We order two of All-Star’s signature cocktails: jumbo martinis garnished with cherry tomatoes. To slip away, I’ll need to get Art tipsy without going sloppy myself. I’m good at this. One technique is to fill my cheek with alcohol, pretend to swallow, then spit into a napkin during a mock sneeze. Also, if the drinks are clear, I can secretly dump them in my water glass, then carelessly knock it over once it’s full. I’m slightly ashamed that I’m not man enough to declare my limits as a drinker, but since no one has ever caught me at my tricks, it’s a private shame, easy to deny, like the way I sometimes leave pairs of soiled boxer shorts in hotel room trash cans for the maid.
Art gnaws a breadstick. He’s breaking my heart today. Men venture everything when they start a business, not just money. Take my father’s case. Before he went into propane, he fixed machinery, making field calls for a John Deere dealer. Sometimes, during the harvest, he’d work all night, driving with his tools from farm to farm, rescuing fouled combines and frozen balers. He took caffeine pills to stay awake and lived on chocolate milk. Then one morning he told us he’d had enough and went to bed for a week. My mother sobbed. What finally brought him downstairs was a phone call informing him of a business loan approval. He put on a tie for the first time since his wedding and walked downtown to sign the documents. When he got back, in a new GMC diesel whose doors and tailgate were stenciled with his name, he was a different person, more distinct. The effect lasted years. He walked in his own spotlight.
The steaks are taking longer than they should, considering that we both ordered them rare. While we wait, Art dissects my credit card difficulties, displaying a knowledge of fraud I’m not surprised by. What I’m up against, he theorizes, is not a lone criminal but a far-flung gang.
“The way they work, they steal your info and only have a day or two to use it, so they set up a rolling purchase schedule. Simultaneous charges in different towns would raise red flags, so they space their buys apart, which makes the computers think you’re on a trip. People spend more money when they’re traveling, so when the charges start to pile up, the software that’s supposed to catch the pattern doesn’t kick in right away.”
“You know all this . . . ?”
Art eats his cherry tomato, blocking his mouth with a napkin to catch the juice spurt. “There’s things you never knew about my restaurants. They had a cash side that wasn’t on the books. The standard shenanigans. Everybody does them.”
“I guess I’m sorry to hear that. Cash corrupts, though.”
“I wanted to make it honestly. I tried. I read all those books, the ones by guys like you.
“Don’t judge the good stuff by the trash,” I say.
“Visualization. Time analysis. Quality Cubes. I tried all kinds of crap. That thing where you get all your workers in one room and sit completely quiet for eight hours, then write down your thoughts and put them in a box that you never open. All those tricks. And still I was losing money. Losing people. Getting certified letters from state commissions saying so-and-so filed a complaint because you fired her for being queer, when the truth was she had her fingers in the till. And all the inspections. Day and night inspections. Your handicapped toilet needs moving—a thousand bucks. That table’s blocking an exit, pay this fine. Health cops, fire cops, tax cops. Total hell. Everyone poking you with his little pitchfork.”
“In management we call them ‘psychic costs.’ ” I glare at the waitress to hurry her along.
“Ryan, you don’t know. I’m sorry, you just don’t. Why is our food late, you’re wondering? I’ll tell you. Because the lowlife overseeing the kitchen ducked out an hour ago to score some dope and got knifed in the arm behind the Stockman’s Club, forcing the owner to call in some old wino he fired last week for coughing up green phlegm into the coleslaw. Human Resources? Try human refuse.”
To calm Art, I confess to being a bystander who’s never actually run a business himself. It’s too late, though, Art’s off, and even the arrival of a plate-filling T-bone smothered in onion nuggets and floating in au jus can’t stem his bitterness. If this mood hangs on, I don’t dare leave—he’ll be on the line to MythTech first thing tomorrow, slandering me to the skies. My only hope is that he’ll collapse in the next half hour or so. The water trick, due to Art’s keen gaze, is out, though, and I’ve already used the napkin trick. I’ll pay the bartender to pour a bomb and make mine a tonic water.
“Full bladder,” I say.
“Me too.”
I’m startled—joint toilet trips just don’t happen with men. Art is even lonelier than I thought.
The side-by-side urinals are filled with ice cubes, a touch I’ve never had properly explained to me. Holding himself with one hand, Art tips his head back and shakes out his Samson locks. I clench. Can’t pee.
“Let’s hit the Mustang. It’s a rip-off joint, but they fly in their girls from the leading beach resorts. My steak’s a joke. It’s like chewing a catcher’s glove.”
“Mine’s fine. Let’s stay for another drink or two.”
“Can’t now. I’ve got a picture in my head.”
Art covers the meal with two fifties from his money clip. There are money-clip men and there are wallet men. Money-clip men overtip for even poor service, carry only the freshest currency, and they don’t end an evening until they’ve spent their roll. I’m stuck in Reno. The only way to make Ontario would be to fly to LAX and drive, but I don’t feel up to freeway traffic.
The lights of the Strip rake our faces with bars of color. A cowboy in the doorway of a pawnshop flicks a lit cigar butt at our feet that skips into the street beneath a limo with vanity license plates: LTHL DOS. I step on a wet wad of chewing gum, remove it, then promptly step on another one that’s stickier. A casino barker costumed as a leprechaun but far too stout for the outfit’s emerald tights hands us coupons good for two free spins on something called the Wheel O’ Dreams. We pass.
“An hour. That’s all I have left in me this evening.”
“That’s fine,” Art says. “I’ll probably end up in the VIP room, tied to a water pipe with a sequined thong.”
I venture a focus word I’ve had on file. Use them or lose them. “You old sybarite.”
The club is set up as a lounge, no stage, no spotlights, just a maze of tables and leather sofas packed in so tight that the dancers and cocktail girls have to step sideways, brushing hips and nipples, when they pass each other on their rounds. Art tunnels ahead of me through the blue smoke to a spot in the back screened off by potted trees with leaves the shape and size of human hands. We sit, and I feel like a hunter in a blind, hidden but with a full view of the field. The women are a cut above, Art’s right; they look cool-to-the-touch, both healthy and
