The Bottle Ghosts Read online

  Pretty inconvenient, but logical, I guess.

  He tore the check out of the checkbook and handed it to me, then put the checkbook back into his pocket, and exchanged it for his wallet, from which he extracted a business card. He wrote a number on the back, and handed it to me. “This is my home phone; I’ll be there around six tonight, but I have to leave for the airport by seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Bradshaw glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting at ten-forty-five across town, so I’d better get going.”

  I wrote my home phone number on the back of my business card, which he slipped into his shirt pocket. Finally, he opened his briefcase and took out another sheet of paper. “Here’s the itinerary for my trip. If you find anything…anything at all…please call and leave a message for me.”

  I nodded.

  He snapped his briefcase shut and stood up. “I’ll be back in town a week from Friday,” he said, then just stood there for a second, looking lost. “God, what a mess!”

  I didn’t say so, but I certainly agreed.

  I rose and shook hands, and walked him to the door.

  *

  I had to finish my report on a just-completed case, so typed it up before going back to the envelope and business card I’d put by the phone. The front of the card said “John Bradshaw, Investment Counselor, Peabody & Dean Investments.” The address was in the same building as Glen O’Banyon’s law offices, and I’d done enough work with and for O’Banyon to recognize that any company with offices in that building had to be doing pretty well for itself.

  I noted that the bars on the list covered a pretty broad spectrum, but tended toward the more sleazy end of the scale, including the Troc, which was a beer bar on Riverside Drive at the foot of the bluffs on the east side of the river. The Troc was about as sleazy as bars get, and I would imagine would be just the place an alcoholic might end up after he’d run through or been thrown out of the others. I usually avoided the place like the plague but, since Jonathan had just enrolled in a night class at the local community college and the first class was that same night, I thought I’d take advantage of that fact to make a quick tour of the bars on the list to see what I could find while Jonathan was in class.

  *

  Jonathan usually got home earlier than I did, which worked out nicely on several levels. For one thing, he was one hell of a lot more domestic than I was, and he not only actually enjoyed cooking, but was a really good cook. I’d usually get home to find him puttering around in the kitchen, talking to Tim and Phil, the two goldfish he kept in a small aquarium on one of the kitchen counters. Jonathan liked to talk, and whereas in most people it might be a really annoying trait, I got a kick out of it in him. He had managed, as so few people do, to keep the childlike (as opposed to childish) wonder and enthusiasm that so many lose as they “grow up.” And the fact that he talked to goldfish was no more unnatural than my conversations with my crotch—though I didn’t do my talking aloud.

  I got home to find Jonathan just coming out of the kitchen, my evening Manhattan in one hand and a Coke in the other. I walked over to hug him and take the drink.

  “Well, this is a pleasant surprise.” He followed me to the sofa and we sat down.

  When we’d first gotten together, I’d felt a little awkward about drinking around him, since he did not drink at all, but he assured me it didn’t bother him in the least, so it had remained a part of our little ritual.

  Shortly after we got together, Jonathan got a job at a small nursery, thanks to the recommendation of our friends Bob and Mario who’d been landscaping the yard of their new house. Jonathan’s love of and fascination with plants had impressed his boss, who had suggested Jonathan go to a local technical college offering an Associate’s Degree in Horticulture Technology, and Jonathan thought it was a great idea. I could tell he was really excited about starting class—his first college experience—and I was proud of him for deciding to go.

  “You got a phone call just a while ago,” he said, taking a swallow of his Coke.

  “Yeah? Who.”

  “Chris, your ex,” he said with a smile. “He called from New York and we talked for quite a while. He sounds like a really nice guy.”

  I nodded. “That he is.”

  “And he said he was glad that we had gotten together and told me I should watch out for you. I’m not sure what he meant by that but I don’t think it was bad. Anyway, he and his lover Max are coming into town for a couple days at the end of next week. I didn’t know he used to work for Marston’s or that he was a window designer. That must be a really great job! But he’s got a meeting here and Max decided to come along because he’s never been here and Chris can show him around. He wants to spend some time with you—well, he said with ‘us’ which I thought was nice of him. He wants you to call him back.”

  Chris! Now that was a surprise, and a very nice one. Chris and I had been each other’s first relationship and we were together for five years until we made the transition from lovers to friends and he moved to New York what now seemed like centuries ago. I hadn’t seen him since, but we’d kept in regular contact, with letters and phone calls at least every couple of weeks. It would be good—really good—to see him again.

  I suddenly realized that Jonathan was staring at me with a soft smile and I was rather embarrassed to realize I’d sort of wandered off.

  “Sorry.”

  The soft smile became a grin, and he patted my leg with his free hand. “No problem,” he said, then glanced toward the kitchen.

  “I started dinner already, since I’ve got class tonight. I hope you don’t mind eating earlier on class night.”

  I shook my head. “Not at all. I’ve got to do some checking on a new case tonight, anyway. I can take you to school and pick you up after class so you won’t have to worry about the bus.”

  “Thanks,” he said, laying a hand on my leg, then pushing himself up off the couch to go into the kitchen.

  “Need help?” I asked with the confidence of knowing the answer would be “no.”

