The Fall-Down Artist by Thomas Lipinski

Author:Thomas Lipinski [Lipinski, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Hard-Boiled
ISBN: 9780786755233
Publisher: Argo-Navis
Published: 1994-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

17

Al set a seven-ounce Rolling Rock and a short beer glass in front of Dorsey, then moved off to the stainless steel sink at the center of the bar. Meticulously, he scrubbed out draft beer glasses and dunked them in a clean rinse, then followed this with thirty seconds of polishing for each. Outside, the streets were silent with snow, and the only sound to penetrate the barroom walls was the churning and clanging of the occasional salt truck passing by.

“Painted into a corner is the way I see it.” Al finished the last of the glasses and dried his hands on his white cotton apron. “Hurts like hell, I bet. Halfway to cleaning up the whole mess, and then you gotta walk away from it.”

“Big mistake is what it was,” Dorsey said, pouring his beer.

“Of course it was.” Al stepped from behind the bar and began turning off the neon beer signs that decorated the bar’s windows. After he finished, he took the stool next to Dorsey. “There are businesses where a couple can work together, and there are some where they can’t. Like with me and Rose. She heads up the kitchen, does all the cooking except when I make the bean soup, and I stay out here. She does all the buyin’ for the kitchen, and I keep the accounts for beer and liquor up to date. Works out good. Your line of work is something different altogether. There’s no room to navigate around each other. One-man job. In this place, I can bitch out the beer distributor or harp about the deadhead civil servants at the state store, and Rose is not out here to be embarrassed by it. Same thing with her; the food purveyors live in fear of Rose, but me, I’m too occupied with the bar to feel bad about it. Your job won’t let you do that.” Al left his seat and walked back behind the bar. “So how did you leave things with her?”

“The ride home was pure hell,” Dorsey said, sipping at his beer. “Like driving a hearse, it was so quiet. And with the weather it was a three-hour ride. I’d try to talk, start a conversation and get it off the ground, but she’d just stare out the window or stick her nose in this textbook she brought with her. Not reading, just flipping through the pages.”

Al turned off the small lights that illuminated the rows of liquor bottles behind the bar. “That’s what really threw the wet towel on it for you two. Most people, couples, when they get their noses out of joint at each other, one of them can get up and go in the next room or leave the house, maybe. Just get a chance to come up for air.”

“Not this time.” Dorsey poured the remainder of his beer into the glass and shot it down. “Dropped her off at her place. No ‘call me tomorrow’; nothing like that.” Dorsey slapped the bar with the flat of his hand and rose to his feet.

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