17
“Did you get up in the middle of the night and go out?” she asked, at breakfast. “Or was I dreaming?”
Even in the morning she looked good. She’d got up before me and washed her hair, and was wearing a towel around her head like a turban. Her face was clean and unblemished and free of make-up, though still dark with Florida tan, and she looked young, or anyway as young as those eyes of would allow.
She was wearing a housewifely patchwork robe that made her look less than glamorous, but there was no way known to make her look bad. She looked good.
I was in my underwear. My hair was greasy, my teeth unbrushed, my face unshaven. I was barely awake. I looked down at the plate of scrambled eggs. I looked back up and managed to say, “You weren’t dreaming. I did get up. I went out and drove around a couple hours.”
“What possessed you to do that?”
“It’s something I do sometimes. Just go out and drive. Helps me think.”
“About what?”
“In this case, about getting mugged by those guys last night. Wondering if there’s anything I can do about it. Any way to find them and get my money back and pay them back a little, too. I suppose I could go to the cops about it…”
“Why bother? That six hundred bucks of yours is long gone by now, don’t you think?”
“I suppose you’re right. I guess my ego was just a little bruised, that’s all.”
“Are you serious about asking Frank Tree for work?”
“I am if you’re serious about putting in a good word for me.”
“Sure.”
And so I asked her. I couldn’t see any reason why not. And I didn’t know anybody better to ask. So I did. I asked her, “What do you know about this guy Tree, anyway?”
She gave me a confused little smile for a moment, while she searched my face wondering what I was up to, no doubt.
“I don’t know a hell of a lot,” she said.
“Whatever it is, it’s more than me.”
“Well, the Barn is a relatively new thing, I know that much. It hasn’t been too long since the law passed in Iowa that makes it even possible for a place like the Barn to openly exist.”
“Must be a pretty liberal law. Or is Tree just greasing the right wheels?”
“Little of both, I’d say. The law makes gambling legal in situations where there’s a ‘social relationship.’ Such as a private club, or any place where the gathering is social, whether it’s bingo in the church parlor or poker in the back room of a bar. Certain things are still illegal… blackjack, craps, roulette, and there’s a fifty-dollar win or loss limit, in a twenty-four hour period. But all of that can be gotten around. Obviously.”
“Sounds like your employer knows how.”
“He should. I hear he used to have a place in Illinois, on the Mississippi, in some little town that was really wide open. Across from Burlington, Iowa. Anyway, he had a place there, like the Barn, only rougher. No restaurant number, just a casino set-up, and booze, of course. Booze wasn’t legal in Iowa on Sundays, so Sunday was a big night for a place like that, people coming across the river to sin in Illinois.”
“I wonder why he left.”
“The laws got changed. Booze on Sundays is legal in Iowa now, and you know about the gambling law. So he moved back to Des Moines and opened the Barn.”
“Back to Des Moines?”
“Yeah, I understand he was involved in some things here in the late ’40s and early ’50s, but I don’t know what. That’s all I know about the man. It’s just stuff I picked up off my girl friend Ruthy, and the bitches at work. They’re all hot for his bod, you know.”
“Really. Does he hump the help?”
“Not this help, he doesn’t. Anyway, he’s too good a businessman to do that, I think.”
“What’s your personal opinion of the guy? What kind of boss is he?”
“Best way to describe him is he’s a man’s man. He can drink without getting drunk, tell you who won the 1952 World Series, play poker for six hours and get up and pee and sit down and play six more.”
“That doesn’t say what kind of boss he is.”
“Well, he’s a pleasant enough boss. Friendly, even. But businesslike, like I said. Fuck up and you’re fired.”
“I see. Good poker player?”
“Very. Oh, and he hates to see anybody lose, if you buy his act. Truth is, he’d take your last dime. Likes to win all the way, at whatever cost… to his opponents, I mean.”
“You sound like a pretty good judge of character.”
“I’m a bartender, aren’t I? Besides, how do you know I’m right? Maybe this is just a bunch of bullshit.”
“Because I’m not a bad judge of character myself. Got any more of that Sanka?”
“Sure.”
She filled my cup and I said, “What time do you have to be at work?”
“Not till six.”
“What time is it now, eleven? Want to take in a movie this afternoon or something?”
“I got a better idea,” she said, sitting down, sipping her own cup. “There’s a good dinner theater here that has Sunday matinees and a great buffet lunch. Want to give it a try?”
“Wouldn’t happen to be that place over on University, would it?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
That was the place where Frank Tree had met with that busty little blond girl friend of his, the other night.
“Why not?” I said. “I can appreciate good acting.”
18
The Candle Lite Playhouse was a modern brick two- story that looked somewhat cold and even austere from without, but within was decorated in warm golds and greens. The plush floral carpet, subdued lighting, piped-in muzak and cozy tables conspired to make the large room seem intimate. We were seated at the edge of the balcony, at a table barely big enough to hold its glass-enclosed candle (as yet unlit, by the way), and sipped a drink before going down to the stage, where the food was being served, the set and its props having been scooted back to accommodate a generous buffet. It looked a little odd, people parading up the few steps onto the stage, going through the cafeteria line collecting their food, then exiting nervously, awkwardly, balancing the several filled plates, coming off the stage like bit players who had wandered into the wrong scene. The stage, Lucille explained, had been the altar of the place when it had been a church.
“Church?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Some crazy evangelist type thing. They had a young guy who thought he was the Second Coming or something. Or at least the second Billy Graham. He had a big following here, even had his own radio show, but he got an offer to do the same thing for more money someplace in Texas, I think, and once he was gone everything just sort of fizzled, church went bankrupt. Some local people got together and bought and remodeled the place into this.”
“Either way it’s show business,” I said. “For somebody new in town, you sure know all the local gossip.”
“Ruthy just talks a lot, that’s all.”
“Ruthy?”
“I’ve mentioned her before, haven’t I? She’s the friend who got that apartment lined up for me, before I even
