Chapter 13
There were a mere four cars in the lot at Pete’s Pub, but I parked in the back and waited for Miss Iceland. Not that it would be hard to find my vehicle had the lot been full. There aren’t many 1965 model cars on the roads these days and those are usually clean and pristine. I, of course, was working on a whole other level: Rust and Dust.
I had little for her as regarded the murders, but I had a thing for willowy, borderline anemic blondes and, I felt, we’d gotten to the point where I just might get to show her that thing. Though we’d been working together and even fooled around some this meeting was akin to our first date and I wanted to make a good impression. Even if I couldn’t produce any strong leads. I wanted to look cool OR confident; both being too much to ask.
I removed myself heavily from the bench seat of the Falcon and shoved open the door with an unearthly groan...the door, not me. Miss Iceland texted that she was minutes away and I tried to position myself suavely in wait though the backdrop of the car and my ubiquitous dishevelment made this a Sisyphean task. First, I leaned against the trunk arms crossed legs akimbo...too aggressive. Then hands in pockets, legs crossed...too Springsteen Tunnel of Love-y. Next I looped my thumbs through my belt loops...too Kingfish Huey Long. Finally, I tried arms crossed, legs crossed with face pout and a slight upper body lean to the left until a stiff breeze kicked up nearly blowing me over. At that point I gave up the ridiculous ghost just as Miss Iceland’s Volkswagen turned into the lot.
Faded bootcut jeans- worn, but not factory-ripped- Mexican serape-style, hooded sweatshirt and a pair of dirty Chuck Taylors on her feet she looked like she just walked out of a hippie’s dream...you know, the good kind, where Abbie Hoffman almost started a revolution, every acid trip was a spiritual awakening and Woodstock was actually fun; not a soggy, traffic nightmare, germ-fest with bad sound. Wisps of blonde hair fell in her eyes and that along with girls in baseball caps always made me hot- Veronica Lake, Chrissie Hynde, heck, I’d get turned on watching The Addams Family every time Cousin It appeared...uh, It was a woman, right?
“Am I late?” she asked, as if it mattered. I had nowhere to be till the Tricentennial.
I pushed up my sleeve and consulted my bare wrist. “I can’t tell off hand,” I replied, instantly regretting my defensive jokiness around attractive women.
“You don’t wear a watch?” she asked in a tone that reminded of one of those Victorian-era class-conscious clashes out of, say, Great Expectations (“He calls the Jacks knaves...” Good heavens!).
“I don’t accessorize,” I said in defense. “I prefer to be unencumbered.” At this point though it didn’t matter as she was busy sizing up our meeting place in a manner I’d describe as...pensive.
Texas singer-songwriter Hayes Carll once described a dive he played as “looking like a homeless Cheers on meth…” Pete’s Pub wasn’t quite that bad, but its future wouldn’t require the donning of shades to paraphrase that 80s Timbuk 3 song...something I never thought I’d do.
The paint was peeling, the masonry crumbling and the sign on top of the one-story structure was a monument to understatement reading only “BAR”. Of the four vehicles in the lot I recognized three, the odd one out being a new-ish white pickup with ladders and heavy tools in the bed. We walked close past a salt-stained panel van with a faded Grateful Dead bumper sticker that read, “I’m One Of Jerry’s Kids”.
“Jeff ‘Fucking’ Jensen’s here,” I muttered, giving the van an open-hand slap thereby releasing a reek of stale pot smoke from the half closed passenger-side window.
“You don’t like this guy?” said Miss Iceland, dwelling on the expletive.
“No, not at all...you’ll see.”
Inside Pete’s was, in a word, dank; in two words, very dank. Direct sunlight came here to die. The two most popular shots of barflies who spent extensive time here were Jack Daniels and Vitamin D. Entering on the left side of the building Miss Iceland, a person of light and beauty (at least in my lust-filled mind), blinked several times to adjust her vision. I, on the other hand, was fine. To our left along the wall was a row of two-person tables broken up in the middle by a thirty-five year old, never updated, 45-RPM playing jukebox on which the most selected titles were “Turning Japanese” and “My Sharona”.
“So this is where you hang out?” Miss Iceland asked. She gave the place the once-over, but I didn’t worry. I figured if she’d gotten past my car, my clothes and my corny jokes she had a pretty high threshold for trashiness. Besides cocktails waited within and could do nothing, but work in my favor on this date...or whatever it was.
