James Sallis - Bluebottle

Jimmie Marconi came because he'd always come here. His old man had come here and his old man before him. Places like New York, Boston, you'd have a regular neighborhood, do business from a booth in the bar on the corner or out of a family restaurant with checkered tablecloths, candles and pots of good, thick marinara reeking of garlic and fresh basil bubbling in the kitchen. That's the way things worked. People wanted tofind you-request a favor, ask for justice, tell you their daughter'd got knocked up by some guy refused to do the right thing-they knew where to come. Here it was different. No neighborhood, families spread out all through the city, across the river, out by Kenner and Jefferson. But when they needed you, they still knew where to come.

"You don't want to do this, boy," the ancient black man told me as I stood with one foot on the cement step up to Leonardo's.

"Probably right," I said, entering as he went back to rocking and nodding.

I pushed my way like an icebreaker past the frontdesk, through baffles of small rooms and beehived waitresses, around the shoal of a chattering, bantamweight maitre d' in double-breasted suit, to the main dining room.

Faces turned to watch me. Conversations stopped.

A guy whose neck put me in mind of bulls sat over an espresso at a table near the door. Sucking on a lemon slice, he lumbered to his feet as I came in. So did his counterpart, all wire and nerve endings, at a rear table.

Jimmie's head rose, too. He regarded me for a moment, two, three, nothing showing in his face. Then his hand came up an inch or two. The bookends sat down.

I did the same, across from Jimmie, who tucked back into his plate of cannelloni and, finishing that, pulled close a bowl of cantaloupe with shaved prosciutto.

"You eaten yet?"

I shook my head.

"Mama Bella'd be happy to fix you up something special."

"Mama's other patrons might not appreciate that, sir."

Jimmie nodded and ate his melon slowly, pushing the bowl away when he was done. Then he spoke to the room:

"Closing up in here now, folks. Any of you have food coming, they'll bring it to you out front. Please keep your wallets in your pockets, though; tonight your money's no good. Please have a complimentary drink, too, while waiting-and please come back."

We watched as customers slid from booths and stood, tugging at polyester sport coats, cotton skirts and silk dresses before shuffling out.

"You too," he told his bookends when the citizens were gone.

They didn't like it-eyesflashing You know you can't trust these people -but they left.

"Have a coffee with me at least?"

"Sure."

Busboys in yellow vests and black pants came through a doorway at the back of the room to retrieve dishes.

"Sister doing okay, Joseph?" Jimmie asked one of them.

"Yessir. Thank you, sir."

"Heading for college this fall, I understand," Jimmie said to the other, who nodded. "You know you got a job here anytime you need it, right? Summers, holidays. Anytime."

They took the dishes away. Moments later the one whose sister was doing okay returned with two espressos.

"Good health," Jimmie said.

I nodded. One healthy sip and my coffee was gone. Jimmie held the saucer in his left hand, up close to his face, working the cup with his right. Something axlike about that face. Sharp nose, narrow features. Eyes like wedges.

"Don't know as how I ever sat across the tablefroma black man before."

No response called for-none I'd care to give, at any rate.

Jimmie's hand fluttered up. No one seemed to be watching, but fresh coffees materialized.

"We've known each other now what? four, five years? I try to keep track of you. What it looks like to me is, you have trouble enough keeping track of yourself."

What could I say?

'That's what we're here for, Griffin. To bear witness, to take notice. Ever doubt that, you just look into a child's eyes."

"Your man, Joey the Mountain. He's been asking about me."

"Not anymore he ain't."

"And about the woman I was with the night I got shot."

Jimmie sipped at his coffee.

"You doing okay, right? From die shooting. You recovered."

I nodded.

"That's good." Jimmie threw back the last spoonful or so of his espresso. "Never could get where I was able to care much for this stuff, but I keep trying. What I want is a drink. You want a drink?"

I didn't catch any signal, but the maitre d' materialized at our table.

"Single-malt Scotch suit you?" Jimmie said.

"Always has."

Two doubles, Marcel."

They were there in a blink. I picked up mine and looked through it, remembering how she'd done that very thing in the dive down on Dryades. I swirled the first taste, oily, deep, abiding, over the back of my tongue. Life was good.

"What we hear is, Eddie Bone called you that night."

"He did. Said I should catch him at the club later on."

"He didn't say what he wanted."

"No."

"He ever call you like that before?"

"No again."

Jimmie wet the tip of his tongue with Scotch. He put the glass down before him on the table and sat looking at it.

'We want the woman," he said.

"Why?"

"Not something you ask."

Okay. I had another taste. "What about the shooter?"

Marconi shrugged. "He turns up, we want to talk to him. Where you from?"

I told him.

"You got snapping turtles up there, right? Big fuckers that look like rocks, move just about as fast. And once they bite down-it don't matter what on, a stick, your hand-they don't let go till it thunders. I figure you're like those turtles, get your beak onto something, you don't let go. No way you're gonna hold off looking for this woman."

The maitre d' brought new glasses of single malt. Crystal. Stricdy Sunday best: I don't think regular folks in regular clothes and regular lives got them. We sat quiedy.

"Maybe this time I help you," Jimmie said after a while.

"Sounds to me like any help rendered here, it would be mutual."

"So we help one another, then."

He slid a four-by-six photo across the table. Dana Es-may looked out at me.

"You understand how it is. Our people walk in down there, everything stops. They start asking questions, suddenly everybody's deaf and halfway out the door. You, it's different. You know the scene, people know you. Fifty a day plus expenses sound about right?"

"Couple of conditions. I report only to you-"

"No problem."

"-and I say it's over, whatever the reason, it's over. No questions asked."

"Don't see why not."

I polished off my Scotch. When I was a kid, Mom made pitchers of Kool-Aid, poured it into bright-colored spun-aluminum glasses, green, gold, silver, blue. Other kids gulped theirs down in an instant. My own sat for half an hour as I sipped and savored. They never understood how I could do that.

"Anything you need, information, money, names, you only have to call. My private number's on the back of the photo."

"Thanks. Better get to work, huh?"

I was almost to the door when he spoke.

"Appreciate what you did for my daughter, Griffin."

The etiquette of these things dictated that I not mention it until he did; now I was free to ask.

"She okay, then? Still at home?"

"Nah. Was for a while. Says much as she loves me she can't be around me. Too much baggage's the way she puts it. Too much stuff cluttering up the shelves. Last I heard from her she's living with this older guy up in Jackson. Both of them got custom Harleys, his jet-black, hers pink, make their living, such as it is, hauling all this shit in a trailer-old army equipment, dolls, iron cookware-between flea markets. Talk about too much crap cluttering up the shelves. So how long's that gonna last? I don't see her much, or hear from her. Not direcdy. But at least I know she's alive. Thanks for coming in, Griffin."