Chapter One
Her blood dripped into the ice. Slender
red ribbons twirled around and over the cubes, tinting the shimmering
mix darker shades of crimson. Rose Leary stared at her injured hand.
She wouldn’t have predicted so much blood. The chipped top to the damned
Absolut bottle had barely nicked her, but big drops still stained her
cuff and tainted the ice in the martini shaker. Vampire cocktail, straight
up, hold the tissue. She squeezed her finger, blotted it with a napkin,
and threw the ice into the sink.
“That’s it. Last call.” She held her cuff under the cold water,
surveying the bar to see who’d want just one more. Customers drinking
at My World to escape an August Saturday night’s heavy heat might want
to linger in the air-conditioned bar this early Sunday morning.
“Finally. Waiting for you to pronounce last call tonight has been
like waiting for the city to sleep. Who’s that lurking at the far end?”
“Where, Frank?” Rose lined empty liquor bottles on the bar
in front of the tall man in the navy linen jacket. She didn’t look at
her inquisitor while she separated the bottles into liquor types and
then brands. If she didn’t meet his eyes, she wouldn’t smile into them.
Even the faintest smile would ruin the poker face she wanted to bluff.
A stern expression now might make him listen the next time she refused
a ride home from work. Ignoring her insistence that she detested being
fetched from her job like a child from daycare, Detective Frank Butler
had once again timed his departure from the Sixth Precinct to the end
of her bartending shift at My World. He’d walked in the door ten minutes
and five customers before the bar closed, muttering about being in the
neighborhood. Finding him out of the Greenwich Village neighborhood
where they both worked would merit more mention.
Frank Butler didn’t give any favors freely, not even those he demanded
she accept. Impatience already rumbled in his voice as he cocked his
head toward the man sitting at the other end of the bar. “The fun-with-razors
kid you’ve been chatting up since I got here. What, did he just keep
shaving up until his mirror unfogged? The one whose conversation, or
maybe phone number, was so interesting you took notes.” Grilling
her brought a slight glow to Butler’s face.
“That’s Nick, Frank. You’ve met him before. He lives with Yvonne,
the bookkeeper here who gives me those home-baked goodies you inhale.
You should try to remember his face, since we’re going to dinner at
their loft tomorrow night. He was giving me directions.”
Rose returned the olives, onions, and cherries to their jars, hesitated
over the fresh fruit, then dumped everything but the lime wedges into
the garbage. The lemon twists and orange slices looked as tired as the
speech she expected Butler to repeat about the idiocy of wasting cabfare
when he had a perfectly good vehicle at her disposal. She sent the fruit
trays and juice containers back to the dishwasher and made the fiery
Virgin Mary that Luis would expect when he returned the trays to the
bar instead of letting them disappear into the morass of the kitchen.
Butler scrutinized Nick again. “Here I was thinking Nick looked
familiar from a mug shot. Last time I saw him, he had hair. Dragging
me into the depths of the Lower East Side for a dinner isn’t enough,
Rose? We’re actually going somewhere in Manhattan where you have to
write down directions? What, are we going to take a left after the third
hooker? Then I’ll have to eat some artsy slop while I watch that overexposed
head salivating at you all night? If it’s tofu, I leave.”
“I’ll call them in the morning and put in a special request for
something at the pinnacle of the food chain. Dinner will be great: he
cooks as an art form, and she bakes like a grandmother. They’re both
bright. We’ve agreed we should socialize more. I’m always so gratified
when I listen to you, Frank.”
Looking down to see if her blood had turned to water and disappeared,
Rose drenched the cuff of her sleeve with club soda and scrubbed the
rusty splotch that would doom this blouse to the dire-emergency reaches
of her closet. The tightly tapered sleeves that had resisted her attempts
at the classic bartender’s roll wouldn’t hide this stain.
“You know, Rose, every time you wear something that good to work
you might as well sport a ‘Kiss Me, I’m Vain’ button. Bartenders aren’t
supposed to aim for the best-dressed list, although I suppose the pretty
stuff inspires more guys to drool.”
