the Bar Studs) Read online

  Johnny Mash thought that between the faggots and the bums, the Village was getting to be a drag.

  When he finished he went outside to Eighth Street and caught a cab to Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side, where he hoped to find Danny the Spick, who was a fence.

  Danny the Spick had a little hardware store off Delancey Street, which he ran with-his wife and teenage son. It was a tiny hole in the wall, but the hardware was just a sideline. Danny the Spick made most of his money dealing in stolen goods.

  Johnny Mash entered the narrow cluttered store and saw Danny’s son sorting screws in wooden drawers. “Where’s your old man?”

  “In back.”

  “Tell him Johnny Mash’s got somethin’ for him.”

  The boy walked through an opening at the rear of the tiny store, while Danny’s wife sat on a wooden chair in the right-hand corner reading El Diario. She lowered the newspaper, looked up at Johnny, and smiled.

  “How’re you doin’, Johnny Mash?” she asked in her staccato Puerto Rican accent. She was a skinny youthful-looking woman in jeans and plaid shirt.

  “Can’t complain.” He wouldn’t mind fucking her.

  “You workin’?”

  “Sure I’m workin’. I’m a bartender in the Village.”

  She winked. “That where your warehouse is?”

  He grinned. “Yeah.”

  “I’m hip.”

  She was too, in her tight jeans. He figured she wouldn’t resist much if he got her alone some place and pulled down her pants.

  The boy appeared at the doorway. “My father says come on back.”

  Johnny Mash walked back into the doorway and through a corridor lined with shelves full of dusty nails, bolts, hinges, knobs, electrical cable, rope, and cans of paint. At the end on the left was a little cubbyhole where Danny the Spick sat behind an old wooden desk. Danny had a round caramel face and short thin black hair combed flat on his head. He squinted his eyes at Johnny Mash.

  “What you got?”

  “This.” Johnny Mash took out the watch and put it on Danny’s desk. “It’s got real diamonds where the numbers are supposed to be, and it’s made out of 14 karat gold. It must be worth five hundred bucks retail.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Whataya mean bullshit?”

  Danny screwed a jeweler’s lens into his right eye and picked up the watch. He examined it meticulously, turning it over and over with his thick fingers, and then set it down on his desk. “Fifty bucks,” he said gruffly, removing his eyepiece.

  “Fifty bucks! You gotta be kiddin’.”

  “Why should I be kiddin’?” Danny looked up with cold, slitted eyes. “You know me long enough to know I ain’t kiddin’.”

  “I should get at least a hundred bucks for that watch.”

  “Good luck.” Danny pushed the watch toward him.

  Johnny Mash didn’t feel like spending the whole day chasing fences, and he knew they’d all offer him peanuts for the watch anyway. He pushed the watch back. “Okay—okay, I’ll take the fifty.”

  Danny stood up, thrust a hand into a pocket of his baggy gray workpants, pulled out a roll of bills fat as his wrist, peeled off two twenties and a ten, and handed them to Johnny Mash. Then he sat down, screwed in the jeweler’s eyepiece, and examined the watch again.

  Johnny Mash combined the fifty dollars with his other money as he walked away from Danny through the corridor to the hardware store. Francesca still sat in the chair with El Diario.

  “Everything work out okay?” she asked.

  “Your old man’s somethin’ else,” Johnny Mash replied, shaking his head. He ought to fuck her someday just to get even with Danny.

  “He’s a businessman—what do you expect?” She gave her left shoulder a little toss.

  “He’s a motherfucker.”

  Johnny Mash side-stepped past her son and left the hardware store, heading toward Delancey Street where he hoped to find a cab. As his boot-heels rang against the pavement he threaded his way through huge crowds of shoppers looking for bargains in the tiny stalls operated by Jewish merchants.

  “Que quiere, amigo?” asked an old Jewish man with a white beard and black yarmulke who stood in front of a sidewalk display of men’s shirts and underwear.

  “Nada,” replied Johnny Mash, not slacking his pace. The old Jew had taken him for a Puerto Rican, and Johnny Mash didn’t think that was very flattering.

