Untitled, continued

The first part of this story is the very first posting on this site. Either scroll down to read it or look to the archives.


I got dressed and headed down to Joe’s. I’d never seen Ricki in there before, but that doesn’t mean no one else had.

Joe’s looked different during the day, brighter, almost respectable. Even the surrounding neighborhood didn’t look quite as menacing in the sunlight. Shops were open. Families were walking around, window-gazing. Looked straight out of a Rockwell painting.

Last night’s storm had given way, not a cloud in the sky, but it had to have been close to 90 already, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I began dripping sweat the minute I stepped out of my building. I felt overdressed in my blue jeans and leather jacket in the sweltering heat.

I pushed open the door to Joe’s and years’ worth of dust particles jumped up in the air, dancing around in the sunlight. Maybe that’s why Joe keeps the lights so low. The place was nearly empty this early in the day, just a few professional sitting at the bar. Joe was standing in his customary spot behind the bar, a pen in hand, going over paperwork.

“Joe,” I said, nodding as I stepped up to the bar.

“Little early for you, ain’t it? The usual?” Joe pulled down a bottle of whiskey and reached for a glass.

“No, no thanks, Joe,” I waved the whiskey away. “Not right now.”

A little surprised, Joe set the bottle back on the shelf and folded his arms over his chest, looking at me with a curious expression on his old, weathered face.

“I’m looking for someone,” I began, my eyes darting around the bar, paranoia starting to get the best of me. “I, uh, I think she may be in trouble,” I stammered, starting to feel a little silly, acting like a private eye working a case, looking for some damsel-in-distress.

Joe stood there, a brick wall, unmoving and as difficult to read as always. Joe was a credit to his profession. He was well aware of the men who frequented his bar and some of their more unsavory business practices. If his years of bartending had taught him anything, it was knowing when to keep his mouth shut. He cleared his throat and did a slow scan of the bar, to see who was here, before responding. His eyes locked on mine, with a look I’d never seen before. “This about the girl you left with last night?” he asked quietly. There was an edge to his voice, a twinge of something, I wasn’t sure what. Sadness? Anger? Guilt?

“I, uh, yeah, Joe. Um…you know her?” The emotion I heard, whatever it was, in Joe’s voice had made me uneasy, knocked me off-balance. I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much as a laugh from Joe, in all the years I’ve known him. He was a bartender. He listened to your troubles, called you a cab when you’d had too much, but he always went about it passively, no emotion cracking through his tough, old hide.

Joe shook his head slowly. “No. No, I don’t know nothin’ about her,” he finally said, his normally gruff voice soft, a grizzly bear turned into a housecat.

“Nothin’, Joe? A name, maybe she mentioned where she liv-“

I was cut off by Joe’s massive hands slamming down on the bar, rattling some empty glasses, as well as me. “I said no!” he yelled with such a fury that I took a couple steps back from the bar.

I looked around, wondering if anyone was paying any attention to us. The old boozers were lost in their own worlds, their own tragedies. They had worse things to worry about than us. I looked back to Joe and caught him wiping something away from his right eye. Joe looked up at me and I could see the tears forming, the pain fluttering dangerously close to the surface. “Sorry…sorry about that. I, um…h…how long you been comin’ in here, son? Five years?”

“Closer to ten, I think,” I managed, rattled by the outburst. “Why?”

Joe reached into his back pocket and pulled out one of those little, plastic photo inserts that come with a new wallet. He choked back the tears as he looked at the top picture. “Here,” he said, handing me the photographs, pointing, “the girl from last night…she reminds me of someone I knew, a long time ago.”

I took the insert from him and looked at the picture he indicated. It was black and white, yellowed around the edges, a young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen. She was smiling for the camera like she didn’t have a care in the world. She was sitting on stone steps in front of an apartment building, wearing jeans and a sweater. She had long, dark hair, dark eyes, and the more I looked at the picture, the more the smiling girl reminded me of Ricki.

“My daughter,” Joe said so quietly he might as well have been whispering, “Rachel.”

I was taken aback for a minute. I’d never thought of Joe as having any family. He never talked about one. He was a bartender. He never talked about anything, which is why people came to his bar. Sometimes people just want to drink in silence.

