Yesterday's Echo (14 page)

Kris walked into the bar trailed by Blake, the grill man; Juan, the prep cook; Brittney, the waitress; and the busboy, Justin. They stopped just inside the door and looked at me with worried eyes, except Blake, who looked pissed to have been pulled off the grill. My kind of employee.

“I'll say this once.” My voice was firm, but not loud. I scanned the face of each employee before I continued. “There is some shit in the newspaper that makes me look bad. There will probably be more of the same on the TV news. I haven't done anything wrong, but they'll make it sound like I have. None of that matters. When we're in this restaurant, we do our jobs. Nothing else. I don't care what you do in your free time, but the bullshit on the news will not be discussed inside these walls. If customers ask you about it, you don't know anything, because you don't. If any reporters try to enter the restaurant, you ask them to leave. If they don't, you get me. If you want to talk to reporters on your own time, that's your right. If it affects your ability to perform your duties at Muldoon's, you'll lose your job.”

I laid eyes on each individual employee one last time. “Does everyone understand?”

A chorus of “yeses.”

“Okay. Thanks for your attention. Now back to work.”

Everyone left except for Kris. She walked over to me, her blue eyes liquidy.

“I know you're a good man, boss.” She hugged me tightly, her head against my chest, a quiet sniffle.

I hugged her, then gently pushed her off me. “Thanks, Kris. Now go back to work.”

Dinner service started slowly. I let Brittney's section fill up before I started my shift. The pace picked up and things were running smoothly. I didn't sense any looks of recognition or accusing eyes. Either none of my customers read the newspaper or didn't care whether I killed people in my free time. They just wanted good food delivered promptly and me visible only when needed.

My kind of people.

At least until some of our regulars showed up.

The Faheys arrived a little after eight, an hour later than normal. They were our longest-running customers and the oldest of old money La Jolla. When I approached their table, Mrs. Fahey didn't attempt her usual flat smile. Instead, she wrinkled her face like she smelled something foul.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Fahey.” I set the unneeded menus down on the table. “Gibson, easy ice and Jack Daniel's, neat?”

“We almost didn't come tonight.” She looked at her husband who sat hunched over, staring down at the table through his whiskey-bottle glasses. “But it wasn't fair to deprive Mr. Fahey of his weekly steak dinner.”

“Well, I'm glad you decided to come.” I forced a smile. “It's always nice to see you.”

“Jules Windsor is a friend of Mr. Fahey's.” An edge crept into her haughty voice.

“We knew Adam as a child.”

Walter Fahey still wouldn't look at me. He angled his head toward his walker, which leaned against the wall next to his seat. I didn't know whether he couldn't stand to see my face or was embarrassed that his wife was making a stink.

“I never had the pleasure of meeting any of the Windsors.” I hoped she'd take my statement as an alibi and we could move on with dinner.

Mrs. Fahey hawkeyed me for a bit before she spoke again. “Well, if you say so.”

She didn't sound convinced. But, apparently, a succulent filet mignon was too good to pass up.

The frost stayed on Mrs. Fahey the rest of the night, but she never came out and accused me of murder. Mr. Fahey warmed up and by the end of dinner he didn't seem to care how many people I'd killed. He still let me guide him through the restaurant and out the door as he teetered on his walker.

After my conversation with Mrs. Fahey, my antennae went up. Every look from a customer now had a hint of accusation, repulsion, or fear. I could feel eyes lasered on me with every trip through the dining room. Innate sensitivity or paranoia, it didn't matter. I just wanted out.

I was finishing my shift when the Slaters waved me over to their table. They sat in Brittney's section at their favorite table with a view of the courtyard. I barely had the “hello” out of my mouth when Dean interrupted. “Did you kill the little prick?”

“Dean!” Ann's lined, but attractive, face burned crimson. “That's a horrible thing to say. Rick, just ignore him.”

“You would have done the world a favor.” Dean ran a hand through a gray goatee that anchored his fry-pan face. “The kid was a bad seed.”

