Liquor Conference in Seattle
I was sitting at one of those small bar tables near the lobby entrance, nursing my drink, when the blonde came into the bar from the street entrance and sat down on one of the corner bar stools and ordered a drink. The skinny black bartender set it up quickly — a squat wide tumbler full of a viscous red liquid with pieces of green vegetable floating in it. It looked awful at twenty feet in the dim light.
She on the other hand looked okay, wearing a long-sleeved turquoise dress that came up closely and chastely around her neck and smoothed down over her breasts and hips to modest mid-knee. Her dark hair roots were growing in, and she needed to get it recolored or just let it grow out. She wore her bright blonde locks shoulder-length and flipped under all around, with poodle-dog bangs across her high forehead.
She looked like a girl just stopping by for a drink after a day in the office in one of the nearby buildings. She saw me looking at her, and I smiled. She smiled back, just a little too quickly and too brightly. Then she did the same to a couple of other interested males in the bar, selling the smile just a little too hard, and she was a hooker.
There were four other women sitting in a row on the bar stools with their backs to me, chattering happily away in those clipped, almost American accents of Canada. Canadian women on the town in Seattle without their significant others in tow had a certain awe-inspiring reputation on the street for how hard they partied.
The third one down had a black cap of curls cut in a kind of Prince Valiant look and wore a white form-fitting dress with plenty of décolletage showing off a rope of large pearls that could have been paste, but glowed in the low light against the swell of her breasts. She had been half-turning on her stool and boldly looking me over since before the blonde came in. When I would meet her gaze, she would lower her lashes and slide out from under eye contact and turn back to her drink and there was no way she was a hooker. And Ray came in.
I saw him wander through the bar as if lost, peering near-sightedly out of his thick glasses, head thrown back like an aging, sandy-red-headed, age-freckled old snapping turtle. He was hi y’alling everybody in his loud down-home North Carolina hill country accent, and I had a mean unworthy hope that he wouldn’t come and sit with me. Because that would mean he would immediately launch into one of his loud corn-pone monologues about God knows what, and then the girl in the white form-fitting dress with the lustrous black hair and merry blue eyes and rope of fake or maybe not pearls would not be looking me over anymore.
I need not have fretted. Ray barged right in among the four, calling each by her name, and demanded in a foghorn voice who the hell was going to buy him a drink?
And of course it was the black-haired one in the white dress who said she would, after tipping her chin saucily and considering the question. Two of the others were brunettes and one was a redhead, a much more lustrous redhead than Ray, and they all clearly thought that Ray was cute as hell.
Chivas and water, Ray told the bartender, just as loudly — a good ole’ boy from the North Carolina Liquor Control Board drinking Scotch instead of bourbon, for God’s sake. I was ashamed of him — and envious of him. I hadn’t been out on the prowl minus my significant other in years, and I had been hoping to explore that legendary Canadian party spirit.
They continued to banter, rubbing his head, patting his back, bumping him with the occasional hip, as he spread his hypnotic corn-pone drawl over them like thick honey — or like the weaving hood of a cobra. Bright Eyes, as I was thinking of the girl in the white dress, kept playing up to him, and kept including me in her sweeping glances when it was the turn of the redhead with even more cleavage to lean in on Ray. I had an intuition that Bright Eyes was standing outside herself and watching this scene play out as in a movie, and loving every minute of it.
Housemothers from British Columbia on a lark, one of them told Ray, speaking loudly in reaction to his loudness. Shopping mainly, one of the two brunettes said with a little giggle. The two brunettes had their hair up and lacquered into old-fashioned hairdos and looked about as approachable as the Maginot line, which made the professional girl at the end of the bar seem softly vulnerable in comparison. But none of that fazed Ray in the least. He had picked out the natural leader of the pack — Bright Eyes — and was having himself a high old time. She was with the others, but alone — like any true leader.
I realized that Bright Eyes could have stepped right out of “Fiesta,” and dovetailed not too badly with my mind’s-eye visualization of Hemingway’s Lady Brett of the Lost Generation.
