Merlot (20 page)

“Forty, sixty, eighty, nine hundred. Twenty,
forty, sixty, eighty…” she counted in a whisper, praying to God he
wouldn’t try to interrupt her. She had a bad feeling about what
might be coming.

“So, what are you doing when you’re off work
tonight?” Otto asked, absently pulling up a jersey sleeve and
exposing about two thirds of his Donald Duck tattoo.

“Thought it might be time for us to get
together, get a little more acquainted, make it all kind of
official, you know.”

Cindy thought this can’t be happening. Please
don’t let this be happening to me.

“Let me give you this ticket into the Fair,”
he continued, pulling a thrice folded, sweat soaked ticket out of
the back pocket of his shorts.

“Oh, no, that’s not…”

“Here’s a half off coupon for my stands, all
you could possibly eat, half off of course, cause we’re an item.
That’s where you’ll find me by the way, at one of my stands.
Figured we could maybe grab something after that,” he said,
casually tossing the coupon on top of the folded ticket, giving her
an all knowing wink.

The coupon featured Otto’s logo, the
sunburned pig in a lawn chair with the shorts pulled down revealing
a deep butt crack. He folded his arms, nodded toward the
grease-stained items, sweat soaked from being in his pocket.

“Like I said, we could maybe grab something a
little later on.” He accentuated ‘grab something’ with a sort of
moronic leer from behind the zinc oxide.

She was speechless, her worst fears becoming
an awful reality.

“Thank, thank you,” she stammered, using a
Kleenex wrapped around one finger to pull the greasy, sweaty little
pile out of the window well, dragging the items next to her can of
Lysol. A greasy trail shone across the Formica counter.

“I, I’m afraid I, I might be busy for the
rest of the week but, thank you, anyway,” she was biting her
trembling lower limp hoping she wouldn’t start to cry.

“Only the beginning,” said Otto, not taking
‘might be busy’ as her final answer. The woman he’d like to do his
laundry and cleaning was just playing hard to get.

She was afraid she might cry. She bit her
lip, forced down the hard lump in her throat. Then just stood there
dumbfounded, looking at Otto with a glazed expression across her
face.

“My ah, deposit slip?” he asked
eventually.

She had forgotten the total and would have to
count anew, “Oh, yeah, s-sorry,” she said sniffling back a tear as
she started over, counting as fast as ever. She hoped she could
hold her scream in until he was gone.

He smiled, gave a knowing nod to two women in
the line next to him.

She sniffled, continued biting her trembling
lower lip, fighting to hold back a tear, keying in the deposit slip
before creaking out a timid, “Thank you.”

“At your service, ma’am,” Otto replied
flipping his two-fingered salute.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said to the next
customer before running off to the ladies room.

He had handled it perfectly, even helping the
poor little thing out when she couldn’t believe her luck and just
stood there staring at him. Yeah, he still had that old Otto
magic.

* * *

Merlot had been rolling the ancient bullets
around on his desktop for over an hour trying to think of a
disguise, a mask, something, anything he could do that would allow
him to pull off this robbery. He had been toying with the idea of
dressing as a woman and had spent the past ten or fifteen minutes
thinking about an appropriate breast size.

He could feel the clock spinning out of
control, moving faster and faster while he sat here wasting time
thinking about fake boobs. He decided to go to the bank again,
check things out a final time.

* * *

Merlot held the door for some sort of local
character with clown white smeared over his face, wearing an old
North Stars hockey jersey, grinning like an idiot. But for the
grace of God, he thought, staring as the obviously deranged little
man walked away. He hoped the guy would be able to find his way
back to the group home where he lived.

The heat in the small bank lobby was
stifling. Walled on three sides with floor-to-ceiling windows the
lobby design cleverly allowed the sun to beat mercilessly into the
room from sunup right through to sundown. Crammed with short-fused
people dripping sweat, the room rarely had a chance to cool.

He hadn’t stepped five feet in the door
before Cindy quickly glanced up and spotted him. He thought she
looked a little pale and wondered if their night and early morning
had anything to do with it.

He stood in line for fifteen minutes. By the
time he made it to her window he was dripping sweat.