  On Delancey Street he could find no cabs, so he walked west toward the Bowery. He was feeling a little anxious now, and the tumult of the Lower East Side was giving him a headache. He needed something to cool him out, and remembered that last night Perce Washington told him Adrian had some grass.

  At Eldridge Street he saw two telephone booths, both being used by a gang of teenage Puerto Rican girls in blue jeans and gaudy platform shoes.

  Johnny Mash poked his head in one of the booths. “Hey, let’s go! I gotta make an important call!”

  “Wait your turn, man,” said a scowling, petite girl with bright red lips.

  “It’s an emergency,” Johnny Mash told her.

  “What kinda emergency?”

  “I gotta call a doctor.”

  “You don’t look sick to me.”

  “It’s for a friend of mine.”

  “You’re fulla shit, man.”

  Johnny Mash smiled his sexy smile. “C’mon, baby. I’m in a hurry.”

  A chubby girl whose Army field jacket couldn’t conceal her enormous breasts said: “You almost good-lookin’, you know that?”

  “Whataya mean, almost?”

  “Just what I said.” She fluttered her false eyelashes at him.

  He slapped her on the ass. “Tell your friend to let’s go with the phone.”

  She raised one eyebrow. “You can look, man, but don’t touch.”

  “You got a great ass, kid.”

  “Just keep in mind that it don’t belong to you. I don’t grab your ass.”

  “You can if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to. You look a little crazy to me.” She wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes.

  “I’m gonna get real crazy if you don’t let me use the telephone.”

  There was a complicated traffic jam in the street, horns bleated and men swore at each other, and the girl using the telephone giggled and spoke coyly to whoever was on the other end. Johnny Mash moved his hand near her face and snapped his fingers. Startled, she looked at him.

  “Let’s go!”

  “Just a minute,” she said into the receiver. “You wait until my dime is up, man!” She was a bony girl in a green jacket, and she looked ready to fight.

  Johnny Mash didn’t want to rumble with the few hundred Puerto Ricans in the immediate vicinity so he leaned against the phone booth and crossed his arms as the girls snickered and pinched each other, and made faces at him.

  Finally the girl at the telephone pushed down the lever and handed the receiver to the big-bosomed girl. “You’re next.”

  “Bullshit!” Johnny Mash snatched the phone out of her hand.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey, my ass—get the fuck outa here!”

  “Gimme that telephone!”

  Johnny Mash squeezed into the phone booth and pushed the Puerto Rican girls out, ducking their punches and trying to block them with his free hand. When they were all outside he shut the door and held his foot against it as the girls banged their fists on the glass walls and swore at him. He dialed Adrian’s number and then stuck his forefinger in his free ear to block out the screams of the Puerto Rican girls.

  After several buzzes the call was answered by Sandra Goldstein, and Johnny Mash wasn’t surprised because she often spent nights with Adrian.

  “This is Johnny Mash the bartender. I gotta speak to Adrian.”

  “Adrian’s not here anymore,” she said coolly. “He’s gone for good and the bar’s closed down.”

  “The bar’s closed down?”

  “Yes—if you see any of the ot
her employees, tell them.”

  The Puerto Rican girls slapped their palms on the glass and continued their barrage of insults. The traffic jam had become worse and two drivers were slugging it out in the middle of the street. “Whataya mean, the bar’s closed down?” Johnny Mash was unable to assimilate this unexpected information.

  Sandra Goldstein sounded impatient. “Just what I said—I’m selling the place. I’m very busy right now, so good day, Mr. Mash.”

  The phone went dead in his ear, and in a daze Johnny Mash hung it up. What the hell happened to Adrian? The Puerto Rican girls looked at him curiously, and he heard the sound of police sirens. He pulled his little black book of phone numbers out of his back pocket, looked up a name, inserted another dime, and dialed a number. After a few rings a man’s deep voice said: “Hello?”

  “Morgan?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Johnny Mash.”

  “Hiya, Johnny—how’ve you been?” Morgan had a calm, smooth way of talking.

  “Okay. Listen, are you holdin’ anything, by any chance?”

  “Yes.” Morgan stretched the syllable out musically.