It was getting close to last call, so I sighed and told the waitress to ask the lady in turquoise if she’d like to step over to my table for a nightcap, and she came right over. We exchanged some mild pleasantries and she said her name was Jackie and she was self-employed. I asked her if she was working the liquor convention tonight and she said yes. But it was beginning to look like a bust, these lousy liquor peddlers either brought a girl friend with them or were holding onto their wallets with both hands.
I agreed about the girl friends — more than one of the representatives of the eighteen state Liquor Control jurisdictions had introduced me to their “niece,” who always was young, always good-looking, always dressed to kill.
I told her about being at one of the banquets when a state official from one of the big eastern control states introduced his “niece” to another official from another jurisdiction, who was thoroughly drunk. This worthy had blinked once, blinked twice — and then the light bulb almost visibly went on above his graying head: “Oh yeah, yeah — I got one of them around here too! Honey! Come over and meet his niece.”
She got a good laugh out of that and then shook her head. Definitely tonight was a bust, she said sadly. I was curious about her asking price — I had been away from big-city sin for a long time. When she said “a bill,” I nearly choked on my bourbon and rocks. I considered relating what an old Army buddy said to the whore in Amsterdam when she named her price: “What? Is the damn thing covered in jools or somethin’?” But I thought it might hurt her feelings.
But it’s getting so late I’d consider an offer, she said quickly.
Forget it, kiddo, I said. I’m just a state employee, not a big shot, and I’m stony broke. And I’m not in the market anyway.
Oh — not for you, she said. I wasn’t talking about you. A guy like you — you’re so tall, you’ve got those shoulders and those big bones, and on you all that weight just makes you look stocky. You sure are a big one. The way you look, you don’t pay. You get your share.
I was completely taken aback. You really think so, I said.
Sure — you don’t have to ask twice, she said.
Well. It certainly is kind of you to say so and I really am flattered, I said. That made my evening.
Don’t make a big deal of it, it’s just the truth. C’mon, don’t make a big deal of it.
But you do flatter me, I said. I wondered if that was part of her spiel, but didn’t have the heart to ask.
That jerk, she said, now talking about a Canadian cop, one of the conventioneers, that she had been pitching earlier. He wants to bargain me down to nothing. I’d sooner do a freebie with somebody like you than come down too much in price for that creep.
Well, just relax and enjoy your drink, I said. You really are doing marvelous things for my ego and it’s nice to have a good-looking woman tell me lies like that. Here comes the standard bit that I bet you get a lot, because you seem like such a nice, straight-forward person: how did you fall into this line of work?
That’s what I did exactly, she said and laughed, screwing up her cute face appealingly. Fell into it. Landed on my back, you might say.
We laughed. You’re kind of snappy with the comeback, I said.
Where you from, she said.
Olympia, I said, fibbing a little myself now.
I was down there once, she said, naming a place she expected me to recognize. When I didn’t, she said it was a girl’s reformatory of which she was a graduate.
Graduate, I said. And we laughed again.
Seriously, she said, this is a good way to afford a slick pad and a nice car and decent clothes, not having to work as a damn secretary for slave wages, and the boss expecting it free all the time. What do you do?
I’m in the liquor business, I said, here for the convention.
This state?
Yeah.
Are you, like, some kind of cop, she said, suddenly cautious.
I assured her that I was a bureaucrat. Papers come into my in-box. I read them. Sometimes I dictate an answer. Papers go out.
Ugh, she said.
Yeah, I said.
She said that so far the bartenders and house dicks in the Olympic Hotel hadn’t tumbled to her because she seldom worked one place more than a couple of nights, and moved around. She said she was freelance — no pimp to answer to — but things had been tight or she wouldn’t have been so bold tonight. She knew she was overdoing it.
Sit here with me a while then, I said. Good camouflage.
Well I hate to just get up and leave you if I see a mark, she said.
Feel free, I said. Hell, you’re at work and I’m just goofing off.
You know, you’re kind of nice, she said. Different. I wish I had somebody like you just to sit and talk to, just to walk around the Pike Place market with.
