The Bobby Gold stories - Anthony Bourdain [19]
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," said Bobby, a little flustered. He didn't spend much time with women — and he was thrown by how good she looked in the sexless, double-breasted uniform and checked polyester pants. "You're in early aren't you?"
"Yeah," she said. "Prep for the party tonight. I gotta get the stocks going."
"Oh," said Bobby. She was tall — maybe five-ten, with long, dark hair that smelled like it had just been washed and her eyes — dark, almost Asian-looking — flashed with intelligence. There was the hint of a smile - the slightly sour, self-deprecating smirk of someone who's had their ass kicked and survived the experience.
"You a fan of classic comedy?" she asked, seemingly apropos of nothing.
"What do you mean?" Bobby asked, "Like what? The Marx Brothers? Fields? Chaplin?"
"I meant more like Lenny Bruce," said the girl. "Remember him?"
"I saw the movie — if that's what you mean. Dustin Hoffman played him, right?"
"Yep," said the girl.
"Good movie."
"Yeah . . . well . . . I don't know how to tell you this — but there's a guy doing a really good Lenny Bruce imitation in one of the stalls in there," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the bathroom.
Bobby thought no way she meant what he thought she meant. He hurried into the bathroom, walked quickly down to the last stall - the only one still closed - and leaned against the door. It wouldn't open. When he pushed, it felt as if someone had piled a stack of flour sacks against the other side.
He entered the next stall, stood on top of the toilet and peeked down over the divider.
She was right about the Lenny Bruce thing. There was a man in there — pants down around his ankles, one sleeve rolled up, a syringe hanging out of his arm, just below a tightened belt. He was dead, and he was blue, slumped over to one side with his legs jammed against the stall door, eyes staring straight up at Bobby like a lifeless flounder's.
Bobby got back down from the toilet and went back outside. The girl was smoking, sitting on a banquette, watching for his reaction. She'd gone in there, he realized, found the body and calmly sat down for a piss, before exiting.
"See what I mean?" she said, smiling.
"It's Lenny all over," said Bobby, unable to take his eyes off of her.
He was in love.
BOBBY GETS JILTED
Bobby Gold in black Levis, black trainers and black T-shirt, the word SECURITY printed in white letters across the chest, pushed open the swinging kitchen doors and stepped into the noise and heat. He hesitated momentarily by the door, fully aware that this place — of all the various rooms, areas, offices and fiefdoms in NiteKlub — was not his territory. Here he was an outsider, an interloper, completely unaware of the local language and customs. Dinner was winding down — all the entrees were out, only the garde manger chef still plating a few forlorn desserts — and the cooks were breaking down their stations, wrapping up mise-en-place in clean metal bains and crocks and wiping down their areas. Out in the main dining room, the waiters were beginning to strip the tables, hauling and rolling them off the dance floor. When the last few dinner customers put down their dessert forks and called for their checks, the THUMP, THUMP, THUMP of bass tones would come rumbling through the kitchen walls, then the smell of chocolate from the smoke machine — sucked in by the powerful range hoods. The Intellabeam system would wink on, bouncing filament-thin rays of colored laser beams off tiny dancing mirrors controlled by computer and joystick in the sound and tech booth. There was maybe a half-hour before the front doors were opened and the lines of people, already two deep and wrapping around the corner onto 8th Avenue, were let in. Two hours from now, every foot of floor space in the main room, mezzanine, Blue Room - even the entranceways, stairs and bathrooms — would be jammed with people.
Bobby stood near the door, unsure why he was even here. He'd told himself, climbing the back service stairs, that he was hungry, that he'd stop