“You shouldn't speak ill of the dead.” Ann shook her head at her husband. “Think of the family.”

“The family's probably relieved. That kid was nothing but trouble.” He swallowed some Johnny Walker Black and rolled his red-tinged eyes toward me. “I hired the little prick to work for me
one summer as a favor to his old man. We were doing the library renovation and tools started disappearing off the work site. I confronted Adam about it, and he threatened to tell the newspaper that I was charging the city for phantom work. I called his bluff and fired him. A few months later, Jules kicked him out of the house for a while. Turns out he was selling drugs out of his bedroom. Yeah, he was a real saint.”

I excused myself before Dean had a chance to high five me.

The dining room had slowed enough to let Brittany handle it alone. I peeked my head into the bar for a quick check before I'd finally get my chance to hide out in the office. It was two-thirds full and the band had the customers boogying in their chairs and working up a thirst.

I was about to head back to the office when Pat caught my eye. He nodded toward the far end of the polished oak bar. I looked over and saw Eddie Philby huddled over a draft beer. He seemed to be minding his own business.

That's what I was afraid of.

Everyone I'd ever known who'd worked a while in the restaurant biz had had a habit at some point. Booze, weed, or blow. You got off work late, tired but wired, and there was always a friendly bartender to pour you two for one, or a fellow server to share a joint with in the alley, or a boozy dealer at the end of the bar you'd meet in the bathroom and give your night's tips to for a gram of blow.

Eddie Philby was holding office hours at the end of the bar. My bar.

It's not that I was a prude. Or without sin. I'd ridden the white powder roller coaster for a few rounds after I moved back down from Santa Barbara. It was a quick up out of the hole I'd dug for myself. But it had emptied my pockets and my soul. I went from feeling sorry for myself to feeling nothing but the next rush. I finally quit cold turkey when its grip was the tightest and all I had left was the memory of who I once was.

Philby hadn't been around back when I was snorting my
dinner, but he'd helped put Pat on tilt for a couple of years. I almost had to fire Pat one night when his hands shook so badly booze sloshed out of the drinks he tried to serve.

What my crew did with their free time was their business. When they brought it to work, it was mine. I'd sent Pat home and spent the rest of the night behind the bar in the weeds. I finally decided I had to call Pat the next morning and fire him.

When he came back into the restaurant after closing that night, I figured he'd saved me a phone call. But before I could pink-slip him, he asked for my help. I saw fear in his hollow, brown eyes. And it wasn't the fear of losing a job. He was the best bartender on the block and could have had another gig by morning. It was the fear I'd seen years before when I looked in the mirror after yet another all-nighter. The fear that you'd lost control of your life and could never get it back.

I took Pat back to my place that night, and we talked 'til dawn. He kept his job and spent the next few nights on my couch.

He'd grown a tire around his middle since then, but his ticker now had a better chance to keep ticking living on beer and pizza than it did riding the white powder rails.

I'd warned Philby that if I ever caught him dealing in my restaurant, I'd call the cops. He'd heeded my threat, and I hadn't seen him for a while. Until tonight. He could have innocently been in to nurse a beer and enjoy the music like the rest of the crowd. And the thugs who jumped me this week could have just been giving me a physical exam.

I went to the cocktail waitress station at the end of the bar where Pat made five empty glasses turn into five drinks in twenty seconds. I leaned over the bar, and he met me in the middle.

“I'll be in the office. As soon as he gets up, call me on my cell.”

Pat nodded and I retreated to the back of the restaurant without Philby having seen me.

I'd just finished squaring my bank and counting the tips I'd distribute to the crew when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw that the incoming number was the restaurant's.

“He's up.” Pat's voice shouted over the band in the background. “Need a hand?”

“Nope. Thanks.”

I waited twenty seconds and then headed through the kitchen into the dining room. The men's bathroom was just around the corner from the busboy station. I eased the door open a foot and slid through the opening avoiding the squeak the hinges made when the door was opened wide.

The two urinals were empty, but the handicap stall was full. Of four shoes.