Yeah, I said. I have that effect on most women. Somebody good to talk to.
I bet, she said. A guy looks like you. I just bet.
No, really, I said. I could tell you stories of all my missed chances. I’ve got a dozen of ‘em.
That’s what I really need, she said. A man to just talk to, and go walking with, who’s not trying to make me or buy me. Look — here’s my address. She scribbled on the inside of a match flip. Why don’t you come around tomorrow and get me up and we’ll go someplace for the afternoon before I have to go to work.
I took the match flip and put it in my shirt pocket, but I didn’t believe it.
Around noon?
God no! she said. More like three. I never get up until around three.
A woman after my own heart, I said.
Better yet, she said, you tell me which hotel you’re staying at and I’ll come by and get you in my new car.
Then she excused herself and went to work on a mark that had just come in. I stopped by the bar at Ray’s elbow and said whatever you do, do not tell these ladies that scruples joke of yours. So of course Bright Eyes was at him right away to tell it immediately. I headed for the john, and when I got back Ray was winding up the joke to their loud, bright laughter, and he introduced me to Diane, who was Bright Eyes, and Rose, the redhead. I don’t remember the two brunettes.
The bar was finally closing and we all went outside into the lobby where a shaven-headed, heavy-browed Georgian — from the Soviet Georgia — inserted himself into the party, homing in on Rose. Ray and Diane and Rose and the Georgian settled into couches to sort things out, and across the lobby Jackie and her mark were doing the same thing, and I was getting ready to leave when she tiptoed over to me to whisper in my ear: where are you going?
To bed, I said.
Don’t be an idiot, she said, and nodded toward Diane, urgently. You’re about to get lucky.
I am?
There’s two for two, she said. I’ve got Ray.
I had never seen Ray make a move on her. But I wasn’t surprised.
You stick around, the blonde said. You’ll see who Diane is waiting for.
A few minutes later, Jackie’s mark departed and she came over and borrowed Ray’s room key. As soon as she was out of sight he came in for an unmerciful razzing from the Canadian women. Diane said that blonde would make him pay double the room rate to get that key in his hands again. Ray just cackled and said he was loaning her the room so she could do the mark she was with.
As the minutes wore on, Jackie came to the open balcony up above and looked over twice, quickly, before going back into his room. The Georgian said she is stealing everything you own. Ray cackled once more and said what can she do with some men’s underwear and toiletries and a few clothes? I got my wad right here in my pants. And he wiggled his eyebrows, which cracked the Canadians right up. He reminded me then again of an old snapping turtle, lazing in the sun, unperturbed by anything.
I don’t know why I did what I did then. I don’t know where these evil notions arise. Maybe I was thinking that Ray was so drunk he had bitten off a little more than he could handle, and he was a guest of my state agency, and I was the PR guy who was supposed to make sure nobody got in trouble. Maybe that’s why.
I suggested to Diane that she call from the house phone, say she was the switchboard operator and that Mrs. Ray had called from North Carolina, just to surprise her husband, and could she please take a message. Diane was up for it, and carried it off beautifully, bright eyes full of devilment.
I was thinking that more and more she was filling out my fantasy of Hemingway’s Lady Brett. I asked the Georgian if he was well-read in English as he seemed to be in the classics and he shrugged and said perhaps. Have you read Hemingway? Everything, he said. Does Diane remind you of Lady Brett, I said. Yes, he said, yes! And he began to laugh, loud and long. Yes, I see it. I see what you mean exactly.
So of course Diane had to know what we were talking about and the Georgian explained. She looked at me and asked him, is it a compliment?
Oh yes a very fine compliment, he said.
She kept looking at me. Write the name of the book down for me, she said. I did — both titles — Fiesta, and The Sun Also Rises. I thought Canadian bookstores might carry it under the former, the British title.
