Last God Standing (11 page)

Magnus ordered his steak “bloody rare”, as if that was a surprise to anyone. Surabhi ordered a salad. We were both vegetarians. Her repulsion at the thought of consuming animal flesh fit well with the realities of my situation: when you can perceive the emotions of sentient beings, paying for them to be butchered for the enjoyment of eating their pan-seared remains is a bit of a buzz-kill.

Marian ordered the same salad, I believed, as a show of solidarity with Surabhi. I’d dropped a ball I wasn’t even sure I’d been thrown. Now I sensed Surabhi’s mother trying to shore up her resolve. Barbara would have ordered a gin and tonic and bribed the waiter to put sugar in Magnus’ gas tank.

“So,” Magnus continued, chewing cheerfully. “Surabhi tells us your dad’s a local celebrity.”

“Yeah. He’s Crazy Herb, the King of Auto Supplies.”

“He’s funny,” Marian said. “They used to play his commercials on cable back when I was working in New York. I loved all the crazy stunts and the animals.”

“Yes,” Magnus grunted. “Hilarious. And your mother?”

I knew admitting that my mother ran a South Side tavern chain, even a lucrative one – in a struggling economy my mother’s bars still cleared tidy profits – would only deepen the quagmire that was sucking me down like quicksand with a grudge. But my failure to meet Magnus’ challenge had robbed me of confidence. I needed to hit back. It was a situation my father would have called a “Mexican Douche Party”.

Herb’s Rule of Business Engagement #22D

Never refuse an invitation to a Mexican Douche Party. Such a refusal could cost you an eye, or the right to live a life free from scorn and ridicule.

Herbert “Crazy Herb” Cooper. The King of Autoparts.

But I was so desperate to impress Magnus that I couldn’t come up with anything better. The truth was all I had.

“She owns a couple of bars on the South Side. One of them’s called Barb’s. The other one’s called the Silver Foxhole. It caters to a lot of veterans.”

“A bar,” Magnus hummed. “That’s rough work isn’t it?”

“Pretty rough. She’s been held up three times since Christmas.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yep. But my mother’s tough.”

Shut up, Lando.

“She’s been held up nine times in the last four years.”

Shut your mouth. Shut it now.

Common sense was demanding a strategic withdrawal to the restroom where I could manufacture a sudden bowel obstruction or spontaneously ruptured spleen, something suitably dramatic to allow me time to regroup and figure out how this all went so terribly wrong.

“Barb, that’s my mom’s name, Barbara-Jean…”

Shut up/No keep going. You can do it!

“…she keeps a shotgun under the bar. She also carries a .38 in a special shoulder holster.”

“Is that right?”

Stop/Go on/Run/Make it right/SHUT UP...

“Yeah. She can blow the eye out of a sparrow on the wing at thirty yards.”

Surabhi snatched the bread basket from Calliope and shoved a roll into her mouth. At least it was whole wheat.

Magnus chewed, swallowed. “A formidable woman.”

“Indeed. Last year she shot a guy who tried to rob the Silver Foxhole. She was cleared of all charges though. The Homicide detectives made her an honorary member of SWAT. They call her ‘The Widowmaker’.”

I laughed. No one joined me.

“She… makes a lot of money.”

Surabhi was consuming breadsticks at a rate a California wildfire would have been hard pressed to match.

“I’ve got some news,” Calliope piped in. “That is, if anyone cares.”

Marian spoke up. “What is it, dear?

“I’m joining the Taliban.”

“Oh, Calliope.”

“I mean it, Mummy. Master Omar, my spiritual advisor, wants to bring America to its knees. Daddy, can I have five thousand dollars?”

Magnus’s eyes never left mine.

“Whatever for, my darling?”

“I want to buy two tickets to Afghanistan. Master Omar and I want to join the Jihad, but I can’t do coach. I cramp easily and there’s no leg room.”

“You’re not going to Afganistan, Calliope,” Magnus said quietly. “This is just another pathetic bid to draw attention away from the reason we’ve all gathered here tonight.”

“I believe in Master Omar’s mission, Daddy. It’s really like… who I’m meant to be.”

Magnus shrugged, grinning. “Daughters. What can you do?”

“Ahem.”

The uptight maître d’ was standing behind me with a glass and two unopened wine bottles. He looked even more peevish than when we’d burst through the front door.

