“I was carving to zydeco.”
“This guy says he was taken up to a mother-ship orbiting the earth.”
“What’s new about that? You hear that stuff all the time.”
“He says he was given a proctological exam by a bunch of space aliens.”
Billy pushed through the bar gate. “That’s what they all say.”
“I know. You’re right. But I don’t get it.” Jackie frowned. “Why would a superior alien race, a thousand times more intelligent than we are, come trillions of miles across the universe just to look up our butts? What are they—perverts?”
“They never looked up mine,” Billy assured him. “And I doubt they looked up this guy’s, either.”
“He’s got a lot of credibility. He’s a book author. I mean, even before this book, he published a bunch of others.”
Taking an apron from a drawer, tying it on, Billy said, “Just publishing a book doesn’t give anyone credibility. Hitler published books.”
“He did?” Jackie asked.
“Yeah.”
“The Hitler?”
“Well, it wasn’t Bob Hitler.”
“You’re jerking my chain.”
“Look it up.”
“What did he write—like spy stories or something?”
“Something,” Billy said.
“This guy wrote science fiction.”
“Surprise.”
“Science fiction,” Jackie emphasized. “The program was really disturbing.” Picking up a small white dish from the work bar, he made a sound of impatience and disgust. “What—am I gonna have to start docking Steve for condiments?”
In the dish were fifteen to twenty maraschino-cherry stems. Each had been tied in a knot.
“The customers find him amusing,” Billy said.
“Because they’re half blitzed. Anyway, he pretends to be a funny type of guy, but he’s not.”
“Everyone has his own idea of what’s funny.”
“No, I mean, he pretends to be lighthearted, happy-go-lucky, but he’s not.”
“That’s the only way I’ve ever seen him,” Billy said.
“Ask Celia Reynolds.”
“Who’s she?”
“Lives next door to Steve.”
“Neighbors can have grudges,” Billy suggested. “Can’t always believe what they say.”
“Celia says he has rages in the backyard.”
“What’s that mean—rages?”
“He goes like nuts, she says. He chops up stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Like a dining-room chair.”
“Whose?”
“His. He chopped it until there wasn’t anything but splinters.”
“Why?”
“He’s cursing and angry when he’s at it. He seems to be working off anger.”
“On a chair.”
“Yeah. And he does watermelons with an ax.”
“Maybe he likes watermelon,” Billy said.
“He doesn’t eat them. He just chops and chops till nothing’s left but mush.”
“Cursing all the time.”
“That’s right. Cursing, grunting, snarling like an animal. Whole watermelons. A couple of times he’s done dummies.”
“What dummies?”
“You know, like those store-window women.”
“Mannequins?”
“Yeah. He goes at them with an ax and a sledgehammer.”
“Where would he get mannequins?”
“Beats me.”
“This doesn’t sound right.”
“Talk to Celia. She’ll tell you.”
“Has she asked Steve why he does it?”
“No. She’s afraid to.”
“You believe her?”
“Celia isn’t a liar.”
“You think Steve’s dangerous?” Billy asked.
“Probably not, but who knows.”
“Maybe you should fire him.”
Jackie raised his eyebrows. “And then he turns out to be one of those guys you see on TV news? He comes in here with an ax?”
“Anyway,” Billy said, “it doesn’t sound right. You don’t really believe it yourself.”
“Yeah, I do. Celia goes to Mass three mornings a week.”
“Jackie, you joke around with Steve. You’re relaxed with him.”
“I’m always a little watchful.”
“I never noticed it.”
“Well, I am. But I don’t want to be unfair to him.”
“Unfair?”
“He’s a good bartender, does his job.” A shamefaced expression overcame Jackie O’Hara. His plump cheeks reddened. “I shouldn’t have been talking about him like this. It was just all those cherry stems. That ticked me off a little.”
“Twenty cherries,” Billy said. “What can they cost?”
“It’s not about the money. It’s that trick with his tongue—it’s semi-obscene.”
“I never heard anyone complain about it. A lot of the women customers particularly like to watch him do it.”
“And the gays,” Jackie said. “I don’t want this being a singles bar, either gay or straight. I want this to be a family bar.”
“Is there such a thing as a family bar?”
“Absolutely.” Jackie looked hurt. In spite of its generic name, the tavern wasn’t a dive. “We offer kid portions of French fries and onion rings, don’t we?”
Before Billy could reply, the first customer of the day came through the door. It was 11:04. The guy wanted brunch: a Bloody Mary with a celery stick.
Jackie and Billy tended bar together through the lunchtime traffic, and Jackie served food to the tables as Ben plated it from the grill.
They were busier than usual because Tuesday was chili day, but they still didn’t need a first-shift waitress. A third of the customers had lunch in a glass, and another third were satisfied with peanuts or with sausages from the brine jar on the bar, or with free pretzels.
Mixing drinks and pouring beers, Billy Wiles was troubled by a persistent image in his mind’s eye: Steve Zillis chopping a mannequin to pieces, chopping, chopping.
As his shift wore on, and as no one brought word of a gunshot schoolteacher or a bludgeoned elderly philanthropist, Billy’s nerves quieted. In sleepy Vineyard Hills, in peaceful Napa Valley, news of a brutal murder would travel fast. The note must have been a prank.
After a slow afternoon, Ivy