William Lashner - Past Due

“It’s a wake.”

“Who died?”

“Do it matter?”

Hell, no, it didn’t matter. The crowd grew, grew louder, more frantic. “Two more, Lloyd,” said a man with both hands already filled with drinks. “Let me have some more of this pink crap,” said another, “but this time wit.”

Charlie climbed himself up top the pool table as the jukebox sang, “Day-o, day-ay-ay-o, daylight come and me wan’ go home.”

“I always liked that Sidney Poitier,” said someone.

“Hell of a singer,” said another.

Lift six foot, seven foot, eight foot bunch.

“Two more sody pops, Lloyd,” shouted Charlie on the pool table just before he collapsed on his back, his head banging off the felt like an eight ball.

Daylight come and me wan’ to go home.

Just as I was running out of cranberry juice for the third time, when the beat cops had stopped in for the second time, when we were listening to “Mambo Italiano” for the fifth time, someone called out, “Frank,” and it turned into a chant, “Frank, Frank, Frank,” and someone else banged the jukebox, skipping off Rosemary Clooney before he punched in a number by memory and soon enough the sweetest voice that ever was came pouring out like liquid regret. The place immediately calmed, Sinatra sang Paul Anka’s surly anthem to individuality, we leaned one against the other, and listened and sang along badly and when Frank had let out his final “My way,” Lloyd raised up his sea breeze and said, “To Joey Parma.”

A razzing of Yos and Hurrahs.

“We all knew his dad,” said Lloyd. “The best damn meat man in the city. I remembers when Joey was just a kid, coming in here to pull his dad home. They weren’t on the best of terms, yous remember, but that’s the way it is with dads and sons. He wouldn’t come here when his dad was alive, but as soon as Joey Senior died, Joey Junior, he started showing up. He said to me, he said, ‘Lloyd, there ought always be a Parma at Jimmy T’s.’ And there always was, though I guess, unless that battle ax shows her face, there won’t be none no more. But let’s give Joey his due. Can’t say the man wasn’t consistent. He went out the way he lived his life – in debt. To Joey Parma.”

“To Joey Parma,” came the response from the congregation.

“Good,” said Lloyd. “Now somebody want to scrape Charlie off the pool table?”

“Tell me about Joey’s last night,” I asked Lloyd when the money had all been stashed, the glasses cleaned, the jukebox unplugged, and the place every bit as quiet and sullen as it had been when we first stepped inside. He stood behind the bar, leaning on his arm, talking to us as Beth and I each sat on a stool. He had seemed like a dour old coot when first we met, but our sea breeze party had opened him up like a steamed clam.

“Nothing to tell, Victor,” said Lloyd Ganz, my new best friend. “A cop came in asking the same thing and I had nothing for him, neither. A big black fellow with some Swedish name.”

“McDeiss?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Scottish.”

“Funny, he don’t look Scottish.”

“He doesn’t look Swedish either. Just tell me anything you can remember.”

“He was the same as always, came in, ordered a Bud wit, felt around in his pockets, and then told me just to put it on his tab.”

“And you did?”

“Yeah, I always did. When I got out of the VA and my pension wasn’t enough to take care of the family, his dad took care of me, you know. I always had meat on the table. A lot of shit you can eat in your life when you got meat on the table. So with Joey, out of respect for his dad, I let the tab run.”

“He promise to pay it off?”

“Sure. Always. With Joey, the big score was just around the bend. And that night was no different. He was jumpy, you know, bouncing around, telling everyone that he was on to something.”

“Did he say what?”

“Nah, and truth – no one cared. It wasn’t like we hadn’t heard it all a hundred times before, him and his pipe dreams. And it didn’t look so promising, him coming in with that mouse on his eye. I asked him about it, he just said it was a wake-up call.”

“A wake-up call?”

“Yeah.” Ganz looked both ways, lowered his voice. “So he’s in here, drinking and talking, telling everyone he was getting ready to pay thems all off, when he gets the phone call.”

I looked at Beth. “Phone call?”

“From the woman who was always calling him here. Some dame never set foot in the place.”

“Joey’s mother?”

“Nah, she don’t call here. Every time she sees me she spits between her fingers, like I’m giving her the evil eye. First I was getting free meat and then, when I got enough to buy this place, Joey Senior spent more time here than at home, not that you can blame him, her and her knives. But this other dame was always calling here, and Joey, he was always this little sheep on the phone, baaing out yes, yes, yes.”

“Sounds to me,” I said, “like he was falling for a girl just like the girl that terrorized dear old dad.”

“Don’t it though. That last night, same call, same yes, yes, yes, and then he’s slapping the bar, hiking up his jacket, shooting his cuffs on his way out the door.”

“He say where?”

“He said he had a meet.”

“He say with who?”

“He said with money. Like that was ever a possibility with Joey. Poor sap. You know, he wasn’t a bad kid, but he never had a clue of what was what.”

I had a sudden thought. “Beside me, who did he owe the most?”

Lloyd leaned close. “What I heard, he was deeper than he ought to have been with Teddy.”

“Teddy?”

“Teddy Big Tits.”

“Are they?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Why was Joey borrowing money from some big-breasted loan shark?”

“Maybe for the wolf on the phone,” said Lloyd. “He was stupid enough, wasn’t he?”

“Where does Teddy drink?”

“The Seven Out, on Fourth Street. You know, Victor, them drinks you was making, us all remembering Joey, the toasts, it was almost nice.”

“Yes, it almost was,” said Beth.

“What do you think, Lloyd?” I said. “You got yourself a new specialty of the house?”

“Fugettabout it,” said Lloyd. “Guys don’t come in here for the fancy cocktails. They come in here to get blurry fast and cheap. Tomorrow it’ll be back to the wits.”

“Does that mean no ferns?” said Beth.

Lloyd snorted, took his rag to wipe the far side of the bar.

“Who was Joey meeting?” said Beth, softly.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but it doesn’t sound right. That morning he’s scared witless and by nine-thirty that night he’s all gussied up for a big money meet.”

“Maybe he wasn’t as scared as he let on.”

“Or someone changed his mind. I’d sure like to meet that new girl of his. Maybe baby needed a new pair of shoes. And maybe Joey got a line on the suitcase. Whatever it was, it had something to do with the man Joey killed twenty years ago, I’m certain of it.”

“Who was he? Do you have any idea at all?”

“His name was Tommy,” I said, “and his initials were probably T.G.”

“How do you know that?”

“It has a ring to it, is all. But as to who he really was, I don’t have a clue.”

Except I was lying when I said that last little bit. Because I did have another clue. I had the envelope. And inside the envelope was something that would come to haunt my very dreams.

THE ENVELOPE.

It was yellowed, worn, one of its edges was ripped halfway down – twenty years will take its toll on even the finest bond – and on the top left corner was a dark black smudge over the preprinted return address: The University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Joey Cheaps had given the envelope to me at the same time he had given me the murder. And if I didn’t tell Beth about it, I had my reasons.