark, foul fluid in the clear pool of his consciousness, let it rise until it nearly choked him with its poison, and then he let it flow out again, all the hope and need, all the longing.

He felt a tapping on his shoulder and he looked up into the face of a guard telling him it was time to go. But Justin put up a finger and asked for a moment, and the guard, seeing something in his face, backed away. And Justin closed his eyes again and let the emotions flow out and away and disappear so that they could do him no harm.

Until he was left with nothing but the clearest, purest water.

In that moment he peered into the clear pool he had now become and saw something in the depths, something bright, iridescent. He reached in with an arm, stretched until he
could just get his fingers around the object, green and sparkly and shaped like a turtle. And he clutched it tight in his fist, as if it were his final, brightest hope in a world of tragic illusions.

16.

LOW AND SLOW

D
etective Scott was leaning on the hood of a car parked next to Justin’s motorcycle in the prison parking lot. He was wearing a blue sport coat so tight the seams stretched as he crossed his arms. Justin walked up to his bike and plopped the helmet on the seat.

“Checking up on old friends?” said Justin.

“I have my share inside,” said Detective Scott. “Most everyone I put in there knows I play the game square.”

“My father would beg to differ.”

“I didn’t say all were fans,” said Scott, “but all got the same square deal, your father included. You weren’t at Timmy Flynn’s funeral.”

“I was busy.”

“So you visited your father instead. I thought you told us you didn’t see him anymore.”

“What I said was true when I said it. I’d suggest you check the visitor log, but I assume you already have.”

“Maybe I did at that. So why now?”

“After you hauled me in, told me that Uncle Timmy had been murdered, and accused me of doing it, I thought I ought to let my father know what was going on.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I should watch my ass before you and Ms. Dalton railroad me like you railroaded him. Are you going to railroad me, Detective?”

Scott smiled. “Not me.”

“How about Ms. Dalton?”

“She has it out for you for some reason. So when word was passed that you were here visiting your father, I thought I’d show and give you a heads-up. You don’t want to be getting too involved in this case right now, son. Play it slow and lay low, that’s always been my motto. It’s kept me out of trouble.”

“Low and slow. Is that how you play basketball, too?”

“Not when I was young and a terror on the court.”

“I would have liked to have seen that. Okay, warning received and appreciated.”

“Good. So now that we’re alone, why don’t you tell me, off the record, who was beating the hell out of you in your apartment when I showed up.”

“I thought we dealt with that already.”

“No,” said Detective Scott. “You lied and we let it go, but it hasn’t been dealt with. At first I assumed it was unrelated to your father’s case, a drug buy gone bad maybe, not a good thing for you but nothing for me to get all sassed about. But it turns out you don’t use drugs. You don’t even drink, which is a funny thing for a bartender. And you don’t care about money. And you don’t have any friends. And you don’t have anything to steal. Not even a television. How do you get by without a television?”

“I stare at the wall.”

“So it was a puzzle, until I got word that you showed up here. And then I got to wondering if maybe the beating wasn’t somehow related to your father’s case after all. Am I wrong?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. He jumped me from behind and told me that what happened to my mother was over, and my father was where he belonged. And he said if I turned over any dirt, I’d be digging my own grave.”

“Jesus. Why didn’t you tell us all this at the meeting?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No…Unless…Oh, I get it. It seems to indicate that your father might have been framed, and you don’t believe that. You still believe he did it.”

“Don’t you?”

“Sure I do. But that warning and Flynn’s murder might be enough to get me asking questions.”

“If I told you, Detective, that a geezer named Birdie Grackle came into my bar and told me he was an old hit man who had been hired by some unknown party to kill my mother, would you believe me?”

“You maybe, him no.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“And even if something happened to my common sense and I did believe him, it wouldn’t mean that your father wasn’t the one who did the hiring.”

“Point.”

“Look, Justin. If Flynn really was murdered, then somebody had to do it. And that somebody could be dangerous as hell to anyone involved. Maybe you ought to listen to that warning, mind your own business, and let us worry about all this.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Is that your way of saying ‘Go to hell’?”

“I guess you’re not a detective for nothing,” said Justin.
Because he absolutely was going to look into it, he had no choice. If there was a possibility that his father was telling the truth and hadn’t killed Justin’s mother, then there was a possibility that Justin could satisfy that strange yearning he had felt in the visiting room. He could never get his mother back, her voice was stilled forever, but maybe he could still get back his father.

“I have a hard time figuring a kid like you,” said Scott. “Giving up the law to be a bartender I can understand. I met enough lawyers in my day to see how miserable they are. But no television? That’s flat-out weird. Word is you’re some sort of Zen guy. What does that mean, anyway?”

“When you find out, tell me.”

“Does it help a sore back, this Zen thing of yours? Because I have this sore back that just kills me.”