the Bar Studs)

  The Bar Studs

  Len Levinson

  Leonard Jordan

  Destroyer Books

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  Afterword

  About the Author

  THE BAR STUDS

  By Len Levinson (writing as Leonard Jordan)

  First published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1976

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons (living or dead) is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1976, 2015 by Len Levinson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations used in reviews and other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Cover artwork © 2015 by Destroyer Books

  Print edition cover designed by Alyssa Brewer

  E-book edition cover designed by Ayla Elliott

  Published by arrangement with the author.

  For more information on this title, or any of our other titles, please contact the publisher at destroyerbooks@gmail.com.

  Destroyer Books would like to thank Joe Kenney of the Glorious Trash blog (http://glorioustrash.blogspot.com) for bringing this title to our attention.

  To Deborah

  Chapter One

  It was Saturday night at Adrian’s in Greenwich Village, and patrons were stacked three deep around the bar. All the tables were taken, pretty waitresses in casual street clothes dashed about with their trays, and rock and roll music blasted from the stereo jukebox near the door. Dim lighting came from large orange globes affixed to the rough-hewn wooden walls.

  Behind the rear section of the polished mahogany bar, his long fingers darting at bottles, glasses, and ice, was Johnny Mash, whose real name was Johnny Mashioni. He was a handsome man with thick black hair, smirking lips, and velvet eyes, and he often had been told that he resembled the young Victor Mature.

  Julie Bauman, a pretty brunette waitress dressed in jeans, dropped her round tray on top of the service bar. “Gimme a seven and seven,” she shouted above the raucous music and chatter. “A Cutty Sark on the rocks, and two whiskey sours!”

  “Yeah!” Johnny Mash tossed the Seagram’s Seven bottle high in the air, caught it by the neck with his right hand, and poured the clear brown fluid into a shot glass. “Yeah!”

  Julie spun around, threw both her hands to the left, thrust her fanny to the right, and locked in with the music.

  A black-bearded man sitting at the bar watched appreciatively and yelled, “Shake that thing, baby!”

  “Yeah!” agreed Johnny Mash, whose nose was so full of cocaine he couldn’t even feel the floor beneath his feet.

  Julie wagged her tongue from side to side and rolled her eyes as she hopped to the music. A black waitress named Cindy Johnson joined the dance while waiting to tell Johnny Mash her drink order. The black-bearded man chewed his cigar and clapped his hands to the beat of the music.

  Johnny Mash scooped ice into his cocktail shaker for the whiskey sours. His head felt as if Ginger Baker were inside pounding on drums. He snatched the bar whiskey from its slot and poured booze onto the ice cubes, where it sent up a thin curl of condensation smoke. “Yeah!” He laughed at the ceiling, the dancing waitresses, and the girls at the bar who looked at him with desire in their eyes.

  As Johnny Mash shook the whiskey sours into golden froth, a white Cadillac Eldorado stopped in front of Adrian’s, although there were NO PARKING signs on that side of Seventh Avenue. Behind the wheel was a black man with shiny skin and a thin moustache. He leaned forward, clicked off the Cadillac’s lights, but left the ignition and radio on. Beside him on the front seat was a skinny blonde with pale skin and make-up that transformed her eyes into large, dark, gleaming holes.

  “Wait for me here,” said the black. “If a cop comes, drive around the block.”

  She snapped the gum she was chewing. “Can’t I come in?”

  “I just told you what you gonna do.”

  “Waitin’ around ain’t no fun, Perce.”

  “The fun comes later, baby. Business first. Now watch the fuckin’ car for me, okay?”

  “Okay, Perce.”

  He opened the door of the Cadillac, got out, and stretched. He was over six feet tall and wore a belted camelhair topcoat that extended below his knees. After reaching onto the seat for his pigskin briefcase, he walked in long strides to the front door of Adrian’s and stepped inside.

  The music was deafening and there were so many people Perce could find no clear path to the back. He stood on his tiptoes and saw Johnny Mash at the end of the bar. “Excuse me,” Perce murmured as he pushed his way toward Johnny Mash. Some people acted like they didn’t want to move, but when they saw that Perce was big and black, they made way. It always amused Perce to think how frightened white men were of him.

  “Johnny Mash!” Perce called out when he reached the back of the bar.

  Johnny Mash looked up, focused his half-closed eyes, and smiled. “Hey, man—I wanna talk to you.”

  “Where’s Adrian?”

  “Upstairs in his pad.”

  “Tell him I got somethin’ for him.”

  “Got some for me?”

  “How much you want?”

  Johnny Mash made an O with his thumb and forefinger. That meant an ounce of marijuana.

  “Get it from Adrian,” Perce said, because he didn’t like to deal in small quantities. “See you later.” As he squeezed around the end of the bar on his way to the kitchen, he noticed the black waitress Cindy Johnson dancing alone while Johnny Mash mixed her drink order.

  Perce drew close to her. “How you doin’, sweet thing?” he purred.

  “Okay, since you haven’t been around. Let’s go with the drinks, Johnny! I got a Vodka Collins and a bloody Mary coming!”

  “Why don’t we get together sometime?”

