Ring Game (15 page)

“That’s got nothing to do with what I’m telling you, Joe. Think like a guy just wandering around the fairgrounds. What are you hungry for?”

“That would depend on what I felt like.”

“You feel a little hungry. You want something freshly made, with a lot of taste. What was your best meal ever?”

“I don’t know. I had a truffled capon in Paris,” Crow said.

Axel blinked as though Crow had suddenly flickered in and out of existence. He continued as though Crow had said nothing. “Something you could hold in your hand, the perfect food, a balanced medley of flavors. Spicy, but not too. Unusual, but not fancy.”

Crow shrugged. “I give up, Ax.”

“Think Mexican.”

“A taco?”

Axel shook his head. “Close, but not special enough.”

Crow tried to remember what Axel called his deluxe burrito. “A Super Burrito?”

“That’s
Bueno
Burrito—and no, that’s not it. Listen. You just sit tight.” Axel went back inside, came out with a platter covered with strips of marinated meat, peppers, onions, and tomatoes. He lifted the top off the Weber, releasing a cloud of blue smoke. “It’s good and hot,” Axel said, talking more to himself than to Crow. “Gotta be hot.” Moving quickly, Axel covered the grill with items from the platter. “Gotta be fast,” he said. “People want fast; people want good.” He stood before the smoking Weber, smiling and blinking in the smoke. “Smell that. That’s what’ll bring ’em round, is the smell.” Axel began humming a tune from
Evita
. After a minute he unfolded a paper-thin tortilla a foot and a half across, draped it over the platter, and shoveled the grilled meat and vegetables onto it. He folded and rolled the tortilla expertly, producing an item that looked a lot like an oversized ice-cream cone—but with a crown of grilled meats instead of a ball of ice cream.

Wrapping the point of the cone in a napkin, Axel offered the creation to Crow. “
This
is what you want.” Crow accepted it uncertainly. He might have been able to handle a bowl of corn flakes, or even a couple of fried eggs, but the object he now held in his hand, weighing in at more than half a pound, did not look like breakfast.

He said, “This is really something, Ax.”

“Try it,” Axel said.

Crow braced himself and took a bite, getting a bit of tortilla, some of the meat, and a strip of green pepper that flopped down over his chin. He sucked in the pepper and chewed carefully.

“It’s really good,” he said.

Axel clapped his hands together. “It’s the marinade. My own recipe.”

Crow took another, larger bite. It
was
really good. Spicy, but not overwhelming. Unusual, but not fancy. Easy to eat. “Is this a new product you’re working on?”

“I call it the
Conita
. What do you think?”

Crow nodded. “I like it.”

“It’s like a fajita in the shape of a cone.”

“I get it.” Crow took another bite.

Axel watched Crow eat. He said, “So you think he’s okay?”

“I think it’s great. Good product.”

“Not the Conita. Hyatt Hilton.”

“Oh!” Crow swallowed. “I didn’t say he was okay. I just said he doesn’t have a record.”

“And he’s not married.”

“Right.”

Axel nodded. “Then that’s that. She’s gonna marry him.”

“There’s probably not much you can do about it.”

“I can’t believe I’m paying for it.”

Feeling emboldened by the Conita, Crow asked, “How come you’re doing that, anyway?”

Axel said, “I have to, Joe. When you get to be my age you’ll understand. You have to give it back somehow, and you don’t always get to pick who gets it.”

That made no sense to Crow, but he let it go and returned to work on his Conita.

Axel continued. “Between the food and the booze and the photographer and the hall and Carmen’s dress, this thing’s going to cost me six or seven grand. She even wants a limousine—can you believe that? Five lousy miles to the American Legion, then another couple miles to the goddamn hotel—what do they need a hotel room for? They’ve been shackin’ up for God-knows-how-long—and she wants to ride it in a limo. You know what a limo costs? And Sophie—you know what she’s doing right now? She and Carmen went to Bachman’s to order flowers. I like flowers, hell, but when I told her to go ahead and get a hundred bucks worth—that’s a lot of flowers, isn’t it?—she laughed. Boy, do I know what that means. You know how many Conitas I’m gonna have to sell to pay for this thing? I wouldn’t mind it so much if she was marrying a stand-up guy, but this Hyatt Hilton—if I found something that would make Carmen not want to marry him, that would be great. But I’ve got a feeling that’s not going to happen. I can feel it coming, Joe. She’s heading down the aisle, and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.”