While I was doing it, blonde Jackie came bursting down the stairs to tell Ray that his wife had called and he needed to get to his room to call her back. Diane of course played it in perfect innocence, but there was a little too much tittering and Jackie was no fool; the Canadian accent had tipped her off. She asked flat-out if everyone was pulling her leg, even when the Georgian weighed in to claim everyone had been right here since she left. She was really upset with Ray, and he was finally embarrassed, turning the color of the Bloody Mary she was drinking when I first noticed her.
Of course I felt awful, the way I do when my imagination overloads my ass. I got them into it, so I got them out of it. I asked Ray what time it was in North Carolina. He said 6:30 a.m. I said you told me your wife was an early riser (he hadn’t) but I don’t suppose she is the kind who would call you before she went to work, and then be quick enough to throw a scare into a girl when she answers the phone in your room.
Ray’s color improved and he began to cackle again. It wouldn’t be the first time my bride has pulled some kind of stunt on me, he said. That’s just like her. She don’t worry me none and I don’t worry her. Me and Mama get along just fine, after all these years, and that’s just what I think she done to this poor child.
Jackie just stood there, confused and disgruntled. I’m going to go and eat me some breakfast and go to bed, she announced, and vanished into the night without once looking in my direction.
Pretty soon after that, the gathering broke up and everyone went their separate ways. Bright Eyes and I did not get together, which was my punishment I suppose for my meanness. The next day I drove all the Canadian girls to the train station in my big old Ford station wagon, and Diane appropriated the place of honor next to me in the front seat. The others kept razzing her about what had she done to get them such service, and she would twinkle at them and say I did absolutely nothing. Yeah right, they would reply, and then ask me.
Absolutely nothing, I said. And then, to Diane, Did I say that with enough conviction? And they all broke up in giggles.
But the sad thing is that I was saying nothing but the truth. Later, I saw Jackie in the lobby, all cleaned up and in a nice new Navy frock, but looking a little hung-over. She came right over and said you weren’t waiting for me this afternoon like you said you would, were you?
I admitted that I wasn’t.
I didn’t come by for you either, she said. I really have to get to work. I really need to make some money today. God, I can’t believe I’m working in the daytime, I haven’t worked in the daytime in six months. Between all the screwing and the drinking, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. She headed back for the bar.
Later, the liquor suppliers mounted a banquet that would have done Nero proud on the mezzanine, in front of a bar constructed by the distilleries just for the control-state representatives, with every liquor brand in the world available free. My state’s purchasing agent insisted on cracking a new bottle for each drink he took, and he took a lot of them. I ate rich food until I was stuffed and then carried a cup of coffee down to the bar, to get away from peddlers trying to pick my brains about which new brands my Board was leaning toward purchasing. Jackie was in place at the end of the bar and I stopped by to see how she was feeling.
She leaned over to me and whispered: I’m starving, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse. But I’m afraid to give up my seat at the bar, and the bartender won’t serve me any food here.
Now I really felt bad. I’ll be right back, I said. I went back to the mezzanine and loaded up one of the largest plates with a high stack of some of the most expensive buffet food in the world, including a side of caviar. I marched back into the bar and presented it to her with silverware in a cloth napkin.
No food in the bar, snarled the bartender. He wasn’t the same one as the night before.
I flipped my lapel forward and let his eyes fall on my state Liquor Control Board credentials. He knew what convention was in the hotel, all right, and suddenly he wanted to look anywhere but at me.
A Class H license, I said like the bureaucrat I was, requires the availability of food service. Do you really want to make an issue with me?
A quick shake of the head. Jackie watched all this with wide eyes.
Eat hearty, I said. I’ll be back to look in on you, make sure this guy takes care of you. I gave the bartender the bureaucrat stare. You’ll look after her, right?
She can eat all she wants, he said through his teeth.
That’s the spirit. Keep that liquor license polished up.
God I was so hungry, she said, with her mouth full. Thank you.
You have to keep your strength up, I said. Take care.
Wait. You still have my address?
I do.
Come by tomorrow? Even before three?
I patted her on the shoulder. If I’m still in town, I said.
But I wasn’t. And I was kind of relieved that I wasn’t, because I really didn’t need to go any farther down that road.
