cup of java and a cigarette. The cat slid out the door with me as I left the apartment. I tapped her head slightly before she scampered away into the depths of the backyard.
The platform of the Takoma Metro was empty at midmorning. I caught a Red Line car and grabbed an early copy of City Paper that had been left beneath my seat. By the time I had finished the weekly’s arts reviews, I was ready to transfer to the Orange Line at Metro Center. Six stops east I exited at Eastern Market and headed down Eighth to the Spot.
Darnell was standing by the door, waiting as I arrived, his hands deep in the pockets of his brown car coat. Next to Darnell was the tiny man-child Ramon, smiling his gold-toothed smile. Ramon had on a pair of Acme boots and wore a cheap cowboy hat with a red feather in the brim. Though there weren’t many Western types left in D.C. (the garb was still mildly popular with Latins), there had been a short craze of it in the gay community centered around the 1980 release of Urban Cowboy. At that time it was nearly impossible to walk around the P Street area without witnessing a sea of cowboy hats. My friend Johnny McGinnes, never accused of being too sensitive, had dubbed the headwear “homo helmets.”
“Gentlemen,” I said as I pulled the keys from my pockets and put the correct one to the lock.
“Same shit,” Darnell said. “Different day.”
The lunch hour was over, and pensive drinking had begun. A fiddle screeched, and Dwight Yoakam sang, “It won’t hurt when I fall from this barstool…” Happy stared straight ahead, his hand gripping a rocks glass filled with Mattingly and Moore. At the sports corner of the bar, Buddy and Bubba were splitting a pitcher, while a pompadoured guy from Bladensburg named Richard blew smoke in Buddy’s tight-jawed face and loudly insisted, “I’ll bet you a goddamned C-no ^nt›' adete, goddamn it, that Tampa Bay did too make it to the fuckin’ play-offs!” Melvin Jeffers’s eyes were closed as he sat alone at the other end of the bar, mouthing the words along with Dwight Yoakam. I sipped a ginger ale and chewed ice from the glass.
Dan Boyle entered the Spot at three o’clock, had a seat at the bar, and exhaled slowly. His eyes, like a bashful old hound dog’s, slid up the call rack to the Jackie D. I put a mug of draught in front of him and poured two fingers of the mash into a shot glass, placing the glass on a damp Bushmill’s coaster. Boyle shut his eyes and drained the shot, then chased it with some beer.
“How’s it goin, Boyle?”
“Bad Day at Black Rock.”
“Ernest Borgnine,” I said. “And Lee Marvin.”
“I’m not kidding, man. Been over at Edgewood Terrace all day, in Northeast. Twelve-year-old kid got blown away over a pair of Nikes. Shotgun load to the chest. You could drive a truck through the fuckin’ hole. And the look on the kid’s face by the time we got to him-twelve years old. I seen a lot of death, man. I seen too much death.” Boyle rubbed his face with one large hand while I free-poured another shot. This one he sipped.
“You got a kid about twelve, don’t you, Boyle?”
“A girl,” he said. “It never gets any better, to see a kid get it, no matter who it is.”
“Even when it’s just a spade, right?”
Boyle had some more whiskey and some beer behind that, then focused his pale eyes on mine. “Don’t be so fuckin’ selfrighteous, hombre.” He was right, and I let him give it to me. I looked down at the bar until his voice softened. “Anything happening on the Henry deal?”
“Something will shake out.”
“You let me know when it does,” he said.
“Bet on it, Boyle. I will.”
An hour later only Happy remained at the bar. A Chesterfield burned down in his right hand as he slept. For a while I watched it burn, then lost interest. Shirley Horn was smoothly pouring from the house speakers. Drinking music. I began to eyeball the Grand-Dad on the call rack and was contemplating a short one when the phone rang. I stubbed out my own smoke and picked up the receiver.
“The Spot.”
“Nicky, that you?”
“Billy?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard to make you out, man.”
“I’m on the car phone, on Two-ninety-five.”
“What’s up?”
“What’s up with you? Anything on April?”
“Nothing,” I admitted, then waited for his reaction. Hearing only static, I continued. “I was thinking of heading down to southern Maryland on Saturday. Talk to her family, see if she’s been through.”
“Want some company?”
“I’m a big boy.”
“Sure you are,” he said. “A big city boy-you’ll be a fish on dry dock in that part of the country.” Billy paused. “Me and April spent a lot of time together down there, Nick. And I’ve got a key to the trailer on her property. We can stay there tonight.”
I thought about that. “I’ve got to make arrangements to have Mai take my shifts tomorrow. And I’ve got to go home, to feed the cat.”
“Fuck the cat,” Billy said with annoyance. “Listen, I’ll pick you up in an hour, hear? I’ve got another sales call, then I’ll swing by. We can go by my house first-there’s something I want you to hear.”
“I need warm clothes.”
“You can wear some of mine.”
“The ones with guys playing polo on them?”
“Turn ’em inside out, wise guy.”
“All right, Billy. See you then,” I said just before the click.
I glanced over at Happy to make sure there was still some paper left on his smoke. I dialed the number of my landlord and let it ring several times. No answer. Then I dialed Jackie’s work number and made it through an army of secretaries before I got her on the line.
“What’s going on, Nick?”
“Just checking in,” I said. “Trying to picture you right now. What do you, got your wing tips up on the desk, leaning back in your chair?”
“Yeah, it’s just a white-collar picnic around here. Come on, Nicky, I’m really busy. What’s up?”
“I got a clean bill of health, Jackie. So I just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten our date Sunday night.”
“Somehow I didn’t think you would,” she said.
“What time?”
“Make it seven,” she said.
“Okay. And Jackie-wear something provocative.” I heard her groan. “Anything you want me to wear?” I added cheerfully.
“Not particularly,” she said. “But there is something I don’t want you to wear.”
“What would that be?”
“That silly little grin,” she cgriize='3said, “that you’re wearing on your face right now.”
“Right,” I said. “Seven it is.”
I hung up the receiver, walked over to Happy, dislodged the butt from his callused hand, and crushed it in the ashtray. It woke him up, or at least a half of him. One of his eyes opened and he looked into mine and mumbled something brusquely, something I couldn’t make out.
“What?” I said.
“Gimme a fuckin’ manhattan,” he said. “That’s what.”
Billy Goodrich was the picture of Young Turk affluence, D.C. style. In the driver’s seat of his white Maxima, with his somber, subtly plaided Britches suit, suspenders, thinly striped shirt with spread collar, maroon-and-gold retro tie, and forty-dollar haircut, he oozed mindless ambition. Billy threw a glance in the direction of the passenger seat, where I was tapping the side of my index finger against the window.
