She waved him away with fingers as flaccid as her tired ruffles.
He left a five on the table anyway as he reclaimed Effinger's likeness. "Cigarette money," he mumbled, retreating to the bar.
George held court behind a mirrored circular hulk that winked like a carousel from Hell. Gold streaks through the mirror tiles reminded Matt more of varicose veins than a mother lode of glamour. Stacked cocktail glasses and bottles of booze reflected fragments of the tawdry scene, including himself as he sat on a barstool.
"You got away faster than most," George said, jerking a head to Verle at her table, now stuffing his five-dollar bill up her sleeve. At least she didn't use a garter.
"I'm here on business. I'm looking for this guy."
"Yeah, I seen him here. Recognized him right away. You're not the law, and I can't see you working for broken-down dames like that, so you're not a PI."
"I'm a relative." Matt lowered his eyes to the sketch to hide his self-disgust at the admission. Maybe someday his mother would explain herself.
"Daddy dearest?" George's damp linen towel stopped swiping at rinsed glasses.
"No, but my mother sure would like to know where he is."
"Uh-huh. The old lost step-daddy routine. Hey, I say something wrong?"
"No. I was just startled. We don't use that expression where I come from. Yup, he's my stepfather."
"Your ma as good-looking as you?"
"She used to be, I guess."
"Yeah. Take some advice. Get out of here. Forget this guy. He's been trouble for someone all his life. Why you, now? Huh? I see a lot from behind these walls of booze and lousy tips. You don't want to find this guy. Nobody wants to find this guy but a landlord he owes or a loan shark whose pearly whites need a little exercise."
Matt smiled at the mention of "Pearl" again.
"But if you gotta be an asshole"--George leaned close, his breath ripe with onion--"ask the bartender at the Brass Rail down the street. Ole Cliff has developed a pattern in his old age. Moves on down the line, casinowise, every couple of weeks. He was here, but not no more. Try the Brass Rail behind the Goliath."
"Thanks." Matt fished for a twenty of thanksgiving, but George slapped the damp dishtowel over his hand resting on the bar.
"You paid enough in here. Just watch you don't get hurt when you find the guy. I sure got sick of his ugly face; maybe you can rearrange it." George's smile somehow morphed into a snarl. "Don't plead innocent with me. That might work on the half-hazed ladies, but not on me. You're out for blood, not money, and I'm glad to point you on down the road, so I don't get a mess on my pristine Formica slate bar-top here. Besides, that Effinger guy stiffed me on one boilermaker too many."
"He drinks boilermakers"
"Say, you're pretty fast for an amateur. Yeah, that's the best way to ask for a guy at a bar, by what he drinks, not by his face or his handle, That's all we remember, what they drink and what they leave us."
Matt took the hint and left .mother twenty behind. A bargain, given the going priCEU for professional counseling these days.
"Down the street" was far enough to take the motorcycle.
Any map of the Las Vegas Strip looked checkerboard-simple. Just a few main roads, a few major intersections. Only when you stood on the spot, you realized that the blocks between intersections were made for seven-league boots and three -story-tall MGM Grand hotel lions.
Matt always had a moment of anxiety when returning to the Hesketh Vampire in the parking lot. One time, he expected, it would be gone. It was bright as polished sterling, obviously rare. It begged to be stolen. But it wasn't, this one more time. He was always torn about following anticrime tips and parking under a light. The light might give away a thief trying to hot-wire it, but it also would spotlight something worth stealing.
He settled for the solution the morally compromised so often take. He had it a little bit of both ways: near enough a light to be seen, not too near to flash like heat lightning.
The helmet and the motorcycle roar in his ears, the rush of cold night air, did nothing to tamp down his loose thoughts. Only flashing by the soon-to-open site of New York-New York did that: Temple was coping with the real thing this Christmas, right now. She was moving on up, to the Big Time, on a whisker and a hair and a hank of tail.
He was heading deeper into the lower depths. The Brass Rail was stuffed between a strip joint and something sleazier that offered wares Matt couldn't quite determine. Strip joints always kept their windows boarded up, as if passersby would try to peek for free. He couldn't imagine cozying up to those grimy windows and doors or even to the nerveless naked skins of the women behind them.
Entering the seamy Brass Rail seemed like a refuge. He ignored the lackluster gaming tables and chimefree slot machines to head for the bar at the back. Another slow night in Silver City.
Matt sat on a barstool without hesitation.
"What can I get you?" The guy who slouched over was young, with thick curly hair and a mustache out of the previous century.
"Boilermaker."
"Bad night?"
"No, George up the way just said you did a good business in boilermakers." Matt listened to himself, amazed. He was learning.
"George sent you, huh? How is old George?"
"Fine as he ever gets, I guess. He gave me some good advice, though."
The guy was moving all the time they talked, wiping off the ledge, pulling out the whiskey and the beer. "I hope you were properly grateful."
Matt nodded. The shot glass filled up to the brim. The beer glass barely foamed. Both containers hit the bar top in tandem, slopping a little of this and a little of that over their rims.
Matt suddenly realized he didn't know which one to drink first. He must have seen this on television at least a dozen times: was it beer/booze, or booze/beer? His newfound pride in exploring the darker side of night-life evaporated.
So he reached for his wallet and pulled out a twenty and the sketch of Cliff Effinger.
"George thought you might know this guy. If you do, there's another one of this guy--" He tapped . . . General Grant on the bow tie! Shhhhoot. He'd pulled out one of the two fifties that he used at the grocery store. Too late to retract. "There's a twin of him if you can tell me where the other guy is." Might as well go for the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question at this point.
"I like your brand, bud. Grant's always been good enough for me. Don't know this geezer's name, and I couldn't tell you if he's right-or left-handed, but I do happen to know where he hangs out. Signed an IOU right at this bar on the back of a Blue Mermaid Motel rate card. I'd know that piss-ant ugly shade of aqua-blue anywhere."
"When was this?"
The bartender eased both Grants off the slick bar into some out-of-sight cache. "Couple nights ago. Better hurry. People who pay less well than you have been lookin' for him too."
"What do you mean 'pay less well'?"
"I mean their money is all in their knuckles, knocking on your door. You pay, they stop. They don't ask after guys like this, they tell you to spill your own guts before they do it for you."
"Did you tell them what you told me.'"
"They didn't ask hard enough yet, but they'll get there."