Crow, chewing on the tip of the Conita, heard himself say, “Do you want me to keep checking on Hyatt?”

“Sure. Let me know if you find anything. Only don’t tell me anything unless it’s a wedding stopper. If the guy’s going to be my son-in-law, I don’t want to know any more than I have to.”

“I’ll ask around,” Crow said. “Listen, if they do get married, you mentioned a limo. I know a guy that rents limos. You want me to talk to him?”

“You think he’d give me a deal?”

“I can ask.”

“You know, Joe, there’s only one thing about this whole wedding thing that’s any goddamn good at all.”

“What’s that?”

“It’ll be the perfect time to introduce people to the Conita. I’m going to serve ’em at the reception.”

“Really?” That sounded good to Crow.

“Yeah. Carmen doesn’t know about it yet. I’m going to surprise her.”

With all the time he’d been spending on this wedding business, Hyatt Hilton had fallen behind on his water deliveries. His phone machine held a half dozen messages from retailers demanding their Evian shipments. He’d been in his garage filling cases since six o’clock that morning, and he’d have to spend the rest of the day driving all over south Minneapolis, filling orders, all by himself, no help from Carmen. He still considered himself to be a Player, but this water business was definitely Sucker work.

Another month or so, and he could sell his franchise. Or, more likely, just sell the van, buy himself a Cadillac, and let the Range Boys fill their own goddamn Evian bottles.

He heard the side garage door open. Thinking it was Carmen, he said, “How did the fitting go?”

When she did not reply, he looked up to see a stocky, expressionless man, with a military haircut and two large nostrils, standing in the doorway.

Hyatt grinned. “Hey, Chip, what’s going on?”

Chip said, “Here, catch.” With choppy underhand motion, Chip tossed him a brown glass jar. Hyatt, taken by surprise, reached for it a moment too late. The jar fell between his hands and shattered on the cement floor, its liquid contents quickly spreading. Chip frowned, did an about-face, and walked out, slamming the door. For a moment Hyatt stood there with an uncertain grin on his face, then the fumes hit him, filling his sinuses with a stench so vile and penetrating that his tongue withdrew into his throat and his teeth jellied in their sockets. Hyatt felt his stomach begin to twist. He ran for the door, but his breakfast got there first.

Advice is like snow; the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Z
INK FITTERMAN’S FILLET OF
Walleye Deluxe—or as his regular customers came to call it, fish-on-a-bun—went for $4.95, or $5.95 for the Fillet of Walleye Deluxe-in-a-Basket, which was the same thing with fries and a paper cup full of watery cole slaw. The weekday lunch crowd went through a couple dozen of the things on a good day, and maybe twice that on Fridays. He bought the frozen fillets for a buck a pound from a pair of Native American entrepreneurs off the Leech Lake Reservation—they dropped off four cartons every Thursday. Zink didn’t ask a lot of questions—what they did on their own land was none of his business. He wasn’t even 100 percent sure it was walleye, but his customers weren’t complaining, so neither did Zink.

Joe Crow usually ordered the basket, but today, his appetite dulled by the breakfast Conita, he asked Zink for a plain fish-on-a-bun with an Evian to wash it down.

“How about a Coke, Joe? I’m all out of the Evian.”

“Coke is fine,” said Crow. He reached across the bar and grabbed a pickle spear from the garnish tray.

Zink lit a cigarette and watched Crow eat the pickle, then said, “You know how long those pickles have been sitting in there?”

“How long?” It did taste a bit peculiar.

“Long.”

It was a quiet afternoon at Club 34. Three hours till happy hour, twelve hours till closing. Zink scribbled Crow’s order on a bar slip and waddled it back to the six- by eight-foot kitchen, where this week’s cook was sitting on the narrow prep table smoking a cigarette.

Crow had known Zink Fitterman for more than a decade. In his drinking days, he’d been one of Zink’s best customers. He was still a good customer, albeit of the nonalcoholic and therefore less-profitable variety. Both Crow and Zink were in their middle thirties, but the years had been harder on Zink. His legs had gotten shorter, his waist larger, and his once thick, curly black hair had thinned on top and was beginning to form a reverse Mohawk. Purple pouches sagged beneath his dark brown eyes. Creases deep enough to hide a dime framed his wide lips, which opened only when he was talking or eating, and then only a little. One did not have to know him well to discern a deeply cynical nature. Crow liked him.

