Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [42]
SEVENTEEN
The bones of Chicago were intact and recognizable as Taft wandered with Kowalczyk past renovated storefronts and sporadic pockets of aging nightlife. But new flesh had grown up around it: more concrete, more steel, more glass. Taft patted his belly, which was now grumbling. Kowalczyk heard it. “Maybe we should’ve just stuck with the hot dogs, huh?” Kowalczyk said.
“Way ahead of you, my good sir.” Up ahead, a neon sign in the shape of a bun-clad wiener blinked yellow and red in the window of a small establishment tucked between a tobacco shop and some sort of nightclub. “Despite the lateness of the hour, it appears our salvation is at hand.”
Kowalczyk groaned but matched Taft’s quickening pace. “I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be looking for a hot dog to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.”
The first thing that hit Taft when he opened the door to Herbert’s Dogs wasn’t the smell of frankfurters. It was the smell of something burning.
“Hey, guys, sorry. I was just, uh, doing inventory.” A young man, wire thin with unkempt black hair and bulging eyes, came out from the back room and took his place behind the counter. “Welcome to Herb’s. What can I do you for?”
Taft chuckled. “Inventory, indeed. Are you Herbert?”
The man grinned. The tang of smoke seemed to emanate from him. “Um, there isn’t any Herbert. I’m Rob. First time here?”
“You might say that.” Taft peered up at the grimy, yellowed plastic of the backlit menu that hung above Rob’s head. “What’s your specialty, sir?”
The young man stepped out from behind the cash register and bade them to sit down at one of the dingy-clothed tables. He was wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with some monstrous horned skull and logo that read MOTÖRHEAD. “You just leave that to me. On a scale of one to ten, how hungry are you?”
Taft spread his arms. “Need you ask?”
He nodded appreciatively and then turned to Kowalczyk. “You?” Kowalczyk wrinkled his nose and held up two fingers. Rob shrugged. “Suit yourself. You guys just sit tight. A dozen Bombers and two buckets of nacho fries, coming up.”
Before Taft or Kowalczyk could protest or even ask what a Bomber was, Rob disappeared into the kitchen, leaving a lingering whiff of illicit smoke.
“Well, I guess we’d better just sit back and enjoy the ride.” Kowalczyk swept a tangle of discarded straw wrappers from a grimy booth and slung himself into it. “I could eat a horse at this point—assuming it wasn’t packaged in a Fulsom Beef Jerky wrapper.”
Taft joined him. He was too exhausted to bother complaining about the absurdly small space between table and seat. He leaned over as best he could. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say this Rob fellow was inebriated.”
Kowalczyk grunted. “Well, definitely under the influence. He’s high, Bill.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Although what kind of hooch he’s high on, I am entirely at a loss.”
Kowalczyk chuckled. “Not booze. Pot.”
“A pot of what?”
“Bill, the guy’s been smoking pot. Can’t you smell it? Pot. Weed. Reefer. Marijuana.”
“Ah, yes. That would explain it then.” Bill heard an eruption of sizzling come from the back of the eatery. It smelled and sounded like a heart being thrown on Satan’s own brazier.
“Doesn’t that, I don’t know, freak you out or something?”
“Why would it? It’s far from the most reputable indulgence, I’ll admit. Not that I’ve ever tried it myself. Have you?”
“Well, not in a long time. They give you so many piss tests in the Secret Service, you might as well hook up a catheter that drains straight into the head office. But back up a second—you’re not uptight about pot? I just figured that, you know, being president and