  “I’ve got a new boyfriend now.” She raised her face and didn’t look at him as she continued her dance.

  “That’s cool,” Perce said, swaggering toward the kitchen, “but if you ever want me for something you know my number. I don’t hold no grudges.”

  “I do.”

  Perce shrugged and entered the kitchen where Honolulu Mike, a wrinkled old Filipino in his fifties, cooked hamburgers atop a charcoal grill.

  “How you doin’, Mike?” Perce asked as he passed by.

  “Okay.” Mike didn’t look up. His eyes were glazed and his junkie face hung loose on his skull.

  Perce pressed a button beside the steel door at the end of the kitchen. He waited several seconds and then Adrian’s voice spoke through a loudspeaker above the door. “Who is it?”

  “Perce!”

  The buzzer in the lock went off, Perce pushed, and the door opened. Ahead was a narrow flight of stairs. The rock music from the bar downstairs became replaced by a jazz piano recording as Perce climbed up. When he reached the top he saw Adrian seated behind his massive wooden desk at the end of the room. Seated before Adrian was an attractive thirtyish blonde Perce had seen here often. She looked very Saks Fifth Avenue.

  Adrian was tall, like Perce, but heavier and more powerful looking. He had sandy hair of medium length, a long, rugged face marked with a few acne scars, and was thirty-eight years old.

&nb
sp; “You mind going to the other room?” Adrian said to the blonde. He had a deep hoarse voice.

  “Yes, I do mind.”

  “Suit yourself.” Adrian stood behind his desk and held out his large, knobby hand to Perce. “How’s it going, man?”

  “Okay.” Perce shook hands with him. “Yourself?”

  “So-so.” He looked at Perce’s briefcase. “How much you got?”

  “Two pounds. The same stuff I brought you last time. Real lemonade.”

  “How much for both?”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  Adrian shook his head and whistled. “Jesus Christ!”

  Perce shrugged. “Inflation is everywhere, baby. But it’s real lemonade.”

  Adrian reached into the pocket of his brown corduroy pants, took out a fat roll of bills, and counted out tens and twenties on top of his desk as Perce unzipped his briefcase and plucked out two packages wrapped in newspaper. When Adrian finished counting he pushed the pile of money toward Perce and accepted the packages, dropping with them into his chair. The blonde woman, smoking a cigarette, watched them coldly.

  After Perce counted the money, he folded it and pushed it into his pants pocket. “I can see you’re busy, man, so I’ll split.”

  Adrian nodded. “Okay, Perce. I’ll give you a call.”

  “Okay.”

  Adrian rose, they shook hands, Perce smiled at the blonde, who didn’t smile back, and then he headed for the stairs. After descending, he pushed open the steel door and entered the kitchen, where a girl with a red bandana on her head stacked hamburger platters on her tray.

  “Hi, sweet thing,” Perce said to her.

  “How do you know I’m sweet if you’ve never tasted me?”

  “I can tell by lookin’.”

  She laughed as she carried her tray out of the kitchen. “You’re full of shit, you know that?”

  “Lemme have your phone number.”

  She laughed again and disappeared into the crowd outside the kitchen door. Perce followed her but turned right at the bar and headed for the door.

  “See you later, baby!” he yelled to Johnny Mash.

  “Yeah!”

  Behind his desk, Adrian pulled out his switchblade, snapped it open, and sliced into one of the packages he had purchased. His blade easily passed through the newspaper wrapping into the twigs and leaves inside. He put his nose close to the slit and took a deep breath. It smelled like a meadow in the sun.

  “I told you I don’t want you selling marijuana on the premises,” said Sandra Goldstein.

  “I know what you told me.” Adrian withdrew a package, of Bambu cigarette paper from the top drawer of his desk.

  Sandra had large breasts and a voluptuous figure on the verge of overweight. Her face was attractive but businesslike. “I expect you to do what I tell you,” she said firmly.

  He looked her straight in the eye. “I do what I feel like doing.” He dropped a pinch of marijuana onto the paper.

  She ground out her cigarette stub in the ashtray on his desk, took another from the pack in her purse, and lit it with her gold cigarette lighter. “This is still my bar,” she said. “Your name is on the menus and matchbooks, but my name is on the legal papers. I’m the boss here, Adrian.”

  He licked the seam of the cigarette he had rolled. “No, you’re not, Sandra. I’m the boss here, and the moment I stop being the boss here, that’s when I leave.”

  “You wouldn’t dare leave.”

  “No?” He smiled at her, and his teeth were large and white. “You keep leaning on me, baby, and you’ll see.”

  “What will I see?”

  “You’ll see me leave with my clientele. All you’ll have left will be the matchbooks and the menus. I’ve been a bartender for ten years now and I can get a job anywhere in the city.”

  “It wouldn’t be like having your own place, and you know it.”

  “At least I wouldn’t have to put up with your bullshit.”

  Stung, she puffed on her cigarette. “I don’t like all this marijuana and cocaine around here.”

  “Then get the fuck out.”

  She stiffened in her chair. “Who do you think you’re talking to—one of your little hippie waitresses?”

