Mark Fishman - No. 22 Pleasure City

Violet’s eyes searched the room for Pohl and didn’t find him. The hands of the clock behind the bar said ten o’clock. The bartender nodded at her just like every bartender in every bar acknowledged her as she sat on a stool in front of him. She ordered a lemon vodka and ice, which she intended to drink slowly.

The bartender served her a straight vodka with a squeeze of lemon over a few ice cubes since that was all he had behind the bar, there weren’t any imported bottles back there except whisky. She spun the ice cubes around the inside of the glass with a red plastic stirring stick that had a ball at the end of it. She turned the stick around and submerged the ball, twirling the stick between her fingers, then drew it out and stuck it in her mouth, tasting the sting of cheap liquor on her tongue. She took a mouthful, swallowed it.

When the stuff reached her stomach she had to catch her breath because it burned like fire as it went down and she could almost hear it hissing as it tore her throat up on its way down to her belly.

She tilted her head back, her hair cascaded like a baby waterfall over her shoulders and for a second she didn’t ever want to have another glass of vodka for the rest of her life if they were all going to taste like this. She snapped her watery eyes shut until she got used to the taste in her mouth. Now she understood why Pohl had ordered cocktails for them because a cocktail covered up the taste of cheap liquor.

She shifted her position on the bar stool when she saw her skirt had gone far up her bare thighs showing the customers more than she thought was a good idea since she was alone in a third-rate joint without a man to keep her company.

She took another swallow of vodka, a small one this time, and thought of Pohl as financial support, and then she wondered why he’d taken her to a dive like this if he had any money because if he did he wouldn’t bring a respectable woman to a third-rate bar unless he didn’t want to spend anything in which case it wasn’t going to be easy to play him for big stakes.

She took a cigarette out and the bartender lit it for her and she looked around the room. There wasn’t anyone in the bar who hadn’t noticed her slanting eyes and jet-black hair. She finished her drink and ordered another. With each swallow of vodka she grew more confident and didn’t mind if she gave them all a good view of the fine soft hairs on her thighs. She wasn’t thinking about Pohl anymore. No one came up to talk to her even though she felt the atmosphere was charged with sex and that she was the source of it.

A couple of customers left the bar but were replaced right away by a young man and woman who came in together out of the warm night, seemed to know everyone and must have been regulars. Then Violet remembered she had come here to find Pohl. She waved at the bartender and he came over to her and leaned on the bar to get as close as he could to the face with a pair of green cat’s eyes.

“What can I do for you?”

“You can answer a question for me.”

“Ask it, anything.”

“Don’t get funny.”

“What’s funny? I’m just looking.”

“You get any closer you’ll be in my drink.”

“That’s not where I’d like to be.”

“And I’d rather be someplace else.”

“I can look, can’t I?”

“Just don’t burn yourself up doing it.”

He pulled his face away from her. “Okay, what do you want?”

Violet described Burt Pohl using what she remembered of him from the night they were together in the bar to give the bartender an idea of what he looked like and she gave him just enough of a picture so he could help her out on how often Pohl came into the place.

“Yeah, he comes in here, but he isn’t a regular — if that’s what you want to know.”

“That’s what I wanted to know.”

“I don’t even know his name.”

“And you won’t get mine, either.”

“Did I ask you for it?”

“Pour me another vodka, will you?”

The bartender turned around and fixed another lemon vodka for Violet. He put it down in front of her and picked up the empty glass, eyeing her.

Time passed slowly, she drank heavily waiting for Pohl. She swung around on the bar stool. She looked around the room watching the customers until she got tired of seeing the same faces and the faces were men looking at her and trying to catch a glimpse of what she had under her skirt.

Now when the door opened and closed, she didn’t pay attention to it. Somehow she’d get Pohl’s phone number and call him tomorrow night. There was nothing to keep her busy but cheap liquor and cigarettes and dreaming with vodka-soaked eyes wide open.

Shimura’s car was parked at the end of Nightingale Lane away from where it intersected Lavergne Terrace, and he sat behind the wheel tapping his fingers on it waiting for Fitch who’d said that he’d meet him here at nine. He watched the road behind him through the rearview mirror. He looked at his wristwatch. Aoyama and Eto were a block away in a car belonging to the agency.

At five past nine Shimura saw Fitch coming up the lane toward his car. He leaned across the passenger seat, raised the handle and opened the door for him. Fitch got in and shut the door, lit a cigarette.

“Is she ready to leave Pigsville?” Shimura asked.

“Everybody’s ready to leave Pigsville.”

Then Fitch explained the setup within the limits of what he called a professional secret since he wasn’t going to say anything private that had passed between them, and Shimura said that he didn’t want to know more about Angela than what he had to know if it didn’t have anything to do with why she’d disappeared and the fact that she’d arranged it all herself.

“It’s got plenty to do with why she disappeared but it isn’t any of your business,” Fitch said.

“Okay, we agreed that you wouldn’t say anything about what you haven’t got the right to talk about,” Shimura said. “I’m just a little curious.”

“That’s right. And the answer is no, she’s not ready.”

“What does that mean?”

“I want to see her tonight, then we can do it. I’ll bring her out tomorrow.”

“When?”

“In the afternoon.”

“Have you figured out your end?”

“That’s none of your business either.” He paused, then added: “And you better not have any plans of your own.”

Shimura looked at him, squinting, and shook his head.

“Right.” Fitch opened the door and tossed his cigarette out into the lane. He got out of the car.

“Fitch, there’s always the police. You didn’t forget that?”

“It works both ways. Quit threatening me.”

It was almost closing time, the clock on the wall behind the bar said one forty-five. The bar wasn’t empty, the customers were finishing their drinks, and Violet, sitting awkwardly on a bar stool, tipped back her glass of vodka and swallowed what was left of it and the ice cubes banged against her front teeth.

The bartender watched her as he cleaned and dried glasses, wiped down the bar and organized the bottles in neat rows one behind the other. She sat self-consciously straight on the bar stool and her eyes opened and closed regularly without staying shut more than a couple of seconds. Her charcoal-gray jacket hung from the back of the stool, her deep-blue shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and when she leaned forward he saw her breasts. Her shiny knees seemed to wink at him each time she swung around on the bar stool as he went past her going to and from the cash register.

Violet didn’t hear anything from behind the curtain of vodka because there was no sound where she was, there was nothing but thick quiet, and she saw the bartender moving around behind the bar with his feet not touching the floor picking things up and setting them down and wiping the cheap imitation mahogany bar with a rag.