  “Can I come over right now?”

  “Love to see you.”

  “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  Johnny Mash hung up the receiver and stepped out of the phone booth, ignoring insults from the Puerto Rican girls. He walked east to the Bowery, and still seeing no cabs, headed uptown. After a few blocks he saw an empty one coming downtown on the other side of the street. He raised his hand, whistled loudly through his teeth, and waved his hand in the air. The driver saw him and stopped, and Johnny Mash ran across the street.

  “Seventy-third and York,” Johnny Mash told the driver after he got in.

  The driver knocked down his flag, made a U-turn at the next intersection, and sped uptown.

  Morgan lived in a boxy white apartment tower with a green and white striped canopy in front. The cabdriver stopped at the canopy, Johnny Mash paid and tipped him, and then he got out, walking toward the front door which was opened by the doorman.

  “Yes, sir?” asked the doorman, a white-haired old man in a blue uniform.

  “Joe Morgan in 14-C.”

  “Your name?”

  “Johnny Mash.”

  “How’s that again?”

  “Johnny Mash!”

  The doorman picked up the telephone receiver on the electronic control board, pushed a button, and after a few seconds said: “Mr. Mash is here to see Mr. Morgan.” The doorman nodded and hung up the receiver. “Go right up,” he told Johnny Mash.

  Johnny Mash got on the elevator with a gawky blonde in red slacks she didn’t fill out very well, and they rode up together. She fidgeted in the corner and looked at the illuminated floor numbers at the top of the elevator. When she cast a nervous glance at Johnny Mash he winked at her and smiled, and her face drained of color.

  “Take it easy, baby,” Johnny Mash said out the side of his mouth. “I ain’t gonna rape you or nothin’ like that.”

  She scratched her fingers and looked like she would have a nervous breakdown. When the elevator stopped at her floor she dashed out and looked fearfully over her shoulder to see if Johnny Mash would follow her. He smiled and waved goodbye.

  On Morgan’s floor, Johnny walked down the red-carpeted corridor and pressed the button on the door marked 14-C, behind which a rock and roll band was playing. The chime went off inside, a few seconds later the window in the door clicked, and then Morgan opened the door.

  “Johnny Mash—good to see you!” He held out the palm of his big hand and Johnny Mash slapped it.

  “Hiya, Morgan.”

  Morgan was built like a light-heavyweight, had a long face, and a large mouth and jaw. His hair was light-brown and he wore bell-bottom jeans, a blue and red striped polo shirt, and nothing on his feet. He led Johnny through the vestibule into the living room, where two girls and a man were sitting on beige leather furniture.

  “This is an old friend of mine named Johnny Mash,” Morgan said, tapping him lightly on the back and showing his horse teeth when he smiled. He told him that the girls on the sofa were named Silvina and Barbara, and the man in the chair was Harry Ryker.

  “Harry’s a bartender too,” Morgan said.

  Johnny Mash shook his hand. “Where you work?”

  “Bartholomew’s Pumpkin around the corner on Second Avenue. How about you?”

  “Adrian’s in the Village, but I found out it’s been closed down and I’m outa work.” He sat on the sofa between the two girls, one of whom had long straight black hair, and the other a brunette. They were both young, pretty, and wore slacks with silky shirts. Before him on the coffee table was a marble bowl filled with cocaine, and sticking out of the white powder was a tiny silver scoop.

  “Adrian’s is closed down?” Morgan asked. “I was just in there Friday night. What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I called Adrian a little while ago and his old lady told me she’s sellin’ the joint. I guess they had a fight and she threw him out. She’s a real pain in the ass, like most women.” He looked at the black-haired girl on his right and grinned. She opened her mouth and smiled back at him, working her tongue against the inside of her cheek. She had a square jaw and upturned nose with a little bump in the middle. He pulled his eyes away from her and looked at Morgan. “Mind if I try some of this?” He pointed at the cocaine.

  “Go ahead.”

  Johnny Mash bent forward, took two hits in each nostril, closed his eyes, leaned back against the sofa, and felt himself spinning backwards through space. His heart beat furiously and his breathing was heavy and deep.