“I didn’t know you had a daughter, Joe,” I said, handing the pictures back to him. His old, powerful hand shakily took the insert from me and, after one more glance at Rachel, slid it back into his pocket.

“I don’t,” he said brusquely, as the door opened, turning him back into the Joe I knew, “not anymore, anyway.” He turned and nodded towards the newcomers, “help you, fellas?”

“Couple of Buds?”

I turned and saw two impeccably-dressed men, both looking to be in their upper twenties. One had red hair, the other blonde, which seemed to be the only way to tell them apart. There aren’t any businesses around Joe’s, at least, not any legal ones, that would have anyone dressed in Armani. Something about these two wasn’t gelling with me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

“Sure, comin’ right up,” Joe said, grabbing a glass and turning towards the tap.

I watched as the two men looked around the bar, almost like they were casing the joint. One of them gestured to a table close to the door and they sat down, as out of place here as I would be at an upstate country club. I waited for Joe to fill their mugs and deliver them before I continued our conversation.

“Joe,” I started, but he waved me off.

“It was a long time ago. My God, that picture must be close to thirty years old. Forget it.” Joe went back to his paperwork as if nothing had happened.

“Joe,” I tried again, only to be ignored.

Frustration boiled over. Joe had to know something about Ricki. He had to, because if he didn’t, then I knew I’d never find her, because I had no idea where to even start looking, except for right here. I slammed my hand down on his paperwork. “Joe! I need to find her, Joe. She’s in trouble and I need to find her.”

He looked up at me, anger in his eyes slowly giving way to sadness and regret.

“Please, Joe,” I pleaded. “She needs help.”

“All right, son, all right. I don’t know much, I’m afraid,” Joe shifted uncomfortably. Discussing his patrons, for whatever reason, isn’t something that sits easily with him.

“Anything, Joe.”

Taking a deep breath, as if resigning himself to jumping off this cliff, Joe leaned in close to me. “I don’t know her name or anything like that. She’s only been in here once or twice before, accompanied by a very well-dressed gentleman, maybe fifty or so.”

My mind immediately jumped to the two Armani guys, but I let Joe continue.

“She always ordered the same drink, vodka and cranberry juice, but I’d never seen her put ‘em away like last night.”

“This guy, this well-dressed gentleman, where was he last night?”

“She came in alone, shivering like someone just stepped on her grave and wouldn’t move, ya know? Sat at that table over there,” Joe pointed, “for nearly an hour and a half before you showed up. She put away a lot of cranberry juice in that hour and a half.”

“Yeah,” I said, remembering Ricki’s trembling body curled up next to me. “I sorta figured as much. So this guy, Joe, who is he?”

“I dunno what his name is. They don’t tell and I don’t ask. You know that. He’s usually got a couple of boys with him. You know, muscle?” Again, my mind flashed to the two suits sitting by the door. “They’d just call him ‘Boss,’ so, you know, draw your own conclusion.”

My mind was revving like one of those foreign sports cars, trying to process all this new information. I knew Ricki was in trouble, but I hadn’t imagined it’d be something this deep.

“You didn’t hear any of this from me, remember.” Joe said. It wasn’t a question. His hands were shaking and I was pretty sure it wasn’t because of old age.

“Don’t worry, Joe,” I reassured him. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

I looked over my shoulder, towards the door, getting ready to leave, and I caught one of the suits looking at me. His gaze quickly glided over the rest of the bar behind me, like he was just looking around, but I could tell his eyes were focused right on me. Great, just great, I thought. Yeah, maybe it was nothing, but the way these two looked so uncomfortable here, so out of place, the way they hadn’t touched their beers, let’s just say I had a bad feeling about this.

Turning back to Joe, I thanked him for his help. “And Joe,” I waited for him to look me in the eye, “if you ever want to talk, about anything, you know where am I.”

This made Joe smile, if only slightly. “Yeah,” he said, “sitting on that damn barstool like you’ve been doing for the past ten years. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I replied, heading towards the door, past Armani Blonde and Armani Red, “I’m gonna need it.”