Portland Noir - Kevin Sampsell [78]
Me, I love good lore. Lore is my favorite kind of story. Because it’s not only historical, it’s a lie everyone knows is a lie but tells anyway. I love that. Of course every story I tell is true. Completely true. Completely and utterly at least five-eighths of the way to being true, which is truer than any piece of lore and truer than most truths you’ll hear, including the one about George Washington and the cherry tree. Look it up.
But after the tunnels and then the old woman grabbing my hand, we had to get out of Old Town. I said we could walk to the Pearl District, but Rhonda always has to call a cab. She couldn’t have gotten very far anyway on those shoes of hers that are somewhere between fuck-me pumps and fuck-you pumps. She sat in the middle so she could lean in between the front seats and show her boobs to the cab driver.
And now we’re at the Everett Street Bistro, Rhonda’s favorite place—sitting at her favorite sidewalk table. I wanted to sit inside, and I’m trying to drown my frustrations in some sort of sugar-on-the-rim, house-infused, fruit-muddled, herb-atomized cocktail, and pommes frites with a side of béarnaise sauce.
Kit is big blue eyes over an even bluer drink. “No, seriously, Rhonda, there are tunnels running all under this city. From Old Town all the way to the Willamette River.”
Kit’s reciting word for word what the tour guide said. She smiles like the tour guide did. Her large, goaty teeth are a shade of blue.
“You want to know what I think?” Rhonda says, pointing a pomme frite at us. “I think they heard some old legend, found a basement, threw some old, broken shit down there, and started charging admission.”
“No, seriously,” says Kit and her blue teeth. “Back in the day, the bars were full of trap doors, and if you were an able-bodied man and you got yourself drunk, bang, down you’d go, to be chained up and shanghaied away on some pirate boat.”
Again: tour guide. Except that her two drinks—closing in on three—are making Kit both more emphatic and less articulate. And I’m pretty sure the tour guide didn’t say anything about pirates.
Rhonda rolls her eyes. It’s ticking me off. She’s rolling her eyes at the lore of our city. Which in my book is like you’re dissing my story. I mean, this evening’s entertainment was my idea. And first she’s making cracks under her breath the whole tour, then she’s acting like me giving some change to a woman on the street is the most obvious act of chumpdom she’s ever seen. I’m going inside to find a waiter and ask if this place has a trap door I can shove her down.
Dusk is dying, and the city’s washed blue to match Kit’s teeth. A car drags a curtain of bright white down the street in front of us.
“You want to know what I think?” Rhonda says, but then she glances out across the road. “Hey, look who’s come back for more.”
Right there on the far corner. Faded dress, velvet hat, hand out at people walking by.
“I’ll bet she works a circuit,” Rhonda says. “I’ll bet she knows exactly where to go at what time to milk the public of the most money.”
I push out a laugh and try not to sound pissy defensive. “There are people in need in this world, you know.”
“Her name’s Dorothy,” Rhonda says in that way she has when it’s less about her knowing more than it is about you knowing less. “As in, we’re not in Kansas anymore? I heard she lives at the Biltmore Apartments in Northwest.” Points her chin down so she can give us the just-under-the-eyebrows look. “I also heard from an equally reliable source that she lives in a loft here in the Pearl. And owns a car.”
Kit downs her drink. Her voice is just a step past not-quite-too-loud. “Well, I heard she lives in the Shanghai Tunnels.”
Which is all lore—of some lame sort—and normally this would at least somewhat intrigue me, but now I look down at my hand all naked on the white tablecloth, and what the hell?
My ring.
The garnet and the amethyst are on my left hand, but the right hand, the hand she grabbed—
All right,