steam, and nothing happened.
Harry tracked the Lauderdale strip, two boulevards that right-angled the ocean, and skipped the places that looked too small or too hard-core local to hire out-oftowners. He thought he’d give Myrtle’s a shot. Its antiseptic scent threw him, its cool dim interior. The place was supposed to be a supper club, but there was no stage and no dance floor Harry could make out, and with its tight-assed fuss of tables and chairs, the joint looked like a cafeteria.
Harry poked around until he found the manager processing words in her office. Glazed in the green glow of her computer, she had auburn hair. She was wearing a beige suit and glasses. She said most of their security people were off-duty police officers, but Harry could fill out an application if he was interested. She sent him into the cafeteria with a pen. As she turned her head to face the screen, Harry saw her right eye flutter with a nervous tic.
Okay, for a residence he could provide a fleabag motel. He couldn’t think of a single reference outside of Frankie Yin, and he couldn’t remember Frankie’s phone number, never knew his address. He didn’t recall graduating junior high school. He passed the sixth grade with flying colors, but that seemed to fall into the grammar school category, an academic milestone the application ignored. And hadn’t she mentioned they employed off-duty cops? Harry folded the form and stuck it in his pocket. He left the pen on the table, and held the door as it was closing, so he wouldn’t make any noise on his way out.
He stopped at a club called Sailor Randy’s, an indooroutdoor multiplex that featured two outside bars flanking a crabgrass garden. Some Mexican was hosing down the patio, and Harry got mad because he didn’t understand English. The kid twisted the nozzle on the hose, cutting off the water, like he was about to launch some back and forth finger alphabet, but Harry got spared by a guy drinking out of a plastic tumbler.
Harry liked the looks of him, rumpled and bony, but with a potbelly that bulged over his jeans. His hair was going extra thin on top, but he wasn’t trying to hide it, just brushed it straight back from a savage widow’s peak and left it long on the back and sides. He looked like somebody who rode a Harley and hung out in titty bars. Not exactly the type Harry was friends with, but he liked his chances with him a lot better anyway than with some linen-suited redhead suffering facial spasms.
The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Bryce Peyton,” he said. “What sort of work were you looking for?”
Odd name, Bryce. It reminded Harry of a hustle he used to run out of the joints on Ludlow Street, with a dope fiend chick named Sam. The marks were straight off the train from New Haven, these suckers, fine arts majors acting hip on the Lower East Side, khaki pantsers who would’ve been burned by anybody anywhere, then slapped around a bit for their trouble. They usually had names like Bryce.
Harry bluffed his way through all the experience he had in the security field. Peyton called it.
“I bet you got plenty of experience cracking heads,” Peyton said, “but that’s not what I’m after. Tell you the truth, you’re a little small to be a bouncer.”
Harry didn’t argue. The other guy inevitably compared himself to you. Peyton had him by an inch or two, and Peyton wasn’t really somebody you’d think of as a big guy.
“If I stick a walkie-talkie in the mitt of somebody six foot eight, I got sheer intimidation on my side. Maybe the guy hasn’t fought with anything more than a lobster special in fifteen years, but then again, he hasn’t had to. You hear me knocking?”
Harry wondered whether it was too soon to weigh in with the name, but after this first trip down the strip, he figured Bryce Peyton was the employer most likely to hire a guy like Harry Healy. Or Harry James. James. Harry told him he was down from New York, which impressed Peyton, that he’d
Harry tracked the Lauderdale strip, two boulevards that right-angled the ocean, and skipped the places that looked too small or too hard-core local to hire out-oftowners. He thought he’d give Myrtle’s a shot. Its antiseptic scent threw him, its cool dim interior. The place was supposed to be a supper club, but there was no stage and no dance floor Harry could make out, and with its tight-assed fuss of tables and chairs, the joint looked like a cafeteria.
Harry poked around until he found the manager processing words in her office. Glazed in the green glow of her computer, she had auburn hair. She was wearing a beige suit and glasses. She said most of their security people were off-duty police officers, but Harry could fill out an application if he was interested. She sent him into the cafeteria with a pen. As she turned her head to face the screen, Harry saw her right eye flutter with a nervous tic.
Okay, for a residence he could provide a fleabag motel. He couldn’t think of a single reference outside of Frankie Yin, and he couldn’t remember Frankie’s phone number, never knew his address. He didn’t recall graduating junior high school. He passed the sixth grade with flying colors, but that seemed to fall into the grammar school category, an academic milestone the application ignored. And hadn’t she mentioned they employed off-duty cops? Harry folded the form and stuck it in his pocket. He left the pen on the table, and held the door as it was closing, so he wouldn’t make any noise on his way out.
He stopped at a club called Sailor Randy’s, an indooroutdoor multiplex that featured two outside bars flanking a crabgrass garden. Some Mexican was hosing down the patio, and Harry got mad because he didn’t understand English. The kid twisted the nozzle on the hose, cutting off the water, like he was about to launch some back and forth finger alphabet, but Harry got spared by a guy drinking out of a plastic tumbler.
Harry liked the looks of him, rumpled and bony, but with a potbelly that bulged over his jeans. His hair was going extra thin on top, but he wasn’t trying to hide it, just brushed it straight back from a savage widow’s peak and left it long on the back and sides. He looked like somebody who rode a Harley and hung out in titty bars. Not exactly the type Harry was friends with, but he liked his chances with him a lot better anyway than with some linen-suited redhead suffering facial spasms.
The man stuck out his hand. “I’m Bryce Peyton,” he said. “What sort of work were you looking for?”
Odd name, Bryce. It reminded Harry of a hustle he used to run out of the joints on Ludlow Street, with a dope fiend chick named Sam. The marks were straight off the train from New Haven, these suckers, fine arts majors acting hip on the Lower East Side, khaki pantsers who would’ve been burned by anybody anywhere, then slapped around a bit for their trouble. They usually had names like Bryce.
Harry bluffed his way through all the experience he had in the security field. Peyton called it.
“I bet you got plenty of experience cracking heads,” Peyton said, “but that’s not what I’m after. Tell you the truth, you’re a little small to be a bouncer.”
Harry didn’t argue. The other guy inevitably compared himself to you. Peyton had him by an inch or two, and Peyton wasn’t really somebody you’d think of as a big guy.
“If I stick a walkie-talkie in the mitt of somebody six foot eight, I got sheer intimidation on my side. Maybe the guy hasn’t fought with anything more than a lobster special in fifteen years, but then again, he hasn’t had to. You hear me knocking?”
Harry wondered whether it was too soon to weigh in with the name, but after this first trip down the strip, he figured Bryce Peyton was the employer most likely to hire a guy like Harry Healy. Or Harry James. James. Harry told him he was down from New York, which impressed Peyton, that he’d
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