“I decided to write an extra hour before work tonight instead of
picking up my laundry. This was the lightest silk I could stand behind
this hellaciously hot bar. Thanks for obsessing on it, Frank. Saves
me the pain of being galled I ruined a good blouse for the sake of literature.”
Nobody who nursed cocktails sitting at the air-conditioned bar ever
realized that the server behind it worked in a microclimate at least
twenty degrees hotter. The motors and compressors behind the bar threw
off so much heat that Rose often wanted to dive into the bins of ice.
Butler still wore his jacket. “Galled or gloating, Rose? At least
you didn’t waste your sacrifice. Nick appreciated your silk’s sheer
qualities too.”
The extra time she’d talked to Nick must have bothered Butler into forgetting
to congratulate her for working so well on her novel. Green wasn’t going
to be one of his best colors, and jealousy was the main reason she didn’t
want him hanging out at her bar.
“I never wear sheer clothes to work. I could tend bar in a negligee
for all Nick would care. He doesn’t salivate over any woman but Yvonne.
Your evening could end up pretty dry, too, if you don’t drop the cop
act.” Rose met Butler’s eyes, but she didn’t smile.
She turned her back on him and started punching the subtotal keys to
ring out her register. In the mirror above the back bar, she watched
Butler decide not to interrupt her. He’d rather let her finish her accounting
so that they could continue the argument in the comfort of home. Her
home, where he obviously assumed he’d stay again tonight. Their agreement
was no more than four nights a week together. Tonight would make six.
If she ever got out of here.
Rose emptied the drawer into her cash box, thankful again to be reading
a register’s tape instead of a monitor’s display. Her bosses hadn’t
computerized My World yet. Since buying the far West Village restaurant
in the forties, the Victors family had watched their clientele shift
over the decades. By the end of the eighties, neighborhood residents
and visitors from other zip codes had replaced the longshoremen and
meat wholesalers who’d frequented the place in the beginning. Along
with the combination to the safe, the Victors bequeathed an instinctive
suspicion of fixing the unbroken to the second generation. The Victors
family knew their strengths. A computer terminal behind My World’s bar
would serve as public notice that the restaurant had changed hands.
Rose put the last of her bar checks in numerical order and folded her
register tape around the stack. Ten minutes of counting downstairs,
a final swab of the old wooden bar top, and she could walk out the front
door. She’d cleaned and restocked everything but the very last-minute
supplies while she’d talked with Nick. None of the remaining people
at the bar looked scared to go home to Sunday’s first hours. Tonight’s
shift would end early for a Saturday. With any luck, she could be home
drawing a cool bath by 4:45.
Butler lifted the thick Sunday Times from the stool next to him and
dropped it onto the bar. Digging for the magazine, his arm knocked over
the stack of ashtrays she’d just washed. Two ashtrays fell into the
bar sink and shattered. She couldn’t leave the tiny shards of glass
for the porter’s tired hands to find.
Departure became less imminent.
Two minutes earlier, and the mats in the sink would have cushioned the
drop. Five minutes earlier, she would have had the shards picked up
and herself safely downstairs counting cash before Terri and Ken strolled
in.
“Impeccable timing, Frank.” She raised her voice to greet
Terri and Ken. She’d scream if they insisted on blended drinks. She’d
scream twice if the blended drinks featured cream. Butler would finish
the Times crossword and read all the classifieds before she rewashed
the blenders and scrubbed a creamy scum out of the sink.
“Hi, sweetie, how was your night? You look real cute in that blouse.
Hello, Frankie hon, terrific shirt.” Terri sprinkled compliments
into her greetings the way most people shook hands. Butler mumbled his
thanks, excused himself to make a phone call, and hurried downstairs.
Rose searched for a return compliment on Terri’s salmon jacket and matching
shorts. She’d learned the difficulties of complimenting Terri last week,
when a casual remark that a new hairstyle made her look young had driven
Terri into the ladies’ room for fifteen minutes of apologetic tears.
Terri had interpreted Rose’s remark as a judgment that she no longer
looked young all the time.