“I just need two fives for this ten,” he
joked, sliding a soggy ten-dollar bill across the counter. “Hey,
what the hell? You guys oil this, it sure seems slick?” Rubbing his
fingers across the counter, then examining the oily sheen on his
fingertips.

“It’s the fair traffic. Everything gets kind
of greasy,” she said shaking her head to move damp strands of hair
off her forehead. She pushed two fives back beneath the thick glass
window.

“Got time for a coffee or Coke?”

“I’d love to, really I would, Tony, but we’ve
just been jammed with customers all day and I really can’t take any
breaks. None of us can.”

“Not a problem,” he said.

“You okay? You seem distracted.” She glanced
around behind her to see what he was looking at.

“Yeah, just looking is all. You sure you
can’t take a break?”

“I’d like to, but I can’t,” she shrugged,
half nodding to the crowded lobby. The color seemed to be return to
her face. She leaned forward and half whispered, “But thanks for
last night. I had a wonderful time, really I did, thanks,” she
smiled.

“Yeah, that’s a great little restaurant.”

“I didn’t mean the restaurant,” she said.

“Yeah, me too, thanks. You sure? Final
chance, lady.”

“I’d love to but I just can’t.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. I held the door for
one of your top customers on my way in,” he laughed.

“Hunh?” she crinkled her nose, not following
the joke.

“Oh that handicapped guy, you know.”

“What handicapped guy?”

“The guy with the clown face in that screwy
hockey-jersey outfit. There a group home around here?”

“Yes, there is and he doesn’t live there,”
she said.

“Look, I’d better get going,” he pocketed the
fives, oblivious to her reaction.

“Can I call you later, Tony?”

“Yeah, please do.”

He took his time exiting the lobby looking
for a possible camera. He found three. This was going to be more
difficult then he had first thought, and he still didn’t have any
sort of plan.

* * *

Milton’s eyes were glassy. He was running a
fever. His hand had stopped throbbing, but only because his arm had
gone numb. He reeked of the disinfectant Osborne had just finished
spraying over him.

“We’ll just see how that bovine rabble likes
the idea of being upstaged by the crowds I’ll have in here for the
suntan competition,” Osborne sneered.

The police presence was supposedly onsite to
keep order. Osborne himself had phoned earlier in the day to
complain, hoping they would arrest the protestors and cart the
ungrateful wenches off to some dark hole. That had turned into a
fiasco. The police arrived in two patrol cars; he had been watching
out his office window and ran downstairs to greet them, ready to
point out the ring leaders, thankful his tax dollars were at
work.

“Thank God you’ve finally arrived. You can
start with this slut here,” Osborne pointed Sassie out to a large
gawking sergeant.

“She’s the ringleader, once you arrest her,
that medical ingrate should go next.” He indicated Serpentina, in
her mini-skirted nurse’s uniform. She had unbuttoned the upper six
or seven buttons on the skimpy white garment exposing deep
cleavage.

Hearing Osborne’s directions to the officers
Sassie struck a pouty pose, in one fluid motion thrusting her chest
out, cocking her thong clad backside and presenting her wrists to
the officer for handcuffs, batting her eyes.

“That won’t be necessary,” he laughed
nervously, running his wide eyes up and down her figure.

“Is this gentleman bothering any of you
ladies?” he asked, as two of his compatriots took hold of Osborne’s
elbows, quickly spun him around and pushed him up against the
redbrick wall of the Beaver Hut.

“Assume the position,” a young officer said
forcefully, kicking Osborne’s feet apart, pinning him up against
the wall.

“Careful ma’am, I’m not exactly sure what
we’re dealing with here.”

Misty Morning put on a frightened pout. She
wore a blue baby doll nightie, and matching false eyelashes.

“This is absolutely ridiculous, I…” Osborne
attempted to protest, just before a hand forcefully bounced his
forehead off the brick wall.

“Sir, I’m not going to tell you again. I want
you to remain still while I search you. Now, do you have any
needles or sharp instruments that will make me very unhappy if I
find them?”

“But I haven’t done anything,” Osborne
whined, attempting to blink away stars.

“You wanna do this here or downtown? I don’t
want to hear one more word, not one.” The officer instructed about
an inch from Osborne’s right ear.