  “Huh-uh,” he replied over his shoulder. “You want to call Chris back?”

  “Good idea.” I got up and moved toward the phone.

  *

  I reached Chris and talked with him for a while. He pretty much just verified what Jonathan had already told me. They’d be arriving early Thursday in time for a Thursday afternoon meeting at Marston’s, then an all day meeting on Friday, and returning to New York on a late flight Sunday. I invited them to stay with us, but Chris’ work had reserved a room for him at the Montero. I was really excited about seeing him again after what seemed like such a much longer time than it actually was, and he sounded the same. He said they’d call me at the office when they got in, and we could make plans from there, hoping to be able to spend as much time together as we could manage. I was anxious, too, to finally meet Max and I could tell Chris was very curious about Jonathan, as well.

  I finished my drink as we talked and when I hung up, Jonathan announced that dinner was ready.

  *

  As Jonathan was getting ready to go to class—the new shirt I’d bought him, his best pair of black pants: all he needed was an apple for the teacher—I took out the list of the bars John Bradshaw had given me and made a rough mental map of which order to hit them in.

  Moxie, Pals, the Paradise, Griff’s (that one was a surprise somehow, since it was a very nice, quiet piano bar), Sketches, and the Troc. A lot to cover in one night, but I wasn’t intending on spending much time in any of them. Having a lover waiting cut down the temptation to stand around awhile and cruise. And tonic and lime only: even one beer in each place would have an effect by the time I’d reached the sixth.

  Actually, since I probably wouldn’t be able to hit them all in the two-and-a-half hours that Jonathan would be in class, I thought I’d put Griff’s toward the bottom of the list. It was on the way between the college and home, and I figured Jonathan and I could stop in there for a few minutes and cat
ch Griff’s resident pianist, Guy Prentiss, do one set. Jonathan had never heard Guy, who had always been one of my favorite entertainers.

  I kept glancing at Jonathan out of the corner of my eye as we drove to the community college, and he was obviously having difficulty just sitting still, his anticipation level was so high. He sat there with his new book bag in his lap reminding me of a little boy on his first day of school. This was, as I said, his first college class, and even though it was a basic course in plant identification and care—Introduction to Horticulture 104—and directly related to his work, it was still college and it was still a thrill for him. As we drove up to the former factory which housed the college, Jonathan reached over and took my hand without looking directly at me. We pulled up to the front entrance, and he squeezed my hand, then released it.

  “You’ll pick me up at nine-thirty, then?” he asked.

  I smiled. “Count on it.”

  He got out of the car and hesitated just a moment before shutting the door.

  “Go get ’em, Tiger,” I said, and he grinned, closed the door and went into the building.

  *

  The college was fairly close to the river, on the west side. I decided that the Troc was actually the closest of the bars, and that I might as well get it out of the way first. I cut down to the Rivercross Bridge (whoever named that one obviously believed in callin’ ’em as he sees ’em), then made a left on Riverside and up to the Troc.

  The Troc was actually practically built into the bluff, which towered above it. It was the only building on the bluff side of the street for two blocks in either direction. To refer to it as a “dive” would be an insult to dives. The grimy windows were so dirty the neon “Beer” sign on the inside could barely be read. The original name of the place had been The Trocadero, but some act of God had broken off the last part of the sign who knows how many years ago and it had never been replaced.

  There were only a few cars scattered along the curb—it was, after all, only a few minutes after seven. I locked the car, walked toward the open door, assaulted before I got within twenty feet of the place by the smell of stale beer and the maudlin twang of country-western music, and entered.

  The usual coal-mine ambiance couldn’t have been more perfect if they’d hired a set designer. It made Hughie’s, the dingy hustler bar close to my office, look positively cheery. I hadn’t been aware they made light bulbs as dim as the five or six imperceptible blobs of light hanging from the ceiling. Maybe they were just as dirty as the windows. There’d have been more light if they’d put a couple jars of fireflies around the place. The strongest single source of light in the room came from one of those ubiquitous beer signs on the wall…the one with what appeared to be little bouncing balls repeating the same bounce pattern every ten seconds unto eternity.

  I stepped up to the bar, completely ignored by the seven or eight patrons, two of whom were seated at facing stools, eyes closed, leaning toward each other with their foreheads touching—probably to keep from falling over. Whether they were in love or asleep was hard to tell. The rest just sat there, facing the back bar, a few with cigarettes dangling precariously from their lips or smoldering in ashtrays. The woman bartender reluctantly broke off her conversation with one of the guys at the far end of the bar and came over to me, leaning slightly forward with both hands on her edge of the bar.

  “What’ll it be?” she asked, in a voice which gave me the clear impression that she really didn’t care.

  “Can I just get a Coke?”

  Her upper lip registered just the ghost of a sneer. “No Coke. No mixed drinks. Just beer.”

  “How about a beer?” I asked. “Millers.” I chose Millers only because the sign was a Millers sign.

  As she pushed herself away from the bar, I got out my billfold and Jerry Shea’s photo. I took out a ten and laid it on the bar. She came back with the bottle of beer and set it on the bar in front of me. Obviously this wasn’t one of those highfalutin’ pansy places where they bother with napkins. She took the ten, but before she had a chance to turn to the cash register, I pushed the photo toward her and said: “Do you know this guy?”