“I used to,” I answered, realizing there was no way to deny it since I was featured in various states of inebriation in the holiday photo montages that decorated the walls. “...though now I only go out often enough to remember that staying home is preferable,” I added, truthfully. Not exactly saving the situation, but dealing with it in a ‘lesser of two evils’ sort of way.
To our right ran a parentheses-shaped bar on one side of the long aisle and we took up seats across from it about halfway down a row of booths that ran along the permanently shuttered windows.
Several “slugs” were adhered to the far end of the bar and barely acknowledged our entry. Farthest away was Beer Gut Buddy looking about a bacon-cheeseburger away from needing one of those long grabber things to reach his beer like some sort of perverse boardwalk crane game. Considering his standard ‘last call’ order was three beers, a burger and a plate of wings it could happen tonight. To his left was Four Drink Frank with a beer, Screwdriver and White Russian in front of him (later he’d add a black coffee to the lineup as if that would sober him up for the drive home). His left elbow rested on the back of an empty chair with a spent shot glass and the dregs of a short beer in front of it indicated a recent appearance of The Fleischmann Flash. An old-timer, the Flash would appear several times on a given day, order a shot of Fleischmann’s whiskey, a short beer chaser, and drink them standing up before returning to his still running car where his wife was waiting for him to continue chauffeuring her on errands. Finally, there was Liquid Lenny, so-called because he had never been spotted consuming solid food. Of indiscriminate age with an 80s perm and a complexion that fell somewhere between that old Procol Harum song and an E.L. James novel (A Whiter Shade of Grey?) Lenny was most noted for bringing mini-bottles of his favorite brand of tonic water and lining them up on the bar like terra cotta soldiers as a substitute for whatever generic swill Pete’s was mixing in his gin/vodka tonics. These he consumed in such quantities it was a safe bet he’d never contract malaria. Cirrhosis of the liver, on the other hand, was a distinct possibility.
Nearer to us on the bar sat two half finished beers and a pack of Salem Lights before the empty stools of Jeff “Fucking” Jensen and whatever derelict du jour he’d rustled up to assist him in his itinerant painting business. Both, no doubt, were in back abusing the facilities. Looking back over my shoulder to the dark end of the bar I noticed the mystery pickup must belong to a pair of burly, brown coverall clad types engaged in a discussion over one of their iPhones about on ongoing battle of Fortnite, Black Ops or some other combat video game I knew nothing about preferring to escape reality the old-fashioned way...alcohol. I assumed they weren’t employees of Rick James’s crew. The latter had clustered at Pete’s for the first couple of weeks of building until they realized Sunday through Thursday at Pete’s was what we jokingly referred to as the All-Male Revue with not a woman in sight. Even on the weekend the women that attended were spoken for and the ones that weren’t were the type that were rarely spoken to. Instead the framers, carpenters et. al. of R.L. James Construction spent their time up at the bar at Sugarbush where at least occasionally was heard an encouraging word and one could listen to music produced in the current millennium.
Behind the bar I noticed Serge was filling in for Pete himself who probably took advantage of the good weather to partake of his two passions: hunting and fishing. In fact, so engrossed was he in these activities that we’d often have to beg him to switch away from Animal Planet, Outdoor TV or the ‘Redneck Channel’ just to watch a Red Sox playoff game or the Super Bowl...though I must admit an occasional episode of Meerkat Manor could be entertaining.
Serge, in contrast, could care less what you wanted to watch or drink as long as the former didn’t feature a Kardashian and the latter was beer, wine or a mixture of no more than two liquids. At 5’9” and 235 pounds with a jaw you could teach grade school geometry on, he was a no-nonsense, French-Canadian, bull of a man who did not suffer fools or Long Island Iced Teas lightly. The apocryphal story being the night a gaggle of college coeds wandered in and ordered a pitcher of Daiquiris only to be sternly informed there was no blender on the premises. When they pointed to one behind the bar just inches from Serge’s right elbow he promptly picked it up, dropped it in the trash and told them there was a Houlihan’s (he pronounced it Hooligan’s) on Route 7 should they wish to take their perky patronage elsewhere. Much to the chagrin of several regulars ready to pounce on them like a puma on a porkchop.
The waitress, if there was one, was MIA so I sallied up to the bar (yes, I occasionally sally) for a pair of menus and some drinks. Serge was his usual surly self so I took the cautious liberty of ordering two Coors Light drafts figuring Serge wasn’t about to be mistaken for Mr. Boston on this afternoon and after a Natty Ice from the can in my office this would be the equivalent of Dom Perignon in a Pimp Cup to Miss Iceland.