  He looked her in the eye again. “I’m talking to you, and I’ll tell you once more that if you don’t like what goes on here, get the fuck out.”

  She looked away from him and crossed her legs. He lit the end of his slim marijuana cigarette, took a deep inhale, and held his breath. He saw Sandra Goldstein float before his eyes.

  “I don’t know what you smoke that stuff for,” she said. “It makes you look stupid.”

  As he exhaled he felt the lids of his eyes become heavy. “Look the other way.” He took another drag on the joint.

  She sighed wearily. She could never win with him, and maybe she didn’t want to. “I think it’s time for me to go home. I’ll see you later?”

  “Right after I close up.”

  She stood and put on her gray suede topcoat. In a gesture Adrian always thought charming, she reached inside the collar with her hands and exploded out the golden hair that had become trapped.

  “You know, Adrian,” she said, “I hate to have these ugly disagreements with you.”

  “Then don’t start them.”

  “I can’t help it—I worry about you. Do you think I bought this place because I wanted to own a bar?”

  Languidly, he rose from his chair, the marijuana cigarette still in his hand. “I know why you bought it, and I’m grateful. But you didn’t buy me.”

  “I know I didn’t buy you. I wouldn’t want you if I could buy you.” She smiled. “Kiss me before I go?”

  He smiled back, stepped from behind the desk, and put his free hand on the small of her back. Then he lowered his face to her.

  She opened her mouth to receive his tongue, and placed the palm of her right hand against his crotch. His mouth tasted like sweet herbs; the bulk against her hand made her heart flutter. When their lips separated she buried her head in his neck.

  “I love you, Adrian,” she whispered.

  “Then don’t be such a pain in the ass.”

  Adrian raised the cigarette and placed its wet end in his mouth as she hugged him and kissed his neck. Just then the telephone rang. He reached back to the desk and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “We’re goin’ fuckin’ crazy down here!” Johnny Mash screamed through the rock music and hubbub. “Can you come down and give us a hand?”

  “Right after I finish this joint.”

  “It’s a fuckin’ madhouse!”

  “Just hang on a few more minutes.” Adrian hung up the telephone. “I’ve got to go downstairs and help out,” he told Sandra.

  She separated herself from him. “I’ll leave by the back door.”

  Adrian nodded as he sucked more of the sweet smoke into his lungs.

  * * *

  Five blocks west of Adrian’s on Christopher Street near the Hudson River, was the Corral, a notorious homosexual bar. Lined up at the curb in front were a dozen big motorcycles, their painted fenders and chromium trim gleaming in the light of streetlamps. On the sidewalk, men in black leather, spotless workmen’s clothes, or cowboy outfits strolled back and forth and aimed meaningful glances at each other.

  Inside the Corral it was dark and crowded, and the jukebox in the corner played loud rock and roll. Solitary men stood around drinking beer out of cans and looking sadly at each other as other men in groups spoke exuberantly about The Theater, The Dance, and their sex lives.

  The bar was small, and since almost everybody drank beer out of cans, Teddy Holmes usually handled it alone. But Friday and Saturday nights were frantic so Dave Eisner was hired to help out. Teddy didn’t like to work with Dave, who was a cynical forty-year-old faggot with a snakelike face and manner.

  Teddy was blond, not too tall, with pink skin. He had a husky build, which he showed off with tight T-shirts and jeans, and he had the face
of a handsome teenage boy, or maybe a pretty teenage girl. He was twenty-four years old, once had wanted to be an actor, but now was happy to be bartender at the Corral. He earned over $200 a week in tips alone.

  “Bartender!” screeched a fat old man in a tight tan cowboy shirt. “Get your buns over here!”

  Teddy wiped his hand on a towel as he approached. “Yes, sir?”

  “Oh, you’re such a handsome boy,” the man said dreamily. “I’d like you to sit on my face forever.”

  “You want another beer?” Teddy asked with a smile.

  The fat man narrowed his eyes to slits. “I want you, handsome boy,” he whispered with exaggerated lip movements. “When can you come to visit me?”

  “Did you want another beer?”

  “I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”

  “For another beer?” Teddy found it best to act dumb whenever he was propositioned.

  “Oh, you’re such a killjoy. Okay, bring me a beer if that’ll make you happy. I’ll do anything to make you happy.” The old fag closed his eyes and licked his lips.

  Teddy opened the door to one of the coolers behind the bar. Dave was standing there as Teddy bent over to get the can of beer.

  Dave whispered to him, “Why don’t you stick your prick up the old queen’s ass and give her a thrill?”

  Teddy pulled out the can of beer. “Why don’t you?”

  “Because he doesn’t want me. He wants you.”

  “But he might settle for you.”

  Teddy pulled the ring that opened the beer can and carried it to the fat man. “Here you go.”

  The fat man threw two dollars on the bar. “Keep the change,” he said, winking.

  The beer only cost a dollar. “Thanks a lot.” Teddy turned and walked toward the register to ring it up.

  Dave was standing there. “You take their money but you don’t give them any goodies.”

  “I’m sure you make up for me.”

  Teddy hurried to another customer calling him. This one was a tall, slender dark-haired man who was either Jewish or Italian and very good-looking.