Twice a month, Zink would close off his back room and host a poker game, five-dollar ante, table stakes. It was a good game, and Crow played in it when he could.

Zink placed a Coke on a used Grain Belt coaster. “You playing tonight?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Crow said. “I’ve been sort of tapped since I got back from Vegas.”

“All the more reason to play. How much you drop?”

Crow produced an embarrassed smile. “Thirty,” he mumbled.

“Ouch. What happened?”

“I think the games were too big for me. They play with ten or eleven players at a table out there, what they call a ring game. Too damn many personalities for a Midwestern boy like Joe Crow.”

“Well, I seen you win a lot more than I seen you lose.”

“This time I lost. I might have to get a job. You need a bartender?”

“If I could afford another bartender, you think I’d be pouring your Coke myself?”

“Maybe I’ll start buying pulltabs. Get lucky.”

“I got ’em for sale right here,” Zink said.

Crow chuckled. Matching wits with a slip of paper did not appeal to him. There was no percentage in it. “What would it cost me to buy a joint like this?”

“A bar? You might could prob’ly find something around a hundred, hundred fifty. Fifty if you want a wino bar. You want to buy this place? I’d give you a hell of a deal.”

“I was just wondering. I’ve been thinking about getting into some sort of business. You know. A flower shop or a used-record store or a coffee bar.”

Zink snorted and carefully scratched the top of his head. “What do you know about flowers?”

“What do you know about distilling? Anyway, I was just thinking.”

“That’s where it starts. Next thing you know you’ll be bald and losing sleep over this huge monthly nut. How come you’re thinking about this now? Midlife crisis? You ain’t old enough for that.”

“I feel old enough. So how’s that kid of yours doing?” Crow asked. Zink had a nine-year-old boy he liked to talk about. Crow always made it a point to ask about him, especially when he wanted to change the subject.

“He’s doing great. He stayed with me four days running last week. Wendy’s more inclined to let loose of him these days. I think he’s driving her nuts. The kid gets into everything. I walk in his room, and he’s got my
Playboys
all over his bed. Wendy’s never told him a goddamn think about sex—can you believe it?”

“Maybe she thinks it’s your job. He’s a boy, right?”

“What the hell do I know about sex? It’s all on TV anyway. The kid watches it constantly. At least he does when he’s not into my adult literature. He’s like a sponge. You want to know what else he did? He got into my Rogaine. Rubbed it all over his chest. He wants to have a hairy chest like his old man. You know what that shit costs?”

Crow was laughing. “Did it work?”

“I sure as hell hope not. Wendy would kill me.”

“Is it working on you?”

Zink thrust the top of his head toward Crow. “You tell me.”

Crow examined the balding crown. “I think I see some fuzz.”

“That’s three hundred dollars worth of fuzz you’re looking at, man.” He straightened up. “It doesn’t start coming in better, I’m just going to buy myself a hat. Listen, I got four guys want to play. What do you say?”

“I’m thinking. You remember that game out at Bigg Biggie’s place? Any of those guys coming?”

“I don’t know those guys. Except for Bigg.”

“No. You know Hyatt Hilton, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah, I know Hy.”

“I hear he’s got the good price on bottled water.”

“Yeah, when he shows up. I haven’t seen him lately.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Not much. He’s kind of a doofus, isn’t he? Why?”

“You know my dad?”

“Sam? Sure I do.”

“Well he’s got this buddy named Axel, who has a daughter—she’s not really his daughter, but
he
thinks she is—engaged to marry Hy. So he, meaning Axel, asks me to ask around about the guy Carmen, the girl he thinks is his daughter, is engaged to. Meaning Hyatt. Except I don’t know if he really wants me to find anything because he wants to use the wedding to launch his new product. I mean Axel.”

Zink massaged his nose with two fingers. “You want to run that by me again?”

“No. What else do you know about Hy?”

Zink shrugged. “He sells water and likes to draw to flushes. He used to be involved in some sort of church, until they kicked him out. He was pretty pissed about that.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“I knew him from way back. Hy the Guy.”