Bullet Through Your Face (improved format) (11 page)

Rudy could’ve laughed. Even the man’s voice sounded
ludicrous: a high nasal warble.
And what the hell is ald
?
“We got Rolling Rock, pal. That fancy enough for ya?”
“I am grateful, sir, for your kind recommendation.”
When the keep came down to the Rock tap, Rudy leaned
forward. “Hey, man, who
is
this guy?”

The keep shrugged, tufts of hair like steel wool poking out from
his collar. “Some weirdo. We get ‘em all the time.”
Beth, frowning afresh, looked down from the no-name fight on
tv. “Rudy, don’t you have more to worry about than some eightball
who walks into a bar? What if Vito shows up?”
“Vito The Eye? Here?” Rudy replied. “No way.” The assurance
lapsed. “Hey, maybe Mona could loan us some dough.”
“She barely has money for tuition and rent, Rudy. Be real.”
Women
, Rudy thought.
Always negative
. He glanced back up at
the fight—Tuttle versus Luce, middleweights—but thoughts of Vito
kept hauntinghim.
What will they do to me
? he wondered.
The keep set down a mug of beer before the ludicrous man, but
as he did so, his brawny elbow nicked a salt shaker, which tipped
over. A few trace white grains spilled across the bartop.
The odd patron grinned down. Focused. Nodded. He pinched
some grains and cast them over his left shoulder. “Blast thee, Nergal
and all devils. Keep thee behind, and slithereth back into your evil
earthworks.”
“We ain’t superstitious here, pal,” the keep said.
“To blind the sentinels of the nether regions,” the man went on,
“who stand to our left, behind us. Dear salt, a gift from the holiest Ea,
and all gods of good things. To spill the sacred salt is to bid ill fortune
from heaven. It was once more valuable than myrrh.”
“Who’da hell’s Merv?” asked the keep.
“Beware the woman infidel,” intoned the patron. “Your
paramour—”
“What’da hell’s a paramour?”
“A lover,” Beth translated, for all the good her education had
done. “A girlfriend.”
“She is so named,” the ludicrous man said,
“ . . .
Stacy?”
The keep’s pug-face tensed up like a pack of corded Suet.
“How’da hell you know my girlfriend’s name?”
“I am an alomancer,” the odd patron replied. “And your lovely paramour, hair like sackcloth and teeth becrook’d, shalt be in a
moment’s time abed with a man unthus known.”
The keep scratched a muttonchop. “What’d’ya mean?”
“He means,” Beth said over her beer, “that your girlfriend is
cheating on you with a guy she just met.”
“Aman,” the patron continued, “too, of a formidable endowment
of the groin.”
“‘
At’s a load of shit,” the keep said. “You’re a nut.”
This guy’s something
, Rudy thought. He was about to comment
when someone tapped on his shoulder.
Oh. . . . no
. Very slowly, then,
he turned to the ruddy and none-too-happy face behind him. “Vito!
My man! I was just downtown looking for you.”
“Yeah.” Vito wore a tan leather jacket and white slacks—
Italian
slacks. They called him The Eye, since only his right eye could be
seen. A black patch covered the left. “Your marker’s due Friday,
paisan. You wouldn’t be forgetting that, huh?”
“Oh, hey, Vito,” Rudy stammered. “I remember.”
“That’s six large. The Boss Man ain’t happy.”
“Barkeep,” Rudy changed the subject. “Get my good friend Vito
here a beer on my tab, and one for this guy, too,” he said,slapping the
ludicrous man on the back.
Vito jerked a thumb. “I’ll be over at the booth marking my books.
Come on over if you got anything you want to talk to me about.”
“Actually,” Rudy seized the opportunity. “I was wondering if
like you could maybe give me a little extra t—”
“I ever tell you how I lost my eye? About ten years ago, I ran up
a big marker on the Boss Man’s tab, and I made the big mistake of
asking him for a little extra time.”
Rudy gulped. When Vito disappeared to the back booth, Beth
jumped in to complain. “That’s great, Rudy. We’re nearly broke,
you’re six thousand in debt to a mob bookie, and now you’re buying
beers for people. Jesus.”
“Guys like Vito like to see generosity. Part of their machismo.”

The insane, toothy grin
floated forward; its owner took the stool
next to Rudy. “Innumerable thanks, sir. It’s not ald; however, I’m
grateful to you.”