Returning to the table it was time to face the proverbial music and it was already playing in my head like a Jim Morrison poetry album. True to feminine form- at least the ‘feminines’ I’ve known- Miss Iceland wasted no time in turning up the volume. “So what did you find out today?”
“Ah, well…,” I, less than eloquently, stalled. Then I remembered my abortive fling with Debra Townes and produced a clue without revealing my sordid source, “Uh, I did find out Jeremy the Reporter and Monica Carson dated in college.”
Now, I’m not one to rest on my laurels, but what happened next felt like I’d been kicked in them. Instead of praising my sleuthing skills or even questioning how I’d come across such a choice morsel Miss Iceland showed all the emotion of Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV. She took out her reporter’s notebook, jotted down the fact and moved on to what she apparently thought was my real assignment: interviews.
“Did you speak with Barton...the teacher?” she questioned, as I tried to re-descend my testicles.
There was no avoiding the answer to this so I tried a dodge. “It’s Saturday, school’s closed,” I said, prevaricating.
She was having none of this and shot back, so sternly I was finally convinced we were in a real relationship or something close to one, “Well, you have his phone number don’t you?”
I honestly didn’t know so I tried moving on. “I did speak with Reverend Brooks…,” I began.
Again her forceful questioning brought me up short- in more ways than one. “What did he say? Why did the church sell? For how much? Who bought it? Was Curly still in AA?”
“Not much...I don’t know...I don’t know...I don’t know...and, uh...I don’t know,” I answered all too truthfully.
I felt like Derf who once informed me on coming home from one of his plethora of internet dates, “...women aren’t interested in a compulsive gambler with no job and no money…”; “Yeah but she doesn’t know that yet,” I retorted. “No, she does, I told her…” It was his way of not wasting time on those likely to be intolerant of his, shall we say, quirky lifestyle. The one caveat being if the woman in question met a certain level of beauty at which point he would hold his self-defeating plan in abeyance until he “threw her a chop” as he so gracelessly put it. He once drew a chart on the back of a racing program that displayed in linear graph form the balance of lies to truth that he would reveal as a ratio to the attractiveness of said date that ended up looking like something Elon Musk was planning on taking to Mars. So, considering Miss Iceland was the equivalent of an E-Harmony homerun I started backpedaling immediately.
“Well, he did say the whole thing was handled through the archdiocese in Burlington.”
She brightened a tad though I wasn’t sure if it was from the info or having finally concocted her exit plan. However, when she started scribbling again I stopped calculating the angle and distance to the rear exit and went on.
“I also spoke to Rick James…”
“Without me?” she interjected, quickly. I wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“He ran into me coming out of the church,” I partially lied, leaving out the part about my head in the alley as being superfluous- she already knew I was an idiot.
“What did you get out of him,” she asked with all the confidence of Derf with a horse up on an INQUIRY.
“Well,” I was nothing if not hesitant about my next move and with each fall and tuck of her blonde hair behind her ears I was starting to sound like King George VI at an IRS audit. “Uh, he doesn’t own the coffee shop or know who does. Said it was the best commercial spot in town, but somebody stole it while he was still finalizing the deal for the development.”
She suddenly sprang to life which is the only way to spring, I believe,...’suddenly’ and ‘to life’ that is. Writing furiously she actually seemed to brighten for the first time since we entered. Though alcohol and poor lighting do have a way of making Pete’s and my charms, as well, look better by degrees. I signaled Serge for two more beers.
“So I pushed him on the lawsuits and he seemed to turn pale...then again it’s Vermont and everyone’s pale so I may have lost my ability to judge. Plus he had enough layers of spray tan on to make George Hamilton jealous.”
“Is that the guy from The Beatles?”
God I’m old was my first thought, but decided it was best to forge ahead. “I’m just saying he flinched like a guy caught with a dildo in his bag at airport security at the mention of the lawsuits. Then he said he had a call coming in, though there was no ringtone, talked quickly into his phone, said he had to go and took off without answering.”
“Maybe it was on vibrate?”
“Uh,...the dildo thing was a simile…”
“Not the dildo, stupid,” she said shaking her head, but smiling, “his phone.”
“Oh...ah...right,” I sloughed it off.
“That’s great,” she added, unexpectedly. I searched her for sarcasm, patronizing and/or condescension, found none, and felt better.