  “Good coca-een, no?” asked the black-haired girl in a Latin accent.

  Johnny Mash opened his eyes and looked at her. “Yeah.” She had green eyes and golden skin. “Whatya say your name was, baby?”

  “Silvina.” Streams of light came at him from her eyes.

  “Where you from?”

  “West 73rd Street.”

  “I mean what country.”

  “Argentina.”

  “They tell me Argentine broads are outa their minds.”

  Proudly she raised her chin. “We are.”

  She had a husky, athletic body, and Johnny wanted to fuck her right on the spot. The top four buttons of her black shirt were open; he could see the side of one of her breasts. She knew he was looking at her there and she smiled triumphantly. She looked ready for action and Johnny Mash was ready to give it to her, but something made him look up. He saw Harry Ryker frowning at him, and in an instant Johnny Mash was aware that Silvina was Harry’s date or maybe even his old lady. Just then Johnny Mash’s twirling mind fell into a new slot.

  “They need any bartenders at your joint?” Johnny Mash asked Harry.

  “We’re all full up.”

  “Shit.” Through pinwheels of white light Johnny Mash measured Harry, who was handsome as a movie star and had long blond hair styled and set neatly. Johnny Mash thought he looked a little gay. “I gotta find another gig,” Johnny Mash said absent-mindedly. He looked at Silvina. “Whataya do, baby?”

  “I go to Columbia University.”

  “Whataya study?”

  “Business.”

  He winked and made his sexy smile. “How’d you like to take care of a little business with me sometime?”

  Her green eyes danced. “Maybe.”

  Morgan cleared his throat. “You want any of that cocaine, Johnny?”

  “Gimme a spoon.”

  Morgan took a plastic measuring teaspoon from his pocket and knelt before the bowl of cocaine. He tore a plastic bag from the box on the coffee table and dipped the spoon into the cocaine.

  Harry Ryker stood up and tucked in his shirt. “Let’s split,” he said to Silvina.

  She yawned. “I don’t feel like goeeng now.”

  “I said let’s split!”

  “I said I don’t feel like goeeng now.”

/>   Johnny Mash knew she wanted to stay with him, but the cocaine was thundering through his body and flip-flopping his moods. He thought he’d better go down to Little Italy and see his Uncle Al about a job. Uncle Al was big in the Mafia and had a lot of connections.

  “I think you oughta split with your old man,” Johnny Mash murmured to Silvina.

  “I’ll split when I feel like it.” She realized she’d just been rejected, and her face clouded with anger.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You coming, Silvina?”

  “No!”

  Harry resembled an angry ostrich as he walked on his long legs to the closet in the vestibule, where he pulled out a blue topcoat with epaulets and silver buttons.

  “See you, Morgan,” Harry said.

  “Take it easy, baby.”

  After Harry left, Morgan leveled off the spoonful of cocaine and poured it into the plastic bag. As Morgan twisted and tied a knot at the top of the bag, Johnny Mash turned to Silvina.

  “Somebody oughta punch you right in the mouth, you know that?”

  She gave him an arrogant look. “Why?”

  “For treating your old man like that.”

  “He can go to hell, and so can you!”

  Johnny Mash curled back his lips. “You’re a lousy little bitch!”

  She smiled proudly. “Good!”

  “If you were my old lady and you did that to me I’d kick your fuckin’ head in.”

  She laughed a little too loudly. “We’d see about that, my friend.”

  “We sure would.”

  Morgan dropped the bag of cocaine before Johnny Mash. “That’ll be seventy-five beans.”

  Johnny Mash passed the money to Morgan, put the bag of cocaine inside his shirt next to his bare skin, and stood up. He said good-bye to Morgan, shook his hand, and without looking back at the girls or speaking to them, left the apartment.

  * * *

  Laying face down on his blood-spattered white flokati rug, Teddy Holmes did not awaken on Sunday morning because he had severe concussion. He also had a broken nose, smashed lips, five teeth knocked out, three ribs kicked in, a crushed cheekbone, a broken collarbone, and numerous contusions all over his body. The rusted eight-inch railroad spike had been hammered up his ass, and blood oozed out around it.