Tales From Gavagan's Bar (15 page)

             
He might as well have been talking to a deaf man, for this Pearce made one swipe with the broom and then another, and whop! the dead corp of the creature dropped down on the bar right in front of Doctor Abaris.

             
Mr. Pearce put the broom away and you would have said he thought he was a hero. But Doctor Abaris he picked up the dead bat with a sorrowful expression on the round fat face of him, and took out a handkerchief and wrapped the bat in it and put it in his pocket. Then he turned to Mr. Pearce with a look on his face that I'd not be wanting to take to bed with me at night, and he says: "Now, young man, you
shall
take your time."

             
"Huh?" says
Mr.
Pearce. "You didn't want that thing flying around here, did you? They're dirty."

             
Never a word says Doctor Abaris. He just gets down off his stool and pays for his drink and walks out, and I'm thinking it will be a cold day in July before we see him again. I said to Mr. Pearce, "Look here, young felly," I said, "maybe they'll let you throw things around and break up the place in that Italian joint around the corner, but we will not stand for it in Gavagan's."

             
With that he gets red in the face and says may he drop dead if he's ever found in this crummy dump again—that's the way he talks—and drinks off the rest of his Lonacoming and starts for the door, then changes his mind and goes toward the men's room instead. We might have had a couple more words on the subject, but just then in came Mr. Jeffers with a couple of his friends and I had to wait on them and gave no more attention than to think that, if young Pearce never did come back, it would be good riddance of bad rubbish, even though it was one less customer for Gavagan's.

             
I didn't see him come out of the men's room, and when I went there later myself, he wasn't inside, so I thought he must have slipped past the bar while I was bending over for cracked ice or something.

             
The very next night, that would be a Friday, I was waiting on the trade as usual, about 9 o'clock and not many people in here, when the door of the men's room opens and out comes this Pearce with a kind of funny look on the face of him. I could of swore I hadn't seen him come into the bar, and especially after what happened the night before, I thought he had his nerve with him.

             
He comes right up to the bar and says: "I want a double Lonacoming."

             
Now I'm a man that is willing to let bygones be bygones or I wouldn't be behind the bar at Gavagan's, so I poured it for him and said nothing. He takes a drink of it and says, "What kind of trick are you trying to put over?"

             
His voice was that nasty I started reaching for the bung starter, but all I said was: "That's as good whiskey as you'll find in this town."

             
"Oh, that," he says. "I don't mean that," and points to the calendar there on the wall, where I mark off each day as it comes up to keep things straight. "Today's the twenty-seventh."

             
"It is not," says I, and I got the evening paper to show him it was the twenty-eighth.

             
He acted like somebody had pushed him in the face. "Something's cockeyed," he said, and went over to make a telephone call.

             
After a couple of minutes he was back. "I've lost a whole day out of my life," he said, "and my girl has given me the air because I stood her up." With that he orders another double Lonacoming and starts in on it.

             
I'd heard enough of his girl stories not to want to hear another, so I went down the bar to wait on some of the trade, just keeping the corner of my eye on him. I'll say this much: something seemed to have knocked all the fight out of him, he was as quiet and decent as you'd expect a man to be
in Gavagan's and, for all the effect the whiskey had on him, it might have been soda pop. After a while he went to the men's room again.

             
The place was filling up by this time and I didn't have a chance to folly him right away, but as soon as I got everyone taken care of, I went in there. And it was empty; there was neither hide nor hair of Pearce anywhere in Gavagan's. And he didn't slip out the door, neither; I was watching it.

             
The next time he showed up was two days later, on the thirtieth, in the afternoon. The day man told me about it when I came on that night. I hadn't said nothing to him about the way this Pearce disappeared, because Gavagan likes to keep a very orderly place and doesn't want things like this to be happening, so it was him told me about it, warning me about a felly that had four, five drinks of Lonacoming whiskey and slipped out without paying for them. He descripted this felly and it sounded like Pearce.

             
"Did you see him come out of the men's room?" I asked.

             
"I did that," says he, "and with his eye all the time on the clock and the calendar while he was drinking. And the last I saw of him, he went back in again."

             
"And did he look like a man well gone in drink?" says I.

             
"If he had, I would not have served him in Gavagan's. He walked like a judge and stood like a traffic cop."

             
"Then he'll be back," says I.

             
"He had better be," said the day man. "Nobody is going to get away with owing Gavagan $3.15, plus tax."

             
Well, we fixed it up that whichever one of us was on the next time this Pearce came round would get the $3.15 from him and tell him that since he'd said he didn't like this place, he could take his feet out of it and never come back. But he fooled us. He did indeed.