“Honey, what would be fun to drink?” Terri pulled her husband’s
arm away from the paper he was riffling through, no doubt for the sports
section. “Frankie might not like you going through his paper like
that. He can be real particular. Now think a minute and tell me something
fun.”
The moment when Terri’s softly pinkish sleeve brushed against her husband’s
lime green jacket looked like a bad example of underwater photography.
Rose almost giggled at the lengths of truthfulness she’d have to traverse
in order to praise anything she’d ever seen Ken wear. The brightly colored,
playfully synthetic, clothes he sported looked as if he’d ordered them
from catalogues where all the models posed on the beach. His clothes’
colors were so bright and their cut so childish that only seaside days
filled with bleaching sunlight and constant sport would excuse them
on anyone over seventeen.
Ken had spent the first thirty-four years of his life in the mountains
of Colorado and now lived in the city of Manhattan, so why did he wear
clothes which suggested that the last gust off the Pacific had just
blown the sand from his hair? Rose had never meant anyone else whom
she could imagine wearing dayglo zinc sunscreen.
“Hi, Ken, what would you like?” Mentioning that she’d already
closed the register would waste her breath. Ken and Terri hadn’t paid
for a drink in My World since Terri had agreed to “watch the place”
while the owners, Ben and Joe Victors, visited family in Italy. Ken
never left a tip, although Terri occasionally slipped a five under her
emptied glass. Ken’s drink choices offended Rose more than his failure
to tip. His orders always involved several sweet and brightly colored
ingredients. You drink what you marry?
In the three weeks Ken and Terri had substituted as My World’s managers,
Ken had taught Rose over thirty new drink recipes she’d never wanted
to learn. She suspected he actually read the informative little tags
that hung around the necks of liquor bottles. Rose knew he pored over
restaurant and hotel magazines the way chefs pored over Larousse, taking
notes in the brown daybook he carried with a junior executive’s pride.
But Ben Victors and his father Joe were in Italy, seeking solace for
the death of Thomas Victors, Joe’s son and Ben’s brother. For the next
six weeks, Terri and Ken would handle Ben’s day-to-day management duties.
Ben had introduced Terri as an old friend of the family, like family
really. His voice had dropped when he said that Ken had restaurant experience
and asked the staff to give Terri and Ken the respect they gave him
and his father. They were just here to help through this difficult time.
Within fifteen minutes of that introduction, Terri had followed Rose
to the ladies’ room and confided that her father and Joe Victors had
done business together for years. Joe had been like an uncle to her,
helping her mother after Terri’s father died. Everyone they knew had
assumed that she’d eventually marry Thomas. Joe had joked about how
he’d walk Terri down the aisle before sitting on the groom’s side.
But Terri herself had never believed Thomas would marry her. She’d watched
him enter the Jesuits without tears. Surprise that any man had resisted
her carefully tended charms still tinged Terri’s voice when she’d admitted
that Thomas had never looked at her “that way.”
Despite Joe’s promise to throw her a big wedding and her own bulging
files on the perfect ceremony, Terri hadn’t even registered for her
wedding to Ken. She’d fallen for Ken the minute she’d met him on a cruise
and married him days later, fulfilling what he called a lifelong wish
to get married at sea. The other cruise employees had thrown them a
big party, but Terri still wished that there had been time for a shower,
too.
Rose had pictured Terri wearing a hat made from the ribbons on her shower
gifts, giggling and posing with her girlfriends. At least Terri had
gotten her chance to shine as a bride. Tiny and perfectly made, Terri
could have modeled for a wedding cake’s bridal figurine.
Rose remembered Terri’s smile when she’d described her “ultraromantic”
wedding and the gifts Joe had sent by overnight delivery. She’d stretched
her arms out as if measuring a marlin to indicate the contents of the
“nice envelope” and the bottle of champagne she’d claimed
exceeded her height.
Joe Victors had flown to Colorado to meet the man Terri married after
a five-day courtship. He’d helped Ken land a new job at a resort, insisting
only a fool would leave a pretty girl like Terri alone while he worked
on cruises for months at a time.
