Clown Girl - Monica Drake [58]
I asked, “Think they’ll call the cops on a clown?”
“Here they don’t mind, as long as you’re dressed. Besides, I am the cops.” Jerrod reached for his cuffs and gave the cuffs a friendly jangle. “If anything happens, we’ll say you’re in custody.”
12.
Drinks on Me; or, Oddball, Corner Pocket
WE STEPPED INTO THE SMOKY DARK OF HOAGIES AND Stogies, and through my sunglasses all I could see was one heavy-set man on a barstool and the scattered stars of cigarette glow. Other faces floated like weathered moons farther back, in the shadows. I leaned on my cane, tipped the sunglasses up to look for an open table, and, as my eyes adjusted, saw the place was crowded with huddled drinkers. I stopped fast, surveyed; Jerrod, behind me, bumped into the back of my thigh.
“Oh!” I swung my hips forward. “Don’t bruise that big banana.”
He said, “Banana? I’m just happy to be seen with you.”
I smiled, but inside winced—I couldn’t be seen with Jerrod, a cop, courting disaster.
A man at the bar pointed his stogie at me and in a loud drawl said, “Well, if it ain’t my ex-wife, Petaluma. Dressed to the nines, too. Makes me want to propose all over again.”
I stepped behind Jerrod. His badge glinted in the red beer light. The place went quiet. Eyes on the cop.
“Want to see a Baloneytown dance recital?” Jerrod whispered. In a louder voice, the voice of authority, he said, “If anyone here’s on probation, you’ve got about two seconds to get out. Then the clown and I start checking ID.”
The air in the room tightened. Nobody moved. After a moment, eight, ten, or maybe twelve shadowy figures rose from their tables and stools. They turned and bumped into each other. A chair spun and fell. The drunk at the bar held on to his straw hat and threw back a shot like the tail end of a cup of tea, pinkie finger in the air. The back door flashed open and closed, open and closed, and the room was cut with a wedge of daylight just long enough to show the tangled silhouette of drunks in a scramble. The man in the hat swiveled left and right as others stumbled around him; he rumpled his tie in fat fingers. “Forgive me my peccadilloes,” he slurred, to nobody or everybody.
“And you thought only clowns could work a crowd,” Jerrod said. He waved a hand toward a table. “Looks like a spot just opened up.”
I said, “Ta da! Nice work.” I dropped my sunglasses back on my nose. Jerrod stepped forward. As I walked in his wake I tripped against a bump in the carpet, grabbed Jerrod’s elbow, tap-tapped at the floor with my cane, then stumbled into the back of a chair.
“Careful,” he said. He led me around a skewed, fake-wood table that was nearly invisible in the darkness. “And watch out. They’ve got an extension cord taped to the floor here.” Jerrod’s hand was pale against the blackness as he pointed. Duct tape flashed at my feet; it crisscrossed the carpet like silver scars. “It’s a fire-trap. I should issue a citation.”
“Remember, we’re off duty,” I said. “No need to put the costumes to work.”
“So a cop and a blind clown walk into a baaahr!” the drunk in the straw hat called out, too loud. He gave a tug on his necktie.
From behind my dark glasses, I made out the man’s red honk of a nose, jowly cheeks and small slit mouth. Beside him sat a tiny sliver of a human with oversized hands and an oversized beer mug.
The sliver hissed, “Lay off, Duke. You’ll land us all in the stir.”
“What’s the problem, Silvo m’boy?” the first man said, in his drawn-out drawl. “A man can still talk in this land of bilk and rummy, can’t he? Everything else I do is either illegal, immoral, or fattening.”
Jerrod dropped his banana and two kiwis on a sticky table near the front window. Eighties Motor City rock rattled from a speaker fastened overhead. Jerrod stacked used pint