J. Jance - Partner In Crime

Other buildings along Brewery Gulch were similarly ramshackle. Many storefronts exhibited faded for rent signs. Others were entirely boarded up. Not so the Blue Moon Saloon and Lounge. That establishment was hopping. Thirty or so big, honking Harleys sat angle-parked outside along the curb. I’m an officer of the law. I don’t generally feel welcome in places of business frequented by bikers.

Looking at the building, I saw no reason the Blue Moon, unlike its nearest neighbors, hadn’t closed down years ago. I stepped inside, hoping the place wouldn’t fall down around my ears.

My eyes had to go from bright sunlight to hardly any light at all. When my pupils finally had adjusted, I saw that the interior of the Blue Moon was in better shape than the exterior. Reasonably new linoleum covered the floor. Pedestal cocktail tables scattered throughout the room were jammed with leather-clad, chain-wearing bikers, all of them drinking and smoking. A few were clearly well on their way to being drunk while others were just gearing up. Ironically, the atmosphere reminded me of a Twelve-Step biker bar a friend of mine used to run up on Eighty-fifth in Seattle’s Greenwood District. This establishment, however, was definitely not alcohol-free – not even close.

Beyond the tables, a magnificent wooden bar that dated from the eighteen hundreds ran the length of the long, narrow room. The bar, like the tables, appeared to be fully occupied except for a single seat three stools from the end wall, where dreary, painted-over windows obscured all trace of outside light.

Grabbing that one empty stool, I immediately understood why it had been left unoccupied. My neighbors to the right were two crippled old geezers who looked like escapees from a low-rent retirement home. Two walkers were stowed in what I had thought to be available leg space. Unfortunately, I noticed the walkers the hard way – by banging my kneecap, full force, into the handle of one of them.

“Sorry about that,” the guy nearest me said. “Let me haul that thing out of your way.”

“No,” I said, rubbing my bruised knee. “It’s fine where it is.”

“Hate having to drag that thing around with me everywhere I go, but it beats being locked up at home.”

“What can I get you?” someone asked.

I turned away from the old man to find myself facing what had to be the Blue Moon’s greatest asset – a killer blond bartender. She was a gorgeous young woman whose lush good looks would have turned heads at a Miss America Pageant.

“O’Doul’s,” I replied.

“Sure thing,” she said. I watched as she walked briskly away. My obvious admiration didn’t pass unnoticed.

“Look but don’t touch,” my neighbor advised. “Angie’s happily married, and she don’t take nonsense off nobody.”

I scanned the room for evidence of another bartender, cocktail waitress, or bouncer who might lend Angie a hand if the band of bikers started acting up. I saw no one. Filling glasses at the distant tap, Angie seemed totally unruffled by her roomful of tough customers. Obviously Angie was more than just a pretty face. And body.

When she returned with my bottle of alcohol-free O’Doul’s, Angie brought along two brimming glasses of beer. She set those in front of my neighbors, picked up their two empties, and then turned to me.

“That’ll be three bucks,” she said.

I pulled a ten out of my wallet and handed it over. As she walked back down the bar to the cash register, my neighbor leaned over to me. “It’s getting close to the end of the month,” he confided in a beery-breathed whisper. “Angie’s real good about carrying me an’ Willy till our checks catch up with us the first of the month, if you know what I mean.”

So Angie wasn’t above running a tab. The practice was most likely illegal, but it was something the two guys at the end of the bar really appreciated.

“You from around here?” I asked.

The man’s loud burst of laughter was punctuated by an equally loud belch. “You hear that, Willy?” he demanded, clapping his buddy on the shoulder.

“Hear what?” Willy asked.

“This fella wants to know if we’re from around here.”

Willy grinned at that, and they both laughed uproariously. Since they thought my question utterly hilarious, I took that to mean they were natives.

Angie returned with my change and laid it on the polished surface of the bar. “Are these guys bothering you?” she asked, giving my two bar mates a searing look.

“No,” I said. “Not at all.”

She raised a warning finger. “You and Willy behave yourselves, Arch,” she said. “You bother any of the other customers and you two are out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” a seriously chastened Archie replied. “We’ll be good.”

“Wha’d she say?” Willy asked.

“We got to behave,” Archie shouted.

“Right,” Willy agreed, raising his glass. “Absolutely.”

It seemed unlikely that I would glean any useful information from this pair of doddering old drunks, so I turned hopefully toward my neighbors on the other side. No luck there. The person next to me – someone I had actually thought to be a guy – turned out to be a leather-booted, leather-jacketed babe whose face was almost as well-tanned as the cowhide she wore on the rest of her body. When I glanced in her direction, the man next to her glowered back at me in the mirror. Resigned, I returned to Archie.

“Who owns this place?” I asked.

Archie frowned. “Why’d you want to know?”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’m thinking about making some investments around town,” I offered. “Maybe I’d like to buy it.”

“No way!” Archie glowered. “The Blue Moon’s not for sale.”

“Wha’d he say?” Willy asked. The man must have been stone- deaf. As far as I could tell, that was his only line.

“If you know it’s not for sale, you must be the owner then,” I remarked casually.

“Angie and her husband own it,” Archie allowed, nodding toward the shapely blonde. “Bought it off Bobo Jenkins a couple of months ago, and it’s a good thing, too. Bobo was tired of running it. Can’t blame him there. Workin’ too hard’s not good for you. ‘Sides, I hear he’s thinking about running for mayor. You ask me, he’d do a helluva job. If I ever get a chance, you can bet I’ll vote for him, too.

“Bobo might’ve just closed up the place and walked away. Locked the door and throwed away the key. Lucky for us, Angie come along and saved our bacon. She and that husband of hers offered to buy it off him, and he sold, just like that. The place runs a little irregular now. You can’t always count on it being open.”

“Does Angie’s husband work here, too?” I asked.

Archie sipped his beer and shook his head. “Hacker’s an odd duck. He’s a Brit and a bird-watcher besides. Does something with birds. I’m not sure what. So when he goes out into the boonies to do whatever it is he does, Angie sometimes shuts the place down and goes with him. Who can blame her? They’re newlyweds, after all. Why shouldn’t she? But that’s mostly during the week. Weekends the place is open regular, like it should be.

“It’s like I told my good friend Willy here. So what if we can’t always count on the hours? It’s better than having no Blue Moon at all. Me and Willy’ve been coming here for what, forty years now? I’d hate like hell to see it shut down and boarded up.”

“What?” Willy asked.

“Never mind,” Archie told him. “Just drink your beer. The man’s deaf as a post, you see,” Archie explained unnecessarily to me. “Too many years of working with dynamite in the mines. You ever been in a mine?”

“No,” I said. “I never have.” And never wanted to, either , I thought.