“The gentleman sends his compliments to Mister Cooper.”

I looked in the direction the maître d’ indicated. In the furthest corner of the restaurant, a man sat shrouded in darkness. He was big, broad-shouldered and black-haired, sporting a prominent beard. He was dressed in an expensive-looking black suit with a blood-red silk shirt open at the collar. He was facing us, his right hand holding a glass of some clear beverage, vodka with a twist of lime, perhaps, or straight scotch – he looked like a scotch drinker. Our eyes met, and he smiled and raised his glass even higher.

“The gentleman says he is an admirer of your work, and sends the wine with his blessings.”

Relief filled my chest with newfound hope. “The gentleman” had obviously seen me onstage, probably at the Comedy Castle or ChiChi Marimba’s. The apparently wealthy gentleman was… a fan.

“Red or white, monsieur?”

Something about the shape of the bottle containing La Danse Rouge, its contours vaguely curvaceous, drew my eye.

“Well… I suppose I’ll have a little of the red, my good man. Anyone else?”

“Ah ah,” the maître d’ said. Then he leaned over to whisper in my ear, “The gentleman should sample the bouquet.”

“Of course. How foolish of me.”

The maître d’ opened the shapely bottle of red wine and poured a draught into my wine glass. I picked up the glass, sniffed at the rim the way I’d seen countless actors do in movies, and took a cautious sip.

“Well. Very refreshing.”

The maître d’ rolled his eyes and poured more into my glass. I took a deeper draught this time. The wine filled my belly with warmth, a liquid glow that settled in my gut and radiated outward, pulsing through my veins. I hadn’t had a drink in six years for good reason: one drunken binge and half the human race could wake up on Mars. When I accepted Connie’s burden I’d also agreed to her most important admonition: godly power and booze don’t mix.

But this stuff was delicious.

I took another sip and rolled the luscious claret around my mouth as if I could coat every micron with its fruity goodness.

“Damn… this is really good.”

Thunder rumbled somewhere to the East. No one else seemed to share my delight in the wine; Magnus demurred of course. He sat there glowering at me, sharpening another arrow in his quiver of hate. Marian, my new best friend, was nursing her glass of chardonnay, her eyes darting back and forth between Surabhi, me and the man-monster she married. Surabhi wasn’t drinking at the moment. She had a Kendo tournament coming up and was trying to slim down for her weigh-in, although she’d practically destroyed the bread basket. That left me and Calliope, who was well into her third glass of the chardonnay.

“Oh, well,” I shrugged. I took a long slug of the claret, that wonderful little claret; it seemed to get better with each swallow, going down all cool and fruity, like fresh grape juice infused with moonlight; Heaven in a glass. “You guys don’t know what you’re missing!”

A giggle bubbled up from my chest. “That. Is. Awesome!”

My future in-laws were staring at me like confused owls.

“Whoooeeee!”

I drained the glass, grabbed the shapely bottle and poured myself another one. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw something, a flicker of light; an argent gleaming in the crimson depths.

Nah, trick of the light.

Surabhi reached over and grabbed the bottle out of my hand.

“I think you’ve had enough, babe.”

“Awwww, come on, Bee! You gotta try this stuff! It’s the bomb!”

Someone at the table, I think it was Marian, asked me if I was alright.

“I’m great! I’m strong! Like the bull!”

To prove my strength I banged on the table. My right hand struck the tines of my salad fork. The fork flew over Marian’s head, narrowly missing her as it flipped across the room. At exactly that moment, a waiter carrying a tray loaded with condiments and cream-based soups stepped into the salad fork’s flightpath just in time to intercept it with his eye. The waiter screamed and threw up his hands. The tray of condiments, creamy soups, and salads with heavy dressings sailed across the room and came down on the mismatched couple at the next table. The skinny gentleman in the threepiece gray suit was instantly drenched in a variety of creamy sauces. His wife, who easily outweighed Calliope by a hundred pounds, got the salad dressings and condiments.

“Ooopssh!”

The wait staff descended on the mismatched couple’s table, peppering them with apologies. I didn’t care. I’d never experienced such overwhelming joy. It felt like someone had just detonated a happy bomb in my brain.

“What’s the matter with you?” Magnus growled. “You’ve just ruined that couple’s dinner.”

“Oh, lighten up, Mags.”

“Magnus frowned. His voice rumbled, low and dangerous.