Terri had sounded bewildered when she’d asked Rose if she could imagine
cheating on someone like Ken. She hadn’t even looked at another man
since she’d met him.
Rose had assured Terri she couldn’t fathom the concept of cheating on
someone like Ken. You had to choose someone before you could cheat on
them.
Terri had whispered when she’d talked about the phone call announcing
Thomas’ death. She’d begged Rose for the details of how he’d died and
insisted over and over that she envied Rose’s bravery. Even if Frankie
had handled the case, just the thought of discovering a body made Terri
shudder.
Rose had needed a minute to recognize that the Frankie Terri called
“a kid from the old neighborhood” was the Detective Frank
Butler whose razor had infiltrated her own medicine cabinet. She planned
to ask him why he hadn’t mentioned knowing Terri before.
Terri had left her newlywed bliss to fly East for Thomas’ funeral in
February, flown back to Colorado, and returned this month with husband
in tow to supervise My World in the Victors’ absence. Ken thought his
brief stint managing My World would help him break into the New York
restaurant scene. Rose thought grief must have blinded Ben and Joe when
they’d left Ken to manage their business. From everything Rose had seen,
he’d do better in shoe sales. Casual shoes.
“Darn it, Rose, you’ve ruined that scrumptious blouse. Look, honey,
how Rose has some yucky stuff on her cuff. And you still have to tell
me what to order.” Terri tapped Ken’s elbow to divert his attention
from the sports section. He shook his wife’s hand off his elbow with
a sharp jerk, too engrossed in the first-draft choices to search through
his growing repertoire of what he called “drink concepts.”
Terri gave Rose a those-men giggle before she tapped one of her extravagantly
manicured nails against her cheek to pantomime the difficulties of choosing
her own drink. Rose guessed that maintaining Terri’s nails contributed
a sizable portion to some recently immigrated family’s income. She also
suspected the half-dozen products applied to Terri’s hair to achieve
the just-hopped-out-of-the-convertible look prevented her from actually
scratching her head to illustrate her dilemma.
“Terri, have you had a gin rickey lately? They’re just perfect
for the end of the evening. Want to try one?” Rose filled two collins
glasses with ice.
That penetrated. “Yeah, make me one too, Rose. Top shelf, right?
I’m in the mood for a fancy dessert.” Ken turned the page to follow
the story, roughly folding the paper as if it would never be used again
except to line a bird’s cage.
Fishing the lime slices out of the plastic container without removing
it from the cooler was the fanciest thing involved in producing the
two glasses of Tanqueray, club soda, and lime wedges. No blender, no
cream, no parasols. Rose wondered how Ken would choke it down, pretending
to relish it rather than admit he’d ordered something he didn’t recognize.
Ken dropped the sports section on the bar. “Good rickshaw, Rose.
Remind me to special them some night next week. Maybe I can get some
of those little plastic monkeys and elephants to hang off the side of
the glasses. What do you think, hon?” Rose tried not to imagine
putting menageries in a glass.
“It’s real nice, Ken. But look at poor Rose’s blouse. She’s spilled
grenadine or something on it. Now it needs dry cleaning. Think about
how much money everybody will save if we go ahead with the uniforms
before Joe and Bennie get back. It must get expensive for you all, huh,
Rose?”
Uniforms?
“Dry-cleaning doesn’t cost that much. The guy on Abingdon Square
gives me a deal. We have to buy clothes anyway, don’t we, Terri? But
what kind of uniforms are you two considering?”
“We don’t know yet, really, just something fun. Fun and cheerful,
Rose. Just between us girls, I think it’s a little dull and gloomy in
here sometimes. All this wood, and so many people wearing black. It
looks like you’re all still in mourning. Some nice bright uniforms would
be more fun.” Terri looked to Ken for suggestions about fun.
He shrugged and took another small sip of his drink, “No use talking
about that till we’re ready to position it, hon. Although of course
we’re always ready to hear suggestions from everybody on the My World
team. You know how committed I am to employee input.”
