The World Played Chess (44)

“Ignatti’s mother won’t let him have friends over. His sister came home from college and they’re having a family dinner.”

“What do you want to do?” Mif said.

“I don’t know.” Cap walked around to the passenger side of the car. “Vinny B., get in back.”

“I’m not getting in back. You get in back.”

“Come on, I can’t fit in the back.”

“Too bad. I’m not getting in the back.”

“Fine, then let me in.”

I knew what was going to happen. We all knew what was going to happen. The minute I got out, Cap forced his way into the front seat, laughing. I didn’t have a chance in a power struggle. He stepped out and pulled the seat forward and I sat in the back.

“What about the drive-in?” Mif asked.

I didn’t want to go to the drive-in. The memory of Ed singing Padre fight songs and the ridiculous melee it caused remained fresh. We threw out and rejected three or four more options before Cap said, “My Brother’s Place?”

We had stumbled onto the hole-in-the-wall bar on El Camino Real in Millbrae on a Friday night earlier that summer, after my one and only dine and dash at a Denny’s restaurant. Todd paid us every Friday, cash under the table, and while most of what I earned went into the bank to help pay my future tuition, I had enough that night to pay my portion of the bill, but not the entire amount. I had no choice but to run, along with my friends.

I never told my friends, but my conscience got the better of me, and I went back to that Denny’s the next day with more money. I told the manager, who wasn’t much older than me, that I’d been in the restaurant the night before and that my friends and I had forgotten to pay the bill.

“You what?” The manager wore his hair parted in the middle and had fuzz over his upper lip that would never pass for a mustache. He looked and sounded like I was speaking a foreign language.

I repeated myself and he said, “Hang on.”

He went into a room at the back of the kitchen, and I thought for certain he was calling the Millbrae Police Department. When he came out, he held a bill. “Is this yours?”

I looked it over. “Yeah that’s it.”

“The waitress said it was a dine and dash.”

“No. Just a mistake.”

“You plan to pay in full?”

“Yes,” I said.

He shrugged, looking more than a little confused, and rang up the bill on the cash register. I handed him cash and walked toward the door.

“Hey,” he called. I turned around. “Why’d you do it?”

“I told you it was just a mistake. My—”

“No. Why’d you come back to pay?”

He knew I was lying. He knew it had been a dine and dash. “I don’t know,” I said.

But I did know.

I was ten when I accompanied my father to the ACE Hardware store in Millbrae. I don’t recall what he purchased, but I do recall he handed the cashier a ten-dollar bill and she gave him back change for a twenty. I remember thinking we’d hit the mother lode.

“No. That’s not right,” my father said. “I only gave you a ten.” He handed the woman back her ten-dollar bill. She cried.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We lost our nephew in Vietnam. My sister got the word last night.”

My dad expressed his condolences before we walked to the parking lot. “Why are we in that damn war?” he said.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Huh?”

“Why’d you give her back the ten dollars?”

“Never take anything that doesn’t belong to you or that you haven’t earned,” he said, sliding into the car. “You never know who you’re stealing from, and what that money means to them.”

I had forgotten that moment until that summer, when I worked with William.

My Brother’s Place was a strategic choice. To underage drinkers, a bar’s most important attributes are dark lighting and cheap beers. My Brother’s Place had both. The patrons inside were sparse, even for a weeknight, and we hoped the bartender would see our money as no different from anyone else’s. Cap and Mif didn’t get carded because they looked twenty-five. I was eighteen and looked sixteen.

We stepped through the swinging door like we were stepping into a western saloon. Confidence was key. You walked in like you owned the place, like you belonged. You sauntered in, like Todd Pearson, a badass who showed no fear. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting from the bloodred candles on the half-dozen nicked and scarred tables. My Brother’s Place was well worn. I don’t remember the carpet color; I just recall that it crackled beneath your feet when you walked across it. A window faced the sidewalk, but the owner had put black film on the inside. We made our way to the three empty booths with vinyl seats lining the back wall, which was painted a dark gray, or black. I couldn’t tell. Flecks of white showed through where the paint had chipped. I remember thinking the walls looked like outer space.

Three patrons sat on barstools nursing cocktails and watching a black-and-white television mounted over the bar. Each looked older than dirt. The bathroom was in the back, past the bar, along with an office and a storage area. A door led to an alley. I’d learned this when I’d used the bathroom in June, just in case I ever needed a quick escape.