             
The very next morning when the day man opened the place, there was an empty fifth of bourbon on the bar, lying on its side and a glass beside it and the bar all spotted and stained in a way I would never leave it. There was only one thing it could mean, and that is that this Pearce came back after the place was closed and helped himself. The worst of it
is that now he was changing drinks, from Lonacoming to bourbon. A man that switches like that has no control of himself. And I'm short a bottle of bourbon on me
inventory, a thing that's never happened before.

#
★
#

             
There was a little silence. Then Willison said, "I'm afraid I don't quite see. . . ."

             
"Why, it's as clear as a bottle of good gin!" exclaimed Mr. Gross. "You see, this Pearce—"

             
"It's the busine
ss of the men's room, isn't it?" Doc Brenner asked shrewdly.

             
"It is that," Mr. Cohan nodded. "I have never seen the felly come in or go out through the front door of Gavagan's. It's always to the men's room he's going, or coming from there—"

             
"That's just it!" cried Mr. Gross. "There's no other-"

             
"Like you said," Mr. Witherwax broke in, "you must have been bending down behind the bar—"

             
"Listen to me!" Mr. Gross screamed. A sudden silence fell. Mr. Cohan stared hard at Mr. Gross and said: "Now, Mr. Gross, Gavagan's is a quiet—"

             
"Listen to me," Mr. Gross repeated in a calmer tone. "It's as plain as the nose on your face. On my face, rather." They grinned. "You were right the first time, Mr. Cohan. When you said
'when
he was.' Because that's just what it is. When Pearce killed that bat, Dr. Abaris put a hex on him or something so that, instead of losing his legs when he starts to walk across the room—like a guy does when he's had too much—this guy Pearce loses his feet in
time.'"

             
"By golly," whispered Willison.

             
"Shut up," said Doc Brenner. "Go on, Mr. Gross."

             
Mr. Gross beamed. "Now the first time I don't guess Pearce was very tight. So he only lost a single day, like he said. But then he got a lot drunker—on double Lonacomings, remember —and it was two days gone. Next three days and now, on this whole fifth of bourbon, it's four days he's missed. He'd oughta be back pretty soon now, Mr. Cohan, although I don't know just how much liquor causes him to lose how much time, if you see what I mean."

             
"By golly," said Mr. Willison again.

             
"I do indeed see what you mean, Mr. Gross," said Mr. Cohan. "And as you have so kindly solved my problem, you will have your usual Boilermaker on the house."

             
The rest of them stared with awe, first at Mr. Gross, then at Mr. Cohan as the latter reached down under the bar, then came up with a dusty bottle of what was obviously very old bourbon. From this bottle he meticulously filled a double shot glass to its brim and carefully, not spilling a drop, he placed it before Mr. Gross. After returning the ancient bourbon to its lair, he drew a glass of beer (without collar) and placed that alongside the shot glass.

             
Finally, Doc Brenner cleared his throat. "I—ah—don't wish to stain Mr. Gross's triumph," he said, "but as I see it, Mr. Cohan, your problem is only half-solved. How are you going to untangle Pearce's feet?"

             
"By God, that's right!" exclaimed Witherwax. "How are you going to get him back from where—
whenever
he is and keep him here—now?"

             
"Otherwise he'll probably steal a whole case of liquor from you," said Willison.

             
Mr. Gross sipped his venerable bourbon.

             
Mr. Cohan slapped the bar with a heavy palm. "I have it. Look now, the young felly is staggering every which way through time because he's drunk. Right?"

             
There was a chorus of nods.

             
"Well, then, we'll sober him up." Once again Mr. Cohan rummaged beneath the bar, but this time he produced a bottle filled with a thick brownish liquid. "I'll be waiting here for that young felly day and night until he shows up, and there's the tipple he'll be getting!"

             
"What in heaven's name is that?" asked Mr. Witherwax.

             
"A Prairie Oyster, with Worcestershire in it, and tomato juice, and some bitters to give his stomach a kick in the pants, and red pepper for the good of his soul."

             
The door of the men's room was flung back with a bang, and the habitues of Gavagan's turned as a unit to face what was indubitably the missing Pearce. Except for a certain disarrange
merit of the hair, he had not the appearance of a man deeply under the influence of liquor, but the lines at the base of his mustache were twitching and his eyes seemed to be popping out of his head as he stared at the calendar.

             
"I need—a drink," he said, clutching the bar with one hand, and with his eyes still on the calendar, fumbled for the dose Mr. Cohan poured. A long swig of it went down before he restrained himself, gasping, and dropped the glass on the bar.

             
"My God!" he said. "What was that? Are you trying to poison me?"

             
"I am not," said Mr. Cohan, firmly, but was spared any addition to this statement by the appearance Pearce gave of being in the throes of a revolution as violent as any that ever afflicted a Latin American republic. His mouth came open and little sounds emerged from it, he clutched the bar-edge with watering eyes, and then, emitting a series of gigantic burps, he released his grip and dived for the security of the men's room.