  She squinted at it in the dim light and said: “I seen him around, yeah. Why?”

  “Lately?” I allowed myself a small flush of hope.

  She shook her head. “Not for a month or so. Why? What’d he do?”

  I shook my head: “He didn’t do anything that I know of. I just want to find him. Any idea where I might look?”

  “How many bars in this town?”

  “Hundred or so, I’d imagine,” I said, recognizing a rhetorical question when I heard one.

  “Try any one of ’em.” She took the bill to the register and, not bothering to return with the change, went back to the end of the bar to resume her conversation.

  I left.

  *

  I managed to hit Moxie and made it as far as Pals before running into a former trick just as I was heading out the door. Dan O’Dea, I think his name was. Dan wanted to catch up on old times and made it clear he would definitely like a rematch. My crotch, of course, was all for it, but I explained carefully to both of them that I was in a relationship now. Both expressed their disappointment, though the guy at least acted like he understood. My crotch, I’m afraid, still hadn’t gotten the picture.

  The bartender at Moxie recognized Shea, but said he didn’t know him at all; he did remember that he drank Black Russians, and that he always came in and left alone. He said he never got the impression that the guy was drunk, which led me to believe that either he was good at covering it up, or that Moxie might be one of the first stops on his list. I realized that he and Bradshaw lived only about half a mile from Moxie and that it was, indeed, the closest bar to their apartment.

  Pals, which is about two blocks farther down Beech but on the other side of the street, was a slightly different story. The bartender on duty did not remember ever having seen Shea, but another one of the bartenders, who was just there as a customer, looked at the photo and identified him. He remembered him primarily because Shea drank Black Russians followed by a shot of Peppermint Schnapps. A combination like that would be a little hard for anybody to forget. He said Shea was usually pretty high when he came in, and a lot higher when he left. He recalled Shea leaving with someone once or twice—apparently a different guy each time. Well, I didn’t have to mention that part in my report to Bradshaw.

  I had just enough time for a quick stop at Sketches before having to head back to pick Jonathan up at the college. Unlike Moxie or Pals, which were in The Central, Sketches was the last bar on the far end of a four-block stretch of Arnwood that contained about seven gay bars, and it was only the concentration of bars that kept all of Arnwood from being considered Skid Row.

  The bartender on duty at Sketches was a really cute number who obviously spent all his spare time in the gym. His pecs were so big they could cast shadows, and he had arms to match. But he’d just started working there and had never seen Shea. Apparently there’d been some sort of management shakeup, and all the bartenders who had worked there the last time Shea would most likely have been in had been fired. The bartender said he’d been working from opening at four p.m. until close at two a.m. for the past week.

  Well, that left me with just the Paradise to check out, but I wouldn’t be able to do it tonight. I knew Jonathan had to be at work in the morning—well, so did I, but—so I didn’t want to stay out too late. I did want to stop in at Griff’s. Maybe I’d hit the Paradise right after work.

  *

  About fifty people—students, I assumed—were milling around in front of the college entrance and several cars were lined up at the curb taking on passengers. Luckily, I saw Jonathan dart out from the sidewalk and hurry to open the passenger side door before the guy in the car behind me got too impatient.

  “How did it go?” I asked as we inched forward in the traffic stream.

  “It was great!” he said enthusiastically. “We’re going
to learn all about all different kinds of trees and bushes and which ones grow best where and the kind of light and soil they need, and…I think I’m really going to like it! I thought I knew a lot about this stuff before, but there sure is a lot to learn!”

  I reached over, grinning, and laid my hand on his leg. He grabbed it and moved it up to his crotch. “I like it better there,” he said, and it wasn’t meant as a come-on—he just liked it better there. So did I.

  “I’ve got one more stop to make. It’s one of my favorite places, and I think you’ll like it. We won’t stay too long.”

  Jonathan gave me a big grin. “Sure! I like going different places. Especially with you.”

  Jonathan Quinlan: Master Violinist. Dick Hardesty: Fiddle. The thought was accompanied by an oddly pleasurable flush of warmth.

  We found a parking place just a little way down from Griff’s and took our time walking the short distance to the bar. It was a really nice night, warm and quiet.

  Though it was just a little past 9:45, there were quite a few people in the bar. There was a soft spotlight on the piano, but no Guy sitting there playing, and then I remembered he didn’t start his first set until ten. As I looked around the room, I was surprised to see Mollie Marino, a former client who was also my contact at the Clerk of Courts office, and her lover, Barb, seated at one of the tiny tables close to the piano. They smiled and waved, and I led Jonathan over to say hello and introduce him.

  After we’d exchanged greetings, they invited us to take the table beside them. While Jonathan sat down, I excused myself to go to the bar and get our drinks. I asked Mollie and Barb if they were ready for another, but they declined with thanks.

  As I stepped to the bar, I noticed Guy Prentiss come out of the office area and start making his customary table-stop tour, greeting and talking with all the patrons. It was a nice tradition, and he talked briefly with everyone, whether he’d ever seen them before or not.