“Yeah sorry ‘bout not seeing Barton or getting anything from Brooks, but…”
She cut me off with praise- the equivalent in my dealings with women of finding a bald Native American- “This is good stuff. Not great, but it’s a start. We have to talk to the diocese in Burlington about the church sale- who bought it, how much, why sell now...that type of thing. Plus, now that we know Rick James is out on the coffee house we can focus on those lawsuits. And, by the way, how did you find out about Monica and Jeremy dating?”
Ah, my laurels were back so I ran with 'em. “Oh, you know, I have my contacts. Sometimes you gotta beat it outta them. Sometimes you gotta charm outta them…,” I sniffed, then extended my arms across the back of the booth, striking my most confident pose.
“Hey, numb-nuts your beers are ready!” It was Serge snapping me back to reality.
I picked up the beers while she continued scribbling and I felt relieved. She was a trained investigative reporter. No wonder she was ticked at being pulled off this story and made to cover elementary school Tricky Trays. I also liked a woman who took charge and knew what she wanted as opposed to those who wanted to be entertained then judged me by the results like I was Julie on The Love Boat. Somehow playing softball, stopping for a couple beers and eating Chinese takeout in front of the Bruins game didn’t constitute a dream date. I blame The Bachelor for setting the bar too high. It seems women these days like romantic hikes and long walks on the beach, but ask them to go to the kitchen for a Natty Ice so you don’t miss the power play and they bite your head off...but I digress.
At this point Dot, the waitress, turned up reeking of cigarettes and tossed a pair of one page laminated menus down like they were Kleenex and we were $5 whores. She was short, late fifties with hair and skin too orangey to be just as God made her. As the Turnpike Troubadours once sang, “Like a burnt-out Betty Page/I’ll bet she was quite a looker when she was half her age…” unfortunately years of hard living had left her bitter, lonely and at this moment angry that we’d come in for a late lunch when she assumed she’d just cruise until her replacement showed up for the dinner shift.
She frowned at our drinks no doubt thinking about how this would impact her tip. Then she pulled out her pad expecting us to order before anyone short of Evelyn Wood would have time to read the choices. In my case this was expected since I’d been here enough to memorize the Bill of threadbare Fare that last changed when they overfished Orange Roughy.
“I’ll have the bacon cheeseburger,” Miss Iceland announced, decisively and my loins gave a flutter. A woman who knew what she wanted and ate like a man. This WAS a find. “No bun...and he can have my fries,” she added, but it was too late for my loins to turn back now.
“You know Dr. Atkins died at 41,” I quipped, suspecting she was watching her carbs.
“He did?” she replied, trying to gauge my truthfulness.
“Yeah, he was hit by a bus…” She looked relieved. “On his way to an angioplasty," I added. “So, who knows really.”
“Huh?” Now she was thoroughly confused.
“Never mind. I’ll have the Turkey Club.” She didn’t fully get me, but then again no woman did, or wanted to it seemed. Though if she could stay above The Mendoza Line (see, it ain’t easy) as far as jokes were concerned we just might have something here.
Dot moved off toward the galley kitchen just as Jeff “Fucking” Jensen and Dennis Trevino came up the aisle from the men’s room, conspicuously sniffing and twitching in stereo.
Jeff was squat, nondescript with a pudgy, round face that belied the fact that he could procure for one any illicit substance from marijuana to methamphetamine to “goofers” as my father used to say. Dennis, on the other hand, was a character of the type that could cause you to sleep with the light on. At 6’3” and weighing a buck forty post-Thanksgiving he looked like Ichabod Crane had his stomach stapled. This was due, he claimed, to having every digestive ailment known to WebMD which he wasn’t afraid to describe in Med School-like detail. Particularly, a case of perpetual acid reflux so violent it had burned his back teeth down to mere nubs. Though based on the strings of greasy hair falling out the back of his strictly ironic, dirty Middlebury College hat hygiene, no doubt, had a hand, as well, in that dental disfigurement. He owned more flannel shirts than John Fogarty and he had one on under the ever present down vest with fishing license pinned to the back that he wore everywhere including to play softball in the middle of August.
As they returned to their bar stools they sized Miss Iceland up from behind and gave me that lascivious “way to go” look that was meant to make me feel proud, but just made me uncomfortable. All paint splattered clothes, twitching hands and goofy grins they sat facing us and waited for introductions.
