Frederick Zackel - Dead Wrong About the Guy

The waitress was young, maybe seventeen years old, very short and very skinny. She looked fragile and small, a mere whisper of a woman, which I figured she hated about herself. But I could also see she was working hard at overcoming her faults. See, her blonde hair had been chopped short and then dyed a bright magenta. She also had three earrings in one ear and a butterfly tattoo on the crest of her right breast.

She was the waitress on duty at the Pier Inn Restaurant and I was in the back booth. I was her last lunch customer. Although it fronted the piers and the gas dock, the restaurant was a bit out of the way, a tad off the beaten track and not flashy enough to attract the tourists, like this part of Maui itself. Inside, the eatery had checkered curtains and no table cloths, a half-dozen tables, booths along either side wall, and a counter with swivel stools.

I looked up from my paper as she approached. "What did the parrot say about me?"

The skinny young waitress was caught off-guard, and so she blushed, which surprised her. She hadn't seen me look over at her. She got ballsy to cover her confusion. "I said, that's a guy married to his job," she said. "I said, look how he's got his head buried in a newspaper."

"And what’s that mean to you?"

"What a waste! If he moves his head six inches, bang!, he's looking at one of the most sensational sunsets Maui ever had."

I looked out at the sunset, then at her.

"Well, you had your head buried in that newspaper," she said lamely.

I looked at the newspaper, then at her.

She said, "That newspaper's the dead giveaway. When I see a guy with his nose in a newspaper like that, he's used to traveling alone and eating alone. Bet you spend your whole life on business trips. You’re a salesman or something. Bet you doesn't even know what state you’re in now."

"So, do you talk to the parrot a lot?"

"Only when the place is slow." She turned on a dime and became a waitress again. "I didn't think you were ready to order."

I folded the paper, set it aside, and gave her my undivided attention. "I'm ready to order now."

She said, "Okay. What would you like?"

"I'll have a chef salad. Blue cheese on the side."

"Anything to drink?"

"Coffee. Black."

"Anything else?"

I shook my head, gave her back the menu. When she left for the kitchen, I watched her walk. Once her cute little butt disappeared into the kitchen, I went back to my newspaper.

Moments later, she returned with my salad.

"Thanks."

I started eating, still reading my newspaper.

The waitress went behind the counter, poured herself a cup of coffee, and watched me for a while. She brought the coffee pot and filled my cup. I looked up, "noticed" her so I smiled a customer's smile, but said nothing to her, and she said nothing to me.

She came back when I was half-finished.

"How was it?" she asked.

I didn't look up. "Fine."

She didn't leave. "You always eat just a salad only?"

I noticed her for the second time. "Yeah."

"You don't look like a vegetarian."

"You live longer if you keep your weight down."

She looked at the broad-leafed salad and she knew better.

I added, "That's if you don't die from the pesticides first."

She stared suspiciously at my chef's salad, then looked quizzically at the guy. "Something I should know about?"

"No. There was nothing wrong with my salad."

"Oh. Okay." She tried being a waitress again. "How’s your meal?"

"It was as magnificent as Maui. Or you."

We made eye contact, and I was surprised that her eyes could meet mine for as long they did. When she found herself blushing, she left for the kitchen. I smiled.

As she left, Flea Nichols entered the restaurant.

I almost laughed seeing Flea Nichols after all those years. Flea was a small guy in his thirties, but he was already out-of-shape. And though his hair was receding, he wore it long and tied back in a ponytail. He wore a gaudy aloha shirt two sizes too big for him. Spindly legs poked out of his khaki shorts. Seeing the man in the back booth, he went pale as a ghost.

I beckoned Flea to join me. Flea Nichols reluctantly came and sat across from me.

I laughed, then slapped Flea Nichols' leg. "So tell me about it, Flea!" I said cheerily. "Tell me why I came four thousand miles to see you."

Flea's fingers trembled as he took ten one-hundred dollar bills from his wallet and passed them across the table to me.

I looked the money over. The bills were real, used bills and out of sequence. I didn't return the money. They were mine now.

Flea was jittery. "They're real, Mister Paoli. A guy up here gave them to me to get somebody willing to listen to a deal he wants pulled off."

We cruised past the city limits of Kahului in my rented Mustang.

I said, "Up here? You mean, over here, not up here."

Flea shrugged whatever. "He wants this deal bad. He can't do it himself, 'cause everybody knows him too well. He'd be the first place they'd look if anything came down."

"What's his name?"

"Corky Collins."

"How much money does he have?"

Flea doesn't know, can't guess. "He's rich enough, I know that."

"Where's his money come from? Tourists?"

"Chickens, actually. Yeah, chickens. Fryers, actually. He raises and sells chickens to restaurants and grocery stores. And he owns a chicken processing plant next to City Park. It's not a big operation, but most of the farmers go through him."

I was amused. "A chicken farmer. Well, why not? His money's as good as yours, right, Flea?"

We passed a roadsign of a leaping deer with a bullethole through his chest. I noticed that the sight of the deer with a bullethole made Flea wince.

"So he went to you. Flea Nichols. The bookkeeper."

Flea sank into despair. "He didn't know anybody in Vegas, even, and you know how long I lived there."

"Income tax preparation, that was your front, wasn't it?"

"I was always legit on that, Mister Paoli."

"What's he got on you, Flea?"

"Checks," Flea reluctantly admitted.

I was stunned by his stupidity. "You kited bad paper?"

Flea was embarrassed. "Yeah, well ... See, getting him an interview with you, with whoever got sent, is the only way I can get those checks back. He threatened to turn me in to the Sheriff's Office--"

"How did he know about you?"

"All I know is, he retraced my steps, everything, and found out about my record, all the time I served, and started leaning on me--"

I was ice. "Have you been using your real name, Flea?"

"Why not?" Flea whined. "How would anybody over here know I did time?"

I snorted at such incredible stupidity.

"Hey, I came over here straight, and I swear it, I been straight, really."

"How come you don't leave over here?"

Flea said, "I love it too much, Mister Paoli. I love Maui a lot. I want to stay and stop running in circles like some hamster in a cage."

"Here?" I looked out the window at Maui, as if for the first time, to see what Flea found in Maui. "What's here?"

Flea continued, "Maybe, when you get to a certain age, you just start thinking about settling in."

I stared at him with disbelief. "A two-bit shit like you saying that?"

"Can you help me?"

I wouldn't commit. "Calling us was the only thing you done smart. And that still might not be enough. Who knows what this guy's got going down."

Flea was almost pleading. "This guy's got this deal going down, Mister Paoli, and he's got me hassled into the middle of it, and I don't know what else to do!"

I snorted my contempt. "I can believe that."

Suddenly Flea reached over and turned off the ignition. The car died, and it slowed like a slug on the highway.