looking resigned.
I followed the two of them on a sweaty, buffeted trek through and around the dance floor. Slow going-part ballet, part jungle clearance.
Finally we ended up at the back of the room, behind the band's amps and a snarl of electric wires, and walked through a wooden door marked TOILETS.
On the other side was a long, cold, cement-floored hall littered with paper scraps and nasty-looking puddles. Several couples groped in the shadows. A few loners sat on the floor, heads lowered to laps.
Marijuana and vomit fought for olfactory dominance. The sound level had sunk to jet-takeoff roar.
We passed doors stenciled STANDERS and SQUATTERS, stepped over legs, tried to skirt the garbage. Baldy was good at it, moving with a light, nimble gait, his pajama pants billowing. At the end of the hallway was yet another door, rusted metal, identical to the one the bouncer had guarded.
Baldy said, 'Outside okay?' in a squeaky voice.
'What's out there, Robert?'
The bartender shrugged and scratched his chin. 'The back.' He was anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five. The beard was little more than fuzz and didn't conceal much of his face. It was a face worth concealing, skimpy and rattish and brooding and mean.
Milo pushed the door open, looked outside, and took hold of the bartender's arm.
The three of us went outside to a small fenced parking lot. A U-Haul two-ton truck was parked there, along with three cars. Lots more trash was spread across the ground in clumps, a foot high in places, fluttering in the breeze. Beyond the fence was the fat moon.
Milo led the bald man to a relatively clean spot near the center of the lot, away from the cars.
'This is Robert Gabray,' he said to me. 'Mixologist extraordinaire.'
To the bartender: 'You've got fast hands, Robert.'
The barkeep wiggled his fingers. 'Gotta work.'
'The old Protestant ethic?'
Blank look.
'You like working, Robert?'
'Gotta. They keep a record a everything.'
'Who's they?'
'The owners.'
'They in there watching you?'
'No. But they got eyes.'
'Sounds like the CIA, Robert.'
The bartender didn't answer.
'Who pays your salary, Robert?'
'Some guys.'
'Which guys?'
'They own the building.'
'What's the name on your payroll check?'