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me. Lighten up, bro. Take a chill pill and blow it out your big, Ethiopian cussi.”

That last one was good enough that I shared it with the rest of the diners, at twice its original volume.

“I think we’ve seen enough. Marian, we’re leaving.”

Surabhi pulled me around to face her.

“Lando… what are you doing?”

“Oh… Oh… wow!”

Surabhi… shone. Her face was suffused with some secret luminescence, as if she had swallowed the sun and let a little of its light infuse her atom.

“You are, without question, the most beautiful woman on Earth.”

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Let’s do it now, Bee. Let’s find a justice of the peace and take the plunge. Screw the surprise. I want the world to know!”

I leaped onto the table, knocking over several glasses. The shapely bottle teetered, tipping toward the floor. I lunged, and caught it by the neck.

“A toast! To the most beautiful woman since Helen of Troy. Scratch that… Helen of Troy was a pig. To the woman who has agreed to become my wife!”

“Lando, come down!”

“My fiancée, everybody. The future Mrs Surabhi Moloke-Cooper! Or Cooper-Moloke… or just… Surabhi! Give it up, folks!”

An elderly couple seated near the kitchen applauded.

“You want to know about love, ladies and gentlemen? Do you want to talk about a passion that knoweth no bounds? Well… ooops! I almost forgot.”

I reached into my pocket and clawed out the pretty little black box. Then I got down on one knee.

“Surabhi Azalea Moloke…”

Surabhi’s eyes pierced the joyful white noise in my head. A fleeting clarity shimmered through the drunken haze. I looked around at the faces of the diners all glaring up at me.

“What’s… what are you all looking at?”

I took a long swig from the shapely bottle.

“Surabhi!”

Magnus towered beneath me, satisfaction plain in his woeful, evil smile. Marian and Calliope were hovering near the exit. “Your family is leaving.”

“Magnus Moloke, ladies and germs. Everybody remembers Magnus and that terrible video he did back in the Eighties! The one where he dressed up as a wizard and…”

“Lando,” Surabhi cried. “What…what’s happening?”

“Oh, come on, babe. That video sucked.”

Magnus gestured toward the horrified waiter. “Check please.”

“Seriously, Mags, it’s the crappiest video ever.”

“Babe… why are you doing this?”

Surabhi was crying now. But a part of me, the part that capered blindfolded at the edge of a vast abyss, whispered of adventures to be had, a destiny to be mastered: Magnus Moloke would not decide my fate.

“A wizard, Mags? A rapping wizard that waves his wand and makes people do that stupid dance?”

I did the dance. Da Magnus March. I hopped and slid. I bugged out my eyes and slithered across the table, scattering glasses and plates across the beautiful hardwood floors, all the while sucking down huge gulps of that unbelievable wine, reveling in the terrible, wonderful mania that lifted my spirits until I felt I could dance out of the restaurant, up into the clouds and into the stratosphere.

Other diners were heading toward the door as the maître d’ stalked up to my stage. “Sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“I mean… who directed that video? More important, where can I buy some of the antidepressants he was using when… when…”

The rumble started low; a groaning tremor that shuddered in the pit of my stomach. I took a healthy swig from the shapely bottle to calm my distress.

“Sir… if you don’t get down from there this instant I will be forced to call the police!”

“Bite me, Frenchie. You’re not the boss of…”

An apoplectic alligator snarl burst up from my guts. A smell erupted from my open mouth, a rotten grape/fecal hellstench that curdled the hairs in my nostrils. The condiment-drenched fat woman at the next table took one sniff, frowned, and threw up all over her husband.

“Honey? I don’t feel so good.”

Surabhi shook her head, her anger so palpable it could have worn my pants. Magnus’ smile was so bright it hurt.

“What’s wrong, guys? Oh my…”

Nausea flipped my world upside down. The sound of the barfing fat woman a few feet away only made it worse. Fleeing diners were holding their noses.

“God! What is that stink?” Calliope cried.

“Surabhi, babe… I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“You will not!” The maître d’ raged, through pinched nostrils. “You. Will. Not!”

Two waiters who looked like disgruntled extras on loan from a B-grade action movie tackled me off the table and hauled me toward the kitchen.

“Hey! Somebody grab my wine!”

The last thing I saw before they threw me out was Surabhi’s face.

I don’t like to remember the expression I saw there.