Passenger(55)

“Hey, Wurl,” Tate says now, looking up. His pleasure in seeing me temporarily relieves him from the feel of Olivia’s heavy eyes on his back as he works. “Great set tonight, man.”

“Thanks, Tate.”

“Keep doing it,” intones Olivia, empty and vacuous from her seat across the bar. “Keep it up.”

Timmy Donlon wipes down the bar and looks at me like he’s got a million questions and ten seconds to ask them all. Because I feel conspicuous without a drink at the bar, I ask Timmy Donlon for a glass of water.

Those curious Irish eyes linger on me. “You allergic to alcohol?”

“Haven’t been so far. Why?”

“Come on. Let me pour you a real drink.”

“I’m tired of always drinking.”

“Let me pour it.”

I shrug. “What do people usually drink here?”

“It’s Baltimore, Wurlitzer. They drink beer.”

“Then I’ll have a beer.”

“No. No way. I want to pour you a real drink.” He pours Jose Cuervo into a shot glass, his big hand wrapped nearly all the way around the square bottle. He pours a shot for himself, too. “Ever see an Irishman shoot tequila?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” says Timmy Donlon, “I get it. You don’t know much, do you, Wurlitzer?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Good old Wurlitzer.”

Together we shoot the tequila. It tastes like molten lava. I think of Baltimore City as a city of lava, molten lava. Timmy Donlon grimaces, his mouth crowded with a million tiny yellow teeth.

“You like it?”

“I can’t tell. It burns.”

“That’s a good burn. You feel it in the lowest part of your stomach?”

“Yes.”

“Kills disease. Kills anything nasty and angry and mean you got roiling around in your guts. That’s how I keep healthy, Wurl. No ulcers, no viruses, no cancers. Shots of tequila keep you healthy in Baltimore. Highest rate of sexually transmitted disease in the whole goddamn country and this is like cauterizing a wound. You know what the hookers on Baltimore Street carry in their bags, Wurl?”

“No.”

“Besides mace and chewing gum?”

“No. What do they carry?”

“They carry slices of lemon.” Timmy Donlon pours two more shots then leans closer to me over the bar. His breath smells like steamed cabbage. “Little slices of lemon. They get a guy in the back of a car or down in some alley where they talk him out of his pants and then they squeeze a little lemon juice on the guy’s pecker before they go to work. If the guy screams, if the lemon juice burns, well, he ain’t no one they want to do business with, anyway. You dig? Gotta be careful in Baltimore, Wurl.”

“Sure.”

“Good old Wurl.”

“Yes,” I agree. “Good old me.”

We knock back our second shots. Then, with a mischievous glint at the corner of one eye, Timmy Donlon holds up one finger while he slips the bottle of Cuervo back on the shelf behind him. He does this without looking at the shelf and the bottle is replaced perfectly; he is well practiced.

“One last drink,” he says. “A man’s drink.”

“I think I’m drunk.”

“On two shots? You’ve been drinking water all night!”

“But still…”

“Wurlitzer,” he tells me, “I’m gonna fix you a Gorilla Fart.”

“Lovely.”

He pulls the damp, dirty-looking dishrag from off his shoulder and wipes down the bar top. He wipes good and hard and makes sure he gets it in the drink well where the night’s spillage is ample. Then he takes the rag and rings it out over my shot glass. It fills up nearly all the way with a milky, greenish liquid, vaguely soapy, that bubbles at the surface.

“World famous.”

“What about you?” I say. “Where’s yours?”

“Good old Wurl. Drink up.”

“Bottom’s up,” I say, and shoot the drink.

Timmy Donlon laughs, those crowded, corn kernel teeth flashing again, and looks like he wants to clap me on the back. But he doesn’t. His copper eyebrows arch and, at one corner of his mouth, I watch the tip of his pointy pink tongue poke out like the head of a tortoise.

“That’s good, yeah? You like it?”

“Good old Timmy,” I say, my head swimming.

“Good old Wurl.”

Timmy Donlon and I have a Guinness each before the Devine brothers sit down on either side of me. They are like gangsters, these two. Without an exchange of words, Timmy fills two pints of a pale lager and places the pints before the Devine brothers. Then, still grinning at me like someone who knows a dirty secret, he slips out from behind the bar to chase away the remaining patrons.

“Where’re the girls?” I ask.

“They split,” Dougie says, sipping his beer.

“Split,” Maxwell says.

“Maxie give you that extra hundred?”

“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Take a ride with us,” Dougie says. He pushes away from the bar, his beer hardly touched, and is already making for the door.

“Let’s bounce,” Maxwell says, and tugs on the sleeve of my coat.