Rose wished again that she didn’t envision footnotes from the Management
101 textbook ballooning above Ken’s head when he spoke. “Since
you’re here, Ken, is it okay if I go downstairs to count out now? Unless
you want another rickey?”
“No, this is plenty. Go count, babe, and I hope you have plenty
to count, too. I’ll lock the doors and let our last few guests out.”
Ken pulled the office key off a ring heavy with baubles promoting six
or seven liquor brands.
As she’d expected, Jimmy waited for Rose at the top of the stairs to
the restaurant’s basement, which housed the office, storage rooms, phone
booths, and restrooms. After what had happened downstairs in February,
Jimmy tried never to let Rose enter the lower level by herself. She’d
seen through his ruse by March but had never challenged him. She didn’t
want to go downstairs alone ever again, if she could help it.
Or in silence. “Explain it to me on the way downstairs, will you
please, Jimmy? What stretch of logic makes Ken call strangers who purchase
everything they receive in a restaurant he doesn’t own his guests? Guests
don’t pay. When did customer become a dirty word around here? What’s
he going to call the new uniform-staff sartorial solidarity?”
Jimmy stopped his descent, as if immobilized by horror. Stupid to mention
uniforms at the top of the stairs. She gently nudged her favorite waiter
down to the next step. He could emote while they counted money in the
office.
“Say it isn’t so, Rose, say no, no, no. Tell me I didn’t hear those
two talking about fun uniforms even before you mentioned it. Pretend
that Joe and Ben are really in Italy talking to Mr. Armani about dressing
us all. Tell me lies, Rose, beautiful lies.” Jimmy could hear through
walls. He was tall, skinny not thin, and insisted on wearing starched
white shirts and pressed black pants to a job with no dress code. Putting
Jimmy in a fun uniform would torture him more than making him work a
shift when everyone ordered white zinfandel and didn’t tip.
“Let’s not worry about it yet, Jimmy. Ken and Terri don’t know
what they want, and they shouldn’t institute a major change without
Ben’s approval. Those two making changes in My World would be like a
babysitter deciding to remodel the house.” Rose swung the office
key in front of Jimmy’s eyes like a hypnotist. “Let’s count out
downstairs and go home.”
“Yes, but I’m afraid to go down there till your cop gets off his
phone call. I don’t want him to think I’m eavesdropping as he calls
his bookie, or the FBI, or whomever he needs to talk to at this hour.
He does have the most awful glare, Rose. I was going to walk downstairs
and hurry past the pay phone into the office, but his look almost scorched
the bottom off my shoes.” Jimmy shuffled his softly gleaming Italian
loafers.
He spoke in a stage whisper, “What do you see in him? How long
is this little foray into the down-and-dirty world of law enforcement
going to last, darling? If you need stories for your books, I’d think
you could find a better Scheherazade than Sergeant Silent. Hush, here
he comes now, creeping up the stairs on his rubber soles. Is it those
awful shoes that does it? Got a thing for high polish, Rose?”
Rose had stopped defending herself to Jimmy for falling in love with
Butler six months ago. She squeezed past Butler when they met on the
stairs, ignoring both Jimmy’s smirk and Butler’s innocent smile when
he patted her ass. His smile would disappear soon enough when he saw
he’d have to wait for her in the company of Ken, Terri, and a very crumpled
Sunday Times. She’d cleared his half-full wine glass, too.
“Obviously, Jimmy. My love for high polish is why I cultivate your
friendship. Only a dull child could miss that connection. Bet you three
gold stars on the new employee-incentive chart I’ll finish my check-out
before you do. The last one done has to chat with Ken and Terri till
they’re ready to leave.” Rose struggled with the lock while she
balanced her cash box and a pile of checks in her left hand. Once in
the office, she sat at the smaller of the two desks and began counting
her bank.
Jimmy dumped his cash on the desk. He shuffled through the bills with
a croupier’s speed, singing his subtotals to the tune of “Like
a Prayer.” His Madonna imitation didn’t slow his counting one single
beat.