“This is the shit, man.” Philby's voice was a high-boil whisper.

“How 'bout a taste before I fork over the dough?” I didn't recognize the other voice, but I did the need.

A quick tapping sound slid out of the stall. Probably a credit card on top of the toilet's tank chopping up the rocky cocaine into a powder. Then a snort and a loud exhale through the mouth.

“You're right, dude.” The buyer. “Good shit.”

Another snort, this one longer. “I wouldn't do you wrong, bro.” Philby's voice was stuck in his throat. “A ‘G,' right?”

“Yeah.”

I took two quick steps to the stall and pounded the door. “Out!”

“Shit!”

Some shuffling, then the stall door slowly opened. First out was a guy I'd seen in the bar a few times, but I didn't know his name. He was in his late twenties and wore a surfer uniform: baggy shorts, T-shirt, and flip-flops.

“We were just—”

“Leave.”

He hustled past me and out the bathroom door.

Eddie Philby stepped out of the stall and gave me a faded smile. He didn't look like the stereotypical drug dealer. He was closer to forty than thirty and dressed like a department store mannequin, blue blazer and tan slacks. But the coat, like its owner, was starting
to show its age. Philby was a trust-fund baby from an old-money La Jolla clan who was living off the fumes of his family's largesse. His aristocratic good looks were unraveling around the edges like his coat and his hollow core was visible in his eyes. A junkie who dealt to feed his habit.

“I told you to keep your business out of my restaurant.” I blocked his path.

“An impulse buy that was initiated by the customer.” He'd dropped the drug jive and reverted to his roots. “I just came into your lounge to enjoy the fine music.”

“Well, savor the memory because it's the last time. Leave now and don't come back.”

“Okay.” He straightened his shirt collar. “But, it's a shame because I had a business proposition for you.”

I waited.

“Your bar is fertile ground for my product, and I need market share.” He rubbed his nose. “I'm willing to offer you a percentage off the top of all transactions. You won't have to get your hands dirty. You just look the other way and, while you're looking, keep an eye out for undercover cops.”

The irritation of the previous week started to bubble under my skin, but I held it at a simmer.

“What makes you think I'd go into business with you?”

“Well, I read the newspaper. Adam Windsor was obviously back to his old ways and last seen alive in your restaurant. I knew Adam way back when. He was a cheat. I'm sure his death was a well-deserved accident over his bad business practices.”

“So, that's how it was.”

“Look, I know it's tough to get ahead. I'm lucky. I've been blessed by my parentage.” He put his right hand on my shoulder. “There's nothing wrong with doing a deal that blurs the line every now and then. Certainly your father understood that.”

The bubbles hit boil and I shot my right arm under his and yanked it hard up behind his back and drove him into the wall
opposite the mirror. He got his other arm up in front of his face to cushion the blow and save his nose from breaking. Still, his face made a loud splat against the wall and the air blew out of his body.

“Spread 'em!” My cop ancestry jolted through me all the way out from my father's grave.

I kicked Philby's feet apart and pulled his arm higher behind his back. A hoarse shriek leapt from his throat, and I searched his coat pockets with my free hand. When I found what I was looking for, I released his arm, shot my hand up to his coat collar, and pulled down as if I just put my last quarter in a slot machine. Philby's ass hit the ground and he skidded across the bathroom floor.

“What the hell's wrong with you?” He wiped away a thin trickle of blood from his nose.

“I'm a killer, remember?”

“I don't want any trouble. I just want my product back.” Philby was back on his feet but kept a nervous distance from me. “Please.”

The baggy I'd ripped from his coat contained ten or twelve paper bindles, each about one by two inches. If they were all grams, I held over a thousand dollars street value of cocaine in my hand.

“I'll leave. I promise. Just please let me have my blow.” Philby's voice had the whine of a kid begging a bully to give him back his milk money.

I guess that made me the bully.

I went into the stall where Philby'd done his business and left the door open so he could watch. Then I dropped the baggy into the toilet and flushed. “Still wanna be my partner?”