“Will you be doing that to the rest of us?”
Natashia, a perky brunette in a bustier with matching French cuffs
and bow tie asked.

“No, unfortunately.”

They cuffed Osborne then led him off. Placed
him in the back of a squad car, slammed the door and hurried back
to the sidewalk.

“Sarge, you think we better hang tight, make
sure this thing doesn’t get out of control?”

“Already calling in for an overtime
authorization. Nothing I don’t think the four of us can’t handle,
for now.” He was watching two of the girls apply suntan lotion to
one another.

After giving the girls autographs and posing
for a series of photos with the line of perfumed protesters it was
a good hour, possibly two before the officers finally remembered to
remove Osborne from the back of the squad car. He had become
slightly dehydrated. He was soaked with sweat, groggy, confused and
there was a large purplish knot the width of a brick running across
his forehead.

“Sir, I’m releasing you for the time being,
but I’m going to insist that you return to your office. You are not
to converse, touch or in anyway attempt to communicate with these
ladies.” An officer uncuffed Osborne’s wrists, then smiled at a
protester wearing little red satin devils horns.

“Should you attempt to engage these
demonstrators, I’ll have you taken downtown and booked for
disturbing the peace, harassment, attempted assault and I’ll
probably throw in public nuisance, too. Any questions?”

Osborne’s head lolled back and forth for a
moment before he nodded groggily.

They took him firmly by the arm and led him
to the front door of the Beaver Hut, shoved him in the darkened
entry and left him to his own devices.

Now Osborne looked down from his office
window, closed his eyelids in response to the throbbing in his
head.

“The cows, I’ll have each and every one of
them walking in the unemployment line by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll
flood this place with new talent from my suntan contest and they’ll
find themselves out of work.”

“Milton, what about this matter with DiMento?
We’re supposed to see something from him within the next
forty-eight hours. I trust you’re ready to move?”

Milton’s tongue was thick, his right arm had
vignetted into various shades of red, purple and green. The words
seemed to echo from some great distance as he attempted to focus
through glassy eyes.

“Milton,” Osborne called standing over him,
liberally dousing him with a heavy mist of disinfectant.

“Milton! Damn it, I’ll have to put you down
if you continue in this manner. For God’s sake, answer me you
ingrate! Speak, speak!”

* * *

“I can’t really talk right now,” Daphne said
to Lucerne, it was the fourth time he had called and she had
inhaled an entire tub of chocolate chip cookies with him on the
line. She looked longingly at the empty Tupperware tub, ran a
finger around the outside edge to capture the last of the buttery
crumbs.

“Look Tracey, I’m just checking up, makin
sure you’re okay. Hell, the way you’re carrying on, you’d think I’m
being a pain in the ass or something. Just got me concerned is all,
what with that strike. That labor shit can be tough if a body’s not
careful.”

“Oh that’s so sweet, but look, Lucerne, I
mean, I appreciate your concern, honest, I do, but don’t worry,
really sweetie, I’ll be all right.”

“Well, it’s just that you being so nice, I
think sometimes you might not know what kind of assholes folks can
be, and this here boss, this Osborne. He sounds like a mean little
bastard.”

“Well, you’re right about that. Look, what if
I did this, I mean I shouldn’t, but it’s so nice you care. I’ll
give you my cell phone number, you can call me, no charge.”

“Now you’re thinking, I promise not to be a
pain. I’ll be checking up a couple times just to make sure you’re
safe. Course, you can call me anytime, specially if you’re feeling
in danger or something.”

“I’ll do that, Lucerne, and thanks. I really
mean it.”

* * *

Otto entered the bank lobby half expecting
Cindy not to be at her window. But there she was, busily shoving
rolls of quarters to a woman who was quickly stuffing them into a
bag, no line behind her.

Cindy rolled her shoulders, glanced up at the
wall clock inside the sweltering teller area. She just might make
it. She exhaled up toward her forehead in a vain effort to cool her
sweaty bangs. She was exhausted. She couldn’t remember if she’d
taken a break today. She zoned out, closed her eyes, told herself
she could hang on, make it through the day, she could do it.