“What the hell is ald?” Rudy asked.
“A high and might liquor indeed, and a favorite of the
mashmashus. We invented it, by the way, though your zymurgists
of today refuse to acknowledge that. You see, the great grain mounds
would accumulate condensation in the sun. The dregs, then, seeped
into pools of effluvium, which were squeezed off into the casks.” He
sipped his beer, crosseyed. I am Gormok. And you are called?”
Gormok? What kind of fruitloop name is that
? Rudy wondered.
“I’m Rudy. This is Beth, my fiance.”
Beth frowned again, and Rudy supposed he could see her point.
Nothing he’d promised her had come true. His gambling was like a
ritual to him, an obsessive act of something very nearly reverence,
and it kept a monkey on their backs the size of King Kong. The stress
was starting to show: tiny lines had crept into Beth’s pretty face, and
a faint veneer of fatigue. She’d lost weight, and the lustrous long
caramel-colored hair had begun to take a tint of gray. She worked
two jobs while Rudy sweated bullets at the track. And now mob men
were calling.
No wonder she’s always pissed. I’m gonna get my eye
poked out next Friday and here I am buying beers for a shylock and
some loose-screw named Gormok
.
“And I affirm,” Gormok went on in his creaky, sinitic voice, “that
your generosity will not go unrewarded. If I can ever be of service to
your benefit, I implore thee, make me aware.”
“Forget it,” Rudy said.
Nut
. He drained his beer. “Where’d the
barkeep go? I could use a refill.”
“Our humble servitor, I believe,” Gormok offered, “is at this sad
moment seeking to contact his unfaithful paramour.”
Rudy
spied the keep down the other end of the bar, talking on
the house phone. Suddenly the guy turned pale and hung up. “I just
called the fuckin’ trailer,” he muttered. “My girlfriend ain’t there.
Then I ring my buddy down at The Anvil, and he tells me Stacy left
after happy hour . . . with some guy.”

“Agentleman, too,” Gormok reminded, “unthus known and of a
formidable endowment of the groin.”
“Shadap, ya whack.” The keep went back to the phone. Beth
maintained her terse silence. But Rudy was thinking
“Gormok. How about doing that salt thing for me.”
“An alomance! Yes?” came the grinning reply.
Rudy lowered his voice. “Tell me who’s gonna win that fight.”
“Alas, the gladiators of the new, dark age,” Gormok remarked,
and peered up at the boxing bout on the bar television. “But have thee
a censer? Clearer visions are always begot by fire.”
“What’s a censer?”
“It’s something you burn things in, during rituals,” Beth defined.
“And don’t be idiotic, Rudy.”
Rudy ignored her, glancing about. “How about this?” he
ventured, and slid over a big glass ashtray sporting the Swedish
Bikini Team.
“It shall suffice,” Gormok approved. He sprinkled several shakes
of salt into a bar napkin and placed it in the ashtray. “A taper, now, or
cresset or flambeau.”
I hope he means a lighter.
Rudy flicked his Bic. He lit the
napkin, which strangely puffed into a quick flame and then went out.
Gormok’s face took on a momentary expression of tranquility as
though he were indeed taking part in some ritualistic worship. Then
the odd man leaned forward...and inhaled the smoke.
Rudy stared.
“The combatant dark of skin and light of garb,” Gormok giddily
intoned, “who is called Tuttle, before two minutes have expired, will
emerge victorious by a single blow to the skull of his oppressor.”
Rudy snatched up Beth’s purse.
“Rudy, no!”

“How much money you got?” he asked, rummaging. He
fingered through his fiancee’s wallet. “
Twenty bucks?
That’s
it?
”
“Damn it, Rudy! Don’t you dare—”
Rudy turned toward the mob man’s booth. “Hey, Vito? Adouble
sawbuck says Tuttle KO’s Luce this round.”
Vito didn’t even look up. “No more credit, Rudy.”
“Cash, man. On the table.”
Now Vito raised his smirk to the tv. “Tuttle’s getting his ass
kicked. Don’t make me take your green.”
“Come on, Vito!” Rudy barked. “Quit bustin’ my balls. Are you
a bookie or a book collector?””
Vito made a shrug. “Awright, Rudy. You’re on.”
Rudy jerked his gaze to the tv, then drooped. Luce was dancing
circles around his man, firing awesome hooks which snapped Tuttle’s
head back like a ball on a spring.
“You’re such a fool,” Beth groaned.
“Hark,” Gormok whispered, and pointed to the screen.
Tuttle shot a blind jab which sent Luce over the ropes—
“Yeah!” Rudy yelled. Then: ‘Yeah, fuckin-A
yeah!
” he yelled
louder when the ref counted Luce out and raised Tuttle’s arm in victory.
Vito came over. “Good call, Rudy. Just don’t forget that six large.”
Rudy’s smile radiated. “That’s five thousand, nine hundred, and
eighty, Vito.”
“Yeah. See ya next Friday, paisan.”
Vito left the smoky bar, while Rudy fidgeted on his stool. Even
Beth was rubbing her chin, thinking. And Rudy had a pretty good
idea what she was thinking about.
“How’d you do that, man?” he asked aside to Gormok.
“I am an alomancer,” Gormok answered through his ludicrous
grin. “I am a salt-diviner for the Fourth Cenote of Nergal.”
What you are
, Rudy thought,
is a nut. But I love ya anyway.
He
put a comradely arm about Gormok’s shoulder. “So, Gormok, my
man. How would you like to come and live with us?”

Snooty bitch
. “This is our very good friend, Gormok,” he told the
blonde coed. Her 38C’s pushed against her blouse. “Gormok